CHARLIE MASSABO: Why Metal Producers Succeed in Pop, The Death of Dangerous Rock, and Blending Genres

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty.

(00:01:00):

I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way. All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at urm dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it and use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Hey, everybody. Eyal here. One last thing before we get into the episode. I want to apologize to you about some of the production quality in the back half of this episode. We were having tons of technical difficulties and we were not doing this in person.

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We do this remotely and there are some errors that we just cannot fix. We can't RX them out, and the option becomes either release the episode or not. I mean, this is the nature of the beast. Sometimes there will be technical problems, but I personally feel that it's not so bad that it's worth scrapping the episode. I had a great time and I think you guys would love to hear it, so my apologies for that. Please enjoy the episode. My guest today is Charlie Massabo, who is the French music producer, composer, and songwriter based out of Miami, who's previously an artistic director in Europe for companies such as Mad Waves in the UK and New Wave Labs, and he's worked on several projects for Google, Sony, PlayStation, Ubisoft, and many, many more. He then moved to la, started a studio and started doing work for labels such as Epitaph, fearless Sony, Bealer Brothers Season of Mist among many, many others, and including artists such as Falling In Reverse, the Word Alive, Luke Holland, daily Suicide and a bunch more. He has credits across multiple music genres including rock, metal, pop, hip hop, EDM, and his studio has been featured in a Google Pixel three Grammy commercial. This dude has done a lot of stuff. So that said, introduce you, Charlie Massabo. Charlie Massabo, welcome to the URM Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:03:23):

Hey, what's up? How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:03:24):

Good, man. How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:03:25):

Pretty good. Pretty good.

Speaker 1 (00:03:26):

So I saw that you're in Miami, right?

Speaker 2 (00:03:29):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:03:29):

Are you part of the wave of people that's leaving la?

Speaker 2 (00:03:33):

No. No. So I wanted to be in Miami way prior to the Pandemic. I lived in LA for 10 years and I'm French Miami is way closer to Europe for my family, all this kind of stuff, and I wanted to get out of the scene. I was in LA so I moved here and of 2019 and I was bi until the Pandemic. And since the pandemic I'm here with my family.

Speaker 1 (00:03:59):

Do you find that there's just as much opportunity there compared to LA for you, or does it even matter where you are?

Speaker 2 (00:04:06):

Yeah, to be honest with you, I was pretty worried when I first moved here. I was like, damn, this is going to be tough. But actually it's kind of weird to say that, but thanks to the pandemic, everyone from New York, LA has been moving here or in Austin, so it's been really interesting at the studio, really eclectic, versatile, multicultural sessions and Miami is pretty open, so we can keep working here kind of to a certain extent, but we work way more than all my homies in la.

Speaker 1 (00:04:42):

I didn't realize that people were migrating to Miami. I thought that they were going to Nashville and Austin, but I never heard about Miami.

Speaker 2 (00:04:49):

It's crazy, man. The amount of INRs that are sitting in the couch here since I would say since September, October, moving from la, moving from New York, especially from New York, actually people from New York, it's like for them they're like, wait, I can be in Miami and spend quarter of what I'm spending in New York and I can be by the beach. If you're going to sit in front of Zoom all day, maybe it's better to be close to the beach. You know what I mean? Instead of spending like 15 K on your rent to be in Manan and not being able to go out and live in a closet. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:05:27):

Pandemic aside, do you feel like in order to have a successful career, you need to be where the industry is? Or do you think that that almost doesn't matter?

Speaker 2 (00:05:38):

For me, it matters a lot. You're talking to a French guy here from a really small town in France and nothing was going on and back in the days, no internet. For me, it was a massive, my first move was to UK and then Ireland and then California, and I had to be there. It's really important to be where the scene is to me.

Speaker 1 (00:05:58):

How did Ireland factor into that? I haven't really heard much about a music scene in Ireland.

Speaker 2 (00:06:03):

Yeah, no. It's like what happened is that my first band in France, I was in a metal band called Sikh, and that band got a few tours there and I ended up, I was already recording and engineering and I ended up producing a bunch of bands there, local bands, and at some point I was just in Limerick pretty much all the time. I spent close to 11 months in Limerick, just producing bands there. So yeah, it just happened like this. I didn't, island called me, I didn't go there. When I went to California, I really wanted to be there, Ireland. I was just like, cool. Have some business there. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (00:06:39):

When you went to California, how much of a risk were you taking? Was it a scary thing or do you feel like you were already established enough to where you knew that you'd be able to make it work?

Speaker 2 (00:06:50):

Well, I had a bunch of Connects already before getting into the Rock stuff. I was working for a company in UK that was doing music content for Google, so I was going to San Francisco or Palo Alto often, and so I already had some kind of network to get some gigs there. And that producer, mud Rock, that guy really liked my songwriting and all this kind of stuff, so he was also really welcoming to have me in a studio. So yeah, it was risky because I already had my studio in the south of France. I was kind of not established, but I was comfortable and I had to leave everything to make that happen. So yeah, a little bit, but it was more good anxiety than anything else.

Speaker 1 (00:07:38):

My theory on moving to a place like LA, and I'm not trying to stop anybody. I think if that's where people think they should go, then go.

Speaker 2 (00:07:46):

I've

Speaker 1 (00:07:46):

Always thought that it's better to go if you already have a network, because if you just show up with no network, nothing, it's going to be very, very rough.

Speaker 2 (00:07:57):

I mean, I already had a network and I already had the experience. A bunch of ars from Sony and friends connected me to ars there. I was pretty comfy on that end. But yeah, I saw so many people coming in and out thinking they would just show up and things would blow up and this is not artwork. Here

Speaker 1 (00:08:19):

I am. Here I am just

Speaker 2 (00:08:21):

I'm

Speaker 1 (00:08:21):

Ready and LA doesn't care.

Speaker 2 (00:08:25):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean it's like Paris. Paris is the same vibe. You just don't show up and make it happen. It's like someone has to call you first. And also it was a genre saying in Europe I was doing that. I've been working with falling in reverse and this type of band a lot early 2000 13, 14, 15, and I moved to LA in 2012 and back in these days in Europe, beside bring me the Horizon, bands were not really inclined to add EDM or Trap or a lot of synths, and this is where I come from. My background is more syns than guitars, and when I moved to LA I was like, damn, they all actually looking for that uniqueness, and that's why I wanted to be there because I felt like I could do these things when in Europe people are kind of like, what the heck? This is not metal, dude. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:09:23):

Actually, yeah, I know exactly what you mean because my band 10 years before that was doing a lot of electronics in our music

Speaker 2 (00:09:31):

And

Speaker 1 (00:09:31):

The metal scene

Speaker 2 (00:09:32):

Was shitting on you.

Speaker 1 (00:09:33):

Yeah, I mean we still got the record deal and did all that, but really the amount of hate that we got for using electronics was ridiculous. Ridiculous. Especially considering that 10 years later that became a cutting edge thing to do in heavy music.

Speaker 2 (00:09:52):

Who made that happen? Who were the bands that actually made it? Okay, do you think it's bring Me's Horizon?

Speaker 1 (00:09:58):

I think Bring Me The Horizon is one of them. I think the bands that my partner Joey Sturgis worked on like Attack Attack and stuff, asking

Speaker 2 (00:10:07):

Alexandria,

Speaker 1 (00:10:08):

Yeah, those bands. But then also I think that there's bands like Dmu Borg Gear who have been using outside elements like that forever, and I think by the end of the two thousands, there were so many different types of heavy bands using synth that it just became accepted. I don't think it was any one band.

Speaker 2 (00:10:33):

Yeah, I mean, dude, Jimmy Berger, they didn't have the actual EDM field trap field, but the orchestrations were crazy. I remember also Vader to go even deeper in the heavy stuff. I think it's as long as it was minor, it was fine. And when that feel of major showed up in the middle of nowhere, a little too happy or whatever, all the metal heads were the heck dude. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:11:05):

So when you started doing that kind of stuff with heavy bands, did you feel like you were doing something cutting edge with them?

Speaker 2 (00:11:16):

I mean, cutting edge, I don't have this pretension,

Speaker 1 (00:11:20):

Well, something new. How about that? Doing something that hasn't really been done?

Speaker 2 (00:11:24):

Yeah. Yeah. I think a little bit mean, especially from where I come from, I always look at it from where I come from. I was like, damn, this is something pretty new and here's the deal. It's like before getting it into actual bands I worked with in la, I was already doing this prior to that style to become, I would say popular. So I always felt like I was part of this, and I know I'm not a pioneer of this style, but it really felt fresh. It actually felt fresh. It opens bending genres and adding different colors to a music that is to me a little limited metal because yeah, you expect big distortion and big kick in your face the whole time. That was really interesting to me because I was like, damn, we can go from this into a pop chorus. We can use all that to actually create a new type of sound. And I loved experimenting. I felt like I was experimenting every day as much as I wanted, and it was fun and it was accepted. Remember in France, people are really, really close minded on this kind of stuff. It's like you really have to, if you are a rock, you're a rock. If you're metal, you're metal, but you can't be going from a rock verse into a heavy course.

