Latest / The Scene Projects / Athxna on Music, Inclusivity, and the Power of Authenticity in the Industry

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Athxna on Music, Inclusivity, and the Power of Authenticity in the Industry · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Today's guest is a classically trained pianist turned genre blender, mixing blues, pop, and r
• 0:08
  and b with a voice fans call Lana meets Ella.
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  From viral clips to captivating stages, please welcome Athena to the show.
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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
• 0:29
  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
• 0:34
  from across the Midwest.
• 0:36
  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
• 0:50
  Well, welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is Athena.
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  Welcome to the show.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  Oh, this is gonna be fun.
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  I I knew you were a bundle of joy when I met you on the red carpet at the Josie Music
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  Awards, and, I'm so glad that we've gotten to connect here, soon after, to have a little bit
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  longer chat.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  I'm a little under the weather from the Josies, of course, because a baddie has to get sick
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  sometimes, But I'm really I'm really happy to be here.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  It was such a pleasure to speak with you.
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  So yeah.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, off the top, I'd love to give you just a little bit of time and give you the floor here
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  and and let you give us a little bit of your back story, and then we'll get into all the
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  exciting stuff that you're doing now.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  Of course.
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  Thank you.
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  I appreciate that.
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  So I have been a well, I am a classically trained pianist, which I don't do on stage.
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  I utilize that knowledge to create more than to perform because I want the focus to be on the
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  vocals, of course.
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  But I'm Greek American, and I grew up in a family with my grandmother being a pianist and
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  her mother being a pianist and just music has been such a huge part of my life always.
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  My dad says that I would Led Zeppelin before I could even talk because I grew up on Zeppelin,
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  of course, and Sabbath.
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  I'm actually a really big metalhead.
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  But we also you know, my dad had blues playing all the time in the house, and I fell in love
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  with the blues.
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  And so my whole life has just been centered around music.
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  I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted to do from a really young age.
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  Cannot relate when people tell me they don't know what to do with their lives, which I
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  deeply empathize with.
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  However, I feel very lucky.
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  I do.
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  I feel very lucky.
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  I actually have a music industry degree, and I do work in the music industry to support what
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  I'm doing.
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  And I'm releasing a song every six to eight weeks right now.
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  I've recently released three singles, Wait With Me.
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  I released my song, Villain, and most recently, my song, Regal.
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  And I'm currently in the studio working on three, four four more songs that I'm very
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  excited to release and maybe even a Christmas song this November or December have come out.
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  But it'll be not an original.
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  I love I love classic Christmas songs, so I really wanna do a cover.
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  Not Santa Baby, though.
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  I'm tired of singing Santa Baby.
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  I love it, but it's time to move on from Santa Baby.
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  But, yeah, that's just my little spiel about me and what I do.
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  And
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  I love it.
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  And I am I am a, yeah, I am a Christmas music junkie.
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  I love this time of year.
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  As soon as, as soon as Halloween was over and they were turning over Opryland to the
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  Christmas at Opryland, I was totally in love with it.
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  I, fully support Christmas starting on November 1.
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  I have no problem with that.
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  It is the season.
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  And, yeah, I'm with you on Santa Baby.
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  It's okay.
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  There's plenty of other good songs.
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  Yeah.
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  It's just time.
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  I've done it so because that's when people think of me and what Christmas song to cover,
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  it's like Santa Baby because it's so sexy and whatever.
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  I'm like, yeah.
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  I love it.
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  I've covered it for, like, two years, but it's time for something else.
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  I don't know.
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  Can't we just get a good old Rudolph the red nosed reindeer in there sometimes?
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  I mean, if you really want to, I could do that if you want.
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  I oh my gosh.
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  Someone had said, grandma got ran over by a reindeer, and I'm like, well, I don't know if
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  that's gonna be the one that I do, but it's a it's a good one.
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  I did listen to that a lot growing up.
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  So yeah.
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  I'm doing a holiday show next month, and, that's, like, two two of my go tos.
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  That are jingle bells.
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  I'm not real averse.
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  I can sing a lot of them, but as far as, like, playing them with the band, I've never done
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  that.
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  It's not a part of what I do necessarily.
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  But Mhmm.
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  There's a lot of other great I mean, yeah, just just the Bing Crosby stuff alone.
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  Right?
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  Keeping busy.
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  I love Bing.
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  I love, like, classic I mean, anything Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong.
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  My favorite and I I I say this to everybody.
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  I listen to this song, like, 30 times a year.
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  It's baby, it's cold outside, but it is Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton, and it's a live
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  performance.
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  It's on YouTube.
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  And it's them performing together, and they're obviously drunk.
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  Like, obviously, the recording starts off with Louie going, no potatoes.
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  And I'm like, what's happening?
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  Like, who like, for why?
