Finn McKenty: Giving Away Your Secrets, Mastering the Fundamentals, and Effective Marketing

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Slate Digital, making the finest quality software and hardware products specializing in precise analog modeling of classic studio gear. The Joey URGs Forum podcast is also brought to you by Focal, professional, designing, developing, and manufacturing high Fidelity Lab speakers and drivers for over 30 years. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 3 (00:00:37):

Hello gentlemen. How are you doing? Good. Good. A question for you guys. You own a dog, right, Joey? I do own a dog. Do you own one, Joel?

(00:00:48):

I used to have two Retrievers growing up.

Speaker 2 (00:00:50):

And what were their names?

Speaker 3 (00:00:52):

Max and Ozzy.

Speaker 2 (00:00:53):

Okay. Those are good dog names. What's your dog's name, Joey? My dog's name is Link,

Speaker 3 (00:00:58):

Like Legend of Zelda Link.

Speaker 2 (00:01:00):

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:01:00):

Fuck yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:01:01):

That's a good dog name. I've known a lot of dogs that are Max's or have cool names like that. My dog's name is Blondie and my dad's dog, which is kind of my dog is named Ozzy. But sometimes I'm wondering, because this happened to me today, what is going through people's heads when they give their dog a total human name? I was in the elevator with somebody today and the person said, did you hear that Zach died? I was like, Zach, who the fuck is Zach? Okay, so it turns out that Zach is this weird lady's golden retriever that died last week. So then later on I hear this lady calling for Trevor. I heard her from outside screaming for Trevor, Trevor, Trevor. It's like, oh

Speaker 4 (00:01:47):

My God.

Speaker 2 (00:01:47):

One dog named Zach, one dog named Trevor. Like, what? Possesses somebody to do that?

Speaker 4 (00:01:52):

Well, you said it was a weird lady, right?

Speaker 2 (00:01:55):

She is weird. It makes me wonder if she really is one of those cat hoarder people who's replacing human contact with animals because who the fuck names their dogs? Zach and Trevor.

Speaker 3 (00:02:09):

I'm going to put that on my bucket list,

Speaker 2 (00:02:12):

Zach and Trevor.

Speaker 3 (00:02:13):

Steve, come here. Boy,

Speaker 2 (00:02:15):

It is weird. Okay, so I know that some people do it ironically, like Fred, that was kind of a thing for a while. Give a dog a human name.

Speaker 4 (00:02:25):

But

Speaker 2 (00:02:25):

I feel like names like Fred are there's, I dunno. There's just something funny about it. Whereas Trevor and Zach is kind of disturbing.

Speaker 3 (00:02:34):

You could go for the pretentious, snobby, middle name like Preston.

Speaker 2 (00:02:39):

Yeah, exactly. How on earth would that make you think of Dog? If you said Max and Ozzy, I would know Dog. Alright, so that's my little tangent for today. But I think that we have a really, really cool show coming up. Even though we have a non producer as a guest, I still think that this is going to be really, really relevant to the listeners because this guy Finn McKenty, he runs the audio channel at Creative Live, which the people aren't familiar with it. It's a company that has helped sponsor the podcast. It's www.creativelive.com, and they do live interactive online education. And we're involved with them specifically because Joey and myself have done recording classes for them. But it's not just us. It's like Christopher Crum, Kurt Ballou, Jesse Cannon, Andrew Wade, all kinds of really, really good people. The collection of talent that they get on Creative Live is second to none. I think it's, for instance, if you go online and you look up mixing tutorial, you can find thousands of entries from who knows who, from who knows where. But Creative Live, it's all badasses and they've kind of taken over the online education market for recording in a very short period of time.

Speaker 4 (00:04:13):

Well, one of the cool things I think about Finn, well about his position is that he's able to extract nice little pieces of nice little nuggets of information from each person who goes through the audio program. Myself included, I've had many discussions with Finn and we've talked more about the concept of recording and the process of recording than we did the actual course. So yeah, he just has a ton of a wealth of knowledge that come from a lot of,

Speaker 2 (00:04:44):

Well, I think that also it's because he's very interested in recording himself. He does it on his own,

(00:04:51):

Which for a lot of the online education places, the people who run them are not necessarily completely invested in what their company is putting out, but he actually is into recording and he totally sucked when we first met, but he just asked me questions nonstop and I helped him get better and now he's had all these great people to help him. But yeah, he actually really, really cares about it. A fun fact that some people may not know about him is if you're familiar with Metal sucks.net or stuff you'll hate.com. He also goes by Alter Ego, Sergeant D, which is one of my favorite satirical writers in our little world.

Speaker 4 (00:05:37):

He's written some stuff about me as well, which is kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:05:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:05:42):

Good or bad, bad, but it's like I read it and I laugh.

Speaker 2 (00:05:47):

Well, the thing is, if you get trash talked by him on his blog, it's a lot the same way as when someone goes on the Howard Stern Show and gets trash talked. It's all in good fun. It's like an onion article. It's not meant to be taken seriously. If anything, he's just trying to get a rise out of all the people that read Metal Sucks, who hate what he's into. But if anyone wants to check out one of my favorite articles by him, just look up. Being in a band is for losers Scientific proof.

Speaker 3 (00:06:19):

I want to read that.

Speaker 2 (00:06:20):

Yeah, it's funny, but anyone that's been in a band for a long time will read that and say that it's probably one of the most accurate summations of the nightmare of every single person who's ever played music. Kind of like the Anvil movie, but as opposed to the Anvil movie, it's not all depressing. Have you guys ever seen the Anvil movie? I have not.

Speaker 3 (00:06:45):

I have not either.

Speaker 2 (00:06:46):

Oh my God,

Speaker 3 (00:06:46):

We don't leave the studio, dude, come on you

Speaker 2 (00:06:48):

That, I mean, it's not like I went to go watch this at the Sundance Festival or something. I saw it. Well,

Speaker 3 (00:06:55):

I mean, putting that TV up in the studio and hooking up a DVD or an internet streaming box or whatever to actually watch it is a reduction in productive time, which reduces profitability. So I guess it

Speaker 2 (00:07:06):

Depends on how you look at it because sometimes consuming people's output will help give you more perspective. But for me personally, seeing this documentary about this band Anvil from Canada was just a really, really sad experience because they were a band that was around in the eighties. They were buddies with Metallica and all these other bands, but they just never went anywhere and have remained a band for 30 years, but totally not doing anything. And they keep thinking that their big hit is just around the corner so it follows them now that they're middle aged. It's pretty sad, but it's pretty amazing too.

Speaker 3 (00:07:48):

I've heard it's a good watch and it's been recommended to me by many people. I just haven't actually sat down and done it. It's kind of like on the to-do list when

Speaker 2 (00:07:56):

You're, yeah, just watch it sometime when you think that your life sucks and you need a reminder that your life is great, just go watch the fil movie am totally serious. That's great. Let's get back to talking about what we're here to talk about. So another thing that people should know about Finn is that he didn't just start at Creative Live or writing blogs. He's also worked as a marketing executive for PNG and Hollister. So he has a very, very defined and amazing skillset. And so we wanted to pick his brain about what it's like to work with so many great producers and his advice for people coming up because he knows exactly how to get noticed in today's day and age.

Speaker 4 (00:08:45):

Yeah, he's definitely an authority on the topic, which is why he's here.

Speaker 2 (00:08:49):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:08:50):

Yeah. How you doing, Finn?

Speaker 5 (00:08:51):

Good. How about you guys?

Speaker 2 (00:08:52):

Doing

Speaker 4 (00:08:52):

Pretty good? Doing it, doing it right?

