FINN MCKENTY, JESSE CANNON & JOHNNY MINARDI: Music Industry Mistakes, The Problem With Drums, Beating Perfectionism

Eyal Levi (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 Levy urm audio. And let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

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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. Welcome to the URM podcast. I've got an awesome episode for you today. I've got some guests who have been on before, and if you know this podcast, you already know them. If you've been living under a rock, lemme just tell you. Finn McKenty is director of operations at URM, longtime co collaborator of mine, and you might know him from his YouTube channel on podcast, the punk Rock, NBA.

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He's a brilliant dude. I've also got Jesse Canon who has been on this podcast a number of times, and he's a producer, mastering engineer and author, and he produces the new Abnormal, a top 50 podcasts on the all podcast charts on Apple Podcasts. He also hosts the YouTube channel Muse Formation, where he teaches musicians to go from zero to 10,000 fans. And finally, last but not least, I've got my friend Johnny Menard on who is the vice president of a and r at Electra Music Group. And that counts fueled by Ramen Roadrunner, some others. He also runs self-titled Management, which manages the careers of some incredible producers and mixers, such as Will Putney Nly. Steve Abbots, this is a great episode. I'll stop talking. I introduce you, Finn McKenty, Jesse Cannon and Johnny Minard, Finn McKenty, Jesse Cannon, and Johnny Minardi. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank

Johnny Minardi (00:02:47):

You. Yeah, stoked to be here. Always

Finn Mckenty (00:02:50):

Happy to be here.

Eyal Levi (00:02:51):

So we're what, six months into the end of the world, basically

Jesse Cannon (00:02:59):

6.5? I'd say

Eyal Levi (00:03:01):

6.5. All right. So the reason I wanted to do this is because we're all friends in real life, and I think we've all either podcasted or done something like that at this point with each other individually,

Finn Mckenty (00:03:13):

I would describe us as acquaintances. Fair enough. Feels a little,

Eyal Levi (00:03:16):

A little. I was being polite, but yeah, I was being polite, man.

Johnny Minardi (00:03:21):

I will say you are three of my favorite podcasters. I've been multiple podcasts with two of you, and one of you doesn't have my email address to get me on his, I think at this point. So at some point, maybe if this goes well, maybe we could use some momentum into that.

Eyal Levi (00:03:38):

There we go. I'll put in a word for you if it helps. We'll see.

Speaker 5 (00:03:42):

He's a tough

Johnny Minardi (00:03:42):

Cookie.

Eyal Levi (00:03:43):

I'll put in a word for you. Yeah, yeah. She's got high standards. What can I say? So what's the dumbest shit you guys have heard so far from people in the music industry about getting through this for me, because I'm paranoid. The dumbest shit was it's going to be over in

Finn Mckenty (00:04:01):

Three months. Yeah, that's what I said.

Eyal Levi (00:04:03):

I know, but I forgive you because we're friends.

Johnny Minardi (00:04:07):

Yeah. I think rescheduling the tours for the first time was insane to me when they moved him two months and you're like, you might want to add a year to that thing. I guess no one knew, but Right. Obviously the first couple of weeks. But yeah, rescheduling the same two or four times at this point is just exhausting.

Eyal Levi (00:04:27):

When you see a band scheduling something for say, February, don't you want to tell them to stop?

Jesse Cannon (00:04:38):

As much as I want to tell them to stop when they say that they're not going to release music until this is done.

Johnny Minardi (00:04:42):

That was the dumbest, actually, that's a better point.

Jesse Cannon (00:04:45):

That'll help. That

Johnny Minardi (00:04:46):

Was the dumbest thing. I'd heard that people were holding their records for a while, for not only a while, but yeah, until it's done. And then they eventually just fell behind because it just felt like now it's impossible to do that you can't survive.

Eyal Levi (00:05:02):

Did you actually see it mess up people's momentum?

Johnny Minardi (00:05:05):

I don't know if there's a particular case. I think I saw wide open lanes at radio because we weren't stopping, but everyone else was, every a-list artist was holding their singles thinking it was over in two months, and we just kept running them through and we were like, oh, look at us. Run up the chart while everyone else is tiptoeing around.

Eyal Levi (00:05:24):

That

Johnny Minardi (00:05:24):

Felt good.

Eyal Levi (00:05:25):

Is that something where at meetings, you guys were consciously looking at it and saying, Hmm, we are going to take advantage of the fact that nobody's moving right now? Or is it just that you guys never stopped and they stopped and then you just noticed it?

Johnny Minardi (00:05:42):

A little of both. I think you felt it pretty quickly that people were holding or delaying, or this was supposed to come out in April and they stopped it from coming out. So then you're kind of realizing, oh, well they're stopping, but let's not do that in a kind of happy accident there.

Eyal Levi (00:05:58):

And how has that evolved now that we're six months deep? Have other people that were previously, I guess just waiting around, have they caught up or have they at least tried to catch up?

Johnny Minardi (00:06:10):

Yeah, I would say they've tried to catch up and they probably have, for the most part, the internet forgets stuff in a week, so it moves pretty quickly. So if they could decide today, they could have a hit song next week,

Finn Mckenty (00:06:21):

Except for the stuff that they remember for 10 years.

Johnny Minardi (00:06:25):

The negatives? Yes. One or the

Eyal Levi (00:06:27):

Other. Definitely one or the, yeah, I can't wait for that. There

Jesse Cannon (00:06:33):

Was a really good meme that I saw from this account that I love called at Jewel Sexual, and it was like the Galaxy Brain Beam. It was saving your song for a month into the pandemic, saving your song for three months and then releasing it when it's over. Every other group's going to do it, getting buried under the weight of it, and it's like, that is going to be a thing. Is that the second that we're all like, yes, we can tour, we're going to see an astonishing amount of fucking fools rush. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (00:07:05):

I wonder if that's a good thing.

Jesse Cannon (00:07:06):

How is a good thing? I'm curious.

Eyal Levi (00:07:08):

Well, okay, so I think for some people it's going to be a great thing, but what I'm just wondering is maybe it's going to be an overload, but at the same time, don't you think that the public might have a bit of, I guess more of an appetite for it at that point?

Jesse Cannon (00:07:26):

I definitely agree, but there's only so many there'll

Eyal Levi (00:07:28):

Be over it within a week.

Jesse Cannon (00:07:29):

Well, I think there's also just only so many bands you can fit into a club in a day. One of the biggest things is I keep having people say to me like, oh, we're going to tour once this is done. I'm like, technically all the venues are going to be booked with huge bands for a while. We're

Eyal Levi (00:07:43):

Not. There're not going to

Jesse Cannon (00:07:44):

Book you and you're not going to book you because you're not the first choice of who everybody's been missing.

Finn Mckenty (00:07:49):

That's a great point. There's going to be a long line and you're not in front of it

Eyal Levi (00:07:54):

A long line. And I do think there's going to be far less options for people to gig at. So

Jesse Cannon (00:08:01):

That's true.

Eyal Levi (00:08:01):

You put those two things together and it's going to be probably a very small group of people that are going to be getting to actually play shows.

Finn Mckenty (00:08:11):

I'd like to hear what you guys think about this since all of you guys are more qualified to talk about it than I have since you have more experience with managing artists that make a lot of income off their tours or ail in your case, actually touring and stuff. To me, it seems odd that people are so fixated on touring. And again, I may be wrong here, so I'd like to hear what you think, but I mean, I know so many of these rappers and stuff that make a perfectly good living without leaving their room. So it seems strange to me that especially in the case of smaller artists, that they're so fixated on touring and I just don't understand why. I don't really see how this changes anything because when they were touring, nobody was really going to their shows anyway. So I mean, I don't mean to be rude, but it's like if you're playing to 75 people, and that's optimistic for a lot of smaller bands or even a couple hundred people, I just don't really see how this dramatically changes the situation.

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A lot of these bands didn't make money on their tours anyway, so I just don't really understand how this changes anything. If anything, it's like, all right, well now you can just stay home and focus on getting attention on the internet. So I guess I just don't really see why this is a huge deal. I mean, I understand if you're fucking Wiz Khalifa or whatever and you're giving up a multimillion dollar payday to play, I'm a huge festival, that sucks. But if you're a smaller band, it just doesn't really seem like it's as big of a deal as a lot of 'em are making it out to be. Or is there something I'm missing?

Eyal Levi (00:09:33):

No, I actually agree with you. I don't think you're wrong.

Johnny Minardi (00:09:36):

Go ahead, Jesse.

Jesse Cannon (00:09:37):

I think you are wrong. And I'll explain why. So technically I manage four legacy bands, two of which we're planning on touring during this. And what we have to remember is that the consumption levels with those wrappers you're using as an example, a low level wrapper is bigger than a big punk band.

Finn Mckenty (00:09:59):

Yes.

Jesse Cannon (00:10:00):

So they get so much more. So two of my acts have on Spotify over overall a hundred thousand monthly listeners, which most people would be fucking thrilled to have. And it does generate good income. Obviously I divvy up the income. We have our own record label. I see all the numbers. We get 85% of the profits. But with that said, because their legacy acts and they've both been around for 20 to 25 years, their touring revenue is gargantuan $30,000 for Riot Fest type of stuff.

Finn Mckenty (00:10:32):

Yeah, I understand. In those cases, that makes sense to me. But I'm saying for a band that was breaking even or maybe clearing a couple grand on a national tour anyway, which

Eyal Levi (00:10:43):

Is most of them

Finn Mckenty (00:10:44):

As compared to any number of 22-year-old rappers I know that have a couple hundred thousand monthly Spotify listeners that have been making living off of streaming for years.

Jesse Cannon (00:10:54):

Yeah. I mean, I think the other thing is is that rock bands, it's so hard for them to get to a good place without a label still. That really is, I've been really into that. William Gibson, the future's already here, it's just not evenly dispersed. And that quote, I think is very representative in that. There is so many genres of music where you're seeing people who literally just got high and accidentally hit upload on SoundCloud and then have a million views and they're like, oh shit, they wake up in the morning. That is a real thing that happens.

Finn Mckenty (00:11:31):

Go dope.

Jesse Cannon (00:11:32):

I'm rich. But that is not a thing that happens in rock.

Johnny Minardi (00:11:35):

It's never happened once, probably actually in rock.

Jesse Cannon (00:11:38):

Yeah, I mean actually that's the better way of putting it. And so the point being the amount of work and then the profit split of the four to five ways in rock, sometimes even worse. Thankfully no ska bands are getting popular now.

Eyal Levi (00:11:54):

That's one of the good things about this.

Jesse Cannon (00:11:56):

There's a lot of good reasons for it. It's a different podcast for something

Finn Mckenty (00:11:59):

Silver lining,

Jesse Cannon (00:12:02):

But the point being that makes it so unfeasible for rock bands, it's kind of unbelievable. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (00:12:08):

But was it feasible for, with the exception of the ones that you're talking about, who you would manage or the ones on Johnny's label? So with the exception of those types of bands like the a hundred thousand other rock bands or metal bands and punk bands who don't make jack shit off of anything, really, what does this change? You're talking about a tiny less than 1% of rock bands right now.