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  Why are we talking about potatoes?
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  And they're just, like, just, like, flirting with each other and having such a fun time, and
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  it feels like, I mean, Louis Armstrong, like, the king of, like, jazz, obviously.
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  So it's just so jazzy and fun, and, it doesn't feel commercial, which a lot of Christmas songs
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  can, and that's fine.
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  But I just you know me, the blues and the jazz, and I just highly recommend checking out that
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  video.
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  It's so beautiful and fun, and I just love it.
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  I'm looking it up currently.
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  I was gonna try to to fib there and say that, I was gonna wait till later, but I'm already on
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  it.
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  Good.
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  You as you should.
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  You have homework.
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  Yeah.
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  So you mentioned that you work in the music industry.
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  What do you do for work then?
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  I work for an all female PR company here in Nashville, and I also own a graphic design
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  business that I utilize for artists mostly.
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  Because I know what artists need to have, like, on their website and stuff.
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  So I create websites.
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  But for PR, I'm I'm mostly a salesperson.
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  Honestly, everything I do is to support my music, and to put me in those spaces.
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  So, yeah, I mean, it's definite I'm starting to make money with music now.
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  So that's kind of obviously the direction that I'm gonna be going in and hopefully not have a
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  real job, have a music job instead with the with the songs.
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  So that's definitely the goal.
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  Yeah.
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  And you say that you're making money in music now.
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  Is that off of some kind of licensing or live performance, or or where are you finding at
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  financially in music now?
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  Yeah.
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  My god.
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  I mean, it's taken time.
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  You know?
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  And it's it's also harder because of AI now.
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  That's a whole another conversation.
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  But I do make money from performing.
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  I sing every weekend at a burlesque show here in Nashville.
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  And I also just recently signed a deal with H and M to play my music in all their stores.
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  And this isn't solidified yet, so I probably shouldn't even be saying this, but we're
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  talking to Starbucks too, so I'm very excited about those opportunities.
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  I was recently signed by two sync agencies, SoStereo and Grade One View Music.
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  Actually, that's an independent one here in Nashville.
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  So they're constantly pitching my stuff.
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  So that's, yeah, that's definitely a goal.
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  But, again, AI.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  It it's taken over the commercial space for music.
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  So I
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  just saw that the number one song on billboard charts this week is a completely AI generated
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  artist, AI generated things, and it's like, this is the future.
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  This is what it is.
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  So all these people that were chasing this dream of charting on Billboard and doing all
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  this, and that's all just a closed loop system anyway, and I don't think a lot of people
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  understand that system.
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  Obviously, you have a lot of inside baseball knowledge working in Nashville, working in PR.
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  You know how a lot of these things work.
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  But I think most artists that are just starting off with a dream don't understand the machine
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  that is the popular music industry.
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  Right?
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  Like, I feel like there's popular music, and then there's, like, the rest of us over in this
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  much larger pool that are swimming around.
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  And and I'm very fortunate.
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  I've been getting paid very, very well to go out and perform for most of my career.
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  I mean, since 2009, you know, I've been making over a $100 of performance probably when I
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  wasn't, you know, qualified to make that kind of money, right, and and performing, but it
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  hasn't also changed a whole lot over the last fifteen years either.
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  Now, you know, my band, I'll I'll get upwards of a thousand dollars to go out and perform
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  with my band now, but you have so many expenses that haven't changed.
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  Right?
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  I or or that are changing rather with with the cost of fuel always being what it is and, you
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  know, obviously, musicians wanna get paid more now.
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  So I try to pay my pay my people, you know, well to show up and to perform on on their own
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  rights.
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  But it's you know, the and a lot of times, we're performing at a loss.
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  And especially living in rural South Dakota, I have to drive to get anywhere to perform.
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  And, you know, one of our biggest towns is over an hour and a half away.
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  So I already have, you know, a a $50 bill in the gas tank, then that's not pulling the
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  trailer, right, there and that.
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  So It's so expensive, and that's why, you know, independent artists have such a hard time with
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  just continuing to do what they're doing.
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  And I really have found that the DIY space is where we will thrive.
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  You know?
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  I'm, I edit all my videos.
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  My good friend does my videography, so he charges me, like, next to nothing.
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  I'm very grateful for him.
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  I take photography from the videos that we do, so I don't really do photo shoots unless it's
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  with friends.
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  And then my band I mean, I pay my band.
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  I'm gonna pay my band.
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  I'm gonna pay my boys.
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  That's the thing is I I respect and need them.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Not paying your band is crazy.
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  A livable like, not I can't pay them a livable wage, but I'll pay them for our shows.
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  And they're also part of, like, the family that I'm building within my music.
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  Like, all these people that I work with, I continue to work with so that I can build those
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  relationships.
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  And it's just it is hard.
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  I mean, the music industry is no joke.
