JAY MAAS: AI Mastering, Music Entrepreneurship, and The Return of “Real” Mixes

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true and it's only because of you, the listeners, and if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too, so please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio, and let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:56):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share host and a tag. Now let's get on with it. Hello everybody. My guest today is Jay Maas, who you've heard on this podcast before. He's a musician, producer, mixer, mastering engineer, songwriter and computer scientist. He opened his studio in the early two thousands as well as started the well-known melodic hardcore outfit Defeater. He's worked with a bunch of bands like State Champs, Bain Counterparts, title Fight, but he also is creating some sick software that we're going to talk about, and I love this dude's entrepreneurial spirit. He's always inspiring to talk to. I relate to this, man. I'm going to shut up. I introduce you. Jay Maas. Jay Maas, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:02:09):

Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (00:02:10):

It says, if we haven't been talking for the past 10 minutes,

Speaker 2 (00:02:13):

This feels much like as if 10 minutes did not just pass.

Speaker 1 (00:02:16):

Isn't it weird when you start an interview or a podcast and you've been shooting the shit with somebody and then you start the podcast and it's like you have to pretend like you haven't been talking?

Speaker 2 (00:02:27):

Yeah, it goes against my entire brand. It feels exceptionally disingenuous.

Speaker 1 (00:02:31):

I still haven't figured out how to bridge that gap, like almost 300 episodes deep. It still makes me feel a little bit weird to do that. I don't know how to get over it other than maybe just start recording the moment we start talking, but then the audience is going to hear all the technical talk,

Speaker 2 (00:02:47):

Which I don't think they care about.

Speaker 1 (00:02:50):

They want to hear a count off every single time. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Nice clap guys. They'll make fun of us because the claps are always out of time

Speaker 2 (00:02:59):

And we're audio engineers.

Speaker 1 (00:03:00):

Yeah, man, it gets really bad with the musicians too and they get insecure about it. It's kind of funny actually.

Speaker 2 (00:03:08):

I love that.

Speaker 1 (00:03:08):

Yeah, it's not their fault, it's just Skype delay, but they're used to knowing how to count, so they value themselves on that.

Speaker 2 (00:03:17):

Not all of them. Some of them are not used to true. They think they know how to count.

Speaker 1 (00:03:20):

That makes me think of back in the day when I was first starting to record, tell me, this sounds familiar to you, I would try to get drummers to record to a click back in the early two thousands. This is also when I was trying to find a drummer for my band and I wanted my band to play to a clique and it was like they were treating it, it was COVID-19 or something. They were afraid of the fucking clique and there was tons of resistance, serious resistance. Now I feel like finding a drummer who can't play to a clique, that's the anomaly.

Speaker 2 (00:03:55):

I agree. Yeah. There's been a shift. I started recording in literally January, 2004 and Q click was almost like a bad word to a lot of bands, a lot of drummers. It was basically saying like, Hey, you can't do your job, and they didn't perceive it like, no, your job is to be in time, and then also the click is your friend. Now it's totally the other way. If a drummer comes in and is scared of the click, it's a very rare and it's almost like they're ashamed to even tell me like, Hey man, I haven't recorded the click very much. That's probably something you're going to want to do, so you're going to really have to help me here, which of course, no problem, but the shift is totally from oh four to 2020. It's like a total, total shift.

Speaker 1 (00:04:35):

It's a 180. Yeah, definitely. It's an absolute 180. Yeah, it was like a mark of shame if you played to a click, which is interesting. I think that a lot of people used to think that if you played to a click, it took away your feel, but the best drummers always said that it helps your feel because you can figure out exactly where to push or pull it. I mean, we already know all this stuff, but it's just kind of interesting, especially in technical styles of music. I come from the metal

Speaker 2 (00:05:04):

World

Speaker 1 (00:05:04):

That's always been technical music of all genres where you would expect it to have been the norm. That's where it had the most resistance. It was the jazz drummers who actually play in let's just say elastic time, who all played do a click.

Speaker 2 (00:05:20):

Yeah, I mean, okay, so I shit for this, but I think a good drummer can really embrace and often does really embrace having the click because it's fun when you've got your metronome going and like you said, a good drummer will push and pull off the click in creative ways and know, okay, it's just a little helpful thing where it's like, yeah, I am going to speed up the first eighth note triplets of this fill so that I can drag out the back half of the fill to create that sort of speaking of the world, elastic like elastic moment of tension that leads to a stronger downbeat. That's what a good drummer knows how to do and they execute it well, and of course it's nice to know, boom, nailed it right on the one because everybody else is going to be counting on that. You get that play, you get that interaction in the end of your fourth measure and then that creates tension of its own.

Speaker 1 (00:06:03):

I was about to say that.

Speaker 2 (00:06:05):

Yeah, when that tension all lands on the downbeat, it just feels like, oh damn, I thought you're going off the rails, but you pulled it off. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:06:11):

Yeah. Someone told me that. It's called hanging, hanging the note.

Speaker 2 (00:06:15):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:06:16):

Or coming in on a downbeat slightly behind the beat after a pause, stuff like that, that's feel that elusive thing that everybody talks about feel, in my opinion, that is contained in that, and I think that great writing is based on tension and release

Speaker 2 (00:06:32):

And dynamics

Speaker 1 (00:06:33):

And dynamics and bending time the way that great drummers do. Like you said, speeding up the beginning of the fill and then hanging on the end. That's all part of tension release. Tension release isn't just a harmonic tension kind of thing. It's also in the rhythm.

Speaker 2 (00:06:48):

Yeah, I agree, and I think to some degree newer engineers or people coming into the field who maybe came up with programming drums first, then not having this experience putting live drums in. I get this a little bit where people think of drums as dots on a grid and not coming from that world. That's still a weird, in my opinion, not ideal way to think of those things because yes, it's a drum, but no, it does not only contain six levels of multis samples, it's an infinitely variable instrument. Just like every other piece of your kit is an infinitely variable instrument, so it's not like what does that symbol sound like when it's hit? It's like, well, are you using the tip? Are you using the bow? What's your angle?

Speaker 1 (00:07:28):

Did you already hit it?

Speaker 2 (00:07:29):

Yeah, right, right, exactly. Is it in motion or is it still any good Musician knows how to finesse their instrument if they're masterful in their craft in a way that really brings out the best and brings out lots of different sounds and dynamics and can play with the push and pull of the click creatively, and that's what makes something that maybe comes from my world a little bit, in my opinion, kind of cooler and more raw and punk because all of those non-linearities, to use a very audio term is what makes it exciting for me. It doesn't feel so staccato.

Speaker 1 (00:08:00):

Absolutely. So by the way, I think that drum software has come a long way.

Speaker 2 (00:08:05):

Me too.

Speaker 1 (00:08:06):

So this is not me talking shit at all. I think that where it is now compared to where it was even five years ago or 10 years ago,

Speaker 2 (00:08:13):

Oh, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:08:14):

Yeah, you can do great stuff with it obviously, and there's tons of great options and so this is not a negative statement, but I think that symbols are still hard and I think it's because of that infinitely variable situation. Symbols are even more variable than a drum itself, and I think that our computers are just not up to the task of calculating all the variations needed. How long would it take to actually sample symbols properly in order to get enough variations in there to be able to give the computer or the software something that it could then spit out sounding realistic? It kind of can With shells, you can get ghost notes sounding really great if you understand what you're doing. Symbols, it's starting to get to the point where sometimes you can't tell, but still I think the computers aren't there yet. The processing power's not there. It will be though also we just need more time. You need to spend a month sampling one ride.

Speaker 2 (00:09:15):

I know. I mean as someone who has made drum sample libraries

(00:09:18):

And yours is good. Thanks man. I appreciate that. I mean, doing the high hats, that's like a whole day, the amount of time, the different sticking articulations, the amount of resins and you're write something like a ride symbol if you bring in a big 24 inch sweet ride, I think resonates forever and are you going to catch all of it? You have to think about things given you're right with where computers are. It's like, well now you've got data sizes and how much ram does the usual computer have and how many other virtual instruments are they going to be using? So if you let your rides resonate in perpetuity at the highest sample rates, it's like, well, shit, there's a bunch of memory right there. And when do you get to a point of diminishing returns on starting to taper the back end of that ride off when it's basically silent or is it like when it's totally

Speaker 1 (00:10:01):

Silent, actually silent,

Speaker 2 (00:10:02):

Yeah, and there's a lot of time that passes between when a ride symbol is hit and when it actually reaches down to the noise floor of the room.

Speaker 1 (00:10:11):

Man, I know that even when I would do sample sessions for an album just to be able to replace bad hits, if we were going to do symbols too, that would take something that could be done in an hour and turn it into six hours.

Speaker 2 (00:10:25):

Oh easily. A lot of the mid 2000 metal producers, I won't name names, whatever, but I just, I'm aware of people where they just trigger all their shells, but they have all real ride symbols will do 'em in two goss basically, so there's no shell bleed in the quote unquote symbol mics and then they'll have for especially more aggressive genres, probably more your world like metal type stuff. It wasn't uncommon to have just a lot of drum samples and some real symbols because especially at the time symbols just weren't convincing.

Speaker 1 (00:10:51):

That was a common thing also. That was something, it's kind of funny. That's something that my then assistant, a dude named John Douglas, shout out to him. He's incredible. This is how we would overcome getting program drums to mix. We would set up a drum set and mic up the symbols and he would play the symbols over the programming and it was a lot quicker than having to set up the whole thing and then try to be drummers. He was good enough and even I did it sometimes we're good enough to play symbols well, and when you did that on top of the program drums, it yielded an acceptable result. Now that's for salvage operation situations, but I've definitely been in real scenarios where it's kind of about choosing your priorities because when you have so much audio information going so fast, it's like an onslaught of just transient nonstop.