Jesse Cannon (00:12:37):

Well, less than 1% of rock bands make a living off their music. That is correct. But if we're going to focus on the ones that had, let's call them on the 30,000, I remember when I started in the nineties, we'd say it was 30,000 records you made a living on. Now 30,000 monthly listeners does not. You're still holding a day job when you're off tour. Now, I don't think that those two things are exactly alike in number, but if let's say that applicable size, I will say that I think that there's a very overly represented complain class complaining class that is really distorting the reality most people have about streaming. But with that said, if depending where we're taking the temperature, is it better than 10 years ago? I'd say it's negligible. But 1999 unbelievably more compensated for less fans. I mean, you could be literally selling 10, 15,000 records and not having to do a day job back 1999.

Finn Mckenty (00:13:39):

I have a question for you guys also. I've thought about this quite a bit. I believe that the problem is drums. Wow. Let's hear it really full. Full, yes. And acoustic drums I think are the problem because that's the only thing stopping rock artists from putting shit out at the pace that people in other genres do. Like Johnny Frank from Bill Murray, he puts out two fucking albums a year,

Speaker 5 (00:14:07):

And

Finn Mckenty (00:14:07):

It's because he records everything himself and programs all the drums, and anybody could do that. But recording drums really is kind of a capital intensive thing and time intensive thing that makes it difficult to put music out at that volume and also requires you to have a drummer and all that stuff. So to me, the Johnny Frank model is the future of a rock band or any of these bedroom jet bands. Same thing. I could program all their shit. Maybe it's two people a vocalist and then someone who does everything else, whatever. But I think the acoustic drums are kind of the structural blocker there. And it's interesting to me that there's this stigma against programming drums, and it just seems to be another case of rock bands getting in their own way if they would just understand, look, if you want to record acoustic drums, by all means, go for it. But understand that that's going to hold you back from a lot of opportunities and it's kind of a structural issue you're creating for yourself.

Eyal Levi (00:15:04):

It's been proven a few times actually in the metal world that you can get away with it and not lose credibility. Ms. Sugar did it. They put out an album with program drums and Fear Factory did it. However, and I think maybe it's more of a metal problem than a rock problem, but still, I think nobody wants to think that they're listening to something fake. So if they can figure out a way to figure out the challenge,

Finn Mckenty (00:15:29):

Doesn't matter. Yeah. Well, why do they care? Why

Eyal Levi (00:15:31):

Do they care? I don't know why they care. That's a deeper, more pointless conversation.

Finn Mckenty (00:15:36):

I mean, and what percentage of people? The only difference is the fucking symbols anyway, because everything else is so edited in the Sam Roy place that they're fake anyway. It's like the symbols are the only difference.

Eyal Levi (00:15:46):

Well, I'm just saying if you can figure out a way to do it where you don't lose credibility, you can overcome that problem because it's been proven even in the dorkiest of genres that you can get away with it if you can prove your credibility.

Johnny Minardi (00:15:58):

But Finn, to your point, if any band isn't successful or putting out music faster because of the drums, you're fucked anyways. If you can't figure out how to get an album's worth of drums by next Friday, outsourcing doing it yourself and sending out, or literally just hitting someone up and being like, can you do this for me and send them back, then your band is fucked anyways.

Finn Mckenty (00:16:25):

Pay an newry and he'll bang 'em out

Johnny Minardi (00:16:27):

Crazy. Or just get 'em fucking, like you said, programmed and deal with it right now. There's no rules more than ever, ever. And credibility aside, we can get into that. If you're worried about credibility, you're fucked anyways as well.

Eyal Levi (00:16:41):

Well, yeah. Metal is fucked, basically.

Johnny Minardi (00:16:44):

That's

Jesse Cannon (00:16:45):

Crazy. I don't know how this happened. I'm usually not the contrarian, but I'm not No,

Finn Mckenty (00:16:51):

You're never the contrarian.

Jesse Cannon (00:16:54):

Okay,

Finn Mckenty (00:16:55):

Let me explain why you're wrong. A book by Jesse can.

Jesse Cannon (00:16:59):

So I remember I was talking to Rich Kosti a while back, and he had just done this record for a band called Swimmers, which is on Atlantic Etra. And he was talking about, so their record is drum machines mixed, and I say vintage eighties drum machines mixed with real drums. And he talks about a thing that YouTube being fitted al talk about is doing the things your competition isn't willing to do. I think one of the most interesting things about the real drums thing, and it's the same thing with whether it's SoundCloud rap or everything is that, so SoundCloud rap, the extra effort that gets rewarded is actually getting your vocals nudged to be on the beat. And I should say on the beat is not always on the beat. It's on that weird pocket that they're going for. But actually taking the time to get a consistent flow that has some nuance to it, I think a lot of the time the real drums is the secret sauce that makes it sound more exceptional. And I think we reward people who do exceptional things. And I do think, unfortunately, that real drums and the effort and even the thought, the other thing we have to remember is the biggest problem with this constant content rush is that most people don't have what I like to call an artistic attention span that can make something good fast. It takes years for people, for a lot of people to come up with enough good ideas to fill a record. Sure.

Finn Mckenty (00:18:28):

I mean, again, using Joni Frank as an example, he's a exceptionally talented person who's been making music full-time for 12 years, so he's not your average Joe off the street.

Eyal Levi (00:18:38):

Yeah, I hear you, Finn. I just think that if you start telling every single artist that they just can't do that sort of thing or whatever, do you think it would be better for artists to just basically dumb their music down? I'm not saying that Johnny Frank does, but that would be dumbing it down for quite a few people. Do you think that would be better? What

Finn Mckenty (00:19:00):

Would be dumbing it down dumb

Eyal Levi (00:19:01):

Down their product just to put it out faster or something?

Finn Mckenty (00:19:05):

So I think that there is an assumption there that I'm not sure is true, which is that if they spent more time on it, it would be better. I don't know that that's true.

Jesse Cannon (00:19:13):

It's not true.

Eyal Levi (00:19:14):

It's not true that spending more time on something will make it better. But it is true that in some cases, skipping a step is cutting a corner,

Jesse Cannon (00:19:25):

I think would be more often than not, an artist should have spent more time on it, but it doesn't mean that it is going to make it better.

Finn Mckenty (00:19:34):

I think any kind of creative or business pursuit to me is about understanding where your effort should be applied because you can't put a hundred percent effort into everything on every product, and you just have to understand what is going to make the greatest marginal contribution. And maybe in a perfect world, we would all have perfectly engineered drums with a great drummer in a great room on every song, but we all know that that's just not reality. So the question to me is, if your goal is to build your fan base and make some money or whatever, how are you going to get there? And I would say that for most people, making great content and having good vocal hooks is probably the thing that's going to move the needle for them. And that's not true in every genre. I suppose if you play technical death metal or something like that, but you're never going to make any money there anyway.

(00:20:25):

So I think there's a lot of ways that people can convince themselves that, well, this won't work for me because X or Y. But I would say, have you even tried? For me, for example, with my YouTube videos, for anybody listening who's not familiar with me, I have a YouTube channel that is reasonably popular. And I tried something a couple months ago because I heard a bunch of people anecdotally say that they listened to my like, oh, I listened to your new video, it's great. And I was like, wait a minute. Why am I putting so much effort into the edit when there's probably a lot of people that just listened to it? And so the next video, I put 30% left's effort into the edit, I completely half-assed it, and it made absolutely no difference. It was actually one of my more popular videos, and that was a breakthrough for me is there is no reason for me to put more effort into that edit.

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And that's not that I'm lazy or I don't care, it's just like bounded rationality. There's no point in me spending my limited free time on something that doesn't make a difference. And I would say that musicians should consider the same thing. For example, I've noticed a lot of rappers now are programming drums that sound like acoustic drums, and I can tell that they're programmed because it's me and I can tell that that crash symbol is programmed, but to 99.99% of their audience, that's a drum set. So to me, that's a way of achieving what you're saying, Jesse, of adding that extra something special of having acoustic drums on the song without actually having to go through the time and cost and hassle of recording a drum set. So to me, it's like checking assumptions, I guess If the assumption is I have to record an actual drum set to have acoustic drums on my song, I'm not sure that that's true.

Eyal Levi (00:22:10):

I think the assumption is that recording drums has to take a long time.

Finn Mckenty (00:22:13):

Yeah, that too. Yes.

Eyal Levi (00:22:15):

I think that that's not true anymore. I think that's changed. That's

Johnny Minardi (00:22:19):

My point.

Eyal Levi (00:22:19):

Back when I was recording. Yeah, it took forever.

(00:22:22):

So I come from a world where recording drums took forever, but since I have stopped, and a lot of people like Anup who you brought up have become people who people just hired to record their drums for them and send them back. There's a bunch of little studios like that all over the world now run by amazing drummers where they have these perma setups that already sound great. They're already tuned, they're dialed, and they learn the shit on the spot. It's a lot like session players used to be in the seventies and eighties, but I guess the modern form of it, there's a lot of these,

Johnny Minardi (00:22:58):

Especially right now,

Finn Mckenty (00:23:00):

You send a new or Alex Inger whatever the fuck you want, and they'll record it exactly the way you programmed it and send it back to you, and it's going to be great,

Eyal Levi (00:23:08):

And it's going to be better than programmed. But I think so then the assumption is more what is it that wastes a bunch of time and assumption is that recording drums waste a bunch of time, but I don't think it has to at all.

Johnny Minardi (00:23:22):

Jesse, how many days do you spend on an album on drums if you're doing 10 songs

Jesse Cannon (00:23:27):

Back in the day or now

Johnny Minardi (00:23:29):

We

Jesse Cannon (00:23:29):

Should say, my setup is that since I have a engineer, he edits while I produce the drums. And what I usually say is five songs per day is usually what I can do is spend a 12 hour,

Johnny Minardi (00:23:40):

So two to three days on an album.

Jesse Cannon (00:23:43):

And that's with me doing a lot of reconsidering writing and things like that. I did a record recently where the drummer, I didn't change one part and we did all 12 songs in seven hours because he was amazing,

Johnny Minardi (00:23:56):

Which is rare, but I would say two to three days on an album. Yeah,

Jesse Cannon (00:23:59):

Usual case is five. That's

Eyal Levi (00:24:01):

Faster than programming.

Johnny Minardi (00:24:02):

Yeah,

Finn Mckenty (00:24:02):

That's a good point.

Eyal Levi (00:24:04):

That's a lot faster than programming.

Jesse Cannon (00:24:05):

But we're missing something when we say that's faster than programming is because that person usually wrote most of it beforehand. And if we put that into the case, I don't even want to think how long these bands are inefficient writing absolute boring bullshit, but that's a different story. I'd be curious, Johnny, is there anything you tell people, artists not to focus a lot of time on versus focus a lot of time on when you're doing development?