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  It's a really difficult space to be in.
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  And I, you know, I empathize with all the artists that get overwhelmed and, discouraged
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  because it's it's the hardest industry to be in.
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  It really is.
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  It's what you're willing to put into it, what you're willing to not necessarily give up
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  because, you know, I don't think you should give things up, but it's what like, for, you
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  know, for this.
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  But, you know, at the end of the day, kinda do.
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  Well, I'm going back on that.
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  You really do have to you give I have sold my soul.
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  I'll do anything.
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  I just wanna I just wanna create music and connect with, you know, women specifically,
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  like, plus size women in this community, in this space that need somebody to, you know,
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  share their story.
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  You know, being a bigger woman, in the entertainment world is definitely interesting.
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  I can I can say that?
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  I've been told plenty of times, but plenty of people that I will not be successful unless I
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  look the part.
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  And, like, that's not that's not where I think music is going anyway.
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  I think, individuality, has and authenticity has really been the cornerstone for 2025 and
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  hopefully for the fruit future.
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  Obviously, there's still a lot of issues, and there will be issues in the media.
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  But, yeah, it's definitely I don't even know where I was going with that.
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  But it's it's it's a it's hard.
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  It's hard to be an independent musician, and I, you know, I'm just grateful for where I am now,
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  and it I've been working very hard for the past, like, five years on this project.
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  So I'm very excited about the future.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think you touched on a couple of things there.
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  The authenticity, I think with the breakthrough of guys like Jelly Roll and a gal like Lady
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  Wilson who, obviously have been the top of the charts for the last several years and oh, we're
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  getting a house tour.
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  I love it.
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  I know.
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  My I my laptop was a 100% when we started, and now it's at two.
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  So welcome to my home.
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  Yeah.
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  It's like a little episode of MTV Cribs
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  right here.
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  Early.
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  Well, now we're in the kitchen living room.
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  So
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  But, you know, another kiss, AI.
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  Yeah.
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  It's I think it's made it actually more valuable to be different, to be, to tell our
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  stories.
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  And realizing I and think for myself, I forget this too, is that, like, it's not just our
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  story that we're telling.
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  I have such a personal relationship with my songs because they're all pretty much things
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  that have happened to me.
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  Yeah.
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  So I I I I I'm very protective of them.
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  But also when you start releasing music that you find that you're also telling someone
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  else's story as well.
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  And I think that's something that maybe in my own career even, and I'm I'll be 40 next May,
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  but that I've kinda overlooked that part of it.
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  I've been so kind of self absorbed about it and going, no.
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  This is me and my story to to not to realize now that it's not just my story.
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  My story is very similar to a lot of other people and maybe not one for one, but parts of
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  it.
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  You know?
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  I I'm one of those people who've lived, you know, a thousand lives in one from, you know,
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  the prison time, the year in Mexico, the the, you know, year and a half as a, you know, drug
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  dealer and these you know, like, I've worked all these different periods of my life.
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  Right?
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  And that's really just like a a four year period.
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  Homelessness and and, you know, I wasn't really homeless.
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  I was just a vagabond.
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  But living that kinda hitchhiker lifestyle up and down the West Coast when, you could still
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  do that, I I don't know that it's necessarily possible with the world the way it is anymore.
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  It's not what it used to be.
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  You know, I was out on the road 2005 to 2009, essentially, just kinda me and a guitar and
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  floating around, and I read Jack Kerouac's on the road at 18, and it was, like, the most I
• 15:02
  was like, will you just do that?
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  I'm gonna go do that and see what happens, right, and go live while I'm young, and people
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  are going to give you that kind of benefit of the doubt.
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  Right?
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  Being, you know, pretty much homeless and hitchhiking from town to town when you're 40
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  isn't as isn't as, you know, taken the same way.
• 15:23
  But now we do it a little differently.
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  I mean, I got to ride down to Nashville in a tour bus that wasn't mine.
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  Absolutely stunning.
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  I got to work the red carpet at the Grand Ole Opry for my first time in Nashville.
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  Nashville.
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  Mhmm.
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  Hit Broadway on Halloween night.
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  Like, I'm very grateful for the life that I have now, but it's also really hard to make it
• 15:45
  make money.
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  Like, even with a award winning podcast, I can get a lot of access, but I haven't necessarily
• 15:51
  found, like, how that makes money.
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  Maybe I need a really good PR person.
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  Maybe that's what I need.
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  There you go.
• 15:57
  If you're picking up what I'm putting down here, honey.
• 16:00
  Honestly, the way that I have found for podcasters to make money is through brand
• 16:06
  deals.
• 16:06
  That's, like, that's the way that we have had experience with, like, our clients with for Eye
• 16:13
  of Publicity.
• 16:14
  So that's what I would recommend
• 16:17
  is Yeah.