(00:12:44):

So for me, it was amazing. I

Speaker 1 (00:12:45):

Don't know if it's like this now, but my experience with the European market or scene is that it's very, very divided among genres. Very

Speaker 2 (00:12:55):

Crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:12:56):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:12:56):

Crazy.

Speaker 1 (00:12:57):

They take that shit seriously.

Speaker 2 (00:13:00):

Yeah, dude, I remember when I had a band, we were always talking about the guys in the back with the cross arms. You go to play your rock show and you actually have a pit and then you have 200 dudes in the back that are just judging. They paid for their ticket, but they're all analyzing what's going on instead of injuring the music or actually trying to get the vibe kind of being like, is that okay? Can they go like this on that course? Can they really do this type of breakdown? And looking at each other like this, looking back, it's pretty funny actually.

Speaker 1 (00:13:34):

Is this acceptable?

Speaker 2 (00:13:35):

Yeah, exactly. It's hilarious because rock, I mean metal music, you don't become a media error quick if you do. So it's pretty funny to see that for such an underground movement. People could be so close-minded sometimes.

Speaker 1 (00:13:53):

Yeah, I completely agree. It's interesting though that for such an underground movement, it really is I think a lot bigger than people realize, and its staying power is pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:14:06):

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (00:14:08):

Yeah. For something that really has only a few times, has it ever been embraced by the mainstream for very, very short periods of time?

Speaker 2 (00:14:17):

I mean, in Europe, dude, the mainstream, I feel like the last mainstream beside Go Jira, like sleep not, and then I'm kind of talking mainstream, mainstream. I missed out on something, but yeah, it was, I'm trying to figure out what happened after 2006 in Europe type stuff. What's your take right now on metal music?

Speaker 1 (00:14:42):

My take on metal music right now is there's a good side and a bad side. The bad side is that the mega bands are getting old, and that's concerning obviously because I'm not sure who's coming up behind them, who's going to be the next Slipknot at some point, Metallica's going to retire. Bands like Metallica and Slipknot help the metal economy tremendously. They provide so many jobs and so many opportunities and they help keep the engine moving for sure. No matter what people think about their music or anything like that, just pure economics. Bands like Slipknot, Metallica, even bands like Avenge Sevenfold have a huge positive influence on the entire metal scene. So what's concerning to me is who's next? Now, I do think that there's some possible contenders bring me the horizon, could take the place of one of those bands. Architects is coming up pretty hard right now and maybe they could do that too, but my concern is that 10 years from now, are we going to have mega bands like that that are engines to the metal economy? That's a question in my mind. However, on the other hand, I feel like artistically is in a very good place after being in kind of a dark spot for a while. I think that at least over here, the genre lines almost don't matter anymore,

(00:16:15):

And people are being more creative than ever. I think that the productions are starting to get more and more real sounding again, though still huge and polished, which is cool. There's more of an emphasis on playing. I think there's some really good stuff coming out, and the youngest generation has a lot of talent in it too, so I actually have a lot of hope for it artistically. I'm concerned about it commercially.

Speaker 2 (00:16:42):

Yeah, I mean, what I see now on the production side is especially because I'm in Miami, these people know here, these artists, they know I come from a heavy rock background, but now all of them are looking for getting that energy in their tracks, and I've been doing collabs with easy beats with walshe from major lasers here doing absolutely different stuff. There is no guitars. You know what I mean? There is no distortion, but they actually are looking for that energy. So I'm like, oh, okay. Fast forward, they're going to be producers like me starting to put this type of metal sound into Afrobeats or dance hall or just a hip hop production and then the movement is going to change. I feel like I had a discussion with Washy Fire a few days ago and it was saying something really interesting. It was like, I think that genres are disappearing and it's just going to be a movement or it's going to be like a mood. It's slowly and he sees it with major laser. It's so eclectic what they do slowly, people are not going to really care about Jra, but they're going to be like, what kind of music do you do? Do you do angry music? Do you do sad music? Do you do happy music? And then every mood would incorporate whatever it could be like you make happy music, you mix pop punk and sugar pop and you know what I mean? So I found that pretty interesting. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 1 (00:18:09):

Yeah, I agree with that. And also I think, and I know this for a fact, a lot of my friends who have a foot in pop or hip hop are all telling me that everybody wants guitars now and thank you. Machine Gun Kelly. Machine Kelly is, I mean, he's not the first one to have successfully done the crossover, but I think he's the most famous one

Speaker 2 (00:18:33):

And the most recent one too.

Speaker 1 (00:18:34):

But I think that really, this started with trap music a few years ago, trap metal where it's not really metal, but it's got something about it fits with metal in a weird way. I think that trap getting so big and then eventually you get to Machine Gun Kelly. I think that you're going to start seeing more and more guitar and heaviness in popular music, which is great. So maybe the mega band will come out of that.

Speaker 2 (00:19:04):

Yeah, I just did a couple of songs with these kids from Atlanta, AO and Teo Pure Trap hip hop artists, both songs, guitars, all the way, I'm not saying heavy guitars, but they're looking for that sound and not just for emo trap, not coming from little pip type stuff to actually more of a red or chili pepper type guitar, blue trigger sex magic type guitar. And I think that's really interesting and that gets me really excited. That gets me really excited because I see the way they see the track and it's not just beats anymore. They actually see what they can do with the guitar and working with trap artists. This guy don't work the same way we write songs with rock artists. They just go improvise. They're super spontaneous and having them actually interact with guitars is really fun. I have a lot of fun doing this.

Speaker 1 (00:19:57):

It makes me hopeful because I mean, I'm sure you've heard people say that guitar music is dead, guitar is dead, but that's bullshit. I have my 2 cents on this.

Speaker 2 (00:20:08):

What

Speaker 1 (00:20:08):

Are your

Speaker 2 (00:20:09):

2 cents? I don't think guitar music is dead. We all still listen to a good old led discipline. Any culture, ethnicity, they listen to classic rock and shit like this. I think what happened is a lot of singers kind of lost their message. There is no more message in rock music. This is how I've been feeling since 2017, meaning I write a lot and being thrown into sessions where the way I see it is like, okay, cool, I can write a call riff. I can create a good ambience for this part of the song, or I see it on the producer slash composer side. I never thought that I would actually come up with lyrics for someone else, and to me it's like when I started screaming in the mic a long time ago, I was mad. I had some things to be mad about. I was pointing things politically or relationship or taboo, all this kind of stuff, and now I feel like people in the rock world comes in the room, they come in the room like pop artists meaning, yeah, let's make a smash.

(00:21:16):

Let's make a hit. And the discussion is not like, how are we disruptive? You know what I mean? I feel like there's a lot of heavy bands right now. They're not being disruptive anymore, so it lost a little bit of authenticity and spontaneity and people, they get this, you know what I mean? Go Jira for example. They're really about their message. This is why it works. I love their music, but I can talk about white chapel or stuff like that, A morbid angel. There is references in there, but they have a good message and I feel like this is what's missing right now with metal. It's like people that actually come up with here is something that really matters to me and I want to talk about it, and it's not about the riffs or the guitars. This is more about that message get kind of loss. To me, it's against the metal culture to actually have an extra songwriter in the room, have a producer or someone that can help you with the composition, but the message should be something that comes from the singer of one silent percent and it should be convinced about it. You know what I mean? This is how I feel. I think that's why rock music kind of disappeared. I mean disappeared is really French of mine, but you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:22:26):

Disappears a relative term, but I know exactly what you're saying. I've said a lot that I feel like the danger got removed from metal and I think that we're kind of saying the same thing.

Speaker 2 (00:22:36):

It's PC dude, it's politically correct.

Speaker 1 (00:22:38):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:22:41):

Back in the nineties again, the machine, I don't think they were calculating the repercussions of the shit they were saying, and now I feel like I'm in the writing session and I'm like, damn, it's okay. Yeah, go for it. Take the risk. It's like this generation, the metal is not really compatible right now. It's not politically correct. It should not be. It should be disruptive. It should be like this and people should love or hate. This should not be just, okay, it's going to work out or it's going to be a hit. It has nothing to do with that, in my opinion. That's

Speaker 1 (00:23:13):

Why I think the trap metal stuff has done so well because it's dirty. It's dirty, and it speaks to where young people actually are. If I think back to the nineties, you've mentioned Morbid Angel. Going to a Morbid Angel show in the nineties was a kind of dangerous situation. It really was. I'm not saying that it's cool to get hurt at a show or something like that, but I'm just saying that the vibe, that vibe was super dangerous.

Speaker 2 (00:23:40):

Oh yeah. I mean, dude, Reju getting the machine. First show I went to, I was 14 and I was scared. I was scared to be in that pit. People were there to, it was not just a little pogo. People were there to take it out. So yeah, it was a different vibe and you were tough. You are a tough guy if you were in the pit back in the days.

Speaker 1 (00:23:59):

So the thing is though, I don't think that that energy has disappeared. I just think it moved to another genre because people still feel those same things.