Johnny Minardi (00:24:30):

That's a good question. I mean, it's obviously case by case to me. It drives me absolutely bonkers when we get into mixed notes and mastering notes, which I didn't know mastering notes was a thing, to be honest, because

Eyal Levi (00:24:42):

Oh yes,

Johnny Minardi (00:24:43):

Fucking insane doesn't make any difference to 99.99% of any human being with ears.

Eyal Levi (00:24:51):

Man, lemme interrupt you for one second real quick, triggering to interrupt you for one second, Johnny, there is an a and r guy who we all love, but at your label, I won't say who, but I know that he got one record by a pretty prominent metal band remastered seven times

Speaker 5 (00:25:10):

At

Eyal Levi (00:25:11):

Five grand a pop. Not because the band wasn't happy or because Ted Jensen did a bad job the first time or the second time or the third time or the fourth time or the fifth time or the sixth time

Johnny Minardi (00:25:23):

Sounds expensive.

Eyal Levi (00:25:24):

It was expensive. And he just had mastering notes.

Johnny Minardi (00:25:26):

That's fucking bonkers.

Eyal Levi (00:25:28):

I've heard of that stuff going, that was 2005.

Johnny Minardi (00:25:31):

My point is now versus then there should be no qualm with that. Again, defense's point of moving quickly on things that matter. So kind of to your point, Jesse, I feel like those bands are, I think, afraid, and that's what I think you were kind of saying is they're afraid to let things go into the world because then they have to be judged on them. So there's always this moment of I want to protect, and if I always protect and tweak until it's dead, there will always be a different excuse because the timing didn't work out or whatever. I almost feel like there's a lot of self-sabotage. So for me, outside of technical musical ears, which I don't even think I have and great ears on any sort of technical studio thing ever, what I like to do is make sure the band psychology, it makes more sense and that they're confident in letting go and saying, this is great.

(00:26:25):

And I'm like, I don't need an 11th or 12th version of this song, the feeling I got from your demo. That's all I need. When you go and fix this or rerecord this because it was on a voice note or whatever, if you could match the feeling, I don't care what the final product sounds like. In a lot of cases, 99% of stuff doesn't go to radio, which is when you really only have to play their game of it's got to be, well, if it's in between these two bands, it's got to kind of play the game of Neil Avron mixes and Ted Jensen masters if you're going to alternative radio. You know what I mean? There's definitely some rules, but to me, Jesse, it's just kind of like don't spend time worrying yourself to death. And you could pivot so fast in this world that you could put out a song that is fucking terrible and no one would remember it seven days from now, literally. And it happens with people. I had a conversation when fucking fall up, boy, put out the Ghostbusters song that none of you have probably even heard, but it came, I don't even

Eyal Levi (00:27:28):

Remember what you're talking about

Johnny Minardi (00:27:30):

On the re-release of Ghostbusters two years ago. They did. It was their childhood favorite movie. No

Eyal Levi (00:27:36):

One remembers that movie either.

Johnny Minardi (00:27:37):

Exactly. So they did the updated theme song and it wasn't great. It just wasn't. And I think maybe they knew that going in and they tried it a week later, no one even knew about it. And that's all right. You just did it for their own. And then they're through it and now a bunch of people are going to go listen to it. But whatever, sorry to reopen a wound, but yeah, that's my point is just let go, just do shit.

Finn Mckenty (00:28:03):

You make a good point. The downside of unquote failure is almost nothing unless you're like, I mean, if Fallout Boy can swing in a miss and survive it, you, you're going to be fine. You're

Johnny Minardi (00:28:15):

Going to be just fine with no one paying attention. It's a lot easier. So it's like,

Eyal Levi (00:28:19):

Yeah.

Jesse Cannon (00:28:19):

Yeah, it's a great point.

Eyal Levi (00:28:21):

How do you talk an artist off that ledge though? Because it's kind of a neurotic sort of thing when that self-sabotage of got to make this thing better. Oh, there's this excuse. Oh, it's just if we just fix this snare, oh, it's just a master, just a little too hot in this one part. It's just clipping just a little too much. Oh man. Just the low end, just not right here. Or God, we've got to rethink that chorus. Whatever it is, whatever it is. You're right. It's typically a neurotic, well, I'm right, it's typically a erotic thing. How do you talk them off that ledge? It's not a rational place they're coming from generally. Plus they don't have the perspective to know that their shit's fine.

Johnny Minardi (00:29:05):

It's based in your relationship with them. They clearly, for me talking specifically from an A and r, I've convinced everyone that I work with to sign a major label contract. So then and there, there's some level of trust of experience and betterment of whatever it is. Whether it's we share this or I'm protecting them from the big, bad, scary world, whatever that is, we have a trust. So yeah, it takes a long time for certain artists. Some artists are like, you could say some of the things I just said to you, and it's a pretty sobering feeling where they're like, fuck, you're right. And they let go. And actually, whether I'm right or wrong, to your point, Finn, failure is just the next step to get to the next thing. If it was going to fail us tweaking the mix wasn't going to make it succeed.

(00:29:50):

In my head, I don't think you can ever say a song took a shot and it had a poor mix. And that's why it didn't become multi-platinum. I don't mean if you can name one I would love, but you know what I mean. It just feels like the minutia of things. And when I get stuck with a band, I have a lot of these bands that want to move faster, and if you want to sit and stew it, let me know when you're done doing that. And then they'll start to feel like they're getting laughed.

Eyal Levi (00:30:17):

You'll actually say that.

Johnny Minardi (00:30:18):

Yeah. Fuck yeah, they are.

Eyal Levi (00:30:20):

They are. That's awesome. I love that.

Johnny Minardi (00:30:22):

First off, no one has time for the bullshit. So I give so much respect when someone, if I call someone and say, Hey, I need so-and-so to work on this album, I'm getting ready to start putting together, and they say they're not interested. I'm like, cool, thank you. The bluntness of that, I'm gone. I'm already on. But when it's like, oh, checking schedules, they're just too much of a pussy to say no, you just kind of like, we'll check. We'll look. Well maybe then. Well, it's like whatever. So to me, when I can be forward with my artist, I think it's out of respect for their time, my time, everyone involved. I'm sitting in meetings every week trying to update people about this. Artist's progress on whatever we're doing next. So if I can't give a straight answer and I go, I don't know, they're writing songs, who gets excited? Who knows what that means? Is it a week? Is it six months? So for me, if I could just say, when you're done stewing in this problem, if you want my advice, here it is. Talk to whoever you want to talk to about it and come back to me and let's get solutions moving and let's just start banging out the rest of it.

Eyal Levi (00:31:24):

Can I tell you something that just happened to me and Finn that is interesting on this topic of just being straightforward, and maybe we can talk about this for a little bit because this is a thing in the music industry that I wish people would just understand how to do more. So we got turned down by an artist for Nail the Mix a couple months ago, an artist that would've been really cool to have. Typically we don't get turned down by artists. I would say it's one in 20 or something. It's very rare. But every now and again, you get turned down. Obviously in this case though, the artist was really, really cool with Nail the Mix and really loves what we do, but didn't feel it was right for the branding, their own branding. And so the leader of the band called

Finn Mckenty (00:32:16):

For a valid reason.

Eyal Levi (00:32:17):

For a valid reason, exactly. But he didn't hide behind his manager or any of that pussy stuff that people do in this industry. The leader of the band called me to tell me straight up what his reasons were, why he was doing it, and he just wanted to be straightforward and not waste time, not mince words or anything. And my respect for that band and that situation is huge. And at first when I told the producer that happened, the producer was a little mortified that me and the artist had that conversation or that he was afraid that it would've ruined his nail, the mix that the artist turned me down to my face. But actually it gave me a profound respect for the situation since so few people in this game will just up and say no for will just say, no, I don't want to, it's not my thing.

Johnny Minardi (00:33:12):

If

Eyal Levi (00:33:12):

People would just say that, how much bullshit would we save?

Johnny Minardi (00:33:16):

Insane hours a day? No question. Hours.

Eyal Levi (00:33:20):

Why do you think it's so hard in this industry? I mean, there's even a term for it. It's called the California No,

Johnny Minardi (00:33:25):

I've never heard.

Eyal Levi (00:33:26):

Thats told me that one. Yeah, Blasco told me that one. It's punting it

Johnny Minardi (00:33:30):

Down the field, ands scheduling and re

Eyal Levi (00:33:33):

Yeah, it's like, yeah. It's like, yeah, we're going to do this thing. Yeah, let's figure out a time to put this project together.

Johnny Minardi (00:33:39):

Hit me up whenever.

Finn Mckenty (00:33:40):

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds great.

Eyal Levi (00:33:41):

Yeah, hit me up. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it in a few weeks. In a few weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Cool, cool. Yeah. I think in a couple months I'll be good to do this thing. It's the California now.

Johnny Minardi (00:33:51):

I like that. That's a nice thing. What I think is no one likes confrontation, obviously, right? It's not an exciting thing to do for any reason, but once you do it in a sense where there's honest reasoning behind it, like you're saying, and whether you agree with that honest reasoning or not, it's not up to you to decide it's the person that was going to give time to give effort to give their value into the situation that just says straight up, it's not for me. That's it. That's the end of it. Why would you want to beg that person to do it if it's going to be half-assed or uncomfortable, whatever. So whatever the situation may be, I think, and again, I hate being the guy that's the get off my lawn generational guy, but I just think when your life is a computer and a phone, you don't learn the thing. When I deal with 16-year-old, 15-year-old SoundCloud rappers and try to get to know, they don't even put their face on the screen when I'm FaceTiming with them, they're nervous. I had a full 20 minute meeting with the kid, you're looking at their at this popcorn ceiling

Speaker 5 (00:34:59):

Pac.

Johnny Minardi (00:35:00):

I paced his ceiling

Speaker 5 (00:35:01):

For

Johnny Minardi (00:35:01):

15 minutes, but that's it. It's just an uncomfortableness. And I can't say I would've been any different at 15 to quite honest. So I grain of salt everything. I try to make everyone comfortable to at least have the freedom to express that, but I just don't think it's a natural thing for people to want to learn how to be direct. And it's hard. It's a hard thing.

Finn Mckenty (00:35:23):

I think you're totally right. And to your point, I think this is a skill that everybody should practice. I've seen and worked with some people who are very good at it. My old boss at Creative Live Chase was very good at turning things down because, because he's a very busy, successful guy that just literally can't say yes to everything, but he understands the value of relationships. And I noticed that he put a lot of effort into saying no in the right way. Good point. And it's pretty simple. It's basically the same way that this band said no is he would just thoughtfully explain in a couple sentences why he was turning it down. Just like, Hey, it sounds like a really cool podcast, but unfortunately I can't say no to everything. And I'm sure you understand that I have to prioritize the ones with the bigger audiences. If you grow a little bit, get back to me and maybe we can do it.