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  Look into brand deals, find companies that, you know, would complement the brand that you've
• 16:24
  built and see how, you know, you could connect with them.
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  And, I mean, it's all about community.
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  Right?
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  So, like, find that community that wants to support you, and that's that's what all
• 16:37
  creatives are trying to do is just find that community That's it.
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  Well, and when you can't find it, build it.
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  And that's kind of what we've done with the Midwest Original Music Organization because I
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  know the struggles of a independent artist.
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  Right?
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  And I don't know everything, but I'm also friends with a lot of really smart people.
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  And I feel like getting them all into the same room, whether that's our Facebook group or, you
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  know, our our online community that we have on our website and those things, like, each one of
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  these levels become more tight knit inside of them.
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  And, you know, our our Facebook group alone is I think it's over 800 members at this point.
• 17:15
  So Awesome.
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  We're building a a pretty big community.
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  And I think I need to not that I don't respect it, but I I definitely need to see it for the
• 17:25
  value that it is because it's all brand new.
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  I just started this podcast eighteen months ago.
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  Right?
• 17:30
  And we really just went to YouTube a year ago.
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  We just we just passed 300,000 views on our YouTube really since March when we kind of
• 17:38
  figured stuff out.
• 17:39
  I have probably this is amazing.
• 17:41
  Yeah.
• 17:42
  Yeah.
• 17:42
  Well, things are going very well, but I'm also like, I I've been on the road for two weeks.
• 17:45
  I'm extremely tired.
• 17:47
  Those seeds of doubt are creeping in.
• 17:49
  And it's been really nice talking with you, and I had Alison Galloway on right before you as
• 17:54
  well who has millions of views on her YouTube.
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:56
  Because she shows up and she's just real.
• 17:59
  And it's kinda pushing me where it's like, you're on the right.
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  Just keep going.
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  You can't like, you can't stop now when, you
• 18:05
  know There's no one timeline.
• 18:07
  No one has a no one has a identical timeline to anyone else.
• 18:11
  And what I've noticed through being a musician and being someone who works in the industry,
• 18:16
  it's really about, are you going to be more consistent than the person next to you?
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  That's it.
• 18:23
  Yeah.
• 18:23
  Well, I came home from tour and went straight to work.
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  Like, I got home in time to, pick up my wife and kids from school as I do when I'm home.
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  I walk them to our little school, and I walk them home every day.
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  And those are the things that's important to me.
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  That's why I'm not willing to go back to working in the factory.
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  Right?
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  Like, I could go back and drive 30 miles, you know, one way to go work in a factory for 25
• 18:48
  plus dollars an hour.
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  I can make it cool $50,000 a year,
• 18:52
  but Right.
• 18:53
  Not have all this time that I have with my wife and my kids and being close to home and not
• 19:00
  even to spend money on fuel unless I'm going somewhere worthwhile.
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  I think that was my thing.
• 19:05
  Like, just driving back and forth every day and putting a tank of fuel in and all these miles
• 19:10
  on the vehicle for to to just, like, drive to a job was brutal.
• 19:16
  It was
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  really I refuse to do a nine to five.
• 19:19
  I am not built for it.
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  I'm not I'm built to stay home, make music, go on tour, and just be a creative person and look
• 19:29
  good.
• 19:29
  And that's that's it.
• 19:30
  That's what I'm here for.
• 19:31
  Man, I really enjoyed being in a suit, like, all week.
• 19:35
  Right?
• 19:35
  Like, even if it was suit jacket with a T shirt, it felt really good to have like, if I
• 19:40
  walk around a little farm town here in rural South Dakota in a suit jacket every day, people
• 19:46
  are gonna be looking at me for a lot different reasons than they already do.
• 19:51
  I mean, I guess everybody's already looking.
• 19:52
  You might as well give them a reason.
• 19:54
  Yeah.
• 19:54
  Oh my god.
• 19:55
  Yes.
• 19:56
  I love that so much.
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  I live by that.
• 19:58
  Like, oh my god.
• 19:59
  You have no idea how much I live by that.
• 20:01
  I just released some content where I was downtown Nashville on 2nd Ave, and I was in,
• 20:07
  like, a lingerie set, and I was recording a music video.
• 20:11
  And, again, I'm a big girl.
• 20:13
  People don't usually see naked big girls downtown Nashville.
• 20:17
  Okay?
• 20:18
  That's just not normal.
• 20:19
  And I I was there
• 20:20
  on Halloween.
• 20:21
  I've I've saw too much.
• 20:23
  That's true.
• 20:23
  That's really valid.
• 20:24
  Probably a lot of lot of naked people.
• 20:27
  But I it was, like, it was, like, 02:00 in the afternoon on, like, a Monday.
• 20:31
  And it was so much fun because in the video, you see people going, yeah.