Speaker 2 (00:08:54):

Yeah. Thanks for coming on and talking to us.

Speaker 4 (00:08:57):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:08:58):

Of course.

Speaker 2 (00:08:58):

About life and recording. So just to ease into this interrogation,

Speaker 3 (00:09:05):

Interrogation,

Speaker 2 (00:09:07):

We just talked about you for a while so people know why you're here. We

Speaker 5 (00:09:10):

Said nothing nice,

Speaker 2 (00:09:11):

Nothing at all.

Speaker 5 (00:09:12):

There's not a lot of nice things to be said about me. So that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:09:17):

All the hard truth, but is there anything you've got coming up or that you're working on now that's really cool? What's going on?

Speaker 5 (00:09:24):

Well, there's always a ton of things going on. There is one thing that I'm really excited about, which has not been announced yet, but probably will be announced by the time this podcast is out. If not, then you'll get the scoop, which is that Creative Live is producing the entire Decibel conference this year for anybody who's not familiar. The Decibel Festival is one of the, I guess most critically acclaimed electronic music festivals in the us.

Speaker 2 (00:09:51):

Not to be confused with the magazine,

Speaker 5 (00:09:53):

This is an electronic music festival here in Seattle, kind of happens like South by Southwest. There's shows every night at maybe 10 or something different venues around town. And during the day there's the Decibel Conference, and the conference is a free educational thing that runs some parallels. So they'll have seminars during the day from 12 to 6:00 PM where artists and producers and stuff will do one hour lessons on various different topics under the heading of electronic music production. And there's some panel discussions. The other partners involved are awesome. A-list companies like Ableton, native Instruments, rain Pioneer, innovation Splice, red Bull Music Academy. Really top of the food chain companies. And so we're producing the entire, basically the Decibel guys have their hands full with producing the festival part of it, as you can imagine, with putting together that many shows in a week. So we basically said, Hey, we think this is really cool.

(00:10:50):

We would love to be part of the educational part of it. How about we just take all that off your hands? We produce all that for you. And so they trusted us with that, and that happens in September. We'll be talking about that a lot much more. But I'm really excited about that because I don't come from the electronic music world. I listened to it, but I didn't grow up in it the same way I did with Metal and Hardcore and stuff like that. So I'm really, I guess flattered and proud that they trust us enough to be part of that because a big deal. It's not the biggest electronic music festival in the country by any means, but it's definitely one of the most respected. Whereas you think of the other ones, you think about college girls that want to do Molly and Party for three days and stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not for musicians. Decibel is by creators for creators. So that's the reason why it makes a lot of sense for us to be aligned with it and why I'm so excited about it.

Speaker 2 (00:11:39):

I think it's a huge deal. But it's not like you just started doing EDM stuff through your Creative Live. You've kind of been doing that since you launched the audio channel. So this kind of makes sense to me. Me,

Speaker 5 (00:11:53):

Yeah, we have, but I'm really sensitive to the, I guess, credibility and community part of it the same way. It's like anytime you see some big company putting their logo on some show or I don't know, I don't want to name names, I'm sure we can all think of Metal Festival or whatever you can think of. Some company puts their name on it and you're just like, what do those guys have to do with metal? Where did they come from? And everyone just kind of rolls their eyes and thinks of them as a bunch of corporate dudes trying to buy their way. Hey, I

Speaker 2 (00:12:27):

Sorry, I had something in my throat. Sorry.

Speaker 5 (00:12:29):

Bless you. You alright?

Speaker 2 (00:12:30):

Yeah, I'm

Speaker 5 (00:12:31):

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm not commenting on them in particular. So I guess my point is yes, we have been doing electronic music stuff for a while and I've been really careful to try to do things the right way and show them that we value the community and that we want to be part of it, but only in the right way. So I'm happy that I guess what we've done has been credible enough that they think that we deserve to be part of the community and that's really cool. That means a lot to me.

Speaker 2 (00:12:58):

Sweet. Yeah, I think that's really great, and especially considering that I think most of our audience knows you as having or being involved with guys that produce heavy music.

Speaker 5 (00:13:13):

Yeah. Well, the interesting thing is that the big names in electronic music almost all come from metal and hardcore Skrillex being the biggest example he is in from first to last. Zed plays drums in a periphery kind of band and

Speaker 2 (00:13:28):

Big chocolate.

Speaker 5 (00:13:29):

Yeah, big chocolate. It has all his death metal projects. Bass Nectar was in this nineties death metal band called Pale Existence that my friend put out there seven Inch in high school. So Sean, the founder of Decibel Festival, it is big into all the old earache stuff, so the roots are definitely there. And so I think that kind of helps. But yeah, so that's the big news and I think there's more and more crossover from people in electronic or in heavy music like experimenting with electronic stuff too. Joey and Sweller, who I'm going to be talking to later today, have worked together a bunch. So I think there's more and more of that stuff happening, and I am looking forward to cross-pollinating between those two worlds.

Speaker 2 (00:14:16):

It almost seems like metal musicians sometimes. I don't want to say grow up, but reach this enlightenment and then go over to electronic music. It's an interesting migration that's been happening. And you're right, Skrillex being the biggest, but I think that that just highlights that it happens quite often. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:14:35):

Steve Aoki is another one. He was like a nineties. He was to live with Mike Mallory, who manages periphery and refused in a bunch of other bands and some other friends of ours. He's like a nineties hardcore kid. Dead Mouse loves periphery too. I guess all those guys love periphery. But yeah, so lots of crossover there. And at the end of the day, if you listen to bass music, which for anybody who doesn't know dubstep is not that popular anymore, but that was the most popular kind of bass music, which means there's music like House and Techno that is bass music is more like Breakbeat bass, so it doesn't have that four on the floor kind of thing. If you listen to bass music, it's basically metal, but with different instruments.

Speaker 4 (00:15:17):

Instruments. Well, I want to switch gears a little bit here. We were talking about this earlier before you came on. You have an interesting opportunity to work with so many different types of people on the audio channel at Creative Live, and we're talking about how you extract a little nugget of information from each person. So I wanted to ask you, what has been some of the most game changing things that you've learned from those people from getting to talk to so many different experts on the topics?

Speaker 5 (00:15:46):

Well, yeah, I mean that is definitely the coolest part of this job is that I feel like I'm one of the very few people on the planet who has gotten to work with so many top names in modern heavy music, especially in this level of detail. And I guess the biggest takeaway that I would have from all of that is that there really isn't anything that anybody does that really blew my socks off or like, oh my God, that's the secret. There's nothing, everyone does the same stuff. I mean, everyone has their own tricks and you maybe pick up a thing or two here or there you go like, oh, that's weird. You do things that way. Like Jamie King who produces between the Buried me and stuff, because he came up using Pro Tools when it first came out and you had to render everything.

(00:16:34):

You couldn't do it in real time. He renders everything as he goes. That's kind of weird. So you pick up little things or you are Joey, you're weird thing with how you have multiple sessions and stuff like that. People have their own weird little things, but at the end of the day, there's nothing there that is, there's no secrets. It's just a lot of attention to detail, a lot of hard work. And I guess that's the biggest thing I've noticed is the difference between the pros and people whose mixes don't sound like the pros is just how much work they put into it. You guys go over every single sample in the song and make sure by sample I mean like 44,000 samples a second, or order you guys go every inch of the song and make sure that it is what you want it to be. And regardless of what your workflow is or what do you use or what style of music you do, that's the common thread is just that relentless pursuit of perfection and attention to detail. But there's nothing on the technical side, there's nothing crazy that anybody really does that I've seen.