(00:11:53):

I remember I counted 1800 kick drum hits on a Black Dahlia song. I edited drums on once. That's just one song though. It was like three minutes long. So you got to think about how much shit is flying at you. You need the precision that those types of techniques allow you. And now actually black dahlia's drummers, both Shannon and the newer guy would never allow that to be done, so it's kind of a bad example. They've always been about actually playing everything, but sometimes man, it's just a production decision, not based on anybody not being good enough. It's just you need that precision or else stuff's going to get in the way.

Speaker 2 (00:12:35):

People have a lot of opinions and they like to draw lines about what is okay, what is acceptable. It really all comes down to preference because I don't know, it used to only be acceptable to record a tape and then digital recording came out and everyone shit all over it. Now no one records on tape and you're just like, I accept that and it's the same thing as where does production end and performance end and how do those things interplay? I usually say it comes down to, of course I have my own preferences, but I don't necessarily need to impose those preferences on everybody I work with. My job is more to be a vessel for their art and take what's in their heads and the references they give me and it'll have my own spin naturally it's going to be filtered through me, but take all of that stuff and create something that they're proud of and is translatable and sounds appropriate to the world that they're in and sometimes that sounds like in utero, you know what I mean? And sometimes that sounds like August Burns red.

Speaker 1 (00:13:31):

Just to echo your point about recording mediums changing and people accepting that. I just had Bob Clearmountain on the podcast last week and I asked him, because he's known for his analog approach and I asked him, is there one thing about the analog world that you wouldn't bring with you into the future? His answer was recording to tape of course, and he went on and on about it, which I thought it was interesting because there was a time period where everybody, including people who didn't know what the fuck they were talking about, all the way to people who did would say Tape is better, tape is better. Digital sucks, digital sucks. Tape is better. Digital sucks.

Speaker 2 (00:14:10):

Right

Speaker 1 (00:14:10):

Now you've got the king himself being tape sucked. Digital is better.

Speaker 2 (00:14:16):

Well yeah, people thought tape was magic. It's insane. They thought like, oh bro, to tape sounds awesome. I'm like, you have no fucking idea, and you could just tell somebody if something sounded like, I don't know, it sounded like a relatively natural recording. It could have been recorded in Pearl Tools 1.0, but it was just not overly eqd. It was just sort of microphones going in and being spit back out on some sort of stereo bus. They would be like, oh, sounds great. Yeah, I did this to tape. And they'd be like, I can tell they don't know.

Speaker 1 (00:14:48):

I remember back in the late nineties when I was first starting to borrow gear from this producer guy, this was a producer who did pre-pro for really big bands. That was his spot in Atlanta. So for people who are under the age of 30 or 35, back in the days of the big studio when that was the norm, there were always this second string level of studios where bands did pre-pro and they were legit studios that made a living and kept the lights on and did great. It's just these major label bands would go to these pre-production studios with the pre-production producer mixer guy. They'd spend two weeks there and then they would move on to Brendan O'Brien or some heavyweight. So this guy that my band used to record with was the pre-production guy, and so he was telling me about doing pre-production with Motley Crew once and Tommy Lee had just bought a computer or something or a Nikki six and they were all excited about writing in a computer and he bitched them out and was like, stop fucking with all those toys. That's not how real musicians work, blah, blah, blah. Obviously he lost the project. I think it's hilarious. In fact, they were completely ahead of their time doing that in the late nineties, buying their own computers and writing in their bedrooms and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:16:11):

Totally, man. Obviously our community here of audio engineers is a pretty opinionated sort and overly to say the least, but it is funny how people just tend to romanticize everything from sort of their glory years. So I very much try not to do that. My favorite band, and I say it in every fucking thing I do, is Fugazi. They're not an active band. They were just like DC jangly weird, out of tune punk from late eighties, early nineties mostly. But that doesn't mean my assistants bring me stuff really modern punk and stuff. It sounds totally different, but I know that that's their Fugazi and that's okay. And if someone came in and was like, Hey, we're going after this, you don't say like, nah, get out. It doesn't sound like Fugazi, you got to go. It's like you're crazy. No, it's like the tools change, but we've proven now that you can make art great fucking art with almost any kind of tools.

(00:17:10):

I've made demos that people liked on a four track when I was 15 years old and it was about the performances that went in and stuff, and there's still a culture of people that would probably the way that those recordings sounded, they're out there. They probably have crusty dogs with bandanas around their neck, attending festivals, but they're out there and they like that and I think it's important to make the tools and the techniques master the stuff you like of course, but there's definitely not one way because there's people like bands that sound a million different ways. There's this new thing coming back where things kind of sound like in the and sort of punk world where it sort of sounds intentionally gritty and intentionally like air quotes bad, but it has a more 2020,

Speaker 1 (00:17:58):

It's got a sheen to it and low end.

Speaker 2 (00:18:01):

Yeah, it has low end is a big part of it because those old ones just in it and that's cool again, and things become real reciprocal in that way and I like that being a veteran engineer now I've seen a couple waves and I'm starting to see things like return. First of all, it just makes me feel old, but also seeing things come back and I'm like, yeah, I know how to do that. I haven't done it in a minute, but sick, let's go.

Speaker 1 (00:18:25):

The thing I'm happy that's coming back is I would say real recordings in a way, but not real in the way that it used to be. I actually made a post about that on Instagram today. It's a good one. It's the Drake meme if anyone wants to look. But real in the mid two thousands, well late two thousands, around 2010 in heavy music, the sound was a completely fake sound. It didn't sound like bands. It sounded, it was like electronic music almost huge sounded great on car stereos if you were testing your subs, but you couldn't close your eyes and imagine a band. In some ways I think that the bar was starting to go down and I think that now people have learned the lessons from that time period, good and bad. So the low end is still there. The volume in a good way is still there.

(00:19:16):

Maybe it's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still loud, but good loud. The clarity is still there. However, people have brought vibe back in, so you're getting all the stuff from that era that was good, but much less of the BS part of it of completely fake sounding drums, unrealistic sounding bands, all that. I feel like that stuff, at least in my world, doesn't seem to be what's moving the needle anymore. What's moving the needle now are bands that they do sound modern, but they sound like actual bands and actual music.

Speaker 2 (00:19:51):

Dude, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (00:19:52):

Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (00:19:53):

It brings joy to my heart. That's my preference of course. And I remember those 2010 era everything you're talking about. I remember, and I had a hard time emotionally attaching myself to a lot of that stuff because I just, like you said, I closed my eyes. I didn't hear performances, I heard nice sounds, but I didn't hear the player through it all and it clearly spoke to because I've been to those shows and I saw the crowds at the time and it clearly spoke to a generation or at least a piece of one, but it wasn't my preference, and I've even had to make records kind of like that, but I agree, and I'm seeing it. We turn records out here almost every day, so we're on the front lines of seeing that shift, and it's really nice. If I was to deliver anything resembling one of those mixes now I would have a healthy amount of aggressive mixed notes sent back to me because that's just not what people want.

Speaker 1 (00:20:44):

Even though I haven't been mixing for about five years, I've been on the front lines of seeing what people want, and I can tell you that the kinds of mixes that URM students submit now versus five years ago also, the kinds of things they want to see us present are way more in that direction than the fakey fake direction. Obviously there's still, like I said, some of that is not going away. You probably should know how to work with program drums, even if it's not your preference. They're not going anywhere. Program drums are here to stay, things like that are here to stay mid bass. I'm not saying that bass players are obsolete, but MIDI bass is not going anywhere. There's going to be, if you're mixing projects, there's going to be a handful of projects that come in with midi base, whether it's your preference or not, that's just reality now.

Speaker 2 (00:21:32):

I agree. Yeah, it's funny how I think we see that in everything without getting too social, but even in politics or social issues, the pendulum swings, man, and when it gets enough momentum, it usually swings all the way. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:21:45):

And then all the way back.

Speaker 2 (00:21:47):

But you're right, there's usually lessons good and bad to be learned from the swing of the pendulum we take with us all the good parts, you know what I mean? We'll swing the other way and there'll be new bad parts over there and hopefully we'll leave those there and we'll take some of the good ones and we'll just keep popping back and forth.

Speaker 1 (00:22:05):

So what's going to be the bad swing now? Is it going to get too raw and shitty and people are going to be like, I need polish again?

Speaker 2 (00:22:13):

I think we're just going to have a plethora of people not knowing how to balance and control upper mid range, just like we've already got that. Yeah, yeah. I guess in a different way, but when we were doing the 2010 thing, it was like all the sounds themselves were good, so they combined really easily when you're working with more chaotic, more distorted, maybe more real, more harmonically like infused sounds like, well, those are cool, but they're harder to balance, so you got to put on your mixing hat and know what you're doing. I dunno, more is the word, but differently for sure.

Speaker 1 (00:22:49):

More intricately,

Speaker 2 (00:22:51):

I would say. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:22:52):

Yeah, for sure. Alright, so speaking of work, obviously we're in some crazy times right now just for anybody listening long into the future, it's May 14th, 2020, so we're, I would say in the first third of the COVID-19 crisis,

Speaker 2 (00:23:06):

Probably

Speaker 1 (00:23:07):

Still going to get weirder from here. I think that's my prediction. Hopefully I'm wrong. I think it's just starting. So obviously people are having to rely on a hundred percent remote work model. How has that affected your business and what are some ways that you've found to successfully adapt to the quote new normal, even though I don't think we have hit the new normal yet?

Speaker 2 (00:23:31):

Yeah, I agree with you. Well, fortunate in the sense that I've been doing remote mixing work for over 10 years now, and that side of the studio has really built itself up a lot, and that's not surprising. Thanks to like yourself who educate people, they can now make better recordings and they don't have to necessarily go to a studio to do that, but a lot of times still might want help with mixing or mastering or whatever it is. So we get a ton of that. And so for me, I always say what I've learned about the COVID-19 situation is that I might have actually just been a hermit and not known it because

Speaker 1 (00:24:09):

I knew it.