Speaker 2 (00:24:08):

Travis Scott, dude, have you been to a Travis Scott show?

Speaker 1 (00:24:11):

I have never been to a Travis Scott show.

Speaker 2 (00:24:12):

Yeah, that was the energy, as he says, the rage. That reminded me of this crazy energy of metal early 2000 up to early 2000. I really hope this new generation, as you said, is going to bring that back into rock music.

Speaker 1 (00:24:29):

I hope so too. When you're working with artists, I mean you're a songwriter, where do you draw the line then between that ideal that you're talking about of an artist, 1000% bringing their message to the table versus you doing your job?

Speaker 2 (00:24:43):

I only work with a hand of rock artists now. I've been working way more with rappers and pop artists because I felt that there is more spontaneity in this sessions. Rock artists. I mean to me, like a dude like Ronnie Radkey, he has a saying, I help him with melodies. We put tracks together, but this guy has his lyrics. You like it or not, this is him and I respect that.

Speaker 1 (00:25:10):

Oh yeah, he is who he is.

Speaker 2 (00:25:12):

Yeah, and I love that shit. To me, that's punk, that's cool. And then people react. That's what I love about this guy is you never know he is going to drop a song and you never know if it's going to be love or hate first. They're going to be both, but you never know, and I love that how I draw the line. I think I've been mour into putting tracks together and sending toppers ideas, like Meic ideas with COVID. I haven't been in too many rock rooms in Miami here. There is no rock bands in Miami, Miami, in Florida, there is tons of great bands, but in Miami, not really. I didn't really have to draw the line. I kind of put myself out of the equation type stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:25:57):

I think there's something to be said for that. Sounds to me that's the exact same thing you did when you went to la. You put yourself in the situation you wanted to be in, and then eventually you took yourself out of a situation you didn't want to be in and moved yourself into another situation you did want to be in.

Speaker 2 (00:26:13):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, things are so fresh here in Miami. In the same week I look at my room and writing sessions or I am like, wow, my assistant is from Columbia, and then there is these artists are from Atlanta. The feature is from Memphis, and their co-writer is from New York, and then there is that other French guy. I love this. I feel like this is really what I'm looking for is really sharing cultures. There is something you can't copy because I learned this when I got to la. I understood quickly I was that French dude. It was like, oh, yeah, cool. You're French, so you're good with sins Def punk.

(00:26:55):

I was like, well, dude, for the story, Ronnie, I produced this rap mixed tape. He didn't know I was writing rock music. He didn't even know I had a metal band back in the days. I had his entire rap mixtape a few years ago, and then one day he shows up in the studio, I have a guitar. He is like, you write rock, dude. I'm like, yeah, yeah, check out this. It's like, oh my God. But it was, yeah, it was just like, yeah, this guy is French. He does senses, but you do do senses. I love senses. Of course. I mean, they're counter, right? Yeah, of course. Culturally, yeah. That's why that was my point. It's like there are things you can't really, you can be a sponge, but you always need people that actually been staying in that culture to bring something to the table that is original. And right now I feel like Miami has this. That's what I love about it. I feel like LA got, and also LA is way more clique oriented. It's like little groups of people that only and Miami has that vibe, and this is not just because of the pandemic. It's kind of like New York. It's like, oh, you know that guy? I know that guy too. Let's work and it actually happens. I love this about Miami. I'm not here just to promote Miami.

Speaker 1 (00:28:08):

It sounds like you love it there.

Speaker 2 (00:28:10):

Yeah. Yeah. I love the Sun, man.

Speaker 1 (00:28:12):

A lot of people who are doing hip hop pop and these newer crossover genres, a lot of them are metal guys who decided to cross over at some point or who used to do metal. What do you think it is about metal producers who that they do so well in these other genres?

Speaker 2 (00:28:34):

I think it's because metal technically is organized mess, organized noise. It's

Speaker 1 (00:28:40):

Fucking chaos.

Speaker 2 (00:28:42):

So you go from spending 10 years of your life trying to find room for that snare to pop and that extra guitar that is already on the wall of guitars. You know what I mean? And all of a sudden there is the opportunity of being like, wait a minute. There's four instruments going, no distortion. Yeah, this is cool. And I felt that's why all my friends that did rock or metal, they're really good at mixing anything else. Metal is so hard, dude, it's the hardest music to write. You actually need to be really good. It's really hard to mix. It's so hard to sell. So it's like once you go through this and you make a little money doing that and you're like, damn, I could do it that way. And you look at another jar, you're like, wait a minute, let's go. It's always a question of reason. Most metal is mid tempo, and when you start getting right now, I do a lot of drill 1 35 to one 50 type tempo.

Speaker 1 (00:29:41):

When

Speaker 2 (00:29:41):

I work with, I've been working with that guy, Popeye. He's an mc from Jamaica. I mean, dude, this guy, the way he approaches the song is the same way I would approach the song with my guitar and be like, okay, cool. I'll write a breakdown. He is really trying to get everywhere to hit as hard as a hit in a guitar breakdown, and we really unify on this because even if it's not my culture and I've never been to Jamaica, it is just the reason approach rhythmical. It's really close. So I have the same fun, but with a total different sound design, so that's why I started moving to other genres, but I also love real instruments. I've been working with that kid, Luke Holland a lot on all these sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:30:34):

Man, he's great. He's so great

Speaker 2 (00:30:36):

To me, is the perfect compromise, not compromise, but how do you say the bridge, he comes from metal and all the new drops he has right now, we have a collab with a rapper from Memphis. We just did a collab with Rio. There's a singer for flu that comes from the electronic world, but while trying to bring real drum sound to this type of genre and real drums limits you to do certain things, and so you find yourself doing something pretty unique because you can't have real drum sound exactly. Can have the same energy as a trap song. If you want to keep your kick to be real, your 8 0 8, you're going to have to have some type of compromise on the attack of your 8 0 8. So that's what I've been up to lately. Luke has been part of the direction I'm going to. I know we agree on the love of s things regarding where a metal was and where we can go with our metal culture.

Speaker 1 (00:31:36):

It is great to be doing that with such a phenomenal musician.

Speaker 2 (00:31:40):

It's crazy little genius.

Speaker 1 (00:31:42):

Yeah, yeah. Because it's not just some dude who decided to go to another genre. He can't play metal. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:31:48):

Yeah. Luke is to me is I wish every battle musician was like him. He can do the world of life career and then go to do a bunch of songs with Jason and Richard Har and in between he does a tour with Rufus Del Soul and he does a cover of Pop Smoke. This is dope. This is, to me, it's like if every millennial could be as open-minded as him, I think we would have some crazy, I'm talking about millennial musicians. We would have some unbelievable music coming up.

Speaker 1 (00:32:18):

I completely agree, but I guess that's what makes someone like him special. It's rare.

Speaker 2 (00:32:23):

Yeah, it's rare. It's rare. Yeah. That rapper was saying that exactly. In that song we just did, it was like, this vibe is rare. This shit is real. This shit is live. I swear.

Speaker 1 (00:32:35):

Yeah, I think real great talents, they're like one in a million or one in 10 million. I don't think it's possible for everybody to be like that.

Speaker 2 (00:32:45):

Yeah. I'm extremely grateful to do all this stuff with Luke. I mean, I do think this guy is going to have a Travis Barker type career. He's that close to get there and way younger than him. To me, it's like I see him like Travis Barker, 2.0, totally different upcoming, but I think he could have shared that love for drums and to me, drums, it's real instrument. It's amazing the way I see it cool while trying to do great songs, but at the same time, I'm like, all these kids that are going to hear this rap songs, trap songs, they're going to be like, oh yeah, it's cool to play a real instrument and this is how we can get more people to come back and do some good shit rock wise.

Speaker 1 (00:33:32):

I have a theory that, or just a belief that real instruments are never going to go out, and I think that it's because no matter what, even though there are tools to make life easier for non drummers, you can program drums. There's much more technology to assist, but on the other hand, the enjoyment that people get out of actually playing instruments, oh man, it hasn't gone anywhere, and if you look at the evidence, for instance, fender just had their biggest year ever. I think they made, I think they posted they made 900 million last year or something.

Speaker 2 (00:34:14):

Not bad.

Speaker 1 (00:34:16):

Yeah, I think it's all right. People are buying guitars, people are buying instruments.