Speaker 5 (00:36:14):

And

Finn Mckenty (00:36:14):

Who can be mad about that? You're like, yeah, I know my podcast isn't that big. I understand why you would say no. And if you're going to be mad about it, that's your problem. So I think that's a skill to practice is just articulating to the person and just be real with them. Practice articulating why you were turning it down. And if you're, it's authentic, nobody reasonable is going to be bad about it.

Eyal Levi (00:36:35):

Yes. No, they'll actually respect you more.

Jesse Cannon (00:36:37):

I actually see it different than a skill is I see it as a muscle that needs to be kept in shape. So my example of this is that, for example, I've had far more relationships than my girlfriend, particularly ones where you fight all the time. So she's very scared of the confrontation and I have to pry it out of her. Whereas she does one thing and I'm like, Hey, we need to talk about that. Write the fuck down. I can't even get the words out fast enough to start dealing with the situation that's going wrong and as well. So I managed two bands that were really successful 10 years ago, and then I stopped managing bands for a long time and then I picked it up again. And what was so funny to me is my confrontation of contentious email muscle head dulled, whereas my record production one, so somebody emails you something, I don't like that your artist is doing this. We had an agreement, something like that, and my bands don't like me talking about them by name, but to call the singer of three of the bands I manage a controversial artist is the understatement of the decade.

Speaker 5 (00:37:44):

And

Jesse Cannon (00:37:44):

We get a lot of things. And it's so funny because when I first started doing it again, I'd stare at that email and I'm an inbox zero everyday type of guy, and I'd leave emails in there for two weeks because I was so out of shape. And

Finn Mckenty (00:37:59):

The longer you leave it, the worse it gets.

Jesse Cannon (00:38:01):

And then 10 months later, now that I've been managing this band, now I'm like, it comes in and it's out of my inbox literally, and I don't think about it ever again. After one minute it's like I open the email, I start typing, and then by the end of the day, if somebody brought that up again, I'm like, oh, was that yesterday or last week? I don't even remember because my muscle's super in shape now and it was really out of shape. And I think that that's the thing people have to remember. It's also why with Johnny, like I was saying, with talking to these artists when people are like, should I talk to this record label? I'm like, do it as just practice. Even if you're not interested in them, just start getting used to talking to people about your career and about what you're doing because it's basically like dating. You start to learn what's good and what's bad. And

Finn Mckenty (00:38:46):

For anybody listening, this is not just like old man stuff. You got to learn how to talk to people on the phone. This stuff actually will make a meaningful difference in your career because I'm sure we all know lots of people who are very talented, but we oftentimes don't work with them because it's going to be a pain in the ass. It's going to be difficult. They're slow to respond, they're flaky, they're

Eyal Levi (00:39:05):

Fuck yeah, I can think of someone right now. Yeah,

Finn Mckenty (00:39:09):

We can all think of that person. On the other hand, there's people who are maybe not the most talented, but it's going to be super easy to work with them and they get to the front of the line. So this is stuff that can make a real tangible difference in your career. It's not just old men yelling at a cloud.

Eyal Levi (00:39:24):

So what we've had, maybe I'm just going to say 250 different producers on the URM podcast at this point, and without fail, I try to ask every one of them this, just because I'm trying to prove this point without fail. They all say that if they had the choice between hiring an assistant or an intern who say there's two people, one of 'em is slightly more skilled, but not that cool, not that easy to be around, but is awesome, versus someone who's 15% not as good but is an awesome human. They'll take that awesome human a hundred percent of the time every time without fail. And it just reminds me that, so I talk shit about my Berkeley education all the time, but there was one class, there was one business class,

Finn Mckenty (00:40:19):

By the way, this is a guy complaining about the gas mileage on his Ferrari. It's like the passenger seats really, really lumpy.

Eyal Levi (00:40:27):

Dude, Berkeley, it's not great for actual music industry stuff,

Finn Mckenty (00:40:34):

Not as good as the Lamb bar. I mean, it's okay. They

Eyal Levi (00:40:35):

Talk all the shit you want. It's not, it's good if you want to be a good musician, I think. But I think that if a school was actually designed to get people in the music industry, they wouldn't be able to survive. It would have to appeal to 10 people a year or something. There's no way you could have a large school that that makes that kind of money and actually gear it towards, let me rephrase that, get them into the record industry. Yeah.

Johnny Minardi (00:41:01):

What is the percentage you think that actually turns over? I don't know how many people go to those schools.

Eyal Levi (00:41:06):

Tiny 2%. I think there's like 3000 people a year at Berkeley when I was there. So

Jesse Cannon (00:41:12):

I think that that's correct. From when I got the job offer, that's what they told me.

Eyal Levi (00:41:16):

So let's make a distinction between the record industry and the music industry. I think a lot of people end up in the music industry, but a tiny amount end up in the record industry and the record industry is where most of them want to go. But anyways, in this music business class, it was taught by this dude who actually had worked at major labels and did have huge artists under his belt as a manager, as an a and r guy. He had done everything, and the first thing he said, which is still true in my opinion, is this is the most relationship driven industry in the world. If you don't have relationships, nothing is going to work. It doesn't matter what. So that's what needs to be your main focus. And so when I think about how bad people can be at communication in this industry, it bumps me out because I find that that's the one thing that makes relationships better.

(00:42:14):

That's the one thing that can really, really move the ball towards the goal line faster, and it's one thing that people are really, really bad at. So I don't think it's just old guys saying it should be better at communication. It actually is the thing that you could do that could make a massive, massive difference, all other things being equal, in my opinion. That's great. Yeah. Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves.

(00:43:10):

Knock loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air. And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens bore, Dan Lancaster to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics against staging, mastering low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed and enhanced. Members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to U RM Academy to find out more. Johnny,

Finn Mckenty (00:44:49):

I have a question for you and for everybody, but especially your thoughts on this. There was a question for us in the Facebook group, I'm paraphrasing here, but it's essentially like what can artists do with live streaming? That's basically like everyone's doing these live streaming shows or live streaming, whatever. What should artists do with that? I have a couple thoughts on that, but you would probably have a more informed perspective on that than I would, so I'd be curious to see what you think.

Johnny Minardi (00:45:17):

It's such a weird thing because I felt like the Gold Rush was happening so quickly in the pandemic that then it chilled out and now it's being done better and bigger, if that makes sense. I think when it first started, it was these janky setups, living rooms, garages and whatever, and I'm not saying that in you fucked up way. I'm saying it in people were just rushing and just being like, I got to be first and get moving and get my talk to my fans and see what's up,

Finn Mckenty (00:45:47):

Which is cool.

Johnny Minardi (00:45:47):

Yeah, exactly. And it kind of died out for a minute and then it came back. I think the one that I saw most recently that seemed the most successful was the under oath ones that happened, and there was a lot of little buzz around how great that one was and how professional it was. And we had a couple early on with Code Orange because that was right away because their CD release show was happening, and then it wasn't the day before, so they said, fuck it, we're at the venue, let's just rip it. And luckily the team put together these incredible transitional videos. I think for the majority, ask your fans what they want. That's it. That is the only thing that you need to do as a band. Ask your fans what they want. I used to manage William Beckett from Academy is, and when he was off the road, we would do a weekly stage it.com concert, and we would have a theme every week because we knew his fan base regardless of how big it was.

(00:46:42):

The ones that were interested were really interested, so we would do these. Next week is Saves the Day covers. Only the week after that is BSides from the big first record. The other one is holiday music. Around December, we would do these things and he would make 2000 bucks a week on it, and it was like for a guy off the road, you know what I mean? It's like just asking the fans and if they start showing up and then tweaking and tweaking and tweaking, to me just announcing a live stream, doing it one time and stopping it is the wrong move. That's like a thing where you're going to put so much effort into one thing. I think right now it's consistency and momentum, but also being flexible and not having an ego to where you're like, what do the fans want? Me as a fan, I don't give a shit about any of my favorite bands doing a live stream. You couldn't get me to pay 10 bucks to watch my favorite band to do one right now. It's just not exciting to me. Maybe I'm spoiled. I've been to enough shows, whatever it is,

Eyal Levi (00:47:41):

I don't care either.

Johnny Minardi (00:47:42):

Exactly. And that's not a knock at anyone. I mean, I work at a label where every one of our bands is putting together some sort of, whether it's behind a paywall or not, whatever it is, but to me, you got to speak to the people that want something from you right now, and their bored is fucked too. They're at home, they're excited. Maybe it's worth all of it and release limited merch lines with it, release the vinyl variant with it, release all of these other interesting things around these events. So I don't know if there's a particular piece of advice outside of Know your fan base well enough and if you don't have the confidence to ask them what they want and be okay with whatever the answers are.

Eyal Levi (00:48:21):

I have noticed something. Okay. I started the Riff Hard podcast and now starting to talk to artists every week as well, and URM podcasts will talk to artists sometimes, but Riff Hard is only talking to artists, and so I've noticed that there are some of them who are basically taking this head on. There's some who are very depressed or whatever, but there are those that are taking this, like I said, head on, and when you hear who they are, you wouldn't be surprised because their band always took things head on. For instance, one of the bands that I spoke to very early in Riff Hard podcast, like in May, a guitar player from Suicide Silence came on. That's a band that still might be just the small genre of Death Corps, but for Death Corps, that band is tremendously big and tremendously successful, and it was no surprise then when talking to him that same amount of energy and ingenuity that they would bring to their marketing on tour and all that, they were applying to their live streaming situation and what they were going to try to do.

(00:49:31):

And what I've noticed is the artists that are super, super proactive, normally anyways, all they're doing is taking that energy that they would've put into the tour or whatever into their live streams now, and they're not just seeing it as a shitty second rate show that they're going to put out a video for. They're seeing it at this whole production with, like you said, with the individual customized merch lines, with all these extra things. They're putting in the same amount of brainpower that they would for any other thing that they're doing. And I think that those are the artists that are making the best out of it, as opposed to some artists I've seen who are just like, well, we're home. Why don't we just throw some shit together? We can't go on tour. The under oath thing, you talked about, obviously a lot of brainpower and thought and skill went into that. They took it very seriously, obviously, and that's kind of what I'm talking about. It's like they're putting the same level of firepower into what they're doing with live streaming, and that I think seems to be working so they're not half-assing things.

Johnny Minardi (00:50:47):

And by the way, they were against it at first. They didn't want to do live streams. Then over the course of months and months, they were kind of like, well, fuck it. If we did do it, let's do it like this. You know what I, yeah.

Finn Mckenty (00:50:58):

Here's what I think. Sorry, go ahead.

Jesse Cannon (00:51:00):

You could go, first of all, I could contrarian quarter, do whatever you want.

Finn Mckenty (00:51:04):

Why don't you, yeah, you can tell me why I'm wrong about this. Okay, go ahead. Here's what I think. I think that a lot of musicians need to flip a little switch in their head as far as what their job is.

Eyal Levi (00:51:15):

I agree.