• 20:36
  Like, I was like, yes, girl.
• 20:38
  It's like, that's the thing.
• 20:39
  If you're gonna look, at least you should look at something good.
• 20:42
  So that's what I'm serving on a platter.
• 20:47
  I love it.
• 20:48
  I love it.
• 20:49
  So I I know you got some new music that you're working on.
• 20:52
  What is the music?
• 20:53
  I mean, you have so many influences.
• 20:55
  Is each song kind of, like, out of left field?
• 20:59
  Is it or is there some cohesiveness to the sound that you're putting out there?
• 21:04
  There is definitely cohesiveness.
• 21:05
  I've definitely had different, like, moments in my artist career so far, and I'm growing.
• 21:13
  I still feel like I'm in the beginning stages of what I'm building, and I'm really honing in
• 21:19
  on a couple different sounds that I wanna continue to have in this career that I'm I'm
• 21:28
  building.
• 21:28
  Gosh.
• 21:29
  How many times can I say the world building?
• 21:31
  So I like to say, like, my elevator pitch is if Ella Fitzgerald had a baby with Amy Winehouse
• 21:39
  and Adele was the surrogate was kind of the vibe.
• 21:43
  So a lot of bold vocals.
• 21:45
  I really like brass band, like big band.
• 21:49
  So I I'm doing what I can on an indie budget with that in mind.
• 21:53
  So I love having strings, and I love brass.
• 21:57
  Like, give me a good flugel horn.
• 21:59
  Give me a good French horn, and I'm so happy.
• 22:02
  Trumpets.
• 22:03
  Ugh.
• 22:03
  I love trumpets.
• 22:04
  I'm such a jazz girl.
• 22:07
  Everything is gonna be, like, seductive and sensual, but I also love, like, the stylings of
• 22:14
  SZA and that R and B influences.
• 22:16
  I have songs with, like, trap beats under it, and I love that.
• 22:19
  I think it's so cool and modern.
• 22:21
  And the way, like, that I can meld those things together and it sounds really cool is really
• 22:26
  exciting for me.
• 22:27
  So I try to keep it in that space, but I also like having ballads.
• 22:31
  You know?
• 22:31
  So Wait With Me is very much a ballad.
• 22:35
  But, yeah, I definitely lean into the r and b pop, like, bedroom pop, dark pop realm for
• 22:41
  sure.
• 22:43
  Bedroom pop.
• 22:44
  I like it.
• 22:45
  Added simple things.
• 22:48
  Well and speaking of kind of a a a more sensual music and seductive type music, what is it like
• 22:55
  performing at a burlesque show, you know, every weekend in Nashville?
• 23:00
  It is the highlight of my entire life.
• 23:03
  It is everything I have always dreamed of when I was I wouldn't say little, but when I was
• 23:09
  younger, like, watching burlesque, the movie burlesque with Christina Aguilera and Cher,
• 23:14
  like, one of my favorite parts is always the background, like, green room where all the
• 23:20
  girls are running around and there's rhinestones flying everywhere and there's bras
• 23:25
  flying everywhere and there's, like, feathers.
• 23:27
  Like, where did that feather come from?
• 23:28
  And I get that every week now with these women, these people that I consider, like, family now.
• 23:35
  You know?
• 23:36
  I've been doing this for, like, a year and a half, and it is such a I just I look forward to
• 23:41
  it every week.
• 23:42
  I'm so excited when I go, and I I love performing.
• 23:45
  I mean, I was I could perform every day.
• 23:47
  I have a show next week that I'm actually very nervous and very excited for.
• 23:50
  But, it is the highlight of my week.
• 23:53
  I'm very, in love with just the burlesque world in general.
• 23:58
  I've been in love with burlesque since I was younger.
• 24:01
  I went my first burlesque show was Dieter Vantes, and she's the queen of burlesque.
• 24:05
  And I got to meet her and, very, very lucky for that.
• 24:09
  So, yeah, it's really a dream.
• 24:11
  It is a dream of mine that I'm currently living, and it's it's very cool.
• 24:15
  It's very cool.
• 24:16
  I'm very, very grateful for it.
• 24:18
  So yeah.
• 24:19
  Yeah.
• 24:19
  Messed around and became Liza Minnelli.
• 24:22
  No.
• 24:22
  Period.
• 24:24
  I love her so much.
• 24:26
  That's so funny.
• 24:28
  Oh, I've seen some movies too, Athena.
• 24:32
  Scenic.
• 24:32
  What?
• 24:33
  Mostly old ones.
• 24:35
  I love
• 24:35
  old ones.
• 24:36
  Don't get it twisted.
• 24:37
  Well, it's fantastic.
• 24:39
  It's nice to talk to you because you have so many different perspectives that that intrigue
• 24:43
  me.