Speaker 2 (00:24:10):

Yeah, my day to day hasn't been as drastically different, and I'm lucky you've been working in this industry a long time. We've got a nice studio, we've got enough land here so that I can go outside and stuff where it gets weird for me a slightly off topic when I go to Target and I'm like, oh, right. Things are weird. And then I'm like, I just want to go home again and just wait this out. Yeah. So it's been interesting. It's given me, because we aren't doing tracking sessions right now, not until we know that we can, again, fortunate that we're not in a position where that's going to tank our business whatsoever, but it's a bummer and that will change in time, but for now it's given me extra time to work on more mix and mastering. And then obviously this is a good segue. I had been programming with a developer I hired. We've been programming an AI that does mastering that we've been working really hard on, so I've had now pretty much, we were already building and then we're stuck at home, and so now it's like 14 hour coding days testing. And because I don't have to be down tracking for eight hours or whatever, somebody playing guitar that gives me eight more hours to write code.

Speaker 1 (00:25:16):

You know what? Yeah, I want to get to that in one second. You just said something real quick that I want to key in on because I haven't thought about this before. You said that now that people are able to track themselves better, it kind of changes the game for mixers. I kind of didn't think about that before, but you're right. If you know how to mix and you have some momentum with it already, it could make you that much more valuable in a time period like this because mixing is the hardest thing. I think that's the top of the mountain as far as I'm concerned in terms of skills. And so even if you get good at tracking yourself, which I guess a lot of people are starting to, most people still need help with mixes and the fact that they can record themselves well, that actually means that there's going to be more of a surplus of music that needs to be mixed.

Speaker 2 (00:26:06):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:26:07):

What all the mixers I've been talking to are actually doing a lot of work right now.

Speaker 2 (00:26:11):

Oh yeah. We're slammed here.

Speaker 1 (00:26:13):

It's not just you, man. It's like all my podcast guests and now the mix guests are fucking slammed right now.

Speaker 2 (00:26:19):

Yeah, it's great. I don't even know how many projects I have. I'd have to check my board, but I mean, we're sending revisions and things out every day to a whole bunch of bands. All the records are really good too, and I tracked one or two of them, but most of 'em came in from outside of tracking here,

Speaker 1 (00:26:34):

So that's actually really cool. And the other thing you said that I want to key in on is that you had built it up to this point. So one thing that I've thought about a lot, because for instance, URM is doing real well, riff hard is doing real well during this time period. The thing about it is we thought a black swan was going to hit two years ago. We had meetings about this and we're, it's been too good for too long. A black swan is coming. You're familiar with that term?

Speaker 2 (00:27:02):

I think I infer what it means

Speaker 1 (00:27:04):

That something's going to fuck you up, but you don't know what it's going to be. The thing you didn't think of. I mean, yeah, the black swans here, basically it fucked the whole world up, but we started gearing ourselves up for it a long time ago and just making the business, I guess, operate in a way that it could thrive in a time like this and it paid off. And what I'm getting at is I see a lot of people right now suddenly scrambling to do something new to try to make that work. And I guess if you have nothing going on, you have to, but at the same time, the lesson learned in my opinion, should be that you should be planning for this kind of stuff way out so that when it does finally happen, you're ready for it. Kind of like you just said about your remote business was already built up, so now it's just continuing. As opposed to if you had done none of that and then suddenly had to start scrambling to pick up remote clients, I think you'd be in a very different head space.

Speaker 2 (00:28:05):

No question, no question. I've always been very bleeding edge when it comes to technology, and it comes from, again, I'm a computer science major, so I've always been interested in the nerdier tech parts of recording, and when I first realized, I was like, wait, I don't have to track everything. That was 10 years ago, and I think I'm lucky to have done that, but I think good advice for anyone is that people still own horses and people still ride horses, but most people drive their car. You can love your old thing, you could love tape, you can love the old ways, you could love big consoles, you could love all of that. They aren't ever probably air quotes ever going to totally go away, but the evolution train of technology, and

Speaker 1 (00:28:52):

It's a tsunami

Speaker 2 (00:28:54):

And it's every industry recording's just one of them, right? It's like, are you waiting for cable TV to make its big comeback? It's not coming. My grandma's still going to have cable tv, but none of my friends have or probably will ever again have cable tv and it's the same thing. You have to be looking forward, you have to be looking at where things are going, not where things were.

Speaker 1 (00:29:16):

Yeah, man, that's very, very true. So I think back to about 2010, speaking of being able to see where the futures kind of headed, couple things. I remember back in that day when bands started recording themselves, a lot of the producers I knew were not pleased, not pleased at all. Some of those same people that were not pleased are still not pleased. And they post, you might know some of them, they've talked shit about everybody online. It's because they didn't seize opportunities back in the day and now are feeling the pain. But it was super obvious that bands are going to start recording themselves. This is just the beginning if they're doing it, and in year one you have three bands that wanted to record their own guitars, and then in year two you have 10 bands. Where do you think this is headed? If now suddenly bands don't come in for full albums, they just want to record drums in my room and then mix with you, where do you think this is going?

(00:30:14):

It's not going to stop, and no matter how much you bitch about it, this is the direction things are going. And I think that people who understood that and adapted to it are doing fine Now. It's kind of like the same thing with the online education thing. There was some point in 2012, 13 where it was just obvious to me that this is the future of education, and I know a lot of people did not agree with me and were very, very negative about it, but they're wrong. They are. This is the future of education. This is just the beginning and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's the same thing as cars versus horses to typewriters versus keyboards. There's a direction that evolution goes in and it is like a tsunami. There's nothing you can do about it, so fucking get on higher ground and make it work, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:31:05):

Yeah, no, you have to could not agree more. And a good way to know if you are pointed in that right direction is like if you're pissing people off when you tell them the thing that you're doing, if someone feels, and dude, it sucks. It's such a sociopathic way to say this, but if they're pissed, it's probably because they feel threatened or they feel insecure about what you are doing. Otherwise they wouldn't really elicit that emotion, and so they would just be like, oh, cool, good luck. But if they're mad at you're like, Hey, I'm going to go do a thing I want to do. I'm going to do all the work and I'm going to put it out there because I want to, and it's no competition to you. You don't have to do anything. And when people get upset with you putting your own energy into something you think is cool and you believe in and want to do, and you're like, how are you mad at me for that?

(00:31:52):

If people get mad at you for that, well, there's a chance you're on the right track, especially if the people in your industry, those people are mad at you because they're like, fuck, I'm not doing that and I don't know if I'm going to. That sucks. And the other thing that I think is really funny is you were ahead of the curve very much so with online education in this field, which is so awesome, but people would probably shit talk you, right? Yeah. Well, now he does it. Now I can't do it. And it's like, well, buddy, you were never going to do it anyway, but you can. Here's the thing, if you want to, you can. Best of

Speaker 1 (00:32:21):

Luck, dude. It's a huge wide world of internet out there and anybody can do it. But yes, that reminds me the people that shit talk who say that now I can't do it. It reminds me of the same kind of people who always wanted to do a project before COVID-19, but didn't have time, but now they have all the time, and they're still not doing that project. It's like you weren't going to anyways.

Speaker 2 (00:32:44):

They weren't.

Speaker 1 (00:32:46):

It's funny, I was talking to somebody about this last night. I know that sometimes when people talk about haters, they have funny things to say about them, but in all reality, I look at it in the more vicious it is. That's one of the only gauges I have that I'm on the right path because if you're not making an impact, nobody's going to care that much. If you're making an impact, it's impossible that everyone's going to love it. No way. There's going to be people who hate it, and the more viciously they hate you, that means that the more of an impact you're making. So while it sucks, we're all human, it kind of does suck. You got to reframe it into realizing that it's a great gauge for measuring the impact you're making.

Speaker 2 (00:33:30):

Yeah, it really is. It's a strange, counterintuitive, exceptionally accurate gauge for how well, if you're pointed in the right direction or not,

Speaker 1 (00:33:39):

Well, you see the shit they say and you want to drone their house, but in reality they're doing you a favor by letting you know that you're making a difference basically.

Speaker 2 (00:33:51):

Yeah, I don't understand because I don't do it and I don't like it. I don't understand the psychology of just having to speak poorly of things that I don't personally like. That's so weird to me. It is very weird, isn't it? I'll be dead honest with you, man. I hate overcooked asparagus. I hate it. I think it's disgusting, right? I am not on the vegetable forums of the internet going on about everyone who's overcooking their asparagus. You guys are ruining what could be a great thing. It just needs a little salt, just a little steam. You know what I mean? It's like, and here you guys are cooking it to shreds. It's like, I can't imagine ever doing that.

Speaker 1 (00:34:27):

Yeah, it's beyond me too. I don't understand being in that mindset. Me either. Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:34:34):

Listen, I've been cooking asparagus for seven years, let me tell

Speaker 1 (00:34:38):

You. Yeah, that is such a funny way to put it. The thing is too, that's kind of what it comes off to everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:34:46):

Yeah, of

Speaker 1 (00:34:46):

Course. Very, very few people look at people who spread mega negativity online. Seriously. There's some YouTube channels, for instance, that their whole shtick is talking shit. Only a very, very tiny amount of, I would say unfortunately minded people take it seriously. Everybody else just watches kind of funny to watch someone shit talk or something, or to actually shit talk the shit talker, but nobody actually takes those people seriously, and very few people want to get involved with them not doing yourself any favors.

Speaker 2 (00:35:21):

It's not fun. It doesn't do anything good. It doesn't go anywhere except you just earn your own dumb little echo chamber of being mad about something that you didn't even do. It's so weird.