Speaker 2 (00:17:38):

What's interesting to me from my experience with that attention to detail is that that's actually the biggest differentiating factor between someone that gets hired or doesn't, at least by me. We've had a lot of interns, for instance, get submitted and when they actually learn what level of detail they need to be working at, they'll quit oftentimes. I really think that a lot of people that I've seen mixed and I've seen quite a few, like Finn just said, they do all kinds of the same things because the fundamentals are the fundamentals and they don't change. It's that mastery of the fundamentals though, that people just get lazy on. They'd rather do step Z before having their ABCs down, which is not a good thing. So didn't mean to cut you off, Joey.

Speaker 4 (00:18:28):

Well, I was just going to reiterate the fact that the biggest secret is there are no secrets, and I think Finn has a great experience learning that firsthand from all these different people, myself included. And I think that's also one of a more common theme we have on the show, which is to just say there's kind of these core fundamental ideas that you just need to know, which they're very basic, like you said, hard work, attention to detail and high standards. Those are the three things that really will get you pretty much anywhere in any kind of industry, I think. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (00:19:03):

High standards is a really, I'm glad you said that. That's a really important one. Just knowing what good looks like is really important, and getting there is easier said than done, but that has been very eyeopening to me to be able to literally watch over people's shoulders or open up their sessions or whatever and go, oh, that's what it's supposed to be like. That's what good is, and it is way better than I thought it was.

Speaker 4 (00:19:29):

Yeah. The other thing too is even if you know what good is and you have no clue how to get there, it's still okay. At least you will try anything and everything you can think of trial and error to get your way to that place of good, which is fine. You might not be the smartest engineer ever, but if you know when the drum sound is done, then you will do everything it takes to get there.

Speaker 2 (00:19:54):

We had Alan Doche on here, we actually just released his episode today, but we had him on here and he said a quote that's stuck with me that I think applies here, which is, what are you pretending not to know? The reason I say that is because there's been lots of times or a few times where I haven't felt like something I was working on was totally on its game or I wasn't on my game and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, and somebody else who was better than me would come in and literally just flip the phase on something. This was a while ago, but flip the phase on something or just be like, yeah, just retract that one little part and then that would make all the difference in the world. And in the back of my mind, I knew that I just wasn't going there for some reason. I knew that those were the problems, but there was just a disconnect between knowing it and doing it. And so having people show you that that is the solution, it's oftentimes something that simple I think is great because otherwise people won't know to actually do it. It is really easy to read about something on a blog or in a forum, but it's different to actually commit it to your workflow.

Speaker 4 (00:21:08):

Yeah, I think also speaking to the guests that we had on for Mastery Month, Bobcat Katz has an email signature that says there are two kinds of fools. One says, this is old and therefore good. The other says this is new and therefore better. So I'm curious, Finn, where do things get objective versus subjective? And I just want your unique take on this question.

Speaker 5 (00:21:30):

Yeah, well, so I think that's a really interesting debate that everybody should be having with themselves. My personal take on that is that nobody can tell you what sounds good. You can whatever you like. And that part is always subjective. And no matter what kind of music or creative output in general you can think of, no matter how bad it seems to you, there's someone out there that likes it. So that part is always subjective, what to me sounds good. The part that becomes more objective is how to achieve that result. And even then there's still some wiggle room, but so nobody can tell you what your vision should be, but there's probably a lot you could learn from other people as far as how to get there. And I think everyone would do themselves a lot of favors to be open-minded about that and to listen to other people and not be stubborn and think they know it all. And I was fortunate enough to have Al as a resource when I learned how to record. And not that I know everything by any means, I still suck, but I learned a lot pretty quickly. And it was very easy because all I would do was ask him what I should do and then just do it.

Speaker 4 (00:22:43):

Yeah. So I just want to say, I think the first thing to make a session pretty much come to a halt is when people start being narrow-minded and putting the objectives or the subjective in a box, something that I've been actually going through when trying to write songs with bands. It's like, I'll make a suggestion. They'll say, no, it's to this, it's to that. It's like, okay, well if it's to this and to that and I don't have any more ideas, then you don't have any more ideas, then we're stuck. So,

Speaker 5 (00:23:12):

So we all agreed that it's not good, but none of us are willing to try any other ideas. Well then I guess it is what it is and we should all just go home right now.

Speaker 4 (00:23:19):

Yeah. Now, I have here two things that may have made you a better songwriter or a better producer, something related to audio, and I think it has to do with Al's songwriting class for Creative Live. Is that true? What can you tell us about that?

Speaker 5 (00:23:34):

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm saying that not to plug his class or something like that, not as a salesman, because Al and I have been friends since way before I was at Creative Live. But yeah, he did a class maybe about a year ago or so called Mastering Metal Songwriting, and it was such a game changer, and I produced that one with him. We spent a lot of time locked in a room kind of trying to document how to write a good metal song. And actually this kind of touches on the objective and subjective part of it, because when I pitched him on the idea, he was kind of hesitant. He's like, well, how do you tell somebody how to write a song? Nobody's going to listen to that. And I said, well, let's not tell them what the song should sound like. Let's just try to give them the tools to achieve whatever their vision is.

(00:24:20):

And so that's, I think what the class was. Maybe a lot of people know Al as an engineer, mixer producer or whatever, and he's great at that, but in my opinion, he's even better as a songwriter. And people might not know this about him, but he's an incredible songwriter. Thanks. I have been shocked at some of the stuff he's shown me over the years that I can't say what it is, I don't think. But some of the stuff, Hey, I whipped this up together for this project in an hour. And I'm like, wait, you did that in a fucking hour? Are you serious? And so that made me go, wow, you need to teach people how to do this. So that songwriting class, in my opinion, and Al, feel free to jump in if you think I've,

Speaker 2 (00:25:03):

Well, it wasn't just me though, but I had some bad asses helping me out on it. I had your sense of organization and purpose along with John Brown for monuments explaining how to take apart super complex music and turn it into a song. Had a singer from Demon Hunter Inn, who's one of the most successful singer songwriters in modern, heavy underground music. We had a few different people on who are really, really great at what they do to bounce ideas off of, so I don't want to take all the credit.

Speaker 5 (00:25:42):

And so that definitely made the class even better. In particular, I think Ryan's part was really awesome, Ryan from Demon Hunter, but the gist of the class to me is there were two big takeaways. First of all is that the things that make a good metal song are no different from the things that make a good song in any other genre. And the big idea in the class was tension and release, and that everything that you do in the song should be to create dynamics through tension and release. And then the other thing there is that, which this was really the game changer for me, is that most songs really only have one big idea, maybe two, but usually it's just one big idea. And everything that's happening in the song is just variations on that one theme. And that is an idea that is lost on a lot of metal bands, let's put it that way, because you get a lot of what I call riff salad in metal, which is like, oh, well, we have to, what comes next? Well, let's write another riff

Speaker 3 (00:26:44):

Tempo change.

Speaker 5 (00:26:45):

Yeah, exactly. And it just becomes, yeah, you might have 14 parts in the song, but they all sound the fucking same, so what's the point? And so what I learned from that class is really that it's about coming up with that one idea and then creating variations on that idea that all work in service of the idea of tension and release, and that's your song. And I'm by no means saying that I'm the world's best songwriter or anything, but I've tried for many years to kind of write just some sort of fun like pop songs and I could never really do it, and I would just kind of write wrist. They didn't really go together. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people listening have done the same thing. You're just like, oh, I have a riff. That's pretty cool. And then you try to write another riff and you're like, what should I do? How about this riff? And then you're like, well, they don't really go together and this sucks. I give up.