• 24:44
  Like I said, growing up I mean, I grew up in rural South Dakota, a different part of South
• 24:48
  Dakota five hours away, but the same kind of rural.
• 24:51
  Right?
• 24:51
  Yeah.
• 24:52
  And, you know, it's a lot different.
• 24:54
  People look at the music industry a lot differently here than they do in Nashville.
• 24:58
  Right?
• 24:58
  Where Yeah.
• 24:59
  Everyone in Nashville works in the music industry in one way or another.
• 25:05
  You can't get away from it.
• 25:07
  Right?
• 25:07
  And here, most people are like, well, when are you gonna get a real job?
• 25:11
  Right?
• 25:11
  So it's kinda like trying to bridge those two worlds together and realizing that, you know,
• 25:17
  also feeling that, like, I work in the music industry.
• 25:20
  Right?
• 25:20
  Like, I'm not just a part time player, and I go out and kinda weekend warrior this thing, but
• 25:26
  this podcast and these things that I've dedicated a vast majority of my life to at this
• 25:32
  point, they have value in the world even when the system and the industry is literally
• 25:38
  cannibalizing itself to the point where it has no value.
• 25:42
  I mean, out in the open market, songs don't really have any value any longer.
• 25:48
  And but it doesn't stop any of us from writing them, and it doesn't stop us from wanting to
• 25:53
  perform them.
• 25:54
  Like, what is that?
• 25:55
  Are we all crazy?
• 25:56
  Yes.
• 25:57
  Oh my god.
• 25:57
  Yeah.
• 25:58
  Of course.
• 25:58
  You're so you're on the nose.
• 26:00
  I we're creatives.
• 26:01
  You know?
• 26:01
  I I wouldn't be able to live this life without being able to create.
• 26:06
  I know that sounds so cheesy, but, genuinely, like, I the this is a joke, but, like, I always
• 26:13
  say, like, the only interesting thing about me is my music and my hair.
• 26:18
  I just love what I do, and I could not do anything else.
• 26:22
  I really couldn't.
• 26:23
  I've tried to, like, have, like, corporate jobs just to obviously support what I was doing, but
• 26:29
  it just never I never felt fulfilled until, like, now this past year.
• 26:34
  It's been crazy.
• 26:36
  It's been I'm very grateful.
• 26:37
  But, yeah, we I mean, creatives, we can't we can't.
• 26:40
  We are meant to entertain, you know, connect with people.
• 26:46
  We need that as a as the human experience goes.
• 26:49
  Right?
• 26:50
  Like, human race didn't have music, I mean, I don't know what we would do.
• 26:55
  Music goes back to the stone age.
• 26:57
  Like, we have always been creating music.
• 27:00
  Always.
• 27:00
  It's always been there.
• 27:02
  Well and it's a universal language.
• 27:03
  I mean, the year I spent in Mexico, I was feeding my family with the guitar going down to
• 27:08
  the square in a in a town where not a lot of people spoke English, and I'm doing nothing but
• 27:14
  singing in English.
• 27:16
  Right?
• 27:16
  And and being different, and I'm making more than I could if I was, like, working a
• 27:22
  construction job.
• 27:23
  Right?
• 27:23
  Which granted wasn't very it was, like, $10 a day.
• 27:25
  Right?
• 27:26
  But, also, life is cheap in Mexico.
• 27:29
  Yeah.
• 27:29
  Like, to just live and survive was very cheap.
• 27:33
  Mean, if I was making, you know, the $50 a year that I was making here
• 27:37
  A king.
• 27:38
  I would live like a freaking king down there.
• 27:40
  Right?
• 27:41
  And and don't, yeah, don't think that I I regretted, you know, waiting to go to Mexico
• 27:47
  until I got busted.
• 27:48
  Right?
• 27:49
  Like, I went I went because I was on the run from the felonies that I had caught and then I
• 27:53
  landed there.
• 27:54
  And I was like, oh my god.
• 27:55
  Why did you come here three months ago with all that money?
• 28:00
  My life would have been very much different, than it is now.
• 28:03
  About the stars.
• 28:05
  Who am I?
• 28:06
  I ask that question all the time, Athena.
• 28:08
  All the time.
• 28:09
  It's I
• 28:10
  love that.
• 28:10
  Really, it was it was a big impetus for why I started my own podcast because I was gone I
• 28:15
  started releasing more singles.
• 28:17
  Like, October 2023, I released my first one officially on a streaming.
• 28:22
  I had made an album back in two thousand nine, 2010, really just like a demo.
• 28:27
  Wasn't done very well.
• 28:28
  I was never really proud of it, unfortunately.
• 28:30
  And we just spent a ton of money to get it to that point.
• 28:33
  Right?
• 28:33
  But we just didn't know what we were doing and made a lot of mistakes with it.