Finn Mckenty (00:51:16):

Your job is to entertain people, and sometimes that is through playing music. Sometimes it is through other things. And so in regards to live streaming, maybe some bands can just put up a webcam in their practice space and their fans love that. And if so, that's great. But I think you need to let go of the constraint that what you need to do always requires you to play music. For example, Jesse, your boy Ronnie Radkey is making fucking a hundred thousand dollars a month on Twitch.

Jesse Cannon (00:51:48):

Oh my God.

Finn Mckenty (00:51:50):

I mean, I don't know exactly if it's that much, but he has somewhere around like 30,000 subs, so he's making a fucking killing. And I don't think he even played music, plays music at all. He reacts to videos or plays video games or whatever, and he's entertaining them. That's his job. It's not necessarily to play music. And so I think that's the switch that people need to flip. Maybe Matt Heeey from Trivium, he's also making a ton of money on Twitch. Sometimes he plays music, sometimes he plays games. Sometimes they'll do behind the scenes stuff. So to me, it's like if you are entertaining your audience and building a relationship with them and listening to what they want, to your point, Johnny, if your audience wants you to play music, that's cool. If your audience wants you to fucking do card tricks, then do card tricks. But flip that switch of how do we entertain our audience tonight? And I think it'll be successful.

Eyal Levi (00:52:43):

The suicide silence example, by the way, fits right with what you're saying because their virtual tour isn't just music, it's, it's a lot of different things that a Death Core fan would like. I have zero interest in anything they did, but

Johnny Minardi (00:53:00):

What does a Death Core fan want at that point? I'm curious to hear what those extracurriculars are.

Eyal Levi (00:53:05):

I think Death Core fans want something that's funny, something that's also insanely heavy, and that's kind of socially bonding between them, I think and it some bright colors, basically some bright colors and fucked up designs. I kind of feel like if those four things are met, death Corps fans are happy.

Finn Mckenty (00:53:29):

That's the suicide silence family guy demo in a nutshell.

Eyal Levi (00:53:32):

Yeah, exactly. So whereas if OPEC did this, I'm sure they could just sit there and play and everyone would be happy with it. So I think you're right, Jesse, why are we wrong?

Jesse Cannon (00:53:42):

Okay. Well actually this is the funny thing. I don't think any of us are wrong, but I guess my contrarian thing, I actually think this is all what it is and it's what I've advised, but I actually do like these live streams, but I listen to a different type of, and I should say I know listens to some of this too, but it's like I'm really into that hyper pop stuff and they do DJ sets and what I look forward to is during this is that I'm going to hear new songs I'm going to like, and then I can put them on for an hour while I work on a fucking spreadsheet and write down two songs that were really good and then all of a sudden I have a new favorite song, so I'm getting wrong.

Finn Mckenty (00:54:17):

And that's how they're adding some value to your life is by introducing you to new music.

Jesse Cannon (00:54:22):

Yep. The thing I will say, since my YouTube channel is focused on going from zero to 10,000 fans to go to roundabout, everything we were just talking about with the networking thing and with the relationships thing is that the thing I advise all the groups to do in my thing on Instagram is that the biggest thing you need to be doing when you're a small group is finding the other groups who are similar to you in some way and finding your community. And what I say, the way you should start doing that bond is you invite a group that's similar to you that's small, like you maybe from another part of the country or the world, and you guys, every Tuesday you're just going to have 30 minutes to an hour where you go on Instagram live for both of your audiences and you get to know each other that you do it with a different group next week and a different group. It serves so many things during this time because you're one exposing each other to each other's audience. You get to know people, you entertain them and you do the thing. And that is also how you build the bonds and that's who you're going to tour with and collaborate with in the future. But that's my very big thing. Idea. What do you mean by get to know each other

Johnny Minardi (00:55:25):

And how easy is that?

Jesse Cannon (00:55:26):

Go on Instagram live and be like, yo, I just listened to your new track. That sound in the chorus is really weird. Is that an earthquaker devices fucking trans whatever pedal. Just talk about what your audience want to talk about. If you're music nerds, talk about the fucking G minor seven or whatever. If you're so the artist version of what URM does with our people. Yeah, just get to know each other to each other in some way. Yeah, just get to know each other in some way irritated. And then it will also cue the fans. Like this is a group you should know in their community, they're in my community. You like my stuff. It's just a nice cue. And what I also say is do that then make a fucking YouTube playlist and a Spotify playlist. Put that other artist in it and share that and tag them all the time that, I mean, every group I've ever managed has been brought up by their scene in their community of other groups they came up with. And this is how you do that in the modern era. And the fact that so many of them miss this, particularly in rock is literally head desk for me every day.

Johnny Minardi (00:56:27):

Yeah. Jesse, who have you signed to your pop label that you're going to start?

Jesse Cannon (00:56:35):

I think about it all the time. Like I've never had a good ear for unsigned artists, but now I listen to so many artists with 13 plays that I'm like, this is amazing. So I'm ready for it. There's this one. It's really cool. Yeah, it's the most exciting genre.

Johnny Minardi (00:56:52):

Send me the ones that have good vocal melodies, please.

Jesse Cannon (00:56:54):

I'll send you one that's doing really well on TikTok when we're done with this. There

Johnny Minardi (00:56:57):

We go. Alright, making magic.

Eyal Levi (00:57:00):

I have a question here from the Facebook group. This is actually from George Lever.

Jesse Cannon (00:57:05):

Nice. One of the best producers in the game right now. Great guy,

Eyal Levi (00:57:08):

Dude. I'm telling you George is going to be a big name in the next few years. You're going to see that happen. He's actually, I'll nail the mix this month, August,

Finn Mckenty (00:57:19):

Future YouTube sensation too.

Eyal Levi (00:57:21):

I don't have enough good things to say about him, but I mean he's a sick producer mixer, but I think the way his brain is wired is why one of the main reasons I see him advancing. But his question, and I kind of want to hear each one of your take on this, but what are the most common mistakes that you see individuals make in the music industry when it comes to business growth that you wish you could alleviate? Let's just start with you, Finn.

Finn Mckenty (00:57:50):

Well, I think that in almost every field the biggest issue is getting in our own way. As we've talked about a million times before, whoever it is that said that quote, whether you say you can do it or you can't do it, it's going to be true. I think that that's it. And

(00:58:07):

In creative fields in general, I would say that self-doubt is a particularly big obstacle self-doubt slash the self-talk that says you can't do it because of some external factor beyond your control. And I know that's kind of abstract and people are probably looking for some tactical thing like, oh, you should be using Asana to track your daily to-dos. But I think all that other stuff, that's fine, but as long as you are putting the locus of control over your success on something outside your control, you're doomed. You have to believe that you can do it and you have to believe that you have enough control over the factors for your success that it's possible. And if you believe that, then you'll do whatever it takes to make it work. So I know that that may sound kind of abstract, but that's the biggest mistake I see is just negativity and cynicism and finger pointing in the blame game and if you stop all that and get your head in the right place, then you'll figure out the rest.

Eyal Levi (00:59:07):

I agree. What about you Johnny?

Johnny Minardi (00:59:09):

Mine is similar to fins, but a slight different lane is, I have a hundred things I could say, but if I'm going towards the top of the list, I would say entitlement is the only thing that I've seen fail every single fucking time. Is that it, Jesse? I stole it from you.

Jesse Cannon (00:59:26):

No, that's No, I'm because it's really good. That's the right, I've been looking for the word That's the right word.

Johnny Minardi (00:59:33):

That's it. Because every single person that ever comes into my life in music, when I first started a new no one, I kind of summed up my entire career in a quote the other day to a buddy and I just said, getting the people that you believe in to believe in you, and that's the only way that you will ever be able to, I don't want to say climb the ladder in a lame way, but in a way to be in bigger conversations around people that have had success and have experience and have the halls of their office lined with plaques that you are enamored with the first time you see and then start doing it yourself and learning from those people and just not being entitled to be like, why isn't that me? Why can't I have that? Why did they get it? Why did they get that job? That to Finn's point will lose every time. No one has ever gotten more successful by being poor me at all. It just is impossible and one B would be don't be a fucking asshole. That's it.

Eyal Levi (01:00:33):

What about you, Jesse?

Jesse Cannon (01:00:34):

My big thing I'm on now is not enough research because I see over and over and over again whether it's like, oh, we're going to do this idea. Well, you should have known about this thing and now it failed because you overlooked that thing or onto just who you collaborate with. When I say research, the most shocking thing to me is just like, oh, well my cousin's uncle's brother is a video director will get him. It's like it takes an hour and it's really enjoyable to scroll through YouTubes and see who is making good videos and they're usually going to do a way better job. Same with producers and mixers. I know you just talked to the spirit box people and they were on another podcast that I listened to and they talked about how much work they did to research who was going to mix their stuff. The research of who you're going to involve in your team of who gets things done is the most easy thing and it's also super fucking inspiring.

Johnny Minardi (01:01:34):

It should be fun too. If it's not fun, you're fucking doing it wrong. Yeah,

Jesse Cannon (01:01:40):

Honestly, even for people write me all day with the YouTube, they're like, I can't believe how much you take it out. I'm like, I fucking love every minute of watching new things. When people message me on Facebook, sure, I don't want to ever get a Facebook message. It's annoying as hell, but I'm super psyched. Yesterday somebody sent me this insane video that I was like, oh, I literally wrote a script in 30 minutes, probably the fastest I've ever written one from seeing something somebody sent me in a message that I had an idea off of. And that's what you're supposed to be doing as an artist is you're supposed to be researching and getting inspired. And particularly what you hear, and Johnny I'm sure you can speak to this, is a lot of the best artists are constantly making inspiration and mood boards and things like that. I just heard Ali X talking about how much of that was her jumping off point, and she's one of the biggest non label artists in the world right now, and it really is. The thing is you need to be thinking about looking at things and figuring out what you're going to get inspired from, what you're going to launch from.

Finn Mckenty (01:02:45):

If you're telling yourself We need to have better music videos, that's what would make us more successful.

Eyal Levi (01:02:51):

How do you actually do that? You

Finn Mckenty (01:02:52):

Should have an answer.

Eyal Levi (01:02:53):

Yeah.

Finn Mckenty (01:02:53):

Well, and someone's like, cool. Well, if you could work with five directors, who would they be and why? You should have that answer immediately.

Jesse Cannon (01:03:01):

Agreed. Yeah.

Eyal Levi (01:03:02):

Mine is, I think too many people don't properly play the long game. They short game things way too much or way too impatient and our end, they're basically, they don't get themselves ready for the long haul because these things take a long ass time. Every single career that I know of that I admire in some way has been something that has been long and hard, fought and earned basically, and everything awesome that's ever happened to me took a really long time. It actually involved everything that you guys mentioned also, but it always took way longer than expected. And also relationships that are going to be fruitful, take a long time to develop. They don't just get handed out, especially in this industry because there are so many bullshitters, so many people who will waste your time that I think anyone who has something good they can bring to the table is going to be protective over that thing. And so in order for you to actually earn it and get that, it takes time. I think that that's something that I see people just not grasping too much or enough.

