Latest / The Junto Podcast / E14: Exploring the World with Aussie, Charlie Heart

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E14: Exploring the World with Aussie, Charlie Heart · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome back to episode 14. And today I've got a good friend
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of mine here, Charlie Hart, who we'll be doing a little interview with and just chit-chatting.
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And yeah that's it
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charlie introduce yourself hello hello
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america i'm charlie hart it's good to be here
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all right so look
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he's uh apparently understated but
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he's been traveling around a lot in america lately
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he's got i think
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what i like to refer to as wanderlust i think
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you like traveling right i mean that's a yeah or is
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it for a purpose i know
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there's what's your definition wanderlust is something where give us a definition
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of wanderlust yeah you love to to to wonder and explore okay yeah as in wonder
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or as in wonder wonder as in w-a-n-d-e-r wonder wonder lust yeah I have a wonder
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and wanderlust. Okay. Both.
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Yeah. I find myself, I'm, you know, middle-aged by now.
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I've been, I've always, I've always moved around a lot and I have some pretty
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inspiring friends that have done similar stuff and gone out and left Australia
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and lived in the UK and Europe and America.
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And yeah. So I think I just got to a sort of a stage in my life where I was
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able to facilitate that enough to sort of get that lust, so to speak,
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you know what I mean, where I was able to open that up.
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And I do find myself now when I get home planning my next trip pretty much straight away.
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Now, I don't know. I'm going to read. I've got a couple of quotes here I want
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to read because I love traveling too. Not that I'm a professional traveler by
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any means, but the one's a quote by Mark Twain. You may have heard it. You may have not.
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And he says, travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
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And many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
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Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating
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in one little corner of the earth all of one's lifetime. Mark Twain said that.
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I agree with it wholeheartedly.
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Well, when it comes to bigotry specifically, from what I've seen,
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go to other countries and witness what their injustices are.
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You'll get a very big appreciation for America, you know, quick.
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Yeah. I mean, coming from Australia, they're culturally pretty similar places
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and their safety levels are relatively the same as well.
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I mean, you might find different areas in the States, you know,
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pockets of meaner places.
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Yeah. But you can find that anywhere really. but they're comparatively similar,
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you know, in terms of their safety levels.
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The thing with traveling around, I travel by myself, is that bigotry leads to
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fear and fear stops you from doing, or bigotry is in a way, in a sense,
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it is fear. Arguably, yeah, from fear. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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So if you're sort of, when you're traveling around, if you're prepared to challenge
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those little pangs of fear, so to speak, you might be driving somewhere where
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you maybe never been before or whatever And you got to, if you encounter someone,
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you have to meet them with an open heart because that's your,
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that's the only way to go about it.
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And if you can do that, generally speaking, you'll bring that out of them as well.
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Even if they are someone that might be a little bit on the edge.
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Well, as a traveler, especially when you're by yourself, like sometimes you
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might need something that you didn't know you were going to need.
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And that person might, so as a traveler, yeah, you're going to be more open
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and soft coming at somebody.
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And like you said. Exactly. Because you're more at the, you know,
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you have something to benefit from people's generosity a lot more,
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I guess, you know, you're out there by yourself.
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But as a traveler, you have to be very diplomatic because you meet different
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people and you might, I like to think I, I talk to everyone the same.
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I'm a direct communicator. I'm pretty much the same with everyone.
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I don't change my personality based on new people, but I might go a little softer
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or a little harder, depending on where I'm at, depending on culture,
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depending on- Depending on who they are as well. Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah. I think traveling will, I agree with Mark Twain. I think it will kill
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the narrow-mindedness and that kind of stuff.
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And almost just out of necessity, man. Yeah. Almost just out of necessity. me.
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No, I mean, is there a circumstance in which narrow-mindedness is useful?
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When you think about it, I can't really think of one.
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No, I can't either. Unless you're already in a high conflict situation.
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Yeah. I mean, a protectionist, right? If you're an isolation protectionist, yeah.
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Narrow-minded, whatever. You close in and live in your own bubble.
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Mm-hmm. But is that a benefit? I don't think so. I don't think so, no. Nah.
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I think being open-minded solves way more problems or just helps you navigate the world better.
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All right.
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I mean, you've been all over. I know you have. Mostly the South.
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Well, I mean the world in general. You've been to, where have you been?
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Where have I explored? Look, I was lucky enough when I was younger to be moving
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around with a band a bit. So we went to Europe, the UK.
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I've also got cousins here in Texas. So I came out here in my 20s for a wedding
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and a few other bits and pieces.
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I didn't start traveling. You know, I've been hung up on chasing a musical career for many years.
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And so I've traveled a lot within Australia.
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My mother's from New Zealand. I've been there quite a bit.
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I've been to Vietnam. I've been to Singapore.
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So I've seen a bit of Southeast Asia. Never been to India or China or Japan. I wouldn't say I'm...
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It's... Well, by comparison to some.
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But when I go somewhere, I try not to do it as a typical tourist where you're
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sort of there for a day at a time and you look at something and then you move on to the next place.
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I prefer to go to one place, spend some time there and get to know some people.
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That's how you do it, man. Yeah. And two or three weeks and circle out from
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there as opposed to- Yeah.
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I find that it's better to try to live like, like to be in a place and just
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hunker down and be in that place for a while.
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You experience it more like a local versus a tourist.
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Touristy stuff is just, it's not even entertaining that much. Yeah. You know?
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That's like going to Florida and going to see the Disney. Yeah.
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I mean, if you're out in the bush or something, if you're going for a hike,
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it's a bit of a different story. I mean, that's something else.