• 28:36
  So it really came down to, like, me being inspired by Jelly Roll and Lainey that, you
• 28:43
  know, people who had been working at this for a very long time.
• 28:45
  Right?
• 28:46
  Not overnight successes.
• 28:47
  People had been in the grind forever and ever and ever and then had a breakthrough moment.
• 28:52
  Right?
• 28:52
  And and hearing Jelly Roll tell his stories about being in jail where it's like, oh, I can
• 28:56
  share that.
• 28:57
  Like, I don't have to hide that because most I think most people that you meet are like, oh,
• 29:01
  you can't talk about that.
• 29:02
  You can't like, stop telling people that you went to prison and doing that.
• 29:06
  That's what makes us interesting, and that's what makes us able to connect with people.
• 29:11
  Right?
• 29:11
  Like, I always talk about plus size inclusivity and body normalizing.
• 29:16
  Like, it shouldn't be, like, one over the other.
• 29:19
  It should just be we are who we are and, like, that's that we should be proud of who we are.
• 29:24
  And I think that's something that people the in the plus size community, because I have been
• 29:29
  that person.
• 29:30
  Like, I'm not talking from no experience.
• 29:31
  Like, I always thought I needed to lose weight.
• 29:34
  I always I I never thought that I could be vivacious and voluptuous at the same time.
• 29:40
  Like, I always thought I had to be the funny, fat friend, not the educated, talented, sexy,
• 29:47
  femme fatale.
• 29:48
  Like, I never saw that growing up.
• 29:51
  And now I'm like excuse me.
• 29:53
  I don't know if I can curse here.
• 29:54
  You do whatever you want.
• 29:56
  I said, fuck that because I'm not going to hide who I am because of someone else's idea of what
• 30:03
  I should and should not share with the world.
• 30:04
  So I d I I think that's what separates us is our our ability to truly, like, show who we
• 30:14
  are, like, naked.
• 30:16
  Right?
• 30:17
  That's the beauty of artists is we're able to really, like, I don't know, do that when it's
• 30:22
  the scariest thing to do and and we do it.
• 30:25
  And I think that's what helps people feel like they're allowed to do that as well.
• 30:30
  So yeah.
• 30:31
  Yeah.
• 30:32
  And I think, yeah, I've continued to prove that here on the show.
• 30:37
  I mean, I've done I don't even know how many interviews I've done this year alone.
• 30:41
  It's been a lot.
• 30:42
  It's we got to a 100 episodes last year.
• 30:44
  That was, like, my goal.
• 30:45
  Was like, I gotta get to a 100 episodes.
• 30:47
  And that meant we did over a 120 interviews, with different artists and different people.
• 30:53
  And then this year, I've we've blown that out of the I mean, I did a 100 interviews probably
• 30:57
  on the red carpet at the Josie's.
• 30:59
  Right?
• 30:59
  I just talked to everyone that would come through.
• 31:02
  And then even at towards the end when they were like, hey.
• 31:04
  It's, like, showtime.
• 31:06
  Right?
• 31:06
  You might wanna get inside.
• 31:08
  And I was still like, hey.
• 31:09
  This is your moment.
• 31:10
  Like, if you want to come up here, like, I'm I'm sorry.
• 31:12
  I didn't get to everyone.
• 31:14
  It's not my fault.
• 31:15
  Like Yeah.
• 31:16
  I was doing I was doing sixty second or less interviews the entire time and just getting
• 31:21
  them done because it's not about me.
• 31:24
  It's not about my content for the day.
• 31:26
  It's about you getting your time in the sun.
• 31:28
  And I think that's exactly why we will be invited back next year.
• 31:32
  I think it's why I have a passion for doing more red carpet events in the future and and
• 31:37
  being at more award shows all over the country and finding a couple of brands that would be
• 31:42
  interested in that kind of exposure to those, you know, to those events and these because I
• 31:49
  enjoy it.
• 31:49
  I enjoy meeting new artists.
• 31:51
  You know, if if even for the simple fact of just, like, having another friend in the world.
• 31:56
  Right?
• 31:56
  I I think that sometimes I'm still a very lonely, teenager at heart.
• 32:03
  Right?
• 32:03
  I I'm still someone who is out on that highway with his thumb in the air, wondering if anybody
• 32:09
  gives a shit.
• 32:10
  Right?
• 32:11
  And Yeah.
• 32:14
  Not that I didn't have, you know, family that loved me, but my upgrading wasn't great either,
• 32:18
  and everybody had their own stuff going on.
• 32:20
  And I was always, you know, the oldest of three boys.
• 32:22
  It was always like, well, Bubba's gonna go to college and do all the things right.
• 32:26
  And, like, I got out there with almost no training and went, I don't know.
• 32:29
  I just made a lot of really bad choices.