Speaker 2 (00:34:21):

I mean, dude, all these kids coming here, renting the studio in Miami, they start, their process is interesting, especially all the upcoming producers from Jamaica or all the islands. They go on splice, they find loops, they throw that in their session, they see if they're a singer, rapper fills it, and then there is a real guitar or real bass player in the room and they jam to it and that sample disappears. It's just, to me, that's the perfect way to use this kind of tool. It's something that you would not find in your brain that quick, that gives you that starting idea and then you jam to it and then it's gone. But yeah, it's amazing to see all these kids playing in Latin music like Daniel Ocean, his guitarist, producer is unbelievable player, had the chance to have him here. Yeah, I think I agree with you, real instruments are never going to go away, is just finding ways to incorporate them in upcoming movements and jars type stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:35:24):

Exactly. What I think is the problem, well, I don't think it's a problem. I am on your side of the fence about this. I don't think it's going anywhere, but I think the people who think that real instruments are on their way out, their problem is they're thinking of the world in a static sort of way. They think about it in the way that it was, and they want it to be the way that it was, and that is just not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (00:35:53):

Yeah. I hear so many producers saying like, oh, dude, what would you track real drums? You can program that shit, and I'm there. I'm like, no, have you ever worked with a good drummer? It's like, you'll never replace this. You'll never replace that energy. You'll never replace the air it creates in your mix when you use real drums. I mean, I'm biting my tongue because 15 years ago I would be like, damn, this is awesome. I don't have to go run the studio for my band to record drums. On the coast side of things, especially in Europe, you don't have a lot of project studios, so you end up in studios where you have to spend two KA day just for the rental, and this is your starting band and you don't have that money. You're broke in college or whatever.

(00:36:41):

Yeah, it's cool to be able to program it and put your demos like this, but man, yeah, it's real drums. It's it's life, and a lot of people around me, they're always like, damn, dude, why do you spend so much time on this project with Luke? He's just a drummer, and I'm like, this is exactly the point. He's a drummer. This is such a different angle to actually read songs as an artist. It's defending the world from just using programmed drums or all kinds of tools that are trying to replace the human brain and the human feel. Of course, I use a lot since, but I love real instruments and that's why I work with Luke. I think the

Speaker 1 (00:37:28):

Best of both worlds is like what you were just saying with Splice, using those tools to assist the creation of art, whatever it takes, not to replace, I guess the physical contributions of people, but to enhance them.

Speaker 2 (00:37:44):

And dude splice also on the other end, on the producer side, selling packs on Splice can get your music out. There was one sample, I forgot the name, I don't remember what song, but some girl that Primi Horizon used on one of their tracks. She ended up getting some cloud out of it and a recording deal out of this too. It's also a good way to show that you can also write some good music. I mean, to me, it's all really positive. I do think that while going in the right direction, we just don't know exactly what direction we're going right now.

Speaker 1 (00:38:20):

Well, you never know what direction things are going because none of us are psychic, but I just look at the fact that music is doing better than ever. I mean, touring in the pandemic aside music is doing better than it's done in ages. It recovered from that huge dip in the industry. Instrument sales are through the roof music education like URM or whatever we're doing great. People want to know how to make music. People are getting more and more creative. Genres are kind of disappearing. I mean, this is all really, really good stuff, and I think that the producers of Tomorrow are going to need to, they're going to need to have skills beyond just mastering one genre with the exception of say, some guy wants to be the best death metal producer in the world and manages to become the best death metal producer in the world, and all of the best death metal bands go to that person. Cool. But there's only one of those people, right? Or two or three or four or five maybe, right? There's not room for a thousand of them. There's room for five 10 if I'm being super generous, but I think that the future path for successful producers as an industry is to be able to handle multiple genres and know how to blend them. That's the future in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:39:52):

And I mean technically things are getting so easy. It's like I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago, for me it was like getting a okay mix was complicated and I needed a lot of skills, and I remember listening back and forth, why is my stereo not like this? My correlation, all this kind of stuff, and now you have tools that help you so quick with ISO Top, all these plugins companies. You don't even have to know what you are doing if someone tells you, yeah, make sure this thing stays at one and you're good. You know what I mean? I do think that the creative side of producers is, that's why I ended up being a songwriter composer type producer because it's more exciting for me to get involved in the track and write the track than actually getting it to sound great to me. The creative side won't be replaced. Back in the days I worked for a company called Mad Waves and then New Wave Labs in uk. We were doing generative music, so we were trying to replace to get music to be done by itself,

Speaker 1 (00:41:05):

Like computer generated music.

Speaker 2 (00:41:07):

Yes. And so we did, I don't know if you remember those Sony Ericksons that had you could create your own ringtone on it. That's how we started to the point where we actually sold the technology and with Google, that's how I ended up working for Google. My love for California started from there, but it sucked, man. The music sucked. Even with so many talents in the room trying to put together these algorithms, I was missing something. It was missing imperfection, emotion and emotion, and I do think that that's the part I really love is working on the emotional side of a track and the technical side. It's whatever to me, there are so many records that I love that don't sound good.

Speaker 1 (00:41:57):

Well, the technical side though is important, but the problem is when people prioritize it over the creative and emotional side. However, there is a certain personality type who are more like human computers and they are just really good at technical kind of stuff, and that's what they love, and I think that there's room for those kinds of people too. They make great editors, great engineers. I

Speaker 2 (00:42:25):

Mean, dude, I need them

Speaker 1 (00:42:26):

For sure. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We need those people and the ones that I know who are like that, they love it, which is, it's like I remember from the touring days, they're guitar techs and the guitar techs that I worked with loved being guitar techs and they loved doing Guitar Lu air stuff when they were home. They love it. It was their passion. Man, I never want to even think about building a fucking guitar or anything like that. I don't understand why someone would want to do that instead of be the player, but hey, but that's fine. I'm really, really glad that there are people like that, and that's how I feel about the technically minded engineers. They are necessary, but what I do agree with you on completely is that the barrier between having an idea and then having it sound good coming out of your speakers is far reduced. Far, far reduced.

Speaker 2 (00:43:31):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:43:31):

Just think about where Amps Sims are now. 10 years ago you could dial an Amps sim and get a good tone, but it was hard as fuck. It took a ton of work. Nowadays you just plug into some of them and they sound great, and the technology has come so far that, like I said, the time from having an idea until the idea coming through your speaker sounding good has been far reduced.

Speaker 2 (00:43:54):

Definitely. I am not really technical with guitars. I love my X FX because in five seconds I can be like, yo, homie, I know you have that Diesel VH four. Can you send me your sim and I'll match it real quick? This is pretty amazing for that definitely.

Speaker 1 (00:44:13):

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 multitracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. 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.

(00:45:05):

And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jenz Boren, Dan Lancaster to I Mattson, 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 multitracks 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 like game 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.

(00:45:59):

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 URM Academy to find out more, man. I want to talk a little bit more about the generative music stuff you did, if you don't mind, because I've never actually met anyone who worked in that world before,

Speaker 2 (00:46:31):

So what do you want to know?

Speaker 1 (00:46:33):

I don't think that until machines figure out how to feel emotions and have ideas of their own and feel those ideas that a machine will ever be able to replace human inspiration, I think that it could get super complicated and mimic it and mimic all the technical aspects of music. If it keeps going, the technology could definitely get it to where it can mimic chord progressions and melodies, but it will never be able to have that extra spark, that mood that a human has.

Speaker 2 (00:47:13):

Yeah, that was our problem. You are like, all right, cool. Reggae music, most of it is minor. Or we would start with writing algorithms like this, and when we would do sad music, you always want to bring some type of hope in it, and for that it's like finding the right spot to get your middle D to modulate it a little bit. It's really how you feel about it that makes you write it. And the computer for sure, we could not put that in algorithms. That was such a big issue. The really positive thing about it though is that at an early age, I was able to get paid to actually study other music genres, and I think that's why I love Metal. That was my genre in my heart, but I was like, damn, it's so interesting. I would love to be able to write Rege or Dub or Garage UK or UK Garage, sorry. And that's where my love started for bending genres and doing crossover stuff and the technology app, and I'll send you, I don't know, maybe you saw it before I joined that company, they had put together some type of GameBoy. It looked like a GameBoy, it was called the Mad Player,

Speaker 1 (00:48:29):

Not Familiar.

Speaker 2 (00:48:31):

So it was pretty interesting, and back in these days I was like 16, 17 was end of the nineties. The limitation, the memory limitation, the ram was crazy. So writing a piano and getting him to be in such a small device without smart SD card or stuff like this, that was pretty insane. And the way it was working is could it looked like a freeway and you had your four tracks and you had drums, riff, bass and lead, and then you would go in each lane and you could change that and randomly would give you something new and stay in the key or stay in the style you picked. Then you could, what was cool is that you could also export the media of this, so then you could from there, actual music out of it, original music out of it. But yeah, I mean drums super easy to program and make it feel real, actually taste right. Bass was kind of okay too, and as soon as we were getting in the Meadow D Territory, it would become, I mean, it would be pretty like a 4:00 AM session. You are too turned up to understand that what you're doing is terrible. Yeah, that's where we were. Yeah. What was also really interesting for me is that I was art director for it, so I was the guy that would tell the musician what was cool or not making sure the technical team was being respected.

Speaker 1 (00:50:01):

What does that mean being respected?

Speaker 2 (00:50:04):

There would be technical limitations regarding the size of a piano, the size of a bass, the size of the actual instruments. So I would make sure that the musicians that were putting together ideas for the programmation of algorithm would understand that they could not do a legato on the base or they could not do stack at all certain strings, things like this. And that's kind of how my love for started, because I was like, damn, man, you can really, really go deep in creating something that totally unique. You know what I mean? There's not that, I mean, I don't want to sound too French about this, but a Telecaster is always going to sound like a Telecaster.