Speaker 1 (00:35:30):

Yeah, it's funny. Alright, so let's talk about the computer stuff. Sure. You're working on a pretty impressive bit of AI technology called Master, right?

Speaker 2 (00:35:40):

Yeah. Had to name it that I had to,

Speaker 1 (00:35:43):

So it can master a track or an album. Let's just be real, man. A lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth with Lander, so why is this different? Let me just say Lander was a piece of maybe still is a website that you could upload your tracks to and it would spit out a master and it was notoriously terrible. Sure. Yeah. It became a

Speaker 2 (00:36:06):

Joke. Yeah, no, I know. Rolling off of our last topic, I don't want to go on a shit spree here, but I will say that I'm also aware of let's say the opportunities left in Sonic Quality for something that operates on a similar premise, but I think does it with a more graceful, and in my opinion, much preferential sonic output.

Speaker 1 (00:36:31):

It's not about shit talking Lander or something, but we got to be honest and real. If we're going to talk about what you're doing, we have to address that because people are going to immediately think, oh, it's just another lander and I want to make sure that people don't think that, so we just got to address it.

Speaker 2 (00:36:50):

It's really not. It's totally proprietary. My partner in it is an amazing software engineer, and so I like to say that I'm a music major with a computer science minor and he's a computer science major with a music minor, and it's a great combination, and so we've been working crazy on this thing and it sounds really good, so I know that it sounds good and here's why. I know, I mean, I know it sounds good because I know it sounds good, but then you've got to get outside opinions. You got to get beat up, you got to get the feedback. And so for, I maybe shouldn't announce this, but for a couple months I've been using it for some of my mastering work and I tell them after, you know what I mean? So I say I wait for the feedback. I don't want any bias coming back. I just want people to hear it. And dude, I could show you the emails and the messages I get about, dude, you crushed this.

Speaker 1 (00:37:42):

Read me some of them,

Speaker 2 (00:37:43):

I'd have to pull 'em up. First

Speaker 1 (00:37:45):

Of all, I don't think that it's a bad thing for you to announce that because you created it. So it's kind of like when Joey says that he uses one of his plugin,

Speaker 2 (00:37:55):

Right? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:37:55):

Totally. He uses gain reduction on vocals. It's like, well, he designed it to simplify his own vocal chains. The whole fucking point was he was making himself a tool that could allow him to get his own sound faster. Of course, he uses it, he made it.

Speaker 2 (00:38:10):

What's funny is the master is actually mastering a record right now as we speak. Oh, nice. Yeah, so here's some messages. He must have just opened the file. Damn, this sounds so good already. Whoa. Damn, dude, thank you so much. Everyone is freaking out about how good these sound. You really made these perfect. Let's see, and it says, and then

Speaker 1 (00:38:29):

Go fuck yourself now.

Speaker 2 (00:38:30):

Yeah, I know. It was just like, yeah, honestly, these sound so incredibly good. I'll be recommending you. I mean, that's pretty glowing. Yeah, that's a real client. Totally. Who I was of course overseeing. I didn't change anything. So

Speaker 1 (00:38:43):

You didn't pay for that email?

Speaker 2 (00:38:45):

Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 (00:38:46):

Like auto info

Speaker 2 (00:38:46):

Marshals? No, I made sure with all of those clients to oversee things and take special care and responding to them directly and making sure that they are truly happy. They're real clients. That hit me up, but I didn't change anything as far as the AI was concerned. I let the AI do its job and then I sent them the output of the AI basically as a control, like a test to see am I drinking my own Kool-Aid too much here, or is this thing really good and turns out other people like my Kool-Aid,

Speaker 1 (00:39:13):

That's what matters.

Speaker 2 (00:39:14):

Right,

(00:39:15):

Exactly. Yeah, so we're super excited now. We're in the stages where, like I said, it's mastering a record as we speak, and we are doing crazy stuff, virtual machine scaling and also prepping for the early onboarding of, I've got I think 350 people already lined up for pre-registered, and so we're going to start filtering those people in very soon and we are making gooey adjustments and stuff like that to add all the creature comforts to make it a really pleasant experience. The core ability of it totally in place now. And now it's making it just nice and pleasant.

Speaker 1 (00:39:50):

And I can tell you from developing stuff that lives on the web and having people sign up, that there's always going to be things that you just didn't think of.

Speaker 2 (00:40:01):

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 (00:40:02):

Yeah, you can't possibly think of everything. This is actually the reason for why people urge creators to just get a minimum viable product out is because you can sit there and try and think of every single thing. There's going to be shit that happens that people don't like or something you didn't even think was a big deal that people love and there's no way to know until you get feedback.

Speaker 2 (00:40:29):

And dude going through a development process and starting to onboard artists and clients, it's like I treat it the same way that I would treat doing a record for someone, which is like, I know how to master records, dude, I'm not making this for me. Really, I'm making this to empower everybody and give them a great tool. So what do I care about? Well, man, I care about what they think. I care about what they want. I want to implement the features that are requested. I want to make sure that everyone has an awesome experience. Of course that's going to benefit me and my team, but also it's going to super benefit them, and I think they'll feel like responded to and a part of the community and site, at least at first where we're going to, we're a new thing, but I mean obviously I think it's the best.

Speaker 1 (00:41:08):

You ready for the hate?

Speaker 2 (00:41:09):

Oh, fuck yeah. I don't care. I already got it, dude. I posted a video with some examples being like, Hey, we're taking early access registrants. Here's a video showing before and after, and some people are like, oh my God, I need this dude, I got so many messages. That sounds crazy. Dude, can I get in? Can I get in? I was like, yep, well put you on the list. We'll see. But then, yeah, I got a guy from France and he's just like, I hate this bullshit. He's like, I'm going to steal a terrible accent right now. But he's like, I put this into F Pro and this, by the way, I assume what he sounds like

Speaker 1 (00:41:40):

Was the accent in the text.

Speaker 2 (00:41:42):

Yeah, I could just read. That's how I read it. And he's like, I put up a limiter and phase flip, and I was like, you were lying. It did not phase cancel. It didn't trust me. It like all you did was make it louder. And so I wrote Fucking my fault probably. I wrote a nice message back. He's like, Hey, just so you know, I went and I looked at that particular file. I was like, here are actually some of the adjustments it made. Here's why I think the AI decided to make those, and here's blah, blah, blah, and if you check for this, if you check for that, completely disproving the entire thing. Like a fool. I engage in something on Facebook and he hits me back. He was like, I will not be buying into your bullshit, but I will let everybody else make up their mind. And I was like, well, thank you so much, sir, for letting everyone else use their own brain, man,

Speaker 1 (00:42:24):

How altruistic of him.

Speaker 2 (00:42:25):

Wow, what a guy.

Speaker 1 (00:42:27):

Yeah, so kind. Yeah, though I will say at least you responded nicely.

Speaker 2 (00:42:32):

I always do, dude, to I will never, you could say anything and you'll never get me to join the yell and shit talk on the internet club. It just, it's not my speed.

Speaker 1 (00:42:44):

What else I've learned too is one thing that happens with online education is that there's a stigma attached to it that you're scamming people, and it's because there are a lot of scammers in online education, and it didn't start with audio, it started with internet marketing and it's kind of like an offshoot of the infomercial shit from the eighties and nineties. Look at this mansion. I'll show you how to get rich if you buy this book kind of stuff. So that vibe, which is appropriately disliked, but people kind of associate that with any online education. And so we've had to fight that because obviously we're not scamming people, but there's always going to be somebody who thinks that I've noticed that the best way I can approach it is not to be like, it's not a scam motherfucker. It's real is to be really, really nice to them and offer them a free month and be like, why don't you come see for yourself no catch. You can leave free. Just come hang out. And if you still think it's a scam, fine. They end up being fans usually.

Speaker 2 (00:43:48):

Usually. Yeah. And that's the thing. You treat 'em with a little bit of care. I love that mentality honestly, man, and I think it's very easy. I learned this early enough in life, it's very easy to know if someone's full of shit because when they are confronted in any manner about something that they're insecure about, they lash out and they get really defensive, and it's very easy to ascertain whether or not someone really believes in what, you don't have to believe in what they believe in, of course, but if you can at least figure out if they believe in what they believe in and by maybe asking them some questions, even if you come in kind of hot, if you come in hot and the person responds to you in a cool and calculated manner, there's a very high chance that that person is just confused why you're so angry and they're happy to hopefully be like, Hey, okay, whoa, you seem pissed about a thing I did going on. Anything else? And if you were to respond, what? No, like you said, fuck you. Then of course right away you're like, okay, that guy might be full of shit.

Speaker 1 (00:44:43):

Doesn't really work out too well that way. So you mentioned a pretty cool effect of the service master

Speaker 2 (00:44:50):

Master

Speaker 1 (00:44:51):

Being that mixed engineers can send their clients a more radio ready version in the song so that the client doesn't have to get too caught up in an unfinished mix. How does the flow of starting the use of your product to sending the client work?