Finn Mckenty (01:04:19):

Sure. I'm going to add something that I think kind of touches on everything we talked about, and this is going to sound like such an asshole thing to say. I don't mean it that way at all, but I encourage people to Google more. It sounds like such an asshole thing to say, but really a vast amount of the questions people ask me or that I see people ask you, Jesse, I know this is true of aal, it's probably true for you two, Johnny, if you spent, I don't know, three minutes Googling it, you would have an answer. And the reason I think that's not, it's important. It's not because like, oh, I'm so important, don't waste my time. It's more like, feel free to ask me some questions, but you should make them count. When you have access to somebody, make sure you're asking them a question that only they can answer that you couldn't answer on your own.

Jesse Cannon (01:05:08):

I used to own, don't ask me before you google it.com, so I could just send people there

Johnny Minardi (01:05:16):

Managing bands back in the day, I used to have the conversation of if you couldn't get ahold of me, what would you do? And then they would say, well, I would've then walked up to the ticket counter to ask for a different flight. I'm like, cool. So next time, pretend you can't get ahold of me and then do that thing. And then if you run into a brick wall there, you've got my number, but it's 3:00 AM you're in Japan. So the shit, I can't help you. I'm not in Japan. I can't walk up and explain shit. So to your point, it's just spending that extra couple minutes and effort, and again, it's avoiding confrontation, all of it. It's like it all comes to a head where're like, please do something for me. And you're like, no, that's not how this is going to work.

Eyal Levi (01:05:56):

So to the one that you said Finn, about getting your head in the right space to actually believe that things are possible. I have noticed this my whole life actually, that when it comes to believing that good things are possible, a lot of people either relegate those to, it only happens to other people, or they think that it's just this luck thing, or they tend to swing the other way, which is thinking that huge things are just going to happen to them. Like boom, it's just going to happen. What did you do in order to fix your head and get yourself to realize that you were capable of doing cool things?

Finn Mckenty (01:06:49):

I will tell you the specific example of this. I'll tell you exactly when it happened and I think you were there.

Eyal Levi (01:06:55):

I think I was actually,

Finn Mckenty (01:06:57):

Yeah. So in 2017 we went to a convention, the ClickFunnels Convention. ClickFunnels is a company that makes a piece of software that essentially is like landing page designer more or less kind of targeting these small businesses, the kind of people that sell flashlights on Facebook or whatever, these kind of corny, I mean that's really what it's, I mean that's actually the specific person I'm about to talk about sells flashlights on Facebook.

Eyal Levi (01:07:25):

And they make 3 million a year, don't they?

Finn Mckenty (01:07:28):

Yeah, I know who these people are. They were there at the convention. These people are not bullshitting. They became millionaires selling the dumbest shit on Facebook or these corny info products that a lot of us would laugh at or whatever. We went to this convention and at the convention there was, I dunno, 10 or 15 people basically telling their story of how they became successful and what they did. And I noticed that these people were not smart and I am not saying that to laugh at them or put them down.

Eyal Levi (01:07:57):

No, you're right. They were not smart. There's nothing special about them.

Finn Mckenty (01:08:00):

They're making basic math errors, reversing signs, getting terms churn and retention backwards and stuff. And I was like, holy shit, these people, I thought that the reason why I wasn't succeeding at things or that I couldn't do things is I didn't know enough. I was like, oh, I have to read another 10 books and then I'll know enough then I can start. And then I realized I was sitting next to Joey Sturgis and I was like, we know more about this than everybody in this room combined. And the difference is between

Speaker 5 (01:08:32):

Powerful

Finn Mckenty (01:08:33):

And the difference between me and the people up on stage. I know more than they do, but they were doing it and I wasn't.

(01:08:40):

I was like, well, who's the fucking idiot now? And that's what made me realize you just got to do it and you really don't have to. There's no magical piece of knowledge out there that, oh, if I only find this or for mixers, like, oh, if I just have this plugin, we've all had that journey a million times. Oh, if I just get this plugin a piece of gear, what's going to make my mixes come together? You get it and you're like, oh, that didn't make any difference at all, did it or maybe made it five, 5% better. That's the moment that I realized. And I went back to Creative Live where I was still working at the time, and I told Chase about that and he said something, it was very simple, powerful to me. He looked at me and he kind of smiled and he's like, you don't have to be smart to get rich. And I was like, wow, that's true, isn't it? Fuck. So that was the moment for me that just flipped the switch.

Eyal Levi (01:09:32):

Yeah, I was there too and my switch was already flipped, but still I had a very similar experience to you watching that. I was very wowed by how successful these people were and how not. I guess what this romantic version of an entrepreneur that everybody worships is I think that

Finn Mckenty (01:09:57):

Some Stanford PhD, these people are fucking high school dropouts.

Eyal Levi (01:10:02):

When people think of great artists, great rock stars, I think of these eccentric geniuses who are just wild people. Or you think of the entrepreneur, you think of an Elon Musk that's living this crazy life and wants to colonize Mars and

Finn Mckenty (01:10:16):

Having threesomes with Grimes at Johnny Depp's house.

Eyal Levi (01:10:19):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wow. Stuff. That's stuff that's totally foreign to just about every other human on the planet. And so you think of success and you think about it's not reality. Then you go to something like ClickFunnels and it's like, holy shit, these dumb asses are fucking crushing it just because they followed through. It's pretty powerful.

Johnny Minardi (01:10:42):

Can I explain my moment of that because I think it'll translate with these, please.

Eyal Levi (01:10:45):

I'd

Finn Mckenty (01:10:46):

Rather you didn't.

Johnny Minardi (01:10:48):

When I was working at a record store for years, and I always wanted to just get involved and I didn't know any, I lived in suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, and when I saw my friend's band named Knockout, signed a Fearless Records in Fearless had at the drive-in and a bunch of cool shit, I was like, my friends just got signed. I knew they were good. I watched them develop from not being good to being good. I know everyone involved, including the small producer, which was Sean O'Keefe at the time, all of these other people. And I was like, if I would've just done something, I could have been involved in helping them. But I was just a guy going to their show and buying a shirt every two weeks because they were my friends. So then it was like, the next one I find I'm going to do the thing.

(01:11:34):

I'm going to do all the things in front of it. And I did. And that's exactly how I started doing a record label. And then the second part, and I think it's good because it's like if you see someone make it in a way making it whatever it is, you go, what the fuck? I'm just as smart as that person if not smarter like you're saying. And from that point, the second part of it is when I heard the song Saturday by Fall Up Boy, where the singer goes into falsetto in the final chorus, I was like, oh, that's how you get on the radio. And it all made sense to me. And then they still closed their shows 18 years later with that song every show. So when I heard it in my bedroom, a demo version of it, I was like, aha, you just need those little minor moments to be able to go, I could do that. That's the guy I just saw piss his pants two weeks ago and he just signed a major record. You know what I mean? When you can normalize something, that's where the light bulb comes out.

Eyal Levi (01:12:31):

I had one in 2015, I guess my switch has been flipped my whole life about being able to do this stuff. But there have been some things that still seemed crazy. And I remember in 2015 when URM was coming together, I had big ideas for what I wanted it to do, but it was still just like a podcast and as some creative live courses. And it was no, now the mix hadn't been invented or anything. And I saw an article I think in Forbes or Business Insider or something with somebody who did online education. They talked about how much he was pulling in and I was not thinking, oh, he shouldn't have that or anything. I was just thinking, if he has that, why don't we?

Finn Mckenty (01:13:22):

Is this the person we know who had that month where he made 30 or 50 grand or whatever it was,

Eyal Levi (01:13:26):

It was like 70 or 80. You know who I'm talking about? Nice guy. But why I'm thinking if he has that, what are we doing? There's no world in which we shouldn't be doing way more. And so it just kind of, that flipped my switch as far as URM goes from that point on, it was just like, I don't know, and I had already had big thoughts, but it was seeing that just gave me some perspective. I guess it was a similar sort of thing, but I just want to be clear that it was never like he shouldn't have it or fuck him for having it or anything like that.

Johnny Minardi (01:14:09):

Yeah, it shouldn't be jealousy. It should be inspiring.

Eyal Levi (01:14:11):

Yeah, absolutely.

Finn Mckenty (01:14:12):

With this person in particular, he has been putting in the work for what, seven or eight years now?

Eyal Levi (01:14:18):

Absolutely.

Finn Mckenty (01:14:18):

Consistently without ever missing a beat. So I think that's the common thread with all these is people just putting one foot in front of the other as they say, hard work beats talent and talent doesn't work hard.

Eyal Levi (01:14:29):

Yeah, he's not a genius or anything like that.

Finn Mckenty (01:14:33):

And we can all think of lots of people who are geniuses and ended up kind of going nowhere because they didn't put in the work.

Eyal Levi (01:14:40):

Yeah. My college roommates, man,

Johnny Minardi (01:14:45):

I hope you're listening.

Eyal Levi (01:14:46):

They're not listening. I doubt they're listening. No, I'm saying that because my college roommates were two of the most talented people I've ever met in my entire life. I would've put them among up there with the great talents that I've met in the industry through great people and bands I've toured with or have had the pleasure of working in the studio with or just know through this, they were on that top level of talent, but they were such fuckups that they never did anything, ever. They never, their music career never went past that dorm room. They were way better than me. Way fucking better at everything. They could sing, they could write, they could play in any style. They fucking looked great. They were like the complete package. And they were smart too. They were designed to be successful in music minus one little one key little detail, which is they didn't work for shit, had no goals and just were more interested in doing drugs and playing video games, I guess. But I've seen it where someone has all the ingredients minus the just doing it factor and it goes nowhere. I'm sure you guys have too.

Jesse Cannon (01:16:04):

Yeah. I guess the thing I'd add to it, for me, what's been prevalent is also that, so I guess the backstory is that we talked about this a little, is that, so since COVID started, I left Atlantic Lecture where I was doing podcasts that I started doing a political podcast for one of the biggest news organizations in the world. And I have realized that through my career. So for example, when I met Steve Everts, who was my favorite producer, it's like I knew how to do drum edits and I knew everything about pro Tools when there was only hundreds of pro tools in the world at that point. And with this, I've been studying politics as my hobby for decades, and I was then prepared when an opportunity walked my way. But the other thing that I really do believe is that what we've all also had is that we all had an education beforehand.

(01:16:59):

And when I say an education, it's really just hard work being dedicated to looking at different things like ai, when you were just a record producer, you were always studying other things. Finn, you've always been involved in interesting businesses and learning new things and learning different disciplines. Johnny, you've always studied music to a degree, and it's like that thing of showing up and doing that work every day is what has opened every door for me and made every opportunity to do it because I'm dedicated every day to not playing the video game and doing something to better myself. Great point. Isn't that just part of your

Eyal Levi (01:17:38):

Lifestyle?