Speaker 2 (00:27:30):

Well, anything else, it takes very specific techniques to get better. I was just thinking that a lot of people will say, well, it's purely subjective. How can you do that? But you're a graphic designer as well firsthand that there are actual objective techniques that you use in achieving a goal in graphic design. Whether or not your experience of the final result is subjective, whether you like it or not is one thing. But to actually go from zero to finished idea, there are techniques that nobody can argue with,

Speaker 5 (00:28:07):

And you don't have to use 'em. You can do things your own way, trial and error if you want, but you'll probably save yourself a lot of time if you use some of these rules. So this class kind of taught me a lot of the just really, I mean, it's embarrassing to say that I didn't know it after playing guitar for 20 years, but I bet I'm not the only one. Just basic stuff about scales and intervals and chords and kind of just how those work together and just really basic shit that enabled me to, I don't know, the week after the class, I was like, okay, I learned a lot from there. Now that I have some time, I think I'm going to try to write a song. And I did. And it ended up being by far the best song I've ever written with. I didn't put any more effort into it than any other song I had tried to write. I just, thanks to this class, I had guidelines, so I was channeling that effort in the right way instead of just, A lot of people when they write are just sort of, let's just keep coming up with riffs until we find some that work together, which that's like infinite monkeys typing an infinite typewriter and hoping that you type out a Shakespeare play. Yeah, it'll work eventually, but there's probably a lot smarter way to get there.

Speaker 2 (00:29:14):

In my opinion. That's not the complete act of writing. And Joey, Joel, I want to know what you guys think about this, but I feel like a lot of times when people will come to you with what they think is a song, they're really just giving you their stream of consciousness writing demo, or they start with one riff and end five minutes later in a completely different spot and have not repeated a riff even one time. They haven't put it through the basis.

Speaker 4 (00:29:38):

That's fine with me though. Honestly, I kind of prefer that because if somebody comes in with a song that's like 90% there, but they expect me to apply 40%, I'm like, well, there's only 10% left to get this song done, and then they're still unhappy with it. And I hate those situations. I always feel trapped. I'm like, well, this song is great. You don't think it is, but I know it is, and it only needs 10% to get to the rest of the way. So then we just come in a stalemate. But I prefer someone to bring me the craziest piece of shit song ever, because I can make it amazing.

Speaker 5 (00:30:15):

You can pick out, okay, I see what you guys are trying to do with this. Let me help you get there.

Speaker 4 (00:30:20):

Yeah, that's part of my gift is that I can take a train wreck and turn it into a Lamborghini, and that's simply because I have the skillset to working with lots of different musicians and kind of reading their minds based on what they've put into the song so far. And that's something that,

Speaker 2 (00:30:38):

Correct me if I'm wrong though, if someone comes to you with a five minute rambling piece of shit, you'll find the magic. You'll find the diamond in the rough within those five minutes and exploit the hell out of that and find ways to turn. So yeah, I mean, we're saying the same thing, whether the band does it or the producer does it, someone's got to do it to take it from, it's kind of like if someone just wrote a rough draft to a book and published that, it would be terrible.

Speaker 3 (00:31:08):

Yeah, totally. I mean, you guys deal with a lot more heavier stuff than I do. I deal with more of the rock and top 40 kind of songs. So when bands come to me, usually they have 20 songs or 15 completely unrelated riffs, and I just look for an inspiration. We're like, yeah, man, there's something really exciting about that little piece of music. Let's craft a song about it and see if we can get a single.

Speaker 5 (00:31:31):

People think that the rules of songwriting don't apply to metal because the tempos are faster, they have different haircuts or something like that, but they totally do. And if you look at, we talked about this in the class too, but if you look at a lot of the heavy bands that people look at as the really classic groundbreaking ones, most of them follow the same kind of rules as pop or rock songwriting. I dunno, cannibal Corpse is a good example. I think Hammer Smashed Face is a really fucking catchy song. And basically there's, it is. I mean, there's

Speaker 3 (00:32:03):

Absolutely it is.

Speaker 5 (00:32:04):

And there isn't even any lyrics or melody in it, and it's still catchy because they have basically two ideas. There's that riff that instantly catches you, and then there's that sort of, I don't know,

Speaker 2 (00:32:18):

The Ace Ventura riff.

Speaker 5 (00:32:19):

Yeah, exactly. And the rest of it, and all they do is just vary that there's that breakdown where they play the Ace Ventura part and halftime, and that creates dynamics and it's super melodic and catchy, but it does, I'm serious. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's the heavy bands that everybody looks to at Pantera Slayer. Great examples of this too. It's not because they played faster or louder or whatever, it's because they took one simple idea and built great songs around it. And that's the same thing, regardless of metal or pop or hip hop or any other genre of music, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (00:32:51):

I think that's a great point, and I'll echo that back in the day, I spent a lot of time trying to analyze and study hit songwriting, and one of the things I thought in my opinion is that everything is just the rep, the same shit. So I was looking at a Children of Bodom song and I had the exact same riff, the exact same chords than a Britney Spears song did. But the only difference was the arrangement of it, meaning one had double bass and heavy ass guitar riffs and screaming, and the other was a pop song with electronic drums and all of those instruments and a female singing. And if you really break it down and you remove the melody and get past the production of it, you see it's the same thing at the core. But one person will listen to say, chill or Bodom be like, fuck yeah, Britney Spears sucks, but it's the same song. And it's like, I don't know. It is something that makes me kind of laugh when I see kids or just anybody say, oh, well that's crap, but they like something that's the exact same thing, but just packaged slightly different.

Speaker 2 (00:33:44):

Abba and Inflames. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:33:45):

There you

Speaker 5 (00:33:46):

Go. I think a lot of kids who are into metal and metal core or whatever would really open themselves up to a lot of new creative possibilities and find themselves unstuck if they would listen to other genres of music, even if they don't like it, there's something they could learn from it. And I think that almost without exception, the best bands in any genre really don't listen to the other bands in their genre. Not to say that they don't respect them or anything like that, but I remember when I was a kid, Scott Ian from Anthrax would always talk about how he listened to Madonna and Kiss, and I was so upset because I was like, what the fuck? He should be listening to Exodus and testament and how could you listen to fucking Madonna? This is bullshit. And then of course, now that I'm older and I understand things a lot better now, it makes perfect sense to me that he would draw reference from other sources, and that's part of why their songs were good and stuck out from the rest.

Speaker 3 (00:34:39):

I think that's a requirement at least to be a producer. I mean, you have to listen to other music if you want to have a career and draw a lots of inspiration. I mean, for example, I jam Middle Eastern music all the time, which probably sounds ridiculous because it's like classic, just like whatever's on the radio over there, like Arabic radio or and stuff like that. And it sounds really weird to a Western standard, but every once in a while

Speaker 2 (00:35:02):

Got a great sense of harmony.

Speaker 3 (00:35:03):

You pick a cool chord progression and you're like, oh, there's so many different ideas, and you're not going to get them by just listening to the same breakdown over and over and over again. You have to go out.

Speaker 5 (00:35:12):

When Marty Friedman would do that a lot back in the day in mega deaths, he would use, what scale is that?

