Latest / Caught on the Mike... / sFox of MASKS

Transcript

sFox of MASKS · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mike.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when an artist literally removes their identity from the equation and puts the work first?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's the idea behind masks.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: The immersive world created by multi-instrumentalist and producer Sfox.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's music, a graphic novel, visual storytelling, and an entire universe being built around it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're talking about why the mask isn't about hiding, how you hack your own ego and what it means to create something people are meant to experience rather than simply understand.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, my friend?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great, Mike.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic, fantastic.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was just telling you before we pressed record that I went to your Instagram.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And any of you that are listening to this or watching this right now, go to This Is Masks on Instagram.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Your aesthetics are amazing.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such it matches the sound of the music that you're creating perfectly.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Man, thank you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for saying that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, also great intro.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you kind of just rocked the whole podcast right there with that intro.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You said it better than I'm gonna be able to this whole time.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So nice job.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's start with the mask because I think that's probably the most obvious question, but maybe not the most obvious answer.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: You've described it as an ego hack.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: What were you trying to remove from the creative process by putting the mask on?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a I love the question, and probably the best way that I could describe it is going back in time a little bit to like being in bands and working with bands, you know, since I was a little kid.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's these questions like, hey, how was the show?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: How did the release go?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: How is the project going?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I realized over time that I would just kind of freeze when the question was asked because I didn't I didn't know how to answer it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized, oh, I I think you're asking two questions.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: One is commercially and one is artistic.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had shows that I've played with other bands where the crowd was full, like the house was full and everyone loved it, and I felt like cold and distant.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've had shows where there's three people literally, but I felt like I like connected to the universe, you know?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so in some people's eyes, one of those would be a failure, you know, and the other one be would be a success.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But taking that as like the table setting in this whole thing, putting the mask on removed any amount of like need for commercial validation for who I am as a person, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so because no one knows who I am, and none of my friends, well, very few of my friends know that I'm even doing this.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: If the thing completely fails commercially, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like no one cares, no one listens, there's not that like, oh, I failed side of it, which is super freeing to me.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And on the flip side, if there's some success and if people are affected by this, then it doesn't change anything about my life.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: My neighbors won't know.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: My family, most of my family won't know.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a lot of my friends wouldn't know.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it just takes away those external pressures that you experience when you're, you know, posting on Instagram, trying to tell your friends about a show, about a new release, and hoping people respond.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then if it doesn't go great, if it does go great, I've had friends with a lot of success, and the fame almost seems worse than the failure, you know, the quote unquote failure in a lot of ways.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if that answers the question, but that's that's what drove a lot of this in the first place, I think.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it does make a lot of sense to me.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just for a little personal background, I played in bands for years, and this was pre like the content creation era, and there are so much tied up in vanity metrics now that I don't know that I would be able to navigate the waters as they exist right now when I was traversing worse waters back then, you know, where you didn't know.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so yeah, the not knowing was maybe like a little bit of a blessing sometimes.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you don't get caught up in it daily.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a really interesting tension and mass between anonymity and world building.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking yourself out of the spotlight while simultaneously creating this very specific universe.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: How do you balance being anonymous with wanting people to become invested in what you're creating, given kind of the structure you just laid out?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's that's certainly a challenge.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think probably the hallmark of like every aspect of this the aesthetics, the music, the story, inviting people in has like the one constant has been like it's just more challenging.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like um doing the whole thing that way.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think the idea would be that I would create something that's unattached to me in a way that like maybe something about who I am or my demographic or where I would be from as like the human would removing that would allow people to enter in differently, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't it the way that people not necessarily consciously but subconsciously, like, oh, I'm not part of that scene, or this wouldn't be for me.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I could remove some of it, but then I'm also injecting this like dive into like the weirdest part of your brain with me as well, too.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of got to be on board for that at the same time.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's gonna be a bit of polarization one way or the other when people are um presented with the project.