Jesse Cannon (01:17:38):

Oh, it's one of those things. I don't even have a choice. I tried to actually stop the other week. I was so burnt out and I couldn't even do it.

Finn Mckenty (01:17:47):

Yeah, I did say I bought a Nintendo Switch. I was like, I need to chill out more. Good

Speaker 5 (01:17:52):

Luck.

Finn Mckenty (01:17:52):

I'm going to buy a switch and just give myself some time every night to just play a video game and be unproductive. Lasted about two days. Yep. I played it since. Yep,

Eyal Levi (01:18:02):

Dude, the last time I tried that, so it was in 2015 also, I was like, I need to do that. So I got an Xbox three days later I took it back. It was just like, this is not going to actually happen.

Johnny Minardi (01:18:17):

Not going to work. Yeah, you can't trick yourself.

Finn Mckenty (01:18:19):

I think there's an important point here, and actually Johnny, it's exactly what you just said, is I think it's important to know yourself and understand whether you are the right type of person for the thing that you want to do. In other words, to do certain things, to be Elon Musk, you have to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week for 40 years straight. And if that doesn't sound fun to you, then don't try to beat Elon Musk and you wouldn't enjoy it anyway. I mean, I've been around some of these exceptional people, really, really exceptional people. And you may think you want what they have, but if you actually spent a day or two days in their shoes, you would fucking melt. You would hate it. I would hate it. And I realized that. And so I think it's important to align who you actually are. I don't work all the time because I'm super disciplined. I work all the time because that's what I want to do. I mean, just that's enjoyable to me. So I don't give myself a lot of credit for that. It just comes naturally to me.

Speaker 5 (01:19:20):

And

Finn Mckenty (01:19:20):

If it's a slog to you, then do something else. It's just not, and it's not a bad thing. I'm not saying working all the time is good or bad. It just is what it is. And you just have to understand, for example, I don't enjoy working out all the time. So for me to want to be a bodybuilder would probably not be a smart idea. I don't like lifting weights all the time. And the people who are into that stuff, they like it. They want to be in the gym four hours a day. So I think it's really important to know yourself and put yourself in a position where your strengths are aligned with your goal. And for example, I'm not a very chill person, and so you don't sing.

Jesse Cannon (01:20:05):

I've never noticed.

Finn Mckenty (01:20:06):

Yeah. So I mean, I'm not like an asshole or somebody, this just who I am. And so I struggle in situations a lot of, I'm not a very good corporate employee because I get really antsy and irritated at sort of the slow pace that's required inside a corporation. I, I'm a bad fit for that. I would be unsuccessful there. It's not that I'm stupid, I'm just, my personality is not suited for that. On the other hand, somebody who is more chill and maybe isn't wired for working constantly like I am is a better person for that job because they're okay with moving slow and I'm not. So knowing yourself and not lying to yourself about who you are and where you fit, I think is an important thing for everyone to understand.

Eyal Levi (01:20:50):

I agree. To your point, and also to what Jesse said about the research and to what Johnny said about the entitlement, I actually do think that they all go together. But the thing with the research of the just Googling things isn't something, for instance that I've had to try to do. I don't try to do that stuff for any reason other than something comes up. I want to know more about it, the end, what's quicker than something I can do on my own. Why that entitlement thing about, let me just ask Johnny to fix it for me. Why would I do that when that's going to take way longer for me than something that can just give me the answer right here, right now, boom, I can find out about it. That's not something I have to try to do. It just makes logical sense that if there's a problem I need solved, there's something I want to find out about. Why not take the quickest path to the information, which is something I can control. So that's just something I've naturally always done. And so what you're saying, Jesse, that research thing, at least in my case, that shit just comes naturally. I'm sure it kind of does with you too.

Jesse Cannon (01:22:01):

Yeah, all my life.

Eyal Levi (01:22:02):

Alright, so what are some things that you guys have developed that are unnatural to you but that have made a big deal? And is there anything

Johnny Minardi (01:22:09):

Most recently reading, because I am the slowest fucking reader in the world, and I have to, my wife's, gosh, fucking hates it. I have probably 25 books in this bedroom alone that I have not read yet that I am just like, I see it, I buy it, and then I'm like, I'm a 10 page a day guy. I'm just slow. And when I go further, it's because I'm looking at the quantity over quality of just accomplishing something and not absorbing it. So I have learned to pace myself and just do 10, put it down, ten's great, but if I do it consistently, I get through a book in two and a half weeks. You know what I mean? So it's like you're cool. So I've found my pace. So for me, it's not natural for me to be a reader. I've taken all of the speed reading suggestive tips, and none of it clicks with my brain.

(01:23:00):

So to your point of finding the information for yourself, we all absorb it so differently to where if you asked me for help to go do something for you, you might not love the way that I reiterate those things back to you anyway. So for me, I love the quiet version of me approaching it, whether it be through a book or a 20 minute YouTube video. Thank you, Finn. Or just seeing something else get broken down a way that I go, huh, I never thought about that. So that's the thing. If it's not natural, try all of the different ways. And just to me, reading chills me out too. So I just like vibe with it and I soak in the information, and if her book sucks, I stopped reading it. I think that's a hard thing too, that that's

Eyal Levi (01:23:46):

A good one. People

Johnny Minardi (01:23:47):

Forget, you know what I mean? And people, when you buy a book, you think, I have to read it, I have to finish it. But if I'm a hundred pages into a 300 page book and I'm like, this book fucking sucks. I'm not excited to pick it up. I don't want to read it. It doesn't excite me. I'm not absorbing anything of quality. That's been a muscle that I've had to flex and I've had to learn, well, fuck it. Just go donate this book. It's doing nothing for you. So that's my short answer is reading

Jesse Cannon (01:24:15):

Two Hour Rule was a great one. Somebody who reads way more books than me taught me years ago. That is if you're not engaged after two hours, then it literally do not have guilt. Get the fuck out of your life.

Johnny Minardi (01:24:27):

Great.

Jesse Cannon (01:24:28):

There's a million great books out there. You're never going to have time to read all the great books that you should read.

Johnny Minardi (01:24:32):

And when you find one that you do love, you go, oh, that's what it's supposed to be. I couldn't put, Bobby Hundreds has a book that he put out, what, two years ago or something. I was literally ending meetings early to get another 20 pages in. And I don't do that. I've never done that great book.

Eyal Levi (01:24:51):

What made you want to pick that up if that's not a natural thing that you enjoy? What brought that on?

Johnny Minardi (01:24:58):

I've always been enamored with the hundreds as a brand and a community and a culture. And it's something, it's very odd. I thought about it as I finished the book that I've never actually purchased anything from them in the 15 years. I've enjoyed the brand, but I'm enamored.

Finn Mckenty (01:25:11):

I love the hundreds. I would never wear it

Johnny Minardi (01:25:13):

Exactly, but there's something about the culture and the positivity and the little bit of politicalness to him and just always saying the right things. Even during the riots of in March and April, his shop got burned to the ground and he goes, good. If that's what it takes to make change in this world, I'll take it. A guy with that mentality I think can go so far in the world and teach us all really important lessons. So the book is incredible. It's called, this is Not a T-shirt, is that it? Finn?

Jesse Cannon (01:25:46):

Oh, that guy. Okay.

Finn Mckenty (01:25:47):

I got a copy of it right over here. Yeah,

Jesse Cannon (01:25:49):

No, I have it on Amazon because I bought it right now.

Johnny Minardi (01:25:53):

Fucking great book. So that to me, when a great book strikes you, it's a guilty pleasure to admit. But the first book that I actually couldn't put down was The Dirt. And

Jesse Cannon (01:26:07):

Because,

Johnny Minardi (01:26:08):

Oh yeah, that's a great book because I tried this Led Zeppelin story, and you're like, yeah, okay, I'm not

Jesse Cannon (01:26:14):

There. That's a terrible book,

Johnny Minardi (01:26:16):

So you just don't. And then I read the Dirt and I remember reading it on a flight and I was like, I wanted to get to my hotel wherever I was going and keep reading, which is fucking crazy. So when you find your thing, a little bit of your drug or your high from it, you're like, wow. So the latest one is Bobby Hunter's book, though. Go read it if you haven't.

Eyal Levi (01:26:37):

I just bought it. Yep. Same. What about you, Jesse? What's something that's not been natural for you?

Jesse Cannon (01:26:43):

This YouTube channel that I've started was, while it sounds weird to some people, but I definitely have some part of me that does not being the source of the attention. I always liked the idea of being the record producer. When I was in bands, I actually wanted to perform from the sound booth because I didn't want to be in front of everybody.

Johnny Minardi (01:27:06):

Did you ever do that, by the way?

Jesse Cannon (01:27:08):

I did it out of necessity at some show at Bard College. The sound was so bad that I just moved my keyboard stand to the sound booth. Awesome. Sorry to cut you off. I thought that was super interesting to throw that out. It was just one of those things that I just, at the end of the day, I'm a pretty confident person, but I don't love, this is the right way to say it. I am so introverted that it is very draining to me, and I'm already drained enough all the time from overworking to want to put myself out. But the YouTube channel, which was largely inspired by seeing Finn do it, I was like, I need to do this exercise. I need to get over this. I need to push through this. I need to recognize that, just like I was talking about before with a lot of things, is that it's a muscle and I have to exercise this muscle and my life will be a lot better if I exercise this muscle.

(01:28:02):

And it's honestly been the best thing I've done with my life in a long time is that I am even in, I should say the biggest source of insecurity for me is that now that I work at a news organization with some of the top reporters in the world, I'm going to Slack chat with them all day discussing the news, and I'm really insecure, even though people tell me so much about politics, I'm like, well, these people are the fucking experts. And I'm very scared. And this channel gives me a lot more confidence because you see the feedback, you see the things. And I should say, I put out a video this week where 25% of the comments told me I'm the stupidest person they've ever seen. But which

Finn Mckenty (01:28:45):

Is good because that means you did something. People care about working.

Jesse Cannon (01:28:48):

Yes, yes, exactly. I know that I have experience. I know what that comes from. But having that exercise of putting yourself out, it's been really, really difficult. But I see the rewards in everything that I'm more confident in every single thing that I do because I dare to push myself out there and do something that's really uncomfortable for me.

Speaker 5 (01:29:14):

Love that

Eyal Levi (01:29:14):

Man. Doing things outside of your comfort zone or the best. What about you, Finn? What's something you adopted that's not natural to you? That's a good thing.