Speaker 2 (00:35:18):

Well, he would use a lot of regular harmonic miners with flat fives and major minor seven chords and just all kinds of different stuff. He would play out of a lot of scales that are incorrectly named. A lot of metal guys like to call things like the Egyptian scale and

(00:35:41):

Weird shit like that. But he would just play out of all kinds of altered modes of Harmonic Minor, which is where you get that Indian or Middle Eastern kind of sound. And he would also would play with a lot of quarter tone and things like that, which again, to the Western mind, that might be a little bit weird, but that's a much more increased palette to be drawing from. That kind of brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about, but basically what we've been talking about right now is that in order to be able to really contribute to songs well and to just be able to write your own great or help bands with their songs, you got to definitely develop your own unique point of view on music. And that's not going to come from just listening to the same thing, the same genre over and over again. You definitely have to go outside of your comfort zone and find stuff that you find interesting and that inspires you outside of the genre you work in. That's my opinion. But let's talk a little bit more about developing a point of view or your unique voice, because that's something that we get asked a lot is how to develop your own voice in production.

Speaker 4 (00:36:57):

Yeah, I think, well, one thing I just want to say real quick, speaking to that is it's oversaturated. Back when I started, and I'm sure when you guys started, there wasn't a lot of competition for this industry. There weren't a lot of guys that really knew how to pull it off and do it properly,

Speaker 2 (00:37:13):

Not like now.

Speaker 4 (00:37:14):

Yeah. So now the bedroom recording revolution has happened and everyone has a laptop and everyone has Garage Band or Reaper or something like that, and everyone thinks they know how to record, or even if they don't think they know how to record, they still try. So it's super competitive and it's really hard to, there's only so many studios, a lot of 'em are closing down. There's only so many producers that still have a lot of work rolling through the door. So there's a lot of guys out there thinking, well, this is what I really want to do, but I don't know how to stand out and become more noticeable to industry professionals, or how do I branch out on my own and become my own successful producer with work rolling through my door?

Speaker 2 (00:37:59):

Yeah, that's actually kind of interesting because just a question for Joel and Joey, what do you guys prefer when you're hiring somebody? Do you prefer somebody that's coming in as a blank slate, or do you prefer somebody who's already proven themselves to be able to accomplish something in recording?

Speaker 4 (00:38:19):

Well, I'll speak first and I'll say there's two things that I look for. I do want a blank slate, but I don't want an idiot. So I need someone who kind of gets it, but is willing to listen to the way that I want to do it. And that's where the blank slate thing kicks in.

Speaker 3 (00:38:37):

I think it depends on what you're hiring them to do. For example, if I'm hiring somebody to track guitars for me, they better know what the fuck they're doing, period. And then they need to be able to listen to me and say, okay, I want it recorded like this, and in this fashion, here's the instructions, and if you screw up, I'll have somebody else come in. Now, that being said, if I'm looking for an intern or somebody to come in and flush the toilets and edit some stuff, I prefer somebody who really doesn't have too much training, but they understand it. They have that self-starter seed, that passion, that they're going to want to be great at something someday, and they just need that direction. So I really like it when somebody comes in and you can say, Hey, when you edit vocals, this is the fastest way, this is the best way to do it, blah, blah, blah. And then they're just going to absorb it like a sponge and just do it. And they're not going to sit there, well, dude, I ran on this forum that blah, blah, blah, that got to sit there and give me a bunch of lip. They're there to help me out in return. They're giving me some kind of value. So I like Joey. I like somebody who's a blank slate, but not an idiot. And that's, I think a great way of putting it.

Speaker 2 (00:39:35):

What do you think about that, Finn? Because I know that one thing that differentiates what you offer at Creative Live from say some of the competitors, is that all the producers that come on have a unique point of view versus just some random dude doing tutorials.

Speaker 5 (00:39:49):

Yeah, I think that is probably, in my opinion, the most important thing for any kind of creative person, whether you're a painter or a photographer or in this case like a musician or producer, is finding what your point of view is, what your voice is and sticking to that, and people evolve that over time. But you should always know what your point of view is, and there's no right or wrong answer on that. And two examples I would use of that, that to me are like polar opposites. For example, Joey versus Kurt Ballou, both of which are very respected and have a big following, but couldn't be more different. Everything that you do, Joey, is hyper perfect and meticulous and precise. You don't even want to let drummer go choose what sample you want to say, no, I want sample three.

(00:40:37):

And people may love or hate your style, but it's absolutely your thing and people know you for it. And if they want that style, you're the guy to go to. On the other hand, Kurt Ballou, his recordings are at times like borderline sloppy. They're very loose and organic and raw, and people love that about his recordings. And again, there's not that one is better or worse than the other. The point is that both of you guys have a very specific point of view. Do not go to Joey if you want something to sound like, I don't know, whatever the latest Southern Lord stoner band is, do not go to Curt. If you want something to sound like, bless the fall. And everyone else has their own point of view. A couple other people that have worked with that I think have have that Chris crut, he's into analog gear.

(00:41:27):

He doesn't really do much in the box other than press record all. Most of the processing is done with outboard gear. The point is that you guys were talking about before, simply being able to record something is not very special anymore. Maybe at one point, if you were like, Hey guys, you need to record stuff, I can do that. That was enough. You're like, oh, you're physically able to record. Cool. That's all we need. Now. It's like, alright, well I've got Pod Farm and Reaper and Slate drums, I could probably do, so what can you do that I can't? And so what they're looking for is a point of view, and that's when you become a part of the creative process and people trust you and listen to you and all that other stuff that sets you apart from your peers as being more than just a software operator.

Speaker 2 (00:42:14):

So let me ask you something then, because you definitely, as a writer and as a graphic designer and a creative person, definitely anybody who follows your work knows that you have a super defined point of view. And just do you have any advice or practical steps that anyone can take to help develop that? Because it seems to me like a lot of people, they hear that and they kind of intellectually understand it, but when it comes down to it, they don't understand how to develop it. And I guess mean, I've got my opinion on it, but I'm wondering what yours is.

Speaker 5 (00:42:51):

Well, there's lots of things, but I would say actually one that people don't talk about very much is that I think a big part of having a point of view happens outside of the studio. It's like about getting life experience and just seeing different parts of the world and just having a broader perspective. It's definitely important to sit in the studio, sit in the practice room, whatever, and hone your craft. But I think it's really important to get out of there and see the world and experience some different things, some good stuff, some shitty stuff that will definitely help you find a voice.

Speaker 2 (00:43:26):

Well, if you're not an actual person, your art isn't going to say anything.

Speaker 5 (00:43:31):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:43:31):

It's not going to speak to anyone.

Speaker 5 (00:43:33):

I don't think I'm a particularly good writer in the sense of coming up with really sophisticated turns or phrase or whatever. I probably make grammar mistakes and stuff like that. But I think, like you said, I have a point of view and that's what people respond to. And I've seen people that have master's in creative writing and stuff like that, which is the same thing as people that have master's degrees in guitar performance. You're a great technical writer or a great guitar player, but your songs suck because you have nothing to say. You have this amazing voice, but no words to say. So yeah, I mean, you got to get out of the house, get out of the studio, even if it's just, and I don't mean you have to travel around Mongolia on the back of a yak and have a vision from God or something and just mean, go take a walk around the block in a part of town you've never been to before and you might see something that is interesting to you

Speaker 2 (00:44:30):

Or watch the Anvil movie. I'm just kidding. We were talking about that before you came on.

Speaker 3 (00:44:34):

Hey, I'm down to go to Mongolia on a yak if you guys are interested. That sounds like fun.

Speaker 4 (00:44:39):

Well, if you can't travel, I think you can still get a wide perspective and an interesting point of view by just listening to more kinds of music and just being open-minded. I don't really listen to the kind of music that I actually work on, but the other music that I do listen to affects what I do in my work. Sam, here,

Speaker 5 (00:44:59):

You mean to say that when you go home, you don't listen to Capture the Crown and make me famous 24 hours a day?