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mentioned the aesthetics of your Instagram, and maybe that was the wrong angle for me to approach it from, because one thing that I think only a certain allotment of people are very successful at is tapping into a feeling that they can't define.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I know this is gonna kind of sound very like Buddha on the mountaintop, but you know, when when I listen to certain music and I, you know, see certain visuals paired together, um, you know, it creates a feeling within me that I can't always define.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that you've accomplished really well through the marriage of your music and that the image and the iconography with it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I I love hearing you say that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think um I I sometimes get a little bit of like in my own head about a conversation like this, because if you if you were to ask me, which you haven't asked me this yet, which I appreciate, like, where did that come from?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that idea come from?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and maybe you know that, like, you know, that feeling of like the best ideas you've ever had, they don't even feel like your own.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, the things with this project that I've tried to do consciously, like, oh, this is what I should do, this is what it should be, have all turned out to be kind of a flop or like didn't work or just did not feel right.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the project just feels like if it's not the right sound, the song will reject it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If it's not the right vibe visually, it'll just like be painfully obvious.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's no kind of fudging with it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there were moments along the way where it was there's definitely some growing pains, but then all of a sudden it kind of like appeared like, oh yeah, that's right.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep following down that path.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like the what's is this like an old Indiana Jones movie where he has to like step out into the canyon and then he knows that there's an invisible bridge or whatever?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, yeah.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I had an artist on not too long ago, and you know, I I think he got he was he didn't want to present how he writes his music like forth in a forthright manner, but he writes a lot of his music through dream sequences.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: He says a lot of his music comes to him in his sleep, and then he just wakes up and he writes music.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you don't know where your creative output is actually going to be coming from.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: It just comes out, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh a big piece of this project is um like it originates in that moment where you actually don't know if you're awake or asleep yet.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a person that jerks myself out of that spot a lot, and so often I'll jerk myself out, and the idea is there.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a melody, and I'm like sneaking into a hallway to like record a voice memo.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, probably you know, 50% of the song Genesis, Genesis, what's the plural of Genesis?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis, whatever.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like that's where that would come from.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And even the same with like some of the concepts in the story and like where it needs to go visually, like they just they appear in those unconscious moments.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't know, are you familiar with what's her name?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth Gilbert.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's a writer or an author.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I so her first book was uh Eat Pre Love.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's that like that kind of like huge zeitgeist moment, whenever that was.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I read something that she had talked about like um back in, I'm gonna get it all wrong, but like think like ancient Greece, and they would talk about uh no one was a genius, but everybody had one, and it was kind of like something that would deliver them what they needed when they needed it.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they'd be waiting for and everyone had it, then some people were more in tune with it than others.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And using the word genius, like separate that from the way we would normally think about it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm describing here, but just as this thing that sits in the room with the ideas with you, and you just have to be on the right frequency to grab it from them.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's an amazing concept.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it blew my mind, and it felt accurate too.
• 10:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about some of your influences because there's obviously some external influences.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: You've cited the Blue Nile, Peter Gabriel, and doves as influences, and those are artists who have always been incredibly intentional about atmosphere and world building.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: What did you take from those artists combining your other sources that help shape the DNA of masks?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you being a musician and like doing this thing, like the getting into the story and all these things.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I wonder if you can relate to how you sometimes don't see until later why, you know, we'll use those three, like dubs, Peter Gabriel, the Blue Nile.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like along the way, I'm like, oh, I love this.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of retrospectively see, oh, there's some things in common here that add up to something that really resonated and resonates with me.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I think you already nailed it, like the atmospheric side of it is huge.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're creating a space and a world for you to live within.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when I listen to any of those records, you know, headphones, speakers, in the car, whatever, those and like a lot of other ones, but specifically those ones, obviously is probably why I listed them whenever I did that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I it takes me somewhere.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it places me in the life that I want to be living a lot of times.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if something's not going right or the day is not going right, they have a magic that will take me to where I need to be to bust out of that.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to even attempt or aspire to create something like that is really exciting for me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And even just the process of trying to do it is rewarding because I'm trying to do it for myself.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to create a space that all of the stuff that doesn't matter just kind of falls away, and the stuff that does matter comes into a way sharper focus.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that those artists did for me, and it was a gift, and I mean they still do to me, do for me, and it's still a gift every time I put it on.