Speaker 2 (00:45:06):

Yeah, so that'll be coming out shortly. Phase two, basically Phase ones is sort of done now, but what's going to happen is, so you are a mixed engineer let's say, and it becomes a part of your delivery process. So here at the studio, even if people are here or whatever, we've got a pretty streamlined process where we send mixes out every night on everything that we worked on. We want to remove the middleman of, first of all, it's important to know that running your files through this service does make them release ready, period. And it removes the middleman of, from a mixing engineer's perspective, how many times have you sent something to a client and then they say, okay, sounds cool. Just the snare is kind of loud, and you're like, yeah, and you have to explain this. The reason the snare is kind of loud is because when this gets mastered, transient based material is going to duck into the average material. And for that reason, I need to add a little bit of supplemental snare, which trust me, won't be quite as loud at the time. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:46:05):

Yes. And it sucks because you have to try to get them to imagine something that you know what it's going to sound like, but they're not in your head, so how are they even going to understand

Speaker 2 (00:46:15):

They're not engineers? So then they're like, okay. And you always feel that little bit of like, I'll take your word for it, but okay, is it possible to hear one? And then that's why people get into doing like, well, lemme put a limiter on it, but that's a horrible idea, right? Because then it's just a different illusion of this approximates. What might sort of happen when you master this and what if, and I really think we're proving this, what if you could take out the middleman entirely? What if you could your client delivery system, imagine a Dropbox for lack of a better term, that when your clients listen to things, they are done in terms of, there's no guessing about how loud the snare would be. So they hear what could easily be the final product. And all the mixed notes are incorporated. So as they click on the wave, there's a wave display that everyone gets.

(00:47:06):

So you see the old wave, you see the new wave, and then you click anywhere in the timeline as you're listening, hit a button, you drop a note. And for the mix engineer, those list chronologically. So as a mix engineer, you can do deliver final product every time to your clients. You can consolidate all of your mixed notes into one place. Everybody can log into your portal and you can share that with your clients. Everything's bundled into, let's say you got 10 projects going on at time, well, you get to see all 10, but of course each one of your client just sees their own project. They can see the old versions. We can make revisions based on revision history. We can look at the old notes. Everything is very elegantly kept and compartmentalized in a way that makes your workflow way faster. And it's not only a better user experience for the mixing engineer, it's an exceptionally better experience for the client as well because the client is just like, this sounds awesome, and so are we good? And I'm like, well, do you have any more notes? Like, no, we love it. Fucking we're good. Go for it.

Speaker 1 (00:48:04):

When it spits it out, does it spit out multiple different specs?

Speaker 2 (00:48:08):

Yep,

Speaker 1 (00:48:09):

We can do that for iTunes. All that shit.

Speaker 2 (00:48:11):

Yep. All of that stuff will be happening. So you'll obviously have 24 bit 44 ones, but yeah, if you need some MP threes made and if you want four iTunes and all of that loudness stuff, that's going to all be handled internally, dude, it's seriously wildly efficient and great. It's going to, if the adoption goes well, and I don't see any reason it wouldn't, it should be a really effective tool for everybody to make better stuff faster.

Speaker 1 (00:48:36):

One thing with Lander was sometimes it sounded okay on specific genres like homemade rap or something.

Speaker 2 (00:48:45):

Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:48:46):

Sometimes it sounded, and when I say, okay, I mean better than what the dude would've done, maybe that's the only time it would ever not be terrible, but you put anything rock or metal through it and it was just a disaster. I mean, I think that nothing it ever put out was pro level.

Speaker 2 (00:49:05):

Yeah. I mean, I agree.

Speaker 1 (00:49:06):

Yeah, nothing was ever pro level, but sometimes in those more electronic based genres, you would get something that was more passable on an amateur level. But anyways, what I'm getting at is how's it going to do the right shit for black metal versus IMU versus Defeater?

Speaker 2 (00:49:30):

Yeah. So we are considering putting in some course controls. People have different preferences. So phase one, which is basically done now sounds just great basically on everything. But we understand that people are going to have some preferences. We don't want this to turn into a mixing game, but we have totally entertained and probably will implement some very basic dropdown or some elegant, gooey work version of if you like, things a little bit more dynamic or if you like things, because we don't expect everyone to have necessarily the exact same taste, but we definitely believe in what we're doing. We think it sounds awesome. I would say if anything right now, well, it sounds good on everything, man. I posted a video you should check out, but they also good. And in that video there's straight up like rock, very harmonically complex.

Speaker 1 (00:50:18):

Man. I should have checked it out. I had a weird little bout of gastritis. Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:50:22):

I'm sorry to hear

Speaker 1 (00:50:23):

That. It sucked. Yeah, no, I'm fine now. It was just a weird two days. It was right when you posted it. I had it ready, but I wanted to die.

Speaker 2 (00:50:30):

Oh, that's so good.

Speaker 1 (00:50:31):

And I wanted to die more than I wanted to check it out, and then

Speaker 2 (00:50:34):

I forgot. I think that's the right move,

Speaker 1 (00:50:37):

But

Speaker 2 (00:50:38):

Really

Speaker 1 (00:50:38):

I'll check it out after this.

Speaker 2 (00:50:40):

Yeah, cool. You have to know what you're doing. You have to have the experience. That's why you need the music major computer science minor with the computer science major and the music minor because what do I know how to do? Well, I know how to make records and I know where harmonic issues are going to occur, and I know which ones are going to be more irritating and how they usually pop up and how to program an AI to make these choices and these preferences to look out for. Exactly that kind of stuff. Where my partner, who's an amazing programmer, works for, I can't say who, but he works also for this huge company just crushing it.

Speaker 1 (00:51:09):

The NSA?

Speaker 2 (00:51:10):

Yeah, the NSA. Exactly. He's already listened to this podcast even though it's not out, and he helps me implement things more efficiently on the computer science side. So it's a great meeting of the minds. Ultimately, it's going to be up to the users, but we believe really strongly in it. Of course, like any product band, like any product, there's just going to be people who don't think it's that sweet and That's okay.

Speaker 1 (00:51:34):

There's going to be some people also who are already great at mastering and just don't want to use it.

Speaker 2 (00:51:40):

Totally. And then there'll be people who are solid at mastering, but do want to use it because they're like, it's fucking fast. You know what I mean? And it's great.

Speaker 1 (00:51:48):

That would be me.

Speaker 2 (00:51:48):

Yeah. Right. And I don't know, it's taxis and Uber. It's horses and cars, you know what I mean? Like you said, there's a lot of space on the internet and there's a lot of space for new products and new ideas and iterations. What, is everybody still in MySpace? No. Right. People move on.

Speaker 1 (00:52:05):

They're on Friendster.

Speaker 2 (00:52:06):

Yeah, they're on Friendster. Bro. You met my wife on Friendster. We're such good friends. But yeah, so to answer that question, I feel like using adjectives is a little bit tricky, but it is, in my opinion, and apparently my client's opinions sounds fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:52:22):

I'm very stoked to check it out. Cool. I feel like it's one of those things where if anyone could pull it off, you could pull it

Speaker 2 (00:52:28):

Off. No, thanks, man.

Speaker 1 (00:52:29):

Also, I think that that dynamic with your partner, I have a similar dynamic with Finn where he's kind of like a business major with the music minor, and I'm a music major with a business minor, and it works really, really well for doing stuff like this. You need your partner to have very good understanding of music, even if they're not an expert at making it or something.

Speaker 2 (00:52:49):

Yeah, no question. And so I went through, I burned through

Speaker 1 (00:52:52):

10, you went through the pain of getting someone that doesn't understand music to try to do this with you.

Speaker 2 (00:52:57):

Yeah. I went through developers,

Speaker 1 (00:52:58):

I'm sorry,

Speaker 2 (00:52:59):

Who were like, yeah, I can do that. When you start looking for someone, you get a lot of references and referrals. It took me a while to find someone who got it, who totally understands what's supposed to happen and maybe does not have the sonic expertise and experience that I do, but in our lives he branched off and he started programming more and doing music on the side. I started doing music and programming on the side, and it's just a great combo.

Speaker 1 (00:53:23):

So I didn't even know that you did on the side, but I've always thought of you as an entrepreneur type and you're always doing something new. So I guess it doesn't surprise me that you always did that, but I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (00:53:35):

Yeah. Yeah. I dropped out of Berkeley after one day and then I went and registered for a computer science program.

Speaker 1 (00:53:43):

Man, I wish I had dropped out after one day. I should have. Yeah, I know. Just on the whole entrepreneurial thing, has that ever, I'm sure it has because you now have a very good attitude about dealing with haters and stuff, but I feel like we come from genres where entrepreneurship is not celebrated as opposed to say rap, where

Speaker 2 (00:54:05):

You're right,

Speaker 1 (00:54:06):

It's like a mark of honor if you're an entrepreneur that's like the top of the mountain are rappers that have nine businesses and made it work and where their music is just one part of it. But if I look at the metal and rock and punk world, it's kind of looked down upon. However I agree. The people I know who are good at it, they're the people I look up to and kind of relate with the most. For instance, periphery or something.

Speaker 2 (00:54:33):

Yeah, that's a very good call.

Speaker 1 (00:54:35):

That's the perfect way to take advantage of being in a band that people like.

Speaker 2 (00:54:40):

Yeah, they do such a good job. I love how lighthearted their marketing stuff is, and in my experiences talking with those guys are awesome. I love seeing that. I don't know, man. I think one of the least punk things you could do is try to hold someone down. Yes. You know what I mean? If someone's excited about something and they're on one, just let 'em them go. First of all, if they're a real go-getter, entrepreneurial, whatever you want to call it type, you can't hold them down.

Speaker 1 (00:55:06):

No. There is no stopping them.

Speaker 2 (00:55:08):

There's no stopping them, and they're going to go. And I think it's cool to celebrate our friends. It's cool to celebrate fucking dude. If we didn't have people who were just go-getters, we would've no vaccines. We would just still live in mud Huts. It's like why all of a sudden in certain genres or certain classifications, is it not okay to be an excited, intelligent individual who's driven to create and make and dude not everything is

Speaker 1 (00:55:33):

And make the world a better place?