Speaker 4 (00:45:05):

No, in fact, I'm listening to what's most relevant in the commercial market because as much as people want to hate on it, and I know there's a lot of fanboy and stuff out there who are like, oh, my band would never do that, they'll never make a pop song. That's what everyone's trying to do, but just in their own way, because the word pop means popular. So

Speaker 3 (00:45:30):

I want to succeed, but I don't.

Speaker 4 (00:45:32):

Yeah, it's kind of silly to sit around and pretend that people don't want to be successful and make music their living.

Speaker 5 (00:45:39):

Well, you know what I think is a really great example of what you're talking about is look at all the punk ghosts, pop comps and how they just fucking crush it. And any of those bands that have a song on there, that song is always the most popular one live. That's the one kids go nuts for, which makes some of them upset. But what that tells you is that it's exactly like what you're talking about earlier, Joel, is that a good song is a good song. The genre or style is largely just, that's just like the coat of paint you put on it. So you play it with high gain guitars instead of synths or whatever.

Speaker 3 (00:46:10):

It's too obvious.

Speaker 5 (00:46:11):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:46:11):

Because people don't see it right in front of their face.

Speaker 5 (00:46:13):

It's glaringly obvious, and those are good songs. You can take a Carly Ra Jepsen song and make it into a metal chorus song very easily. That's what those comps do, and that's why they're great.

Speaker 4 (00:46:22):

I used to love getting those projects. I haven't gotten one in a long time. People have been figuring out how to do it cheaper, recording their own parts and then just going into the studio to maybe finish the vocals or something. But those used to be pretty much the highlight of the year is like, oh, what's going to be the next pop goes punk album, and who am I going to get to work with? And so yeah, those are really cool. I think bands should learn a lesson from doing those, and I think some did.

Speaker 2 (00:46:47):

Well, I think I am going to just take what you guys are saying a step further because say, something that Joey started talking about is what if you can't travel? So this is talking to the person who literally cannot go anywhere, is trapped by their life, tons of responsibilities outside of the music they want to be making. And they really have to be very, very intelligent about what they decide to work on. They don't have much time to work on it, which I think is a lot of people.

(00:47:23):

One thing that I think would really, really help is do what we said about listening to other genres. But I would go the next step of incorporating a little bit of what Joel said of really analyzing those songs. And then I would work on arrangements of them. I would learn how to play them. I would analyze how they work. I would make my own versions of them. I would put them in different keys. I would try to write variations off of them. I would try to write music that's completely based on it and really try to get every little single bit of data or influence that I can out of this piece of music. You

Speaker 3 (00:48:01):

Have to live it.

Speaker 2 (00:48:02):

Yeah, exactly. I'll do that with a Han Zimmer score, or I'll do that with Beatles songs or with Muse songs or stuff that I really like and that I feel has, or orchestral music that has really helped give me a unique voice when I go to do heavy music. If I was just doing this for Slayer or bands that I grew up with, I would sound just like every guitar player I went to school with that practiced a bunch of hours every day and just sound like a robot. So I would say that for the person who really can't go anywhere, there's still nothing stopping you from learning as much as you possibly can about what gets you going musically.

Speaker 5 (00:48:45):

And that's metaphorical as well as literal traveling and seeing something different again, if you literally can't leave your house thanks to the internet. And so if you can still expose yourself to some cool idea that you'd never, I don't know, watch some random documentary on YouTube or something like that, there's always a way to find out about something new. Whenever I go to Barnes and Noble, they have all these, they have, I dunno, hundreds of magazines about all this weird shit. And always whenever I go there, I pick up a new one I've never seen before. And I look through it just to get a glimpse at this other world. I read this other one, this one the other day called Wooden Boats, and it's this magazine, there's a whole scene of people who are into handbuilt wooden boats and they go sale 'em on lakes and stuff like that. And there's a community around it, just like there is about music and the people like, oh, this isn't a real wooden boat. They used a machine. I mean, it's the same shit crit this boat.

Speaker 2 (00:49:42):

Yeah, basically your tastes meaning what you choose to consume and your experience, how you consume it and your knowledge, which is how deep you go into consuming it will all inform your point of view. Exactly. I think that if you work on those three things, or at least cultivating those three things, your point of view will just naturally blossom. I guess that's a good word to use. Blossoming.

Speaker 5 (00:50:13):

Joey, I have a question for you. You probably hate talking about this, but I'm going to ask you anyway. So we talked about this a little bit before, but one of my favorite records of the last 10 years is the first attack attack album, because it was so No, no, no, I'm serious. It was so fucking out of left field, and it was a bunch of little kids from Columbus, Ohio, not even Columbus from Westerville or something,

Speaker 4 (00:50:42):

And

Speaker 5 (00:50:42):

They made this thing that just made everyone go, what the fuck is this? And some people hated it, but for better or for worse now there's literally a thousand bands all over the world that have copied what they did. And I think it's really interesting to have something that unique come from kids like high school kids that certainly did not have a broad perspective on the world from a bunch of life experience. I don't know, can you talk about from your perspective, I dunno how something crazy that happened?

Speaker 4 (00:51:16):

Well, the first thing I have to say is congrats or kudos to Rise records for finding that that was going to be a big deal, crystal ball. Yeah, they definitely deserve a lot of the credit because I had no clues that the band even existed. And I was only a couple hours away from their location, but Rise all the way from Portland, Oregon knew that this was going to be huge, and they knew that the band would be a perfect pairing with me and that everything was going to be a good plan. And that's when they contacted me to work with the band. And from my perspective, I just kind of checked out what they were doing and then I was like, oh, they're trying to do kind of a Prada thing, but it's more happy and it's kind of got more electronic influence and it's a little bit also more bipolar, which is interesting because or the a DD generation on the internet from MySpace. So from the perspective of MySpace, it made a lot of sense. They were rising, they were becoming more popular. And I think my motivation honestly was just to do more work with Rise. So I might not have been totally interested just by the material that the band had, but I was challenged by the fact that the band had a very specific idea of what they wanted to do.

Speaker 5 (00:52:40):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (00:52:41):

And it wasn't something that I was super familiar with, so I had to figure out along with them on how to get there. And we found our way just by trying different stuff and just being objective towards the standards. Again, having high standards and just, which within this boundary that we're talking about, you can only, we could have had really high standards and been like, none of these songs are good, but we had kind of painted a picture of what we were trying to do. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:53:13):

Well and your production style on that album, not only that one, but from my perspective, that's the one that really put it on the map as a thing that everybody was trying to copy. I think it's a really interesting thing that they had this super unique perspective on songs and you had a super unique perspective on the production and both of those things ended up becoming really influential and felt so fresh and new to me. And that's what I thought was so exciting about it.

Speaker 4 (00:53:44):

I think their perspective came just from what they wanted to do though, which kind of contradicts what we've been saying to weather yourself and become widespread to get a perspective. But I think they were very narrow and not widespread at all. They had a local following and people were really into it. So maybe they had a little bit of luck that played a role in that. But I think at the end of the day, they still had the fundamental core, which was this is what we want to do and we're going to be the best at doing it.

Speaker 2 (00:54:16):

And that's a point of view right there. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:54:19):

So it might not have been a weathered point of view, but it was something that somebody saw vision in and that was rise. So I think Rise gets some of the credit for that. And then thank God that I had a very stubborn mind towards production and they had a stubborn mind towards, I guess what kind of music they wanted to play and all those things. Married together is what created attack. Attack.