Finn Mckenty (01:29:24):

I would say risk taking. I'm naturally a very risk averse person, and I realize that I mostly operate based on fear of being poor is my biggest motivator. Not that I have some horrible sob story, but I grew up on welfare with a single bomb and all that stuff, and it was not super fun. And everybody else I grew up around was like that too, and it was not fun. And I realized that I've operated a lot of my life just out of fear of living like that again, which has led me to be more risk averse than I probably need to be. Because as we were talking about before, it's like I know that I can do this stuff, and it just took me a long time to believe that, and I've been taking more risks in the past couple years. I'm really happy that I have, there's never been a time where I regretted it. Some of those things worked out and some of them didn't. But I've never regretted it in any time in my life. Looking back on it, there's never been a time where I was like, man, I wish I would've waited longer to do this or whatever. I mean, I'm sure we could think of some examples of that, but it's like a hundred to one. The conversation we have with ourselves is, why did I wait so long to do this or that?

(01:30:41):

Why didn't I break up with this person? Why didn't I move? Why didn't I quit that job? It's always like, why didn't I do that sooner? So I've just been pushing myself to take more risks, and I'm really happy that I have been, because it's really true that it's risk and reward. If you don't take any chances, you're not going to get those outsized opportunities that you want either. So that's hard for me to do because I'm naturally a fearful risk averse person, but it's felt good to push myself outside that comfort zone. Another thing I wanted to mention in regards to YouTube and what we talked about earlier as far as letting go of that desire or fear of failure and need to hide behind perfectionism and not putting this thing out until it's perfect, I would guess you feel the same way, Jesse, but I put out a YouTube video every week.

(01:31:32):

I put out a podcast every week, and I usually put out a second channel video every week 100% of the time. Every single time I'm about to put one of those things out. I think it's terrible and everyone's going to hate it, and it's going to be awful every single time, and I just do it anyway. And the reaction is never as bad as I'm afraid it's going to be. Even when something is a failure, that just means that people are just indifferent. If you think that there's going to be this reaction where there's this big backlash and everybody hates it, that's very unlikely to happen. If you're already a big creator that's in the public eye and you have a big audience, that's another conversation to be had. If you're you're fallout boy and you want to put out your dubstep record, that's maybe another conversation to be had because you have a big audience that does have expectations, but most of us are not in that position. And I think the best thing you can do is just put shit out. I mean, Jesse, you put out what, a couple dozen videos now

Jesse Cannon (01:32:34):

I have put out 80 something videos. Holy shit. Since

(01:32:37):

December. Yeah. So a lot. I got you at two every week. And yeah, it's a funny thing too, is I mean, I arguably have worked on more, if you think of it this way, I've probably worked on 2000 records now, and it's so funny because these videos are a new expression for me. So I'm so precious and I go back over and over and over things, but with records, I'm like, oh, well, this takes this many hours. Okay, we've reached that point. I'm probably done, unless I'm really obsessive over the record of producing it, then I'm going to go way further. But yeah, the funny thing is, your expectations of everything of what could possibly happen are totally irrational. And the story I always tell is when I put out my first book the morning it came out, I had the third panic attack of my life and literally had nine, one ready to dial the last one and had to walk to the White Castle across from my studio in case I had a heart attack. I was freaking out so bad.

Finn Mckenty (01:33:36):

We need to have a conversation where White Castle is the place that you go to when there's a potential health emergency, but we can do that later. Listen, it was the closest.

Jesse Cannon (01:33:43):

There's the life place that's close by

Eyal Levi (01:33:46):

Just saying

Jesse Cannon (01:33:46):

Only place goes by. And I'll also say I had a studio there for 13 years and I never ate there once. What a time to start. Yeah, I mean, I remember how bad it was the last time I had had it. So the point being though, 15 minutes later I got a review from the main place. I was waiting for the review saying it was the best book to buy on the music business. And I'm like, wow, you're a fucking idiot. But it's not that I'm actually an idiot. It's that we work ourselves up into panics about things when most likely the result is going to be indifference or when you release something that's not good, you're exactly right that it's just people just go, okay, another piece of shitty content. I see that every day three times.

Finn Mckenty (01:34:28):

Also, you as a creator, you have no idea what's going to be popular and what's not.

Jesse Cannon (01:34:34):

That's totally true.

Finn Mckenty (01:34:35):

You have no clue the song or video that you're like, oh man, this is the best fucking thing I've ever done. You put it out and people are like, yeah, it's pretty cool. And then you put on another one, everyone's like, oh my God, this is great. And you're like, really? You like that one? You have no idea. So you just got to let go of your expectations, get out of your own head and just keep making shit and getting better every time. And that's the only possible path I think.

Jesse Cannon (01:35:01):

Johnny, I'm curious, since you work with people who are so highly elevated, I mean, you're basically at the peak of delivery that you can reach. What is the thing with that? How bad are the nerves and how bad is the thing? Do you feel like you can predict pretty well at this point? What's going to do well? Or do you think you've gotten better at that?

Johnny Minardi (01:35:24):

My personal nerves or the band's, nerves as they're releasing music,

Jesse Cannon (01:35:27):

Probably both is interesting, but I'd be curious. Yours,

Johnny Minardi (01:35:30):

I know what to expect. I have a better parameter on what window to expect something to fall within. So when I'm putting out a new call, this kid, Jaden that Finn and I have talked about a few times, when I'm putting that out, there's no doubt in my mind that it's going to be successful at this point. We've just proven the path and the method and what it is and enough surrounding it and how it sounds is this, but better every time we've stacked, it's working. It's things that I don't want to say there's nothing I do that's wildly controversial, but there's definitely things that are left of center for a major label to where when I'm going in with something like that and getting, I'm nervous for the bands, I'm never nervous for me, what's the worst that could happen to me? I get fired.

(01:36:20):

Who gives a shit? It's like, you know what I mean? It's not my art. I'm the guy helping do things. So I'm more nervous for a band that puts their career on the line to do something time after time. So I almost take on some of their burden or what I assume their burden would be. And I also know their nervousness at times when we're like, should we be trying this? And it's like what we keep saying is we won't know until we do. Or if we've seen someone else do something similar and go, don't do that. Don't do that anymore, let's come over here. So I think it's just, again, to Finn your point of being risk adverse. I love that for certain things. And then there's certain things I'm like, who cares? Try everything. And if it doesn't work, you keep moving or you learn from it and do it better or yeah, I wake, I mean, every Thursday at 9:00 PM I'm scouring Spotify for what do we get?

(01:37:14):

What do people think? Search Twitter when it comes out in Australia because you get feedback 10 hours early. I'm absolutely that guy. That's just my obsession with wanting to deliver good news to the people I promised good things to more than it is. I'm never worried like, oh, someone's going to hate this in our careers. They're both over. That to me is like, I'm well beyond that brainpower. I just won't allow myself to go there anymore. I have been there. So I don't know. I think it's a combination of all things, but to me, I just,

Eyal Levi (01:37:46):

It's good to leave that behind.

Johnny Minardi (01:37:48):

It's hard to, it's absolutely hard. And when I was putting out records early on and it'd be crickets, I thought it was like, I fucked the entire world apart and I don't know what I'm doing. You're an idiot. I can't believe your boss isn't firing you tonight this evening. You know what I mean? I just would go into a hole of that now. I'm like, shit, that one didn't work. Why didn't it work? Let's talk about it. Let's talk to the manager. Let's talk to the artist. Let's talk to the head of radio. Let's talk to the head of DSPs and really bring our heads together and be like, this is what happened. We didn't have enough setup time. So-and-so put out two tracks just like it a week earlier. So they kind of got flooded here. Whatever it is, you learn from it. You don't go, oh man, I suck at what I do. And even if I did suck and I was the issue with that release particularly, I take that and I'm like, my bad. Here's what we should do next time to avoid that. And I didn't think it through yet.

Eyal Levi (01:38:43):

That whole feeling of if this gets fucked up, it's all over. I used to have that a lot, but I don don't get that anymore now at all. Sometimes, for instance, we'll have a bad, not bad, we'll have a less good month on now, the mix or something, and no panic ever. Whereas I think at the beginning I might've panicked and definitely back in the band days or studio days, I would have those kinds of feelings all the time. If we don't get this tour, it's over.

Finn Mckenty (01:39:15):

By the way, this is all another argument for increasing the velocity of putting out your music or whatever it is that you do. If you only put out one album every two or three years, that's a big swing at the bat. If I put out a video this week that doesn't do that well, it's like, well, that kind of bums me out, but it's okay because next week I'll have another one more

Eyal Levi (01:39:34):

Chances to win. That's part of why I don't get that feeling on nail the mix is because every single month we have another at bat. So even if there's a month, there's always going to be a month that doesn't do that great, but there's always next month, it's only 30 days away.

(01:39:50):

Kind of to what Jesse and Finn were saying, one of the most profound things I ever learned was on my first time touring in a bus, I happened to be sharing it with on earth, just me and on earth. The rest of my band was another one. And they had, this was like in 2007, they had this whiteboard up with the rules for the tour, like rules one through 10. Most of 'em were pretty funny, but rule number one was, nobody cares. And that just stuck with me. I think nobody cares is just a good, it's a good thing to remember when you're putting stuff out. I'll just say,

Finn Mckenty (01:40:24):

You're not Kanye. People are not watching your every move.

Eyal Levi (01:40:27):

Correct. Nobody cares.

Jesse Cannon (01:40:29):

And even Kanye, I'd argue no one's watching Kanye anymore.

Finn Mckenty (01:40:33):

Well, even Kanye, like you said earlier, Johnny, if he does something weird this week, let's go. It's gone next week.

Eyal Levi (01:40:40):

Yeah, exactly. I guess my one thing that's not natural that I've developed is exercise habit, which is, fuck yeah, I don't like it,

Finn Mckenty (01:40:55):

But it's got to be at least somewhat natural Now, it would feel weird for you to go back to doing no physical exercise. Right?

Eyal Levi (01:41:01):

Well, okay. So right now if the bitch voice comes up like, don't got to do it. I just do it anyways, and now it's just natural to work it into the schedule always. I don't have to try to do that. I just naturally work. I mean, maybe that's what it means for it to be natural, I guess.

Finn Mckenty (01:41:22):

It's not an option to do nothing anymore.

Eyal Levi (01:41:24):

Correct. If I don't exercise, there's a good reason as in like I'm so worn down that I'm going to hurt myself. So I guess maybe it has become more natural, but there's still always that God fuck voice. I don't want to fucking do this voice. Whereas I think some people don't have that. I think some people, they've just done it their whole lives or something. So developing that as a habit did not come naturally, and it was a great, great thing.

Johnny Minardi (01:41:53):

Great habit.

Eyal Levi (01:41:54):

Yeah. Holy shit. Suggestive for everyone. Anyways, I want to thank you guys for coming on. I think this is a good place to end the episode. It's been a pleasure as always talking to you guys.

Johnny Minardi (01:42:06):

You as well. Thanks for organizing.

Eyal Levi (01:42:08):

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

Johnny Minardi (01:42:09):

I learned a lot of

Jesse Cannon (01:42:10):

Ton

Finn Mckenty (01:42:10):

Things. Thanks so much for having us.

Eyal Levi (01:42:12):

Thanks for doing it, guys. 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 a levy URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixer. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording

Jesse Cannon (01:42:36):

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