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have talked about this on multiple episodes of my show, but my tastes personally are very seasonal.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I will jump from hardcore punk rock to Cali reggae to like EDM to but fall starts setting in, and I find myself listening to like Gregory Allen Isaacov, I'll listen to Bill Evans trio, a lot of piano jazz, and it's the exact thing that you're describing, it's setting that atmosphere and inspiring me for that specific season and for that specific moment that I'm in right then and there, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, is it also kind of a time machine for you?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely 110%.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what one gets me is the Garden State soundtrack.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I feel nuts saying that.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I put the Garden State soundtrack on and I'm like, why does this make me feel a certain way of a certain time more than any other recording or collection of songs that I've ever listened to before?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't that soundtrack kind of bring like five or six different bands into like the forefront of the indie scene at the time?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, it did.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: It like made the shins image and heap, you know, got got exposed through the and I love her music as it is.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: She's a genius.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, talk about actual genius right there.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can watch, I can get lost in watching her videos, like and how she composes music for hours.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, yeah, like Dream Collab, I'll just put it out into the universe right now.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imogen, anytime I'll get on a plane, I'll make tea, coffee, whatever, just let's do something.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I like it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the themes that we're talking about, you've said multiple times that music isn't necessarily meant to be understood, but inhabited.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean to you as a listener?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're kind of covering that as far as creators, and I'm talking about a listener, but what about you as a listener?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know when you've created something that people can actually step inside emotionally?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I already kind of referenced like how how quickly this music will reject the wrong thing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's supposed to be a guitar, I think it's supposed to be this part.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about it all day.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I get into the studio, I try it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty certain when I walk in the door, I've got it, and then like 10 seconds in, I'm like, I it's not that.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's something else, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of like deciding what it is doesn't work with music like this, or at least with the way I make it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what does seem to work is just chasing it down, trying to get into that flow until I get the goosebumps.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if if I could define the process in like two words, it'd probably just be chasing goosebumps.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what I'm trying to do.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the nice thing about that is it does remove like any concern for chasing what I think someone else is gonna want.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just kind of like putting it back into like the I don't have any control over it anyway, but as long as I'm feeling as much of that full range of being alive as I can, like that's that's gotta be what it is.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I feel like I'm living in it, I'm not just like listening to it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it totally makes sense.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first life EP feels like an entry point rather than a conclusion.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: When did you realize that masks needed to be bigger than a collection of songs and become this entire universe involving music, visuals, a graphic novel, and then social content?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is where I get into like the specific moments are are really difficult for me to recall.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was early on, though, like I I I did know that the music wasn't gonna be the only thing necessary to tell the story.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe this is I'm preempting a little bit of about maybe where you're going, but like I I know that a big part of this is coming from me as a kid growing up in a pretty like not remote, but like pretty disconnected place geographically.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you see these pictures of this little kid who was like pretty wild and weird, and then you see photos of that kid growing up and very much normaling out.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to create no no no no create is just a weird word, create the wrong word.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I wanted to like rediscover that's better, like the the place that that little kid was existing within.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that music was a huge part of it because my whole life, like I love film, I love books.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Music was the thing that most easily could like make my make me jump out of my skin or bring tears to my eyes.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that was always like number one.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: That was the that was the spot where all this grew from.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: But those other things are important to me, like the film side of it, the the books, you know, the stories within that, and like the way that that could open it up.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, I know it's difficult, maybe that's why more people haven't done it, but um that feels right to me when those ideas started coming.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think there's a story here that's actually like a book story, and that the way that I present this could be more filmic in a way, like even through Instagram and music videos, and that maybe the music videos would be almost like little short story or short film versions, you know?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's a quote, and I've cited this again multiple times on my show as if art decorates space, music decorates time, and it feels like you're kind of marrying the two concepts in a way.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're telling these stories across different mediums.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Does the music come first and then inspire the visual, or are you constantly moving between the sound and the image imagery and the narrative with mass?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: The beautiful thing about doing this, so I've uh I've been involved in making music as with with bands and helping other people make music and video stuff for a long time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the the nice thing was that I was writing this graphic novel and making the EP at the same time.