Speaker 2 (00:54:44):

Well, I got to say that on the topic of not having a very wide, I guess reach to their style, I mean, I've seen that work lots of times. For instance, black Dahlia murder, their whole thing is they want to be the tightest Swedish style, melodic death metal band, period. They

Speaker 5 (00:55:02):

Did it

Speaker 2 (00:55:03):

And they did it. But I mean, that's a unique point of view right there. They want to be the Olympic athletes of that genre. And that's it. That's defined. That's very, very defined. That's

Speaker 5 (00:55:14):

Really interesting that I had never thought of it that way. I know from the way you've talked about working with them that they are super tight like that.

Speaker 2 (00:55:21):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:55:22):

But I didn't realize that that was something that they had articulated like that. And it makes perfect sense. And I guess going back the larger point is that I think the more specific your point of view is, the better. I think being like Suffocation was another example of that. Any of these bands say, oh, obituary, whatever. They just have these hyper-specific points of view and they stick with it. And there's hate. Read another great example. There's room to wiggle a little bit, but that to me is like, that's what every artist should strive for. And it might take you a while to find that point of view and it might not be the one that you thought you wanted. For example, as a designer, as a graphic designer, my style is not really what I wish it was. I wish I had a different style, but I don't, and I just have to roll with what I am. It's like, well, okay, I guess this is my voice as a designer, I'm just going to embrace it instead of trying to fight it. And it's a very specific one. I'm not very versatile, but I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2 (00:56:18):

Well, the thing is, a lot of times your point of view that you express in your artwork develops subconsciously. And at one point in time down the road, you can articulate it consciously and verbally. But this is definitely something, in my opinion, that will develop subconsciously over time, grow like a plant if you water it and take care of it. So I have a question for you, because this is something that Joey started to touch on that we all know to be true. A little while ago. There really wasn't too much competition in this field, but now there's a ton and there's a ton in your world of graphic design and creative Live does a ton of photography stuff as well, and there's more competition than ever in photography. And production is oversaturated. Being in a band is oversaturated. It's all,

Speaker 5 (00:57:10):

Any kind of creative field is oversaturated because everybody wants to do it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:57:14):

Exactly.

Speaker 5 (00:57:15):

And at the end of the day, most of us do not have any kind of idea that is so brilliant that it can't be copied. If you come up with something good, other people are going to very quickly copy it. And you have to always have that point of view to stay one step ahead of the pack.

Speaker 2 (00:57:28):

So I guess since, I mean, you're a marketing expert and you really know how to take an idea and get it out there, and you've proven that in various different lines of work, the music market in inside and out. Do you have any advice for production beginners or people, or not even production beginners, it could be dudes who have been making a living for a little while, but want to get to the next level, but are stagnating. Do you have any advice for people trying to get ahead in this tough market to help differentiate themselves?

Speaker 5 (00:58:03):

Well, aside from that, having a point of view, which is important, the one thing I have noticed kind of across the board is that most producers, and the three of you guys are exceptions to this. And this is probably a big part of why you're successful. Most producers are really reluctant to promote themselves, which I totally get because they're mostly just really hardworking, introverted people that don't like to toot their own horn, and that makes them good human beings, but it's not a recipe for success.

Speaker 2 (00:58:33):

And there's also a stigma against it in some facets of the music industry. And what do you think

Speaker 4 (00:58:39):

About, sorry to interrupt you. What do you think about the people who go overboard and are putting a post on Facebook that say this weekend you can get 75% off mixes? For the first three people that respond to me

Speaker 5 (00:58:53):

Amps 50 cents, 50 cents each today only Nigel Amps $3. Yeah, I mean, obviously you can go overboard, but that's one thing that I think I see people go wrong with doing too little more than I see them doing too much. I think most people sort of intuitively know when too much is too much, but bare minimum, make sure that you have a website for yourself, your studio, however you want to brand it and make sure you update it. Nobody updates their fucking discography. It's like, oh, I haven't updated that thing since 2010, and that's your calling card.

Speaker 4 (00:59:31):

You

Speaker 5 (00:59:31):

Have to make sure, I know it sucks and it's annoying and you'd rather make art. But I guess the way to think about it is maybe I would suggest that people change their thinking a little bit, which is that rather than getting good at art is what is the most important thing, and that business is a necessary evil. Look at it as maybe flip your thinking a little bit and think about it as getting good at business is what enables you to pursue your art more. So if you're great at marketing, that means that you now are getting better projects, bigger budgets, people respect you more, and then you get to stretch your wings more as a creative person. So I would look at it rather as a burden. Look at it as something that enables you just the same as you're like, okay, I really don't want to read this technical article about phase, but I know that I need to and I know that it will make me, it will open up new creative opportunities to me look at marketing the same way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):

I want to touch back to when we were talking about marketing yourself online and being aggressive versus too aggressive. And I think it's important and a great point is that you need to give to the community if you want to receive, if you're out there just me, people are going to look at you as like a hawk and like, oh, screw that guy. He's a dick. But if you're out there, you're helping people and you're genuine and you're legitimate about it, and you're active in the communities that you're promoting to, people will respond positively to that.

Speaker 5 (01:00:52):

Two great examples of that are Joey and Andy sne. Both of them are people that share their quote secrets when people ask for 'em, like, oh, you want my settings? Here they are. By the way, don't expect it to sound like my recordings. These settings are actually not a very important part of it, but here you go, and both of them. And so here's something I would kind of say to build on that is people think that giving away your secrets reduces your value because then people know what you're doing. But it's the exact opposite because when you give away your secrets, what you really show is that the secret, the magic ingredient here is not your pod farm settings. It's your ears and your brain because you go, oh, Joey gave me his settings, but it still doesn't sound like Joey. I guess the problem is me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):

Well, I think the people that believe that giving away your secrets is diminishing your value are operating from a view of the world that involves a lot of scarcity and that there's a pie and there's only X amount that you can get from the pie. And if you allow this many people in and let them eat off your pie, you get less. As opposed to the idea that with the internet, there's almost endless opportunity to grow your pie if you're

Speaker 5 (01:02:06):

Beginner. Nobody is clamoring for your preset. So you're like, okay, I like this idea, but what do I do with it? Going back to what Joel was saying, think about ways that you can, even if you don't have technical knowledge to contribute, think about ways that you can give back to the community by, it could be as simple as being active on a forum or having a blog or website or something where you collect information for other people, oh, here's the, or doing a weekly forum post like, Hey, here's the five tutorials I found this week that I think you guys would like, or something like. There's always something you can do. Collaborating on projects with other people that you don't know is cool. All the various different mixed contests, mixed critique threads on forums, just be part of the conversation and try to help people, and it will absolutely always end up benefiting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):

Definitely. Well, one thing that hasn't changed is that word of mouth will count for a lot of your business. And even I feel like going viral is just the future version, the modern version of word of mouth, because it's spread from person to person to person. So by becoming active in your community and giving to them, more people have the opportunity to interact with you and learn about who you are, and then get the opportunity to share what you've shared with them with other people, which ups your value.