Speaker 2 (00:55:35):

Totally. It's so weird. I think there's a lot to fear-based thoughts, especially now, especially if you're the type of person that's susceptible to hate on social media or that type of stuff. Like dude, yeah, you'd probably just sit in your room and be scared to do anything because you'd be like, ah, well someone's going to shit. Talk me and then I'm going to be ruined. And then you'll play out this entire situation that may or may not happen, but ultimately leaves you right where you are, which is just sitting around not doing stuff that you might think is awesome. And so dude, anyone can say whatever they want, man, that's fine. The people that know me and love me, they celebrate my successes and I've had failures. Dude, you just get back up from the failures and like you said, the pendulum swung the wrong way. Well, lemme take the good stuff there and let's try to swing it on back.

Speaker 1 (00:56:17):

Yeah. Is this something that is your attitude towards this, is this something that you grew or have you always been this way about it? It seems very healthy, and I can tell you that actually I share your attitude, but I didn't. I had a hard time with it for a while. I still did what I was going to do anyways. I never let anything stop me, but the repercussions of it did affect me a lot. Now they don't. Now that's good. Yeah. I got past it, but I had to get past it. Did you have to or are you just pretty wired like this?

Speaker 2 (00:56:50):

It's in there and you could trace back elements of this for as long as I can remember. But I would say as I've matured and had more experiences and know what it takes to make successful entities now and all the hard work that goes into it, and when you have a couple wins, you know that they're not all going to be wins and that people are just going to say stuff, but it's just easier to zoom out and say this part of the deal. And I don't know, especially in the internet, man, how many times has someone had something to say about something, but then you see them and they're like, Hey man, what's going on? You're just like, right. Yeah. And you're like, not much dude, how are you? And I just always go high road with it because I really don't have time for it. Don't see any benefit at all in not being stoked for myself, not being stoked for basically anyone who's just on one and wants to go do something.

Speaker 1 (00:57:43):

But I don't just mean in public. I mean in the script that you play in your head, have you always been like this or was it a lot harder to deal with at one point in time? More of a

Speaker 2 (00:57:54):

Battle? I would say more of a battle, yes. I'm probably a little, I just kind of am sort of wired this way and I can trace that back. But yeah, absolutely. Especially dude, if enough things kind of hit wrong. I had a point in my life to be completely candid in 2015 where many, many pieces of my life were falling apart and I was just like, holy shit, am I bad? Is this on me? It's hard to not doubt when you look around and you don't see anything too awesome happening in your immediate world, you're like, okay, whoa, but what are you going to do? Are you going to live there? You're going to wallow. It's like, nah. I think the thing that I have and I'm very lucky to have is this place sucks. I don't want to be here. This place sucks. So let's go to not this place. And I don't exactly know where that is, but I do know that this sucks. So let's get up. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (00:58:48):

I was actually talking about this with somebody last night. The thing when you're in that place that I think is really important is I don't believe in this woo woo love yourself shit, because what does that even mean? But the thing that is kind of crucial is to allow yourself time. Because if you know that you're in a place that sucks and that there's something better and you know want to do something that makes some sort of an impact and you have an idea for a better life, but you don't quite know what it looks like, it could take years. It could literally take years. Probably will. It will. So I find that a lot of people don't give themselves the patience to deal with the dark times and then they never end up coming out on the other side because they think that this rough patch should last six months no matter. It's like no, it could last five years.

Speaker 2 (00:59:42):

Absolutely,

Speaker 1 (00:59:42):

It could. It's interesting you say that. My roughest patch was when a bunch of stuff went wrong at the same time,

Speaker 2 (00:59:50):

Totally.

Speaker 1 (00:59:50):

Basically from personal to business and nothing cool was going on. Cool stuff had happened in the past, but it was not happening. And it's like, am I a fuck up or something? But the thing is that even though a part of me was kind of mentally stuck there, which fucked up my health for a while, part of me didn't allow myself to live there and it took years, but here we are. So

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):

That's awesome to hear. I relate to that so much. And you used a word that I don't love, but used it in a way that I agree with. And that word is,

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):

I'm so sorry. Yes. Well, I'm going to tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet about

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):

This right now and you are fucking canceled. But the word is should and if anything should be a way, it already would be that way. And so what did I say? You said when you were talking about how people who think that this dark period only should last a certain amount of

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):

Time. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):

And it's like, well, I'm saying that's erroneous thinking. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. No, and I agree with you. I know that and the should mentality is really an entitlement mentality, and entitlements are like the death of success. They're the death of happiness. If you feel entitled to something, I think you're crazy because you will get everything you're owed when you make sure you get it. There's no entitlement there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):

I know a lot of people don't like him, but I was still sending to a Grant Cardone book the other day and he kept saying this phrase, who's got my money? Who's got my money? And I was like, you know what? He's right. That's how I used to feel when I was producing bands and not getting paid and waiting six months to get paid, and I felt powerless to do anything about it, and I started to think about, well, I need to create a life for myself where I know who's got my money and it's me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):

Rather than expecting them to change or feeling entitled for the entire system to change, I don't like how it works.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):

It doesn't

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):

Work, it doesn't work. You can't do that. You have to create your own world. If you don't like the world you're in, you have to imagine one better and then make it happen. Entitlement. A lot of people use that word nowadays to make fun of young people, and I think that it's an unfortunate way to use that word because there's something a lot deeper there. That word should be studied and the way that people approach life and use entitlement really should be looked at and it shouldn't be something that just gets associated with 60 year olds yelling at 20 year olds.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):

Yeah, no, I agree with you

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):

Because eliminating entitlement from your life is kind of one of the musts if you're going to do anything cool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):

Yep. No question.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):

Because the world doesn't owe you jack shit. The universe is going to do what the universe is going to do

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):

And it will consistently make that clear to you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):

It will consistently let you know we don't care. And it's like if anyone out there is a modern life as war fan, I certainly am. There's that line. It's like the world is not to get you. It just doesn't care. And it's like that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It means that it's your playground to do with what you will. People have different if you want to go work somewhere and you're like, I don't really love the job, don't really hate the job, but you know what? I really love doing drinking beer on my couch. I fucking love my couch and I fucking love beer and I love the Simpsons, and that is what I want to do, bro. Go get it. Seasons three through 10 are amazing. I recommend those the most and go do that and that's awesome. And there's nothing that means, or you should even feel remotely pushed or you're supposed to go start companies and build fucking ais.

(01:03:31):

You don't have to do any of that. You can totally just make yourself happy. But the hardest part is being confident and honest about what does make you happy and then stopping at nothing to get there. And it could be as easy as I'm completely happy with this job that I don't love, but it gives me all the free time and some security and some security. You want to be an entrepreneur, you just kiss all your free time goodbye as gone now. So you better not value free time because you probably won't succeed if you do in that capacity, but you could succeed in another capacity, which is like, I like chilling and that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):

Chill. I'm actually kind of envious of that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):

No, I feel the same way, honestly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):

Yeah, I've thought about that a long time. I think they got a better deal. I know they may not realize it, but I think they got the better

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):

Deal. Well, yeah, sometimes am I the insecure one? I just have to keep making stuff. I got to keep doing stuff. They're like, bro, chill. I'm like, I guess kind of good point.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):

I do think that there's got to be some element of insecurity to it. I know that if I'm not hunting something or going for something big where the goal seems crazy or something that a couple of years ago wouldn't have even been possible, if I don't constantly have something like that or I'm not constantly going for that next thing I do start to get insecure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):

Me too.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):

But I think also just reality sense. My whole financial security comes from me doing extreme things like that, so the moment I stop, my financial security goes away. I do believe that if I were to stop pushing, this would all crumble very fast. It would be a matter of months and it would be done maybe a little longer because it's subscription based, but still point remains though that without that push, that push is the security. So yeah, I do think there's an insecurity to it and there is some fear to it, but it's not in the way of I need to feel validated by this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):

Yeah, no, I mean that's a very realistic way to thinking about that and I definitely identify with and respect that too. Something I gain a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):

I know you're the same way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):

Yeah. I get so much joy out of, I can look out the window in my studio right now, and my kid and my wife just walked by and they're both wearing funny little hats and it brings me so much joy to have a place and the drive to make sure that we have a happy life. A lot of that, that is the real goal, man. When I see my kid doing well and stuff like that, it's just like, right, yes, I'm mastering AI is cool, and yes, my mentoring program is cool, and yes, I've been making records forever and that's all awesome. It serves a purpose in terms of I can't help but get after stuff, but I sometimes wonder I can't help but get after stuff because there's an overall need. Financial wellbeing is the modern day hunting. It's survival. It's like how do you provide for your family and your tribe? It's like, well, you better fucking go get it and you better go get it in the way that you know how.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):

Well, I think also if having a happy life is what you want, which I think is a great thing, if you did have financial security, but you were working that job that you didn't love and you were doing the couch thing, if that's not you, then I don't think you would have a happy life.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):

I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):

Because you'd get depressed or anxious or resentful of your situation, and then you'd probably be not such a good husband or dad, no question. Be around and your life. It might not be terrible. It might not be something you see on a reality TV show or an episode of Cops or there's a domestic abuse call. Sure. But I don't think you would be able to say you had a happy life.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):

Yeah. Again, I'm inclined to agree with you. I think we think the same way on this, and I don't mean to put that on anyone. Maybe you could, but I'm with you, man. I feel like an evangelist. I'm just here to feel my life with joy. I really am. I really am. I want to make cool stuff and I want to be a positive dude, and I want to help my community, and I want to take care of my family. Just seems like real basic noble shit that I do in an exceptionally nerdy way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):

Well, what I think is key though, and you said this earlier, but it's really, really important, is being honest with yourself about what it is you want. And this was tough for me when I played guitar and was in the band and I started to realize that I'm not that into playing guitar anymore, but I've played it for 20 years and have worked really hard at it, and this is what people know me for, but I really kind of don't give a fuck anymore and I'm on stage. We're doing tours that were not even possible at some point, but we did this one tour with Fear Factory in Europe and there's 2000 presales in London and it's just awesome. And I'm on there thinking of shopping lists or God, I'm so fucking bored, I just want to go home. It is just getting those thoughts and it's conflicting because on the one hand, you worked all this time to get to this point.