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And on days where one was hard, it was so awesome to be able to just go, cool, I'm gonna work on the other one, you know, and then something would happen in one, and that would help inform the other one and go back and forth and back and forth.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um then the music isn't narrative of the story, but it's like a soundtrack to the story, and the story isn't narrative, you know, and in in the reverse, too.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like the story is just like an idea almost more of like getting back to that space and removing those things that don't matter.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean it'll be fun when like I'm being kind of like vague about it right now, of course, but like it's a it's a fun story that goes along with it, and I think that the EP would be really cool as a soundtrack if there was a movie, you know, like yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, every little light was the last song to arrive, but you said the lyrics came almost all at once, and then the song went through a lot of sonic iterations.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: What was happening in that gap between knowing what you wanted to say and figuring out how the song needed to sound?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, terror?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, that I mean uh it's an honoring of the idea, and that's that's where the terror comes from.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of being too impatient and feeling just like it needs to be done, it needs to be done.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: People need to put out music faster than you're putting out music, and people, you know, the people I that were helping me on the release side, they're gonna get annoyed.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: You just gotta be done with it, but also at the same time, knowing I'm not there yet.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I haven't I haven't like uncovered the last little bit that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Gonna make again like the goosebumps, like it was good, it wasn't giving me goosebumps all the way through, and I need I had to it had to before I could be done with it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've ever felt that way where like you've got these external pressures with something you're trying to create, and you're the only one who cares, and you have to decide if you're if you're willing to just like stick to it when you're the only one putting energy behind it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, the music industry has evolved in such a way, and I think we would be remiss to ignore this aspect of it, but the concept behind masks marrying all these different mediums together seems that it needs to be in a cohesive package for uh listener person who's digesting it to be able to fully get it a hundred percent.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: With the way music is released anymore, the trickle out theory where somebody drops a song a couple months later, they drop another song a couple months later, it's the marketing of how um streaming services work now.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Does that ever kind of I don't know, play a part in your strategy or your thought whenever you wanted to release this into the world?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I wrestled with that a lot because I'm I'm very much an albums person.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I'm not really like, yeah, yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's um you know, there's existing inside of the system, as it were, or like the way the game is played, but a lot of like the bands that I mentioned before, you know, Doves, Blue Nile, Peter Gabriel, and then more modern day, maybe you've got like a Justin Vernon with Boni Vare.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that I love about what all of those groups, I mean Imogen Heap, like put her right in there too.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They instead of like, you know, none of them really moved to LA or Nashville or London.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, London, yeah, probably for Peter Gabriel, whatever.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um they created, it was like they didn't want to play the game everyone else was playing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: They created their own space and their own game and they invited everybody else in.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that was something that as I was thinking about releasing and how I'm gonna do this thing, I think it's gonna be a longer burn.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think creating it the way that feels right and authentic to me is important from the beginning.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of like if I tried to play the pop game single, single, single all the time, always releasing everything kind of stands alone.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm you you shared a quote, and I'll share a quote that someone shared with me.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what you win people with is what you win them to.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if I win people over to this project with something that's not authentic to me, then I have to keep being inauthentic to keep it going, you know?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where um this idea of maybe doing it less in the trend of what's happening in the last handful of years isn't the smartest thing commercially.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I can put my full self behind.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said this again multiple times, multiple episodes, what an artist will tell me on recording versus off recording about that strategy will would make you laugh, I'm sure.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are a lot of guys that are an example of that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are a lot of guys that are like, oh, I hate the trickle out theory, but you know, that's that's how we have to release things anymore, and that's that's how you stay relevant, that's how you keep the algorithm going, that's how you do this, and it's how you do that, but you don't get your full identity fleshed out, or the full identity of a record or a story fleshed out for certain uh artists here or there.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of crazy, and I totally understand that because there's that right hand aspect of playing the game, and then the left hand aspect of trying to maintain some artistic integrity while doing it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I think that for for so many, like I'm gonna speak for myself.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always know what I want.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I could tell you I want something, and for example, like, yeah, I want my favorite band to put out a new album every six months or whatever.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: But that's probably not actually what I want.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want them to like sweat and cry and bleed over it because that's how they made the thing I loved in the first place.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so like what we want and what we need are not always the same thing.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, you roll the dice that you're gonna lose people, but also like go back to the Justin Vernon thing.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think that the Bonnie Vere stuff ever posts unless he's got something coming out.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, he's not making sure he's got, I don't know what are they like three posts a week or what, you know, whatever that is supposed to be.