• 32:31
  Right?
• 32:33
  Experience.
• 32:34
  Well and now I'm trying to maybe keep other young people from making those same really poor
• 32:39
  choices.
• 32:39
  And we just live we live in a much different world now.
• 32:42
  I feel like society in a lot of ways has come a long ways.
• 32:46
  I feel like we're still probably asked backwards in a lot of other ways.
• 32:50
  But, we can be culture drivers and culture changers who we are.
• 32:55
  And I think that you exemplify that with with who you are and the way that you choose to live
• 33:00
  your life.
• 33:01
  It means so much because you're going to inspire other girls that maybe, don't look at
• 33:06
  the TV or their freaking computer screen in their hand and see themselves and see any way
• 33:12
  that they're beautiful.
• 33:14
  And not that it's a a cop out to just, like, be fat as fuck and not take care of yourself.
• 33:19
  Right?
• 33:20
  But we're all shaped differently.
• 33:22
  Right?
• 33:22
  And there's different ways to look healthy, to look and be healthy.
• 33:27
  Right?
• 33:28
  And in a world that has just shoved nothing but terrible food down our throats for, you know,
• 33:33
  fifty years and and then to expect everyone to live up to some now AI generated image of
• 33:41
  perfection is just it's so damaging.
• 33:44
  Right?
• 33:44
  So damaging.
• 33:45
  And it's just the the conversation should be about health, not about how you look.
• 33:51
  You know, the people don't talk about, you know, PCOS, which is something that affects a
• 33:56
  large group of not only women or or women.
• 34:00
  Sorry.
• 34:00
  I don't want I was thinking about something else.
• 34:01
  PCOS, because I'm thinking about HS.
• 34:04
  I have a I have an autoimmune disease called hidradenitis suppurativa, and it affects
• 34:09
  everybody.
• 34:10
  And it's not something that they really talked about up until recently.
• 34:14
  Not fun.
• 34:14
  Do not ten out of ten do not recommend having HS.
• 34:17
  But, I don't have PCOS, but I know a lot of women that do, and they're very healthy.
• 34:24
  But they're bigger people because of their genetics, because of, you know, all the
• 34:29
  terrible food that is affordable, because healthy food is not affordable.
• 34:33
  I could go into this so hard.
• 34:34
  But at the end of the day, I don't care who you are or what you look like.
• 34:39
  I don't think anyone has a right to talk about how anybody looks regardless how healthy or
• 34:43
  unhealthy they are.
• 34:44
  I think it's, you know, up to the person living in their body, and I think that we shouldn't be
• 34:52
  excluded from anything because of how we look.
• 34:55
  You know, seeing plus size models on the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this year is
• 35:00
  amazing.
• 35:00
  Ashley Graham is a leader in the plus size community.
• 35:04
  She was the first plus size woman to be on Sports Illustrated.
• 35:08
  And she's a mother with, a wonderful husband who is such a she's so successful and so
• 35:14
  ambitious.
• 35:14
  And, you know, seeing women like that inspire me, and I hope one day that I could be a woman
• 35:22
  that is inspiring other women to be able to go after their dreams and know that it's totally
• 35:27
  possible regardless of your size.
• 35:30
  So
• 35:31
  Well, I think you're already doing that.
• 35:34
  And you just keep on going, and you're going to inspire more and more people with your story
• 35:39
  and and with your, dare I say, balls to just go out there and to to live it and to not really
• 35:50
  give a shit when anybody else thinks.
• 35:51
  And I think it's important.
• 35:53
  I think in this thirty minutes we've been talking, you know, that I come from the same
• 35:58
  cut from the same cloth, Athena.
• 36:01
  And it it's a no surprise that we connected the way that we did on the red carpet and and why I
• 36:07
  was so attracted to your spirit.
• 36:09
  And you looked freaking amazing at the Josie's.
• 36:13
  So kudos to you for coming well dressed.
• 36:16
  I appreciate that very much.
• 36:18
  I I appreciate this interview and also just meeting you and being a part of this community
• 36:23
  with you.
• 36:23
  It's it's wonderful.
• 36:24
  I'm very grateful, and and, yeah, this was awesome.
• 36:28
  I appreciate it.
• 36:29
  Before I let you go, go ahead and plug, everything.
• 36:32
  Let people know where they can find all the music, and, I'll let you get out of here.
• 36:36
  Okay.
• 36:36
  Well, everyone, you can find me anywhere online.
• 36:39
  Athena official with an x instead of an e, a t h x n a, official, on every platform, and I
• 36:47
  hope you love the music and the new music that's coming out this year and next year.
• 36:52
  Awesome.
• 36:53
  Well, Athena, thank you so much for being my new friend, and thanks for being part of the
• 36:57
  scene.
• 36:58
  Of course.
• 36:58
  Thank you.