Speaker 1 (00:50:49):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (00:50:50):

Of course another Telecaster is going to be different than yours. And with sins, I was like, damn, the possibilities are infinite. That's the kind of stuff I would do, or I would make sure that the writing would be simple enough for the algorithms to actually do something tasty. It's really hard for me. I know it sounds like I'm telling you the earth is flat, but trying to prove that the earth is flat right now.

Speaker 1 (00:51:17):

It's not flat. No, it's not, dude, how crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:51:22):

I mean, yeah, generative music was a saying for sure. For sure. That's how I ended up in California a lot because I ended up doing all the sound design for the Google phone one doing all this. I don't know if you remember Google when they came up with the first Google phone, they were the first company to have ringtones that were more than 30 seconds or more than 25 seconds. I don't remember exactly the technical aspect of it, but I remember writing long ringtones and also we designed all the scenes for the phone because the memory back in the days was not as easy as now. There was not as much memory in the phone. So yeah, it's interesting to see that actually generative music got me to do music content that actually got me in the place I wanted to be for my rock stuff that was California. That's pretty much how I ended up here. There.

Speaker 1 (00:52:22):

Well, that just goes to show that you never know what's going to lead to what, and you should do the best job possible with the opportunities in front of you. I know one of the biggest mistakes that I see URM students make is not taking their opportunities seriously because it's not what they eventually want to be doing. My experience, at least with any opportunities that I've had is that you don't know when they're going to show up. You don't know who they're going to come from and you don't know how what you're doing now is going to lead to what you're doing five years from now. So take it seriously always, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (00:53:01):

Yeah, I mean, dude, when I moved to LA, I wanted to be what we call the producer, someone like Mud Rock record guitars, record a band, mix it, engineer. That was kind of the dream. And then my opportunity was like, Hey, dude, you write good songs. And I ended up pushing this. I didn't fight it. I was not like, oh, that's not what I want to do. I went with it and I actually made a career out of it in America. And yeah, I see a lot of when you do a electronic song like EDM music, you have a lot of opportunities that come up with one song. You can have remixes. It depends of the scene you go in, and a lot of artists, they get turned down because they're all like, oh, damn, this is not exactly what I wanted, so I'm not going to go with it. And it's like, yeah, but is it something that can bring you to a little closer to your goal and jump into it? It's fine because it's either this or you have nothing.

Speaker 1 (00:54:01):

How do you even know that that goal that you have now is going to be your goal in a few years?

Speaker 2 (00:54:06):

Dude, my only goal is this. I want to wake up every day, get in the studio, have fun with people, write cool music, and this makes me happy and be able to provide for my family and this goal every day. I think I achieve it. Then my dreams, these are pretty defined, but I know the change when you wake up in the morning, the dream you had, you probably have not 100% accuracy on what was really your dream in the first place when you are sleeping. So I'm really cool with going with the flow. I think it's key with this industry, you have to be able to adapt very, very quick whatever music you do, and I think this is how I've been able to survive pretty well in it. But that's why I tell kids a lot too that come to the studio. I totally agree with you. They need to be open to new opportunities.

Speaker 1 (00:55:04):

Understanding that you never know where it's going to lead. I mean, it's a very big jump to think of making ringtones to doing what you ended up doing. It's quite a jump.

Speaker 2 (00:55:20):

Yeah. Yeah, it was a jump. I mean, the thing is that I was already in rock bands and metal bands in Europe, dude, I was making no money. I was not making enough, and I was just like, damn, I just want to make sure that every day I can make a living doing music, because whatever music it is, it's better than any other job. That was where I was and slowly it helped me get to where I wanted and now I do exactly what I want every day and new opportunities come up. But yeah, you got to take the opportunity when it shows up and not be scared and what's the worst that can happen? You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. That's for sure. I go with that. I'm not afraid to fail either. We have a pretty interesting song dropping with Luke next Friday. We shall see, we shall see. People might not like it. It's okay. People might be stoked about it. I don't know. But I just know that trying new things and taking a risk and trying to be unique is key to move forward.

Speaker 1 (00:56:21):

Yeah, absolutely. And I also think that trying to please the audience is a bad idea because it's impossible to please everybody. It's just impossible. And it's impossible to predict how people are going to react. So if you're trying to please them, you're already losing.

Speaker 2 (00:56:41):

I mean, there's nothing worse than trying to please the audience and it doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (00:56:46):

I know.

Speaker 2 (00:56:49):

And most music doesn't work out, man. This is what I tell people. It's like I make a hundred song a year. There is 10 that of 15 that ends up making some numbers, and out of this 15, there is one that actually smash. And if you do it for that one song, you're going to be really sad. Or your 10 songs, whatever is your level of production. So I make sure that every day I do something that makes me happy because, and make the artist happy, or because you never know where it's going to go. So yeah, if you try to please everyone and it doesn't work out, this is the worst feeling I'd made that mistake. Did you do that at some point?

Speaker 1 (00:57:29):

I never changed the sound of my own music to try to be more popular or anything. I mean, I wouldn't have chosen extreme metal if that was my, I mean, I definitely wanted my band to get as big as we could get within what we did, but we never took that jump. And maybe to our own detriment, who knows. But the reason I'm saying it is because I've seen a lot of artists that I've either produced or assisted on productions with, and I've been around a lot of artists who do think that way and who have had those thoughts, and I've seen what happens when they fuck it up.

Speaker 2 (00:58:12):

Yeah, I mean, dude, I have a perfect example for you look, a dude like Ronnie Raki, he's extremely controversial and this guy loves fashion new trends. He really loves this. So it's part of him being a high beast of whatever is going on in music as being a singer. So if you love it, it's okay to try to be part of whatever is

Speaker 1 (00:58:37):

Popularly. If that's who you are,

Speaker 2 (00:58:38):

It's the same. Yeah. If this is who you are, it's like with you, you're like, damn man, I want my band to be the most extreme metal band of all times. This is the same way. What sucks is when you try to be someone else, this is where everything falls apart.

Speaker 1 (00:58:55):

I was having this conversation with Devin Townsend on the podcast about a year ago. We were talking about Chad, Kroger and Nickelback actually, and he knows him. What we were saying was that people like that, the Chad Krogers of the world, that is who they are. They are making the music. That is them. That's why it's so successful. Like it or not, that's what their natural output is. And when you try to do stuff like that and it's not your natural output, the audience can tell. They can just tell. They're like drug dogs or something. They can just smell it.

Speaker 2 (00:59:31):

Yeah. That's why there are so many rock acts that have been tanking heavy rock acts that they were not doing that for the right reason. It goes back to what I was telling you in the first, earlier in the podcast, when I was in a metal band, I was really angry. I was mad at the world, I was broke. There was all these reasons for me to be on stage screaming in a mic, and my band didn't do a lot. We got a small deal in Germany and all this, but every time I sing about it, I'm like, damn man, that was real. And one day I started making money with music. I started being a happier man and I was like, damn, I have no reasons to be that, to sing these lyrics anymore. And I had to go with where my life was going because I felt I was not authentic anymore. And I think that's the key is that authenticity. It's like if you're really the mirror of your life, I don't know how to say that in English properly, but I know where I'm going. Authenticity is key for sure. So

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):

Just out of curiosity, I'm sorry to keep going back to this. I'm just really curious when making music for a giant corporation or for a game or anything like that, that's not like a band, not an artist. It's a product. It's a product, and you have to work with corporate people who have

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):

Items.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):

It's itemized.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):

Yeah. How different is that to you? How is the process different than when you work with a run Iraqi or something?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):

Well, I have to be honest with you, it's way easier. It's way easier because you get a list of exactly what needs to be done. So it's like on the production side, you can't really fuck up. It was way easier. The negative side is there is no real sense of accomplishment of doing something new or edgy or unique. So it's also a little boring because it feels so easy when you get in a room with a band or with a writer, a singer, you don't really know. There is that good anxiety of not knowing where the day is going to bring you. So basically, and you might not do anything that day, that song you try to put together might never work. And it can be four, five days like this of blank and being like, damn, this is not what we want. This is not good.