(01:08:37):

On the other hand, you're there and you don't want it anymore. Having to actually face that and be honest and come to terms with this is not who I am was tough. However, it's the best choice I could have made. And I think regardless of what it is, if it does mean that you just want a job and then a chill home life, if that's who you are, just face it and accept it because there's no way that you will have any peace in your head otherwise, you got to be honest with who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):

That's the most important and probably hardest part. That's the first domino, right? If you can't do that, if you cannot identify that, what are you doing? You can't push dominoes over. There's no succession, there's no possible destination, and I had the exact same experience. I toured same type of deal, and my mind was wandering, and what I realized about myself is that, and the reason I make new things is that who I am is someone who I'm not the type to get excited about something and not see it through. I fucking see things through no question. But once I have and it's reached, it's sort of end of what I would call it's lifecycle and stuff like I can move on and that's okay. I actually adore the idea that I might have a few of these big chunks of my life where I do different things and they take a while, man, it could be decade, decades per chunk, but I want to go all in. I want to reach my vision. I want to stand at the top of whatever that vision was and the way that I envisioned it so I can see where's the next peak.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):

Absolutely. The lifecycle thing is very, very real. Have you heard of the time sunk fallacy? I have not. It's the sunk cost fallacy. Individuals commit the sunk cost fallacy when they continue a behavior or endeavor as a result of previously invested resources like time, money, or effort. For example, individuals sometimes order too much food and then overeat just to get their money's worth, but the equivalent here would be you put so much time into your band that you can't leave because what did you do it for? Right. I completely disagree with that, but I know a lot of people who have stayed way past expiration date because of that fallacy. I put in so much time, I can't just stop, but you are absolutely right when you say that everything has a life cycle. With that life cycle, there's a death cycle. Knowing when it's time to bail on a project is key, and also just because a project is going to someday not exist doesn't mean that you shouldn't go all in. Like you said, fulfilling the vision is the only way that you're going to see where the next peak is coming from. To me, the analogy is kind of driving down a road at night with the lights on. You can only see as far as the lights will show

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):

You. Yeah. Asks a way to put that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):

The only way to see further is to keep going If you stop, you're only going to see as far as you can see at that point in time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):

Yep. I agree. It could be hard to decide, okay, this is my exit, I got to take this turn. But usually if you're being honest with yourself, if you're on that road, you're in the same car or whatever it is and it feels like you're making progress, but it's just not as fulfilling, you'll feel antsy in that car. You'll know you'll be like, nah, it's not doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):

Here's one of the ways I knew when I was first touring, I was excited by how much damage my body would take if I was carrying gear and slipped on ice and was bleeding everywhere. I would be like, fuck yeah, battle scars. I got knocked out on stage once. I thought it was the coolest thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):

Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):

When we had our accident in the blizzard, fuck yeah. Gang beatings at shows. Awesome. All that stuff was like, I don't know, it's not cool stuff, but it just made me more energized there. I don't know. There was something cool about it all, even if it was negative stuff at the end, that stuff happening was like, I need to get the fuck out of here. This is not worth almost dying over.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):

Oh, totally. I know, and it's just funny how things changed. I guess it just goes back to what you said and what I said too is that just finding the ability, it's probably the fucking one of the best skills you can get is figuring out how to be honest with yourself and identifying where you're at and what you want. You can do that much if you can get that far, which it doesn't sound like it's that far, but it really is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):

It's hard.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):

It's hard. If you can get that far, it's like to not then just go, you finally are like, this is what's up. To not just be like, get your motor going. It's real. I can't understand that. I honestly think that people who have difficulty getting their motor going have not yet found their thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):

Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:13:14):

For me, finding the thing is just like straight nitro, man. I'm just like, let's go. I can't not.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):

Two things. First of all, anyone who's having a hard time knowing when to bail, when the right time, they should read a book called The Dip by Seth Godin. It's very simple. It's like 70 pages long, could read it in one sitting. It helped me tremendously to understand that, and it's a hard thing to understand because you have to ask yourself this being a pussy here and just not willing to put in the work to see it through a hard time, or do I really just need to get out and that's actually a hard thing. It takes a lot of thought, but yeah, I think if the engine doesn't come on about something you want to do, I kind of feel like you're not thinking big enough or maybe just not thinking of the right thing. Anytime that I've had a goal but kind of fucked around about it, when I went back and analyzed why it was because I didn't let myself go all the way with it. So the way I do it, man, is I just go nuts with my goals. People would think I'm insane if they heard what they actually are. I won't talk about what they actually are because they will think I'm insane.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):

Sure,

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):

They're multiple times bigger than what people think they are, but that's what gets me going because I have this weird need to make a grand impact. Now, I'm not saying that everybody has to have that, but you have to know what it is that you're after, and you're right. If it doesn't get you charged,

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):

It ain't the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):

You need to adjust the targeting. Either the aim is wrong or the size of the target is wrong, one or the other, but one of those for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):

Yeah, no, I agree, dude. I know I have friends, like I said, to use that other thing, I have friends who are charged up to watch Gossip Girl again. Hey, good for them. It's a pretty all right show and you have at it. Yeah, no, I know. And some of us are just, I don't know what it is. I don't know what that difference maker is, but I think everybody does have a target and maybe if you're still listening to this podcast, I think that's a pretty key takeaway of things and what sort of could bring a lot of joy to your life. It's not getting it necessarily. It's all the fucking fun you're going to have going for it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):

Have you ever had the experience of getting it and being like cool for about five minutes

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):

Every literal, everything that I've ever gotten, gotten to

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):

Exactly five minutes. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):

And I'm like, okay. Like I said, you get to the peak so you can see the next.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):

Yeah. Have you ever, this is something that's funny to me. People have always told me to celebrate my wins and I don't get that. I don't feel like celebrating once they happen because like you, it's like a vantage point. When you get a win, you see what the next one is, and so the one you're on, it doesn't matter anymore. It's like it's over. You did it. So I keep getting told by people, you got to celebrate them, you got to cherish them. It's like all that stuff, it's like, yeah, I know what you mean, but no, what's there to celebrate? It's in the past,

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):

Dude. I can completely agree on probably many, many relatable, very relatable levels, and it's not that I'm not proud of it. I am proud of it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):

No, it's not about being proud.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):

It's really about, I don't know, how long do I got to celebrate for because I can see the next peak I want go.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):

Yeah. Do you ever celebrate your wins?

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):

No. And my wife last night because

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):

Do you do it for her?

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):

Yeah. What's funny is I really do.

(01:16:38):

I really do, and she does it for me and it's so true. And last night I was showing her monster. I was showing her, I'm like, babe, I fucking like this didn't exist. Now it exists. Listen. And she said some things I'm going to repeat that I did not say about myself and are very hard for me to say, but I'll just say what she said. She said, I watch you work every day, and sometimes it's really annoying because I just want to go to dinner and you keep saying one more minute, but she was like, sometimes I forget that I'm around a really prolific in important person in your own community and you should be really proud because you are relentless in your pursuit of success, and that's really cool. And I didn't cry, but fuck me. I was close and I was just like, like, man, that's a really nice thing to say and I don't know how to accept that at all.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):

Well, I mean something I've thought about a lot is if you want a partner that's going to be able to go to dinner every night, you probably don't want a partner that's prolific at anything. That's something that I think people need to accept about their partners. She's like, know who you're with. Sounds like she knows who she's with. She does. Yeah. That's a cool

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):

Thing. And I'm so lucky, man, just so lucky that she can see that and she's selfless enough to be able be a person like this and surround yourself with people who are selfless enough to be genuinely happy for success regardless of it's if it's your own or if it is someone inside of your circle. Because if you can share the joy of watching people around you, first of all, it means you're not a sociopath. That's probably good.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):

Yeah. It's just a little,

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):

Yeah. And it forms these bonds that just pay fucking dividends when you are genuinely caring for and excited for the successes of people and being there for when you probably went through it too, when everything was falling apart in your life and everything was falling apart in my life. The people that are still around, the people that love me, those people who really care about me and they know me, they know all about me and they know that I was just fucking having the time and that it wasn't going to be forever. And it was annoying to them. Of course it was, but they were there. It was annoying to you too. It was super annoying to me. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I'm getting all kumbaya with it, but it's really true.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):

Well, I mean it's important because have you ever been with a partner? I don't mean business, I mean romantic partner who is not down. They want the benefits of being with somebody successful, prolific, but they don't want the reality of it. That has happened to me a few times and it fucking sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):

Yeah. I mean, I came home from a tour and my wife was gone. My dog was gone. All the shit in my house was gone. She was gone.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):

Oh, previous

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):

Wife? Yeah, previous wife, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):

And I got home. I mean, dude, imagine just walking in your house and it was like the fucking show lost the most I got on an airplane. I literally went to Australia. Do you know what I mean? And then I just like the show and the difference is I come home, and that was a long relationship too. I was fucking married. It was a long relationship and it just was gone. It's just gone

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):

The end.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):

And that is hard as hell. You just walk into everything that you are surrounded with the room that you're sleeping in. Not that there's any shit in it anymore, but the room that you sleep in and the driveway you pull up into and the sound that the stair makes when you step on it and all of these things you don't realize you have such sensory for. And the fact that when I go to the door now, I don't hear the little claws because my dog is gone. You know what I mean? All of this stuff reminds you of the pain of the fact like, well, holy shit, I had and now I have not. And you just got to have the engine, dude, it's going to suck for a while, but you got to just be a goer, a doer because like I said earlier in this podcast, this place sucks and I don't want to be here. I don't know what's in any direction necessarily, but I got to start walking because this place sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):

So how do you set your targets? How do you know that? Is it like a light bulb that comes on in your head? Like say you're in that place that sucks and you start walking and then you walk far enough to start to see a peak or a potential peak. And that's really the way that you do it, is you start by fixing little things and then developing little momentum and then eventually that higher part of your brain kicks in. But what I'm getting at is how do you pick your targets? How do you know what to go for? Like I said, is it a lipo that just comes on or is it an analytical thing? And then how do you know that it's big enough to get you going?