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's not doing that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's got something, he starts putting up some stuff, and his fans go crazy because they know that he's gonna have put his his heart into it.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, there is so much to be said about like pulling back too.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was just talking to a friend of mine, he actually runs a fan group, like a really well-established fan group for a national artist who I won't say.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, you know, this band needs to take two years off and go away and like give their fans some obsolescence so they appreciate them more.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I bet they would come back bigger than they've ever been before if you just kind of make people wait and like you know, anticipate the next thing.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, 100%.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like the mystery.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what happened to mystery?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't even say like I'm not one, I don't want to be throwing barbs at anybody in this, but like I love the mystery, I love not knowing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes when I find out, the the magic's gone anyway, you know.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, give me the mystery.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Make me feel like I I wish I want more, but you know, this is the right amount.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one thing that really struck at struck me about the project is the idea of following the creative transmission instead of trying to force the thing into a predetermined genre or format.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: How much of making masks is about letting go of what you think something is supposed to be in regard to everything we just talked about?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean as close to 100% as possible.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's that's I like how you phrase that and it's deep breath.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um just there are times when you have to put on your work hat, you know, like you gotta make the drums sound good, right?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's different.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what the drums are like the the emotion and the part, like that's where you're chasing, like there's a tra there's a wave out there I have to catch for this thing.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like the vocal didn't feel right.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of time on it, and I'm so fucking tired.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, you can bleep that out.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: My bad.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, cuss away, man.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I use it as punctuation marks.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So okay, perfect.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't I don't want to have to do it again because I'm scared of that song or or whatever.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And no, I have to do it again.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, and that's different for me than the like the tradeswork side of it, you know, like the painting of the wall.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can paint a wall and you get it done, and that's sometimes what you have to do in the like finishing of a song with um you know, taking out you know, the fade out or whatever the dumb little uh utilitarian things that you have to do to finish it up, but certainly from the creative side of it, it's it is just like put up your antennas, put up your ears, open up your heart, and let it come to you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not coming to you, do the stuff you gotta do to open yourself up to get there.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like I like I was saying, the the short answer is maybe better, just basically 100% of what you said.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, is it one of those things where it's kind of like in an instant gratification world, nuance has become the enemy of society?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of what you're talking about is like nuanced things that are really important that might have been overlooked in the past and taken for granted in the past, but are very elemental to creating good art and creating something that you're proud of and that you can stand behind.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the nuance is huge.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember what it was.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, years ago, I read this review by whoever, man.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could even remember the band or the writer, because both were kind of amazing, but the the writer said of this record, like, it's a record that rewards attentive listening.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that hit me really hard uh as something that I had subconsciously set a bar for.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, if you're listening, if you I listen to music on my phone all the time, it's it's distilling it down to like the core elements, which are, you know, the lyrics, the melodies, the beat, those kind of things.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those have to be great no matter what, but like can you create a world in which like the more someone listens, the more it gives to you?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's too that to me is more exciting, and this probably shows in my analytics, but that to me is more exciting than getting, you know, a million monthly listeners or whatever.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: That if that if I could create something that the people who do find it and do connect with it, that it seeps in over time, you know, that's that's this the stuff that you know, the nuance you're talking about, that is where it all lives for me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once once you have a great melody or you have that heart of what you're trying to get across down.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in regard to that nuance, there's obviously a huge amount of control involved in building something this deliberately.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at some point you have to release it and let the audience bring their own interpretation to it.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: How difficult is it for you to give up that control once masks enters in somebody else's world?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've you've released records.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you ever have that feeling where the day it comes out, you're like, you've been waiting for people to be able to hear it for months, and then you're like, what have I done?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Every single album, every single album I've released, after it's out in the world, I instantaneously hate it until I go back years later and listen to it and like, man, I was a lot harder on myself than I needed to be.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I always wonder if like the greatest songs ever written, like, could did Freddie Mercury feel the way about Bohemian Rhapsody?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, could is it possible that he could have felt the way that I felt about it when I first listened to it?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is it possible for someone to feel about their own creation the way that they can make other people feel about it?