(01:01:59):

This is not right. While doing the same shit again, all this type of stuff, working for big corporations like that, the sense of satisfaction is quick because you're like, all right, cool. I've been asked to do this two hours after it's done. When you write for an artist, it can be great. In 30 minutes you can have something amazing done, but you can also spend five days with that feeling of like, damn man, we suck. We don't have anything right now. So to me, that's the two first things that come to my mind that I'll pull our OSI from these two worlds For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):

Sounds like there's probably certain personality types who would love that? I think there's probably a certain type of person who would love just to get a list of what has to be done and just do it the end.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):

Yeah, man. I mean, I'm that guy. When I receive those mixed notes, I'm like, fuck, I hate this. What I love is the role creativity of music. And that's why I didn't push it because as you can imagine, the first Google phone, it went pretty well and the company was really happy with our work, and I had the opportunity to actually join Google and get this kind of type of career where you know exactly how you're going to make, how much money you're going to make every month. But that was not exciting for me. That was not, I remember being there talking to one of the main guys there. They were showing me around me, you could have this and you could do this and you could do that. And I was like, man, I don't think you understand what it is to be in a shitty studio with a few people, some guitars and creating something that did not exist and have that feeling in the room of like, damn man, we've got to conquer the world with this track. Yeah, that was not for me. It's too cold for me. I love mistakes and imperfections and where the creative direction in the room is just the room itself. And for this kind of company exactly where it's going to go. Everything is so calculated. There is so much at stake.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):

Well, I mean in the small studio, you're thinking about taking over the world with this track, but at Google, they already took over the world. So

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):

That's why I realized that I was like, damn, financial side of things is not my main concern because the money there was extremely different as the type of money you can make engineering or producing rock trucks. Even if you can be extremely successful and make good money, it's another world. But it's not that exciting when I think it's the metal spirit or the punk spirit spirit. It's like I don't want to be part of the people that impose to the other people the way they should sing or the shit they should listen to. I'm against this, why am I here? So that was identity crisis for me. And back at that time, I can tell you that my family was not understanding what was going on. They were like, what? You have this type of opportunity and you are not going with that. And I was like, no, I'll make rock music, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):

The thing is that on the outside, someone may not understand that, but I think that if you really know yourself, which I think is really, really important in this industry, is know yourself and you know that a situation like that is going to rot your soul basically, and you're going to hate your job. I don't think that there's an amount of money that makes that worth it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):

Oh, exactly. Exactly. Don't get me wrong, this is exciting too. To work for this, what I learned, working with them for them helped me structure the way I take care of projects when I have to do a beat pack now, a sound pack. I learned from these days I am way more efficient. There's a lot of good things to get, but to me, for any musician or aspiring producer, it's like, cool, do it for a couple of years. It's going to help you. But if you don't feel like you need someone every day to tell you what you need to do, don't stay there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):

So just out of curiosity, because you had that experience in such a serious environment, does it ever frustrate you how unprofessional and lax the music industry is?

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):

No. The only thing with the music industry that's really hard for me is song splits. To be fully honest with you. It's like you write songs with people and then there is that business discussion after, and it's really hard for me to be connected emotionally to a track and then just see it as just a piece of business. That's where unprofessional people can get your day to go really wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):

Can we talk a little bit about negotiating splits? This is something that actually a lot of our listeners are curious about. You just said it's something that you discuss after the fact.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):

I mean, it depends. Certain sessions, there is an a NR being like, Hey, we're all doing this type of writing, this kind of placement. This is what people would get in the room and cool easy. And then sometimes you're just like this type of situation. You are just recording a song for a band and you are kind of doing some post-production type stuff, and then you end up giving that one idea, you can't help it. You're like, Hey, check this out on the course. Maybe we could go there. And then everyone loves it. And then you end up having the course, especially with an upcoming band or project, it can be a little difficult to discuss afterwards that was not planned. And it's like, yo, I actually, half the song is kind of me now. This is where things get a little complicated sometimes, especially with upcoming projects.

(01:07:37):

I have a manager, I have an entertainment lawyer, they keep things together for me. But when you work with this kind of upcoming artists, they are not there yet. And so this is a little tricky sometimes for sure. So what I try to do, what I try do is just, I'm lucky enough, my publisher, I signed with Leonel Conway and Brett Gitz a few years back, the assistant of Conway became my manager. So this guy took care of song splits for years before managing artists. So it's pretty simple. I really try after every session to write down exactly what I've done. So then it has this kind of information and then we present it to the artist being like, Hey, this percentage of the song has been written by Charlie, this percentage of the song has been, and try to get them to re-understand where it comes from instead of just throwing a number and hurting people.

(01:08:36):

Hugo, I always try to be as transparent as possible with the artists I work with. Back in the days, I would make the mistake of just waiting for a few days to open the conversation, and now I know that once it's done in the studio, I get this conversation on directly like, Hey guys, I think it's the experience, but now it's more like, okay, I wrote that course. So we are thinking about publishing. How do you see this and face to face in the energy of the song and the session. It's a little easier. My advice for younger musicians is to really talk about it as soon as possible and be okay with not knowing what's going on and asking for a lot of advice around you with people that are already doing it type stuff. But yeah, that's pretty much how I approach it. I try to be really transparent and I'm okay. Also, sometimes I feel like the idea came from me and maybe it wasn't. So I also question myself. I make sure that I'm not looking like that guy that is trying to steal from the intellectual property from someone else. That's a really bad feeling when people do that to you. So I don't want to be that gay.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):

I think that a lot of people coming up in the industry have a hard time with things like knowing how to charge or they're afraid of, I don't want to say confrontation, but yeah, they're afraid of confrontation and afraid of being assertive about things. And so I think that that's why they will wait to talk about it until it's way too late. I've known people waiting a lot more than a few days. They'll wait a month or two until, and then everyone forgot what even happened. Bad idea.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):

Yeah, very bad idea. And the worst is when the song is actually dropping and you never had the talk. And then you receive that one email from the label being like, Hey, did you write something on this? And so if you're lucky, if you're lucky, yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):

I was going to say, wow, you actually got that email.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):

I think it's okay. I think I've never really had an issue being like, Hey, this is what I think I deserve. Do you want to discuss it? And I think maybe that comes also from the fact that I have a corporate experience with people like Google or Ubisoft or I did all this music content, that company I was working for, we did a bunch of music content for a lot of corporations. I got trained thanks to this. But it's true. When you are a true artist, it's really, really far from, is it okay to do this? It feels like I'm talking about money, but it's just a piece of art. So yeah, it's pretty tricky. It's pretty tricky. What's your approach on this?

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):

Okay, so in URM, it's very, very simple, right? We have a price for the service and our products, the end. But when I was producing, it was hard because I didn't want to feel like I was ripping people off. I had some insecurities about charging too much, and then eventually once I started working with label bands, then we're just dealing with budgets. And so I didn't feel like I had the clout to be like, that's not enough. So in reality for me, there wasn't a ton of that, but I had to learn how to get comfortable just asking for money. And the way that I got comfortable with it is just by doing it, which is how I feel about everything. I talked about this on a podcast a few years ago that basically my philosophy towards things you're afraid of in life is fuck it, just do it. Whether it's talking to the girl or going for the record deal or moving to LA if that's what you want to do or whatever, me quitting production to start URM, these types of things that are important but are scary, fuck it. Just do it. So first of all, I think the anticipation is worse than the actual act with most things.

(01:12:46):

So the amount of time that you're going to spend scared and stressed out about doing something is going to be worse than actually doing it in most cases. As you worry about asking for money and worry about how are they going to react and how is this going to go and is it too much, too little? Just fucking say it and then they'll respond and then you're going to know how they're going to react because they reacted and you can go from there

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):

Accordingly. Yeah, I mean, dude, my first, especially when I moved to LA and I started recording producing people there, I was putting myself, as you said earlier, I didn't really know who I was, especially in a different country. Everything was so different. I remember calling my friends and being like, dude, I just spent three days on this song. I need to ask this guy, but he's pretty big. How if I lose the gig, you end up in this crazy anxiety,

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):

Yeah, rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):

And actually the only thing I had to do was just like, alright, cool. I call that guy like, Hey, so what's up with that? Okay, cool. Oh, you want this? Oh, I want that. Okay, compromise done. It's behind us. It's all good. And yeah, I feel like a lot of careers don't take off because of that fear of actually being professional about it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):

And what's funny is people are expecting you to ask for something, right? And if they're not, those aren't the type of people you want to be working with anyways. But anyone who hires you to work on a track, if they're an actual artist who's going for an actual career,

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):

Yeah, there's no issue. I had no issues with any professional artist I worked with. I had zero issue. Of course, there would be an issue with a split here, and there are discussions, but to get paid, it's normal. They understand, they get on stage, they get paid. So why would the producer not get paid or the engineer? But yeah, that's why I was saying you, it's hard when it's with an upcoming artist, really upcoming meaning no record deals yet and did 15 shows and pay to play type of shows. Discussions are harder with this kind of artists for sure. And I also know that if I don't take the risk to work with this type of artist, I'm going to miss out on new energies and new uniqueness. So it's finding the balance, what fight to pick and what not to pick.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):

Well, so for instance, a fight that I decided not to pick on the advice of my then manager when producing and mixing small metal records, fuck getting points because who cares? So this is like, am I going to really sweat them for three points on an album that's a $10,000 budget that's going to barely recoup for three points that I'll never see anyways? Why even go there? Why sweat them for it? Why get adversarial about something that just doesn't matter? I decided that's not a fight that's worth fighting. I mean, if this was a different universe and I was producing Slipknot, then that's a different story.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):

Yeah, I totally agree with you. I never really asked for points. I've always been into like, yeah, pay me for my time and make sure that if I write the song, it's more of the principle of being respected for the intellectual property you're bringing to the table at the end of the day, especially when you are, I would say ghost writer, it's like this is all you have at the end of the day. It's your credit and this still kind of publishing you are getting. So it's important. I think that you fight for this if you are starting to be a songwriter, it's really important because you can lose a little bit of your soul not fighting. It is good to stand up for yourself. It's really good too. But for the points, as a producer, I totally agree with you. Any metal record, I would be like, cool, yeah, that's fine. Five points of what you guys need to do. I don't know how many sales back in the days or now, it's like to recoup a $20,000 budget, you need to do at least 5 million plays. And then whoever owns the masters, it takes forever. It's like, yeah, no, it's different. It's different.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):

Yeah. It's just not a battle that's worth fighting. But you just brought up something interesting with ghost riding. So with ghost writing, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know much about it, you're not actually credited, right? That's the definition of ghost writing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):

That said, how do you develop a reputation then for the great work that you've done

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):

Within the ars and within the artist group creative group you're a part of?