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):

I think your headlight metaphor is really good here. You start driving not a lot of gas in the tank, and you start moving and you look around and you got to look, want to look, and you have to be able to say, like I said, I don't like this, so I can't just be here. So you got to move and then you'll come across, this is a little win. That's a little win and fucking growing out of a situation like that. And success is not linear, you know what I mean? It looks like a stock graph. It might be going up in general, but it might be a slow curve and there'll be dips in that curve, and those will be discouraging, but they will also suck. So what you'll find hopefully is that that dip while lower than where you were last week is higher than where you were two months ago and maybe only by a slight margin, but it's still higher. And that's still progress. It's

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):

Directionally correct.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):

Yeah, directionally correct. And after I get a little bit of momentum, I don't think when I'm in a place that's that low that I'm in a good head space to be like, alright, let me just take on this thing that's going to require a ton of energy and change the world and stuff. I'll make movements in that direction, but I will have a light bulb moments once I've built up enough momentum and I'm like, okay, something clicked. When I realized I knew how to make an AI because I was just doing things that led me there, my entire life has sort of led me to being the person who could do this with. I didn't know I was going to, I had no idea ever until I did. But when it hit, I was like, oh, yeah, I could do that. And then you kind of go like, yeah, that'd be fucking awesome. I'm going to, yeah. And then I feel the charge. I'm like, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):

Fucking rocket ship.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):

It's interesting, man, when you say the, I didn't know I was going to do this. I didn't know I was going to do this either. I knew I wanted to do something big and I still want to do things that are bigger, but I didn't know I was going to do this. And I think that planning too much is also the devil.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):

I think that, like we said, not really being honest with yourself about who you are is bad, but also I think it's just a form of procrastination really.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):

Yeah, that's a good way to put that. It really

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):

Is. It is. But it's a way that people trick themselves into thinking they're doing something productive. And that's why it's so deceptively evil.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):

So

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):

True. You think you're doing something, but you're really not. All you're doing is basically pushing back the potential of feeling bad over something, not working,

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):

Man to that. I have seen so many examples of that with friends of mine in their lives. I still see it with some of them. Please don't listen to this podcast. You'll know who you are or do

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):

Listen to this podcast

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):

Or do, yeah. Or maybe I need to go talk to you and not that you'd listen anyway, but yeah, I can agree more. I've seen it with studio owners, man, to bring it back to the studio world, I've seen them put these crazy business plans together. I've seen them get credit cards. I've seen them buy pieces of gear that they think they need to have. You need to have some gear, but bro, you don't need that rack full of shit. You don't have any clients. And they do the business plan and then it's like, I don't know, I guess they feel the dreams hit. They think it's like, okay, look, I got all this shit, so everyone will just know that I'm awesome now and come. I'm like, no, man. You got to provide value for other people. You need to go out and provide value just in your spirit, and you need to go out and provide value.

(01:24:37):

And you say, yeah, no. Come do a song with me. Oh, money's an issue. Well, let's work on that. Okay. Oh, you like the song? Okay, tell your fucking friends. Let me provide value for them. Do you want to do some more? Maybe we could find a more financial amicable situation here. You know what I mean? And go out there proactively provide value for people, and it really does pay you back more. It's crazy. And you develop relationships and you never know when those relationships, they'll just come out of nowhere and start lining up occasionally. It's like the more relationship possibilities you create, the more chances you have for this to line up and little synapse here. And sure, the vast majority of them may not offer you these bountiful situations, but if you don't start providing value and creating these networks, then there's none.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):

Well, and it takes a long time to build them up. I read this book called Where Good Ideas Come From, which everybody should read. It's the best book I've read about this in the past decade. It's incredible. You should read it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):

Well, you've given me quite the summer reading list already. I will.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):

This is better than anything else I recommended.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):

Okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):

I think it'll blow your mind, but there's a chapter, well, first of all, it talks about networks you just did. It also talks about this idea called the adjacent Possible, that basically great ideas all come from two different things that are possibilities combining in a way that was previously unplanned or unthought of, but you have to get to the point where that thing is even possible in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):

Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):

And by creating that network, you set the stage for the adjacent possible to even happen, like your music skills plus AI coming together. For instance, if you didn't have your computer programming skills, if you didn't have your music skills, if you didn't have the partner that had the music knowledge plus the programming stuff, if Lander hadn't already come out and did what it did, for instance, all these things come together to kind of set a stage for someone like you to then make master. Right?

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):

Yeah, no question.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):

And even on much smaller levels, you meet one person, you meet another person, they introduce you to a third person. If you had never met one of them, you might not get to that third person who then offers you this massive opportunity or even a little opportunity, which then introduces you to 10 more people. And then one of those 10 introduces you to somebody who then offers you a massive opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):

No question. Yep. Couldn't agree more. That's like you said, you just got to have the momentum. I like to live my life like the mediocre Jim Carrey movie. Yes, man. Where you just got to say yes to some shit and fucking follow through and do it. Listen, it may or may not be the thing you thought it was going to be, but I'll tell you what, it will absolutely be something and something is a lot better than nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):

Yeah. Do you have a problem saying no to things?

Speaker 2 (01:27:26):

It depends kind of, because if I'm excited about it, it's hard for me to not want to do it. But sometimes now I've had to because I did have a problem saying no to things. I've had to get a little bit more realistic with more effective ways to say yes for time management reasons. Or sometimes when it comes to clients and stuff, sometimes I'll have to say that it is just not a project I can take on because

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):

You can't.

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):

I can't. And so that's where building up my business with, again, finding the right people, man, so important. My assistant who works here basically every day is just, he's a crusher. He's just so good. And now with our captain Planet shit, right, with our powers combined, now we can take on clients that I would've had to say no to because now I can come in and I can make sure things are running. He knows how I want things, but I've got the experience. So I come in and he'll defer to me on stuff and I'll be like, okay, this is awesome, but I'll get the tones. I'll do whatever. I'll check in a lot during the process, but I can go. I'm doing other shit too. And it's also important to be transparent and upfront with clients who are like, they can't have their expectations not met in the sense like, oh, we thought we were working just with you exclusively the whole time.

(01:28:34):

It's like you need to also be honest with your clients and say like, Hey, here's how I want to do this. Just so you know, and I don't want you to worry. You can always come to me. And also, this is how we make records. And all those records that you like in the reason you emailed me in the first place, they were made in this way. And it's important for you to know that because it's going to be awesome. We wouldn't take on this project if we thought it wouldn't be. So just trust in that. But I want to be upfront with you to manage expectations in terms of just in case you were like, who's this fucking guy?

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):

Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds to me like you have the inclination to try to say yes a lot, but obviously you've gotten smart about when to not say yes. However, you have set up your life in a way that allows you to say yes a lot more often than not when the right circumstances present themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):

And you got to understand too, I own two buildings in Worcester, mass, so I've got to put things in place there with my property management. So I got a single point of contact there for tenants. Yes, I'm a bad landlord or something. I don't know. It's apparently not a very popular term right now. I think that I'm providing people a fucking place to live at exceptionally reasonable value. So I've got that stuff, and then I've got master, and then I've got my mentoring, so I have to take care of my students, and then I've got my clients and I've got my mission stuff, and then I've got my assistant. And on top of that, I have the most important thing. I got my kid, I got my family. So if I wasn't such an analytical person, if I didn't put all of these systems in place, first of all, it would've never scaled to this level. And second of all, it would all be falling apart if it even came close.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):

It sounds like it would be utter chaos. I'm just thinking about those people that wherever they go, they just bring chaos with them. Yes. Somehow there's always just chaos happening. Totally. There's always some situation like they're always broke or there's always something fucked up happening, and the common denominator is always them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):

It's always them.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):

Yeah. I think that order is not natural. It's part of why it helps you get ahead. It helps you stand out and gives you an advantage over other people. But doing this stuff like the extreme delegation and the disciplined analytical thinking and all that, it's not a natural thing for people. It's not the way things normally are. I mean, the universe, entropy is the order of things.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):

Agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):

Things move towards chaos, so we have to constantly fight that chaos every single day.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):

Yeah. That's why it takes energy to maintain the order. It requires a lot of energy because you can only control yourself, and then you can sort of put things in place where you can get more consistent responses from outside factors, people, whatever. And that's all the whole thing has to be managed because you don't get to just decide, oh, my intern's not going to quit, or My tenant's not going to leave, or whatever. That a pandemic isn't going to fucking break out. You don't get to control any of that. The only thing you can do is be smart, prepare, understand it's going to take energy, manage what you can the best you can while minimizing your own liabilities to a point that you have contingency plans available to you in the events that you can't predict exactly what they're going to be, but you can kind of generalize like, this might get fucked. That might get fucked, that might get fucked. And if you can sort of at least a little bit be like, okay, what would I do in case of that? That's probably worth figuring out. Yeah. Agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):

Well, cool. I think it is a good place to stop the podcast, man. Cool. Me too. It's been awesome talking to you. Likewise, dude. Glad we did this.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):

Always this,

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):

And I'm going to go watch that video right now.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):

Okay. Awesome. Yeah, lemme know what you think. Yeah. Anyway, so thanks for having me. Go URM.

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):

Cool. I'm sure we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):

Okay. Then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends, as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at Eyal Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.