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):

Exactly. Because you're the guy that spread this cool idea.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:03:35):

And especially if you want to be a professional, think about, let's use heavy music as an example. How many people are there in the United States that are really actively producing like the top tier heavy music releases? And I'll include metal, core death, metal gent, all that stuff. In that heading, it's probably, I would say it's definitely less than 20 people. I bet it's probably between 10 and 15.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):

That's about,

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):

So that is driven entirely by word of mouth. A manager calls someone else and they're like, Hey, we're going into a studio in October. Do you think we should go with this guy, this guy or this guy? There's not 500 people to choose from. There's four,

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):

But there's still a whole wide world of music out there that needs recordings. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:04:25):

Well, my point is it's a very small world, and your reputation and word of mouth is super, super, super critical. And eventually the way it works is if you're the new guy, you're waiting for your big break, the big guy might be busy, but because you've been part of the community for a long time, you're top of mind. People know you as an up and comers. Actually, this guy's been doing some really fucking good recordings for local bands, and he seems like a cool guy. Let's give him a shot. Everyone else is busy. Let's give him a shot. You just got your big break now, you're part of the club.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):

Yeah. Let me ask you something. I guess this is getting a little bit more specific, a little bit more technical about this, but I feel like it's relevant because most of us do our promoting via Facebook and everybody's on Facebook. It is almost impossible to be known without being on Facebook these days. But lots of bands and producers and businesses have been complaining about how hard it is to get any promotional traction on Facebook due to the new rules concerning relevancy and organic reach. What are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 5 (01:05:31):

Well, first of all, yes, it is harder to get organic reach, but that is not because of some grand conspiracy on the part of Facebook to keep the little guy down. There's lots of reasons for it. But the main one is just that there are more pages and people are liking more of them. So that means that by definition, every one of those pages that a person likes will get less exposure in their timeline. So when you only liked three pages, you would see everything that page posted. Now that you like 300, there's just less space. So everybody should start by putting that out of their mind and stop blaming Facebook for their lack of reach. Really, it's pretty simple. If you ale, I think you put it, well, when we talked about this before, Facebook tells you how to win at Facebook, it's very simple. They show you,

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):

Oh yeah, they do a great job of trying to educate you.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):

Yeah. It's like when you play a really hard video game and then you go look up a guide for it. You're like, oh, okay. That's how you do it. And then that level, that was really hard before is now trivially easy. Facebook is like that. They tell you how to win at it, and yes, you do need to spend money, but if you are smart about it, you'll make all your money back. And so it's essentially free or even a profit center if you're smart about it. So anybody that is in any kind of business, whether you're a band producer or whatever it is, if you're not educating yourself about Facebook, you are leaving money on the table. And every day that you are not educating yourself about Facebook, you're increasingly going to get left in the dust. So I'm a huge believer in it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):

It's a really hot button issue, and it really has become one. People get very bent out of shape about this because they're used to just posting something and having people like it, and now it's nothing. Or they've spent five or $10 on a boost and gotten zero clicks and feel like it's a ripoff. But I've oftentimes tried to explain to people exactly what you just said, that there is a way to do it correctly. And if you're not actually following what Facebook says are best practices, you are just throwing money down a hole.

Speaker 5 (01:07:39):

Yeah, it's very simple. There are a million blogs that cover this by one of my favorite internet marketing blogs is moz.com, MO z.com, which is not about Morrissey, it's about internet marketing. But yeah, it's great. I, so I think that one thing that people need to be honest with themselves about, it's the same as if a band, if you're in a local band and you've been toiling away for years and nobody in your band is going nowhere, you should ask yourself, is it possible that maybe we suck? Right? On the one hand, maybe it's bad luck. On the other hand, maybe you suck. So I would say the same thing with Facebook. If your posts get no traction, it might be because what you are trying to talk about is not interesting to people or you're talking about it the wrong way or something like that.

(01:08:22):

So there's a thing in internet world called product market fit, which basically means does your product fit what the market wants? And you can think about it in in musical terms, which is like, let's say you start an industrial ska band with symphonic orchestral parts. There is not a market for that. You do not have product market fit. No matter how hard you try to market that, no matter how much money you put behind Facebook dollars, that project is never going to take off because you don't have product market fit. So if you're unhappy with the results you're getting in Facebook, step one is make sure you're following Facebook's best practices. If you follow those best practices and give it some time and you're still not getting traction, then maybe need to ask yourself, if you have product market fit, you might need to change the thing that you're offering. And sometimes that means eating a little bit of humble pie and going, okay, maybe this thing that I think is great, maybe I'm the only one that thinks it's great time to go back to the drawing board. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):

I think that's the real rub of that is it requires you to be honest with yourself, and that's something that's really, really hard for a lot of people to swallow.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):

Well, yeah, it is a very personal thing because you're talking about people's art and their output, and also the relevancy score is you can take it personally if it means that what you're saying is just not interesting, then you have to realize that you're not being a very interesting person. And that's a tough pill for people to swallow. But I feel like this, again, is just a modern version of when a product or a band would have a huge push behind them and would just flop because they were not putting out what the market wanted or the messaging was wrong for whatever reason, it's been shown that just throwing money at something is not going to make it big. The money plus the product, plus the message, plus the needs of the market all working together or what will determine it. And if you ignore any one of those factors, it's not going to work. It's like trying to drive a car with only three tires.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):

Wait, you mean we're not all brainwashed idiots?

Speaker 5 (01:10:29):

Yeah. People talk about marketing as though it's some sort of mind control tool from a movie where I just press this button. You know what I mean? It's like, well, they're starting to brainwash. Well, I wish it was that simple. I wish that I could pay Facebook to make people like stuff or to make people buy it, but it doesn't work that way. At the end of the day, all market,

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):

Find me up when you figure that out.

Speaker 5 (01:10:51):

Yeah, me too. So at the end of the day, marketing people have this idea that it's some sort of unethical nefarious thing, but at the end of the day, all marketing is trying to find out what people want and then offer it to them. That's it. You're trying to help people. So that's the way I would look at it and go, so if people aren't interested in what you're offering, you go, okay, well maybe I need to find a better way to help them. That's all.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):

Or a better way to let them know about what I'm offering.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's all you're trying to do is help people. And so if you're a producer, you're trying to help people put out the music that they want to put out. And how you do that is kind of, that's up to you to figure out the value proposition there. But that's your goal. Nobody necessarily, I think like gear lists and studios are so funny because how many people even know what that stuff is? Only other producers do, and does it matter? But so you just have to kind of ask yourself, am I presenting this in a way that my audience will look at it and look at it as a solution to their problem, which is, Hey, we have this music, we need to record it. How do I do that?

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):

Well, I think we need to wrap this up, but I will say that a lot of the information that you've provided here today is really insightful. And I think, well, I hope that the audience is taking it to heart because I think these are the core fundamental things that you really need to basically make yourself stand out against the rest of the competition, especially when we're speaking to the fact that the way you find these people or the way you even get into these situations is on the internet. And if you aren't being cutting edge and aggressive in the right way on the internet, you're not going to be seen or be heard. So I really appreciate your insight. I think hopefully people will pay attention.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):

Yeah, I hope so too. I think that just to take what you said a step further, not just on the internet, but being aggressive in the right way about their own artwork and their own point of view in the development of that, to know how to market properly, you've got to have something to market in the first place, and that's where having a point of view and developing your own unique voice and all that comes in, because otherwise, you can learn all the marketing skills in the world, but it won't make a difference if you've got nothing to push.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):

Totally. Finn, you've been great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (01:13:11):

Thank you so much. And thank you guys. Joel, we don't know each other very well, so unfortunately I don't have any personal thanks for you, other than to say thank you for having me on. But Al and Joey, you guys have both taught me a ton, likewise, and I really appreciate all the time you've spent on that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):

All right, man, take it easy. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 5 (01:13:28):

Thanks for having me on. Thanks for teaching me stuff, and we'll see you guys soon. The

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):

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