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):

So the word of mouth.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):

Yeah. I have a bunch of kids coming to the studio and they're like, oh, you don't have that many followers, but you have all these plays for these songs, and it's just to talk about the world of mouth, not just the ghost writing. It's key. It's key. The relationship you build and the respect you get from artists, they're going to spread the love. So yeah, to go back to ghost writing, yeah, you are not credited, but you are not credited on the Spotify list, but you still have your cut somewhere. You still have, people can still find stuff on BMI and ASCAP and things like this. It's more about you kind of signed this kind of paper that says that you can't really talk about the song as your song. But luckily I didn't have to do that a lot. Not in the rock world. Not in the rock world. In the rock world, people are cool for that. But yeah, in the pop world, things can be really different.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):

I guess if you do great work, the people who matter find out.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):

Exactly. So it's interesting. Since I've been in Miami, I worked with a lot of producers that I sought work producers, and actually they are more of executive producers. They get writing credits or they get production credits for just putting people in the room together, getting the right beat maker Rick Rubin style. Exactly. But they market themselves as actual music producers. So it's at the beginning when I showed up here, I was like, oh, this is not too much of an LA thing in la. They say they are executive producers here. It's like, oh, you a music producer? I'm like, yeah, show me how, oh, you don't write music. Wait, DJ ca type stuff. It's interesting, the titles. For a while, I was really looking into how do people perceive me? Who am I in this industry? And I started not giving a fuck and everything went great.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):

Do you think that part of that is because coming from the corporate world, titles do matter? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):

Because in corporate world, that's all you have. And I have people in my family in corporate America, and if they lose their job, it's like they lose themself. In our world, freelance and more independent, you lose one gig, you'll find another one, and you'll still do what you do every day. Yeah, I do think maybe that was the reason why I was trying to figure out how to be perceived.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):

What do you consider yourself now? Do you consider yourself a songwriter that produces, or a producer that song writes?

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):

Oh, right now, I'm definitely a beat maker man. For the past six months, this is what I've been doing. I've been writing tons of beats and tracks, and I would consider myself right now as a vocal producer, this is what I do mostly. It's like I produce vocals. I think I got pretty good at making top lines way more efficient and really worked on my craft on how to technically get vocals to sound a certain way. And this is pretty much my gig right now is mainly this beside, I have a studio in la. I have a studio in Miami, but what I do is I produce vocals. I think I plugged in a guitar three times personally in the past three months. So yeah, vocal producer. I don't know if it's a sing, is it a singer?

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):

Obviously in Rock, that's not a title, but I know people in other genres that that's what they do.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):

I mean it's the most important thing in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why I spent so much time working with Ronnie because he is an unbelievable singer, extremely creative, and it's so fun. It really made me fall in love with producing vocals. I think that working on Dance hall or Trap traditional Trap, all I have to do is produce vocals, and this is one of the favorite thing I like to do. So the mixed part, I don't really like mixing, especially if I put the track together and then I produce the vocals, man, I suck. It's like, I don't know. I am like, oh my God, if I touch this, it's going to change the entire vibe. I don't know. So I love to get my stuff mixed by someone else. But yeah, producing vocals is so much fun.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):

I want to talk about the BMW Kenny record real quick 12 song album. It's less than 10 minutes in runtime. Since we're talking about music of the Future a lot, do you see that as something that's the direction things are headed? Almost like grind, core length?

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):

I mean, dude, when that guy showed up at the studio, I was like, what the heck?

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):

I mean, that's like a grind album.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):

Yeah. It's like what he's trying to do is, his vision is I write a cool hook and then it's on TikTok and all the revenues come to me and I don't need anything else than just TikTok to get my stuff out. And to me it's cool, but it's cool to a certain extent. It's like you are limiting yourself. To me, it's like corporate shit.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):

It's almost like a jingle.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):

Yeah, it's like a jingle. And the worst part about it is when I heard that record, I was like, damn, everything is amazing. Meaning there could be 12 great songs out of this. Why do I just get a chorus, half a verse, and then the beat, my first thought was like, dude, what about you do a long version of this and then you do a TikTok version and everyone is happy. But I don't know, man, attention span of kids. Now I see them in the studio when they're listening to tracks to try to get inspired. They spend 35, 40 seconds on the song. I'm not talking about rock people. I'm talking about hip hop pop people, 40 seconds, and then they go to another song and this is how people listen to music now, and so kind of makes sense. He's just playing into that. Then the art part of it, I don't know, I'm not sure, but for sure everything is sketchy. It might get a lot of plays, and when people like your song and it's 40 seconds and they play it five times, this is five times the money you would get if your song is seven minutes. So to me it's like maybe Spotify and all these guys should start looking into also getting paid on the lens of the song

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):

Path

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):

Would become the biggest band in the world, man. The Yes album, the Green album with songs being labeled in minutes. But what do you think? I do think that should be a thing too. I mean, the algorithm to detect actually if the song is not just a copy and paste 25 times would be crazy. But yeah, I think it's the best way to actually, for that guy to make tons of strings.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):

I'm not entirely sure. So I could be wrong and it could have changed, but I believe that the YouTube algorithm does factor in the amount of time that you spend watching. And so if you watch a one hour video for the full hour, that counts way more than if you watched three minutes out of a 10 minute video or something.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):

Yeah, for YouTube. Yeah, maybe for Spotify. I'm totally wrong and they're already changing this, but it could be a thing. It could be a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):

Is this something that you've seen with other artists? So you're saying that you're seeing a lot of younger people in pop and hip hop listening to 40 seconds of a song. Is this, are 42nd long songs something that's becoming more normal for you?

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):

I mean, right now I am doing a lot of hip hop tracks under one 50.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):

Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):

Already? Yeah. Yeah. It's like chorus verse. It's not even a 16, it's an eight chorus, half a verse chorus, half beat, done. It's a thing. It's definitely a thing. I mean, guys like Lil Pump, they did full records. I don't know the Harvard dropout that he dropped a couple of years ago. This record is 29 minutes. There is 17 songs, something like that. I don't know exactly, but it's something like this. It's a good way to get streams. I get it. If you're totally independent, you do something great of one minute and 40 seconds and people listen to it three times to be satisfied with your track. Yeah, I get it. It's a smart commercial way to make money. There is not that much you can do even in rap in one minute, four seconds. The story is short, man. The story is short and it's 100 BPM. It's not one 90. It's not dust metal.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):

Okay, so here's the thing that I'm wondering about. So that Paola was a big thing, and for people who don't know because they're too young, that was when labels would pay radio stations to put a song into rotation. I mean, you can't generate a hit. You can't control what the audience is going to like, but that's how they definitely up the chances significantly for a song.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):

Like they say, pay for slots.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):

Yeah, exactly. And so that is a way that they tried to increase the commercial potential of a track. And so how, in my opinion, we were talking about adapting. So what I'm hearing is just that modern artists have adapted to this new landscape. It's no longer a Paola type landscape. It's now a streaming landscape. And so they have figured out how to make the best of it, and if it means 40 or a minute long songs 42nd or a minute long, then they're adapting to that because that's what artists who want to have a career do. I think

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):

Mean especially in these times. I mean, man, there is no shows. I mean, if right now what you need to do to put bread in your plate is this, and that's all in your life, is to make tracks and make music. I am not mad at them. I just hope that when the Renaissance happen and the world opens up and we can do shows again, we hope people will be down for a quick four minute and 30 seconds type song standard. That would be cool. But yeah, right now I feel like it's a way to survive for a lot of artists.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):

Do you get any artists who still do traditional length or longer songs? Is that even a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):

No. Yeah, with Luke. With Luke, I mean

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):

With Luke, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):

Yeah, we do at least three minutes. The thing is that he hits so many elements and it's so busy that after three minutes you're kind of like, okay, I'm good. I just hope he's listening to this and I'm fucking with him. But I doubt

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):

He's listening.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):

Oh, he will. He will. I'll send it to him and be like, yo, I'm talking shit about you. You should check this out,

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):

Luke. You better fucking listen.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):

I mean, with Ronnie, I'm about to go to LA to write with him next week and all his tracks, few last songs I work on with them, they're all 3 44 minutes hiphop wise. Yeah, IO and Teo last week. The songs are two minutes, man. The collab was Walshy Fire from Major Lazer. The song is 1 45, so maybe it's a genre type stuff. I don't see rock metal bands doing the two minutes format yet, but I would not be surprised if it starts happening.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):

I mean, grind Core did that for years.