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the greatest artists of all time.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I I wonder about that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, would I if I had the ability to make a song that affects people that deeply, would I even recognize it?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've yeah, yeah, usually we're the last to recognize it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and it's so right, yeah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I it it is terrifying when it gets out there in the world, and but then I think that time and particularly like elapsed time has a way of right-sizing things.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is a snapshot of who I was and what I was capable of at the time, and all the things that I was feeling.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'll get bigger in some ways and I'll get smaller in some ways, and I'll get rusty in some ways, and I'll get sharper in other ways.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just what it was.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I get I get more okay with it as time passes.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you, yeah, you were saying that like you were being real hard on yourself in the moment.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you listen back, you you see the beauty of the thing that you'd made.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I think that is a byproduct of almost oversaturation in my own ears and being too married to a project to where I've listened to it inside and out, outside and in.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, well, I've already recorded this part to it, I've already committed to it, it's already been pressed.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it is what it is now.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then now, I guess.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that was, and I honestly, that's that's kind of the joy of the live environment.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you you hate it and you're like, oh, this fucking sucks.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I can do a live reinterpretation of it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, I know, and then there's bands that I love that I love a certain recording, and they for whatever reason decided that recording wasn't right and they'll never recreate it live.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like heartbroken that they won't they felt flaws in it, and I felt, you know, the beauty in it, right?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I've I've always wondered about that.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And bands I've been in, I always had a hard time like straying too far from the recorded thing for that reason.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you uh was it Counting Crows or somebody?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: I remember reading that they decided that they'd never play the song the same way twice, and that was the decision they made.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that was like their vibe, right?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like go the opposite direction.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if first life is the entry sequence into masks for somebody, where are we going?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: What's the thematic journey from here?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: What what do you hope somebody discovers about themselves by following this universe beyond the music?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I absolutely love that.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my friend, 40 minutes has flown by like none other.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: My closing question that I ask every single guest that does my show, and it's because I love their interpretation of life and events and experiences is what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today through your eyes and the things that you've experienced?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Recently I heard I heard a quote that between the stimulus and the reaction lies your freedom.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning something happens to you and you're gonna react, and in that split second before the reaction, you get to decide how free you are by letting are you gonna let anger or negativity come out of you, or are you gonna take a breath and let patience and kindness and understanding and creativity or something come out of you that's gonna be the your key to freedom in the way that you respond to people and circumstances around you.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um when in the moments when I've remembered that, that has helped me overcome creative hurdles.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's helped me save myself from hurting people that I love around me.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always do it, but that has been that's been the key for that's like been the the theme for me the last probably two, three months.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you tell anybody that's watching this or listening to this where they can find you and your music online?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm I mean the only the only place right now that the like the greater world exists is Instagram uh at this is masks and the music's like on all the all the stuff, uh iTunes or Apple Music and iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, whatever, all that stuff.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go to the Instagram, you can say hi, you can click the bio thing and get to everything.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: So and Mike, before before you go, do you have your answer to that question, the advice question?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I my my answer changes every single day depending upon my mood and my stature on that given day.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I think as of right now, because of you know things I've experienced recently, and I mentioned this when we were talking earlier, is I think we're at a place where the world needs to re-embrace nuance again, nuance and forgiveness, and just get outside and touch grass a little bit and not be constantly online, stay out of the comment sections, experience the world around you.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am like, I'm about to start dropping Anthony Bourdain quotes because I've been knee deep in an Anthony Bourdain wormhole the past couple of months.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: So just go touch grass and experience somebody different than yourself and celebrate those differences.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my advice right now.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love where your head's at.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's so great.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I mean, that's why I was excited to come on.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate you like bringing my weird little world onto your show and chatting with me.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks so much, Mike.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I tell you what, I am fully immersed in your weird little world, and I'm glad you're in my weird little world.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sfox, thank you so much for doing the show, man.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: The world's a much better place with you in it.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I feel the same about you.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for saying that, Mike.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.