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):

Yeah, but it's Grand Core. It's always been, I remember listening to really crazy hardcore when I was 15 years old, and the songs were one minute and 30 seconds, but that was more of a physical issue. The guys needed to stop at some point. You need a break, man. And because they didn't have a metal dick breakdown where everyone can chill for a second, they had to stop it. That's how I always saw it. I was like, yeah, this is like, yeah, alright, chill. But yeah, no, most are hip hop trap. Everything is max two minute and 30 seconds right now. And then you have extreme cases like BW Kenny E that drops songs like 25 seconds, 30 seconds. But yeah, I agree with you. It's a jingle. It's not a song anymore. It's kind of a bummer because I mean, this guy writes dope stuff. So you are like, oh, it feels like you're going to the label. And you're like, okay, so you have 10 minutes. You at Def Jam and you're like, okay, let me play you this 10 last songs and you are just playing the chorus because people have 10 minutes for you. This is how his record feels like. It's like, cool, where did the verse go? Are

Speaker 1 (01:30:12):

The labels cool with it? Because I know that in at least traditional record contracts, there's a minimum time requirement on an album. So are they cool with that?

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):

Everything I'm talking about right now, it's independent stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:30:27):

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):

But look, man, I mean, in that world, all these kids, they understand they have millions. I mean, IO and Teo, they were with BMG, I mean they're still with BMG, but they started dropping song by themself. They understood. They're like, damn, we have 5 million followers on Instagram, 7 million on YouTube. Why would we give 80% to a major when we can actually make a hundred or 200 k just dropping that track in two weeks? And also, most of these artists, they built social media. That's a discussion I have a lot with this type of artists. They never really had a push to get big on social medias. They actually got big on social medias and made social medias be what they are. So it's like for them, they're like, wait, why would I be giving a big cut of what I'm making to that label when I actually built my own following? And I totally agree with them.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):

I remember in the nineties, the movement to not have a label and to be independent was just starting. And there were a few artists who pulled it off. There was this female, I think she was folk man, I don't know. I never listened to her, but Ani DeFranco, who sold 4 million records independently in the nineties, which is fucking unbelievable. And then also the idea too was in order to get signed to a real deal, you almost had to already be big on your own. So I know that bands like Hootie and the Blowfish or Dave Matthews band, these massive, massive bands sold hundreds of thousands of copies on their own at shows. Creed did the same thing. Disturbed did the same thing. So this idea that in order to get onto a huge label, you didn't need a label started to become a thing, and then eventually the idea that you didn't need a label at all started to I think, permeate.

(01:32:39):

However, I think that at least up until recently, that idea was bullshit because the only artists who really, really could do it without a label were an exception here and there, like Ani DeFranco was total exception, or artists who were already big and then decided to go independent like Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead. But local bands can't think that they're Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead. However, in the past few years, I think this has actually started to become very true that you really can be independent and not need a label. And that's a beautiful thing about the time period we live in.

Speaker 2 (01:33:18):

Yeah, this is amazing. I see a lot of projects, especially these DJs that are producers that put tracks together. They come from private equity and they are doing that with their friends. They know that they can get started with 50 K and they have five friends that want to help them. They directly have their LLC and get things started. They keep their artistic direction the way they want. They can drop whenever they want. It's like there is no proper cycle label cycle and album cycle, whatever. And this is cool. This is a good new era on that end, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):

Man, I think maybe metal bands and rock bands are going to need to figure out a way to adapt to this.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):

I think falling in reverse, Ronnie is doing pretty well with that. This guy went from dropping albums to just dropping singles, and his trims have never been that big popular monster got gold. He is getting gold on singles like rap artists. And I think it's because he understood is like, well, the attention span now kids, they cannot really listen to a full album. But if I do something crazy on one song and really push that one song like Drake does all these guys, I think it kind of started showing the way 2018 with that early 2019 copy, I would say, or getting inspired of what the urban community is doing. So if everyone could start doing this would be cool. It would be really cool. There would be more interactions. It would be more alive. Because especially right now, there is no tours. So no single no album because there is no tour. It's hurting even more like the rock community in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):

The other problem I think with rock and metal is that it was so focused on having two or three good songs and then whatever, seven other songs that just were whatever for so long

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):

With some cool riffs.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):

Yeah, some cool riffs here and there that I think that for the most part, the audience lost faith in it. Look, I think it's something that happened gradually, but I just remember buying albums and being super disappointed many times. Many, many times. You get it and it's like two awesome songs and then shit, and you just wasted a bunch of money.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):

I always have that joke in the studio when the song is not that great. When I'm working on a single, I say, oh yeah, this would be a great song. Seven meaning, yeah, after your singles when the album starts being boring. Yeah, that's pretty boring. Let's put it in there. But yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):

Well, yeah, my point being that if metal bands and rock bands started to focus on making the best songs, they possibly can only just put your energy into really making the best songs possible. Maybe there's some hope, because really at the end of the day, it all comes down to great songs.

Speaker 2 (01:36:19):

Definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:36:20):

So why worry about the seven bullshit songs?

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):

Exactly. One song at a time, one great piece. That's better for sure. I mean, I agree with you. Also, do you think that the rock world is ready, let's say normal times, right? Not in COVID mode, but is ready to put tours together out of two singles?

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):

No,

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):

It works for legacy artists. It works for Ronnie because he already has 50 songs out. But for new artists, does that work? Because it's not the same for rappers. It's easy. They can have just one song, then they get all this, they pop up in the club and they do one song in the club and they're paid for that. And it was great. And everybody knows they were there for the night and they're part of the show and they do one or two songs. They can make a career out of this. They can make a good living out of this. But for rock artists, what's the solution? What's the compromise to actually deliver unbelievable songs and maybe just spend more time? But right now, the fight for content, quick, consistent content is also there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):

I do have an answer to what you're saying. Rock and metal bands tour way too much. You shouldn't be hitting the same market five times in a year, and I think that that's hurt a lot. It's no longer special when you can go see the same band four or five times a year or twice a year. So I think that if bands focused on what we're talking about and building themselves up over time online, through releasing great songs, eventually they'll have enough out there to where they can do a tour and can play a full set. But the difference will be that people will actually give a fuck that they're out there playing live. And I've seen that happen. I have friends who got big online first, then started touring, and they have done great. I just kind of don't really totally believe that the way to make it as a heavy band these days is to put out an album and then jump in the van for two years. I think that that's an outdated concept. I think you put out music and more music and more music, and you build that audience and then you jump in the van. And maybe if you did it long enough, if maybe you don't even need to do a van in the first place, maybe you can just go straight to a tour bus. And I know that some people are going to get mad at me for saying that they were in a van for a long time, but it's a changing world.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):

The van seeing is also great. The memo is in the van are amazing. So I do think what's hard though is if you drop two songs that get you big, and then you want to actually change your sound and make your music evolve, this is what I love about the concept of having a full lens, because you can start the record sounding like where you were so your fans understand and slowly implement new ideas and finish your record in a different place artistically and get people to be introduced to your new sound. And that's harder with just dropping singles. I

Speaker 1 (01:39:42):

Agree. But

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):

You can use your social media to actually show that to people too. So there are solutions, but I miss big great albums, man. For sure. That's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):

Well, I feel like if a band has a big great album in them, then they should definitely do that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):

Yeah. Obviously I am. I'm not saying that band should never do that or anything like that. And I think that if they're capable, I don't think, and I know that we're talking about up and comers, but I don't think a band like OPEC needs to be doing singles because their whole thing is big, expansive, long form music. But I don't think that everybody has great albums in them. I think a lot of people have some great songs in them. So kind of comes back to knowing yourself. And I think that it's better if an artist has great songs in them, but not a great record in them, then there is a way to still develop a career. However, again, like I said, I feel like if an artist does have the capability and the inspiration to do a full length, that's actually great. That actually has no filler on it. Well, cool. Awesome. Why not?

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):

Definitely, I would love to see a full lens of Luke Colin. We have the tracks. We have the tracks man. But while trying to collaborate with tons of different singers, but still with the same musical direction and while dropping one single at a time right now, but I think it would make even more noise if it was a full lens album dropped by a drummer. I think this would be crazy. This would be really cool right now. So hopefully we get this done.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):

And that's also an audience that likes that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):

Anyway, Charlie, I think this is a good place to stop the episode. I want to thank you very much for taking the time to hang out. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:40):

It was a pleasure too. Had a lot of fun. Have a good insight.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):

Yeah, man, I had a really good time. We should do this again sometime

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):

Whenever I would love to.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):

Alright, 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 and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy. And of course tag our guest as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at M dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.