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Well, that's a bit. That's sort of like immersing yourself in a wilderness.
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That's an adventure, man. That's like, you know, if you're going to do stuff
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like that. That's not touristy stuff. No.
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That's going on a proper adventure. I mean, even in the Appalachian Mountains or wherever.
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Never mind the old Outback, where I assume everything wants to kill you.
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Much like... Yeah, Australia gets a pretty bad rep there.
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No, it's not as bad as it seems.
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We were talking about sharks before. Yeah. There's lots of sharks,
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snakes, spiders, crocodiles, but they're not, you know, they're not in...
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Australia's also one of the most urbanized countries in the world,
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like 95% of the population live in the big cities.
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So, yeah, there's critters there, but they're not there.
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Landmass wise, the critters own the, the continent.
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Yeah. Yeah. The creatures own the continent. Yeah. You're just living in the
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little fucking. We're hiding on the coast. Yeah. Yeah.
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I don't know, man. It'd be cool. Like I said, I used to be fascinated with it.
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And then the, you know, Australia's kind of anti-gun policies and all kind of
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turned me off when I got older, but yeah, I think Australia'd be wildly interesting.
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And I'll hate to invoke the name of Crocodile Dundee but that turned me on in
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Australia for sure and Men at Work, do you remember that band?
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Yeah, yeah, come from the land down Colin hey, he lives he spends most of his
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time out here touring up and down the west coast and does a lot of solo shows,
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he's a great poet great songwriter very famous for that song.
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Which they ended up getting sued for, by the way, because the saxophone solo,
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that is an Australian folk song, which was written, it's Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.
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Okay, folks, technical difficulties as per usual.
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I'm sorry. I apologize to cut you off there. So we're back with Charlie and
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we're on about the music scene in Australia and how, well, Well,
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COVID definitely hurt it for sure like it did everything else.
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Yeah. So I was just explaining there that Melbourne in particular had a very
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good live scene and it still does.
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There's a lot of live, small live venues, a lot of places for people to cut
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their teeth and, you know, young bands and stuff to get in.
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But yeah, during COVID, a lot of those places, a lot of venues were shut down
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and I haven't really recovered from that.
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And previous to COVID in New South Wales, the state government, due to street violence,
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enforced pretty much a curfew on what we described as lockout laws,
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which were venues had to at 12 o'clock at night. If you were inside, you could stay inside.
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No one could come into the venue after 12.
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And then by 2 o'clock, everything had to be shut down and done.
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So they're basically, or something along those lines, it might have been 230.
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They just, all the later, all the clubs that were sort of doing that might turn
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into a disco or like people would come after work, sort of midnight thing,
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hospital crew, that sort of stuff,
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that would put bands on earlier on the night, no longer had the income in the
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later in the night to support the live to live music. So they cut that right back.
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And then, you know, these venues used to be able to operate till six or seven in the morning.
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Do you know what I mean? And when their staff knocked off or whoever knocked
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off, they'd come down and, you know, you'd end up.
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So it really did destroy the night culture. And it was in Sydney.
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And they're paying for it now. They're actually trying to bring it.
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They're actually trying to
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pay people to sort of reinvigorate it and pouring all this money into it.
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But, and it was, look, there was a couple of incidences. It was totally unjustified.
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There was a couple of young blokes about 18 months apart or 12 months apart
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that one of them got sucker punched, fell over, had a head injury and died.
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A couple of kids died from this sort of street violence stuff.
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That's the sort of thing that happens in Australia.
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You know, one person, it's a pretty soft place, you know what I mean?
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But Sydney's never recovered from that and it never will. And since then,
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you know, the way that we consume,
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including going to work, et cetera, et cetera, the way that we're consuming
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and doing everything, we're not doing things face to face anywhere as well,
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anywhere as much as we used to. And so we're not as good at it as we used to.
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And so, you know, young people have got social anxiety if they go out and socialize in a gig environment.
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They want to do it through their phone and TikTok and all this sort of stuff.
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And the interaction is too overwhelming for them, generally speaking.
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You know, I mean, that's one of the great things about music is that,
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you know, particularly live music is it's a great level, you know,
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you get people in a room and particularly young guys trying to do something original.
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They might be making fools of themselves up on a stage, but everyone in the
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room starts turning around talking to each other.
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You know, it's a great, it's a great, great thing to have for your community
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and it's completely lacking. Yeah.
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In terms of, I think the industry in general, internationally,
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suffers at the same time from, has suffered a big hit from the way that the internet has changed.
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I mean, now this is back in 2025, really. We should be starting to get over
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this by now, and I think we are.
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But it does bring a lot of advantages as well. You know, independent musicians,
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we were talking about that a bit earlier.
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You know, you can get your stuff out to the world without needing it,
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you know, necessarily signed to a major label and distributed through a huge,
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you know, marketing network through Sony or EMI or any of the old traditional
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labels that sort of held the control of the market, the gatekeepers to the market.
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And things also aren't necessarily being strictly, they're no longer strictly
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broadcast on radio or MTV.
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You've got all these other outlets, podcasters, whatever, you know what I mean? YouTube channels.
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Yeah, well, I mean, how many people are listening to radio and watching MTV? I mean.
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Not many. Not many, I don't think. I think the internet's the way people consume,
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whether it's Spotify or whatever, or YouTube or whatever it is.
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Yeah, I think a lot of X-gens, they're listening to music on Spotify or Apple Music,
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but YouTube, it's a bit of a thing to sit around with your mates or whatever,
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or share YouTube videos, things that you find.
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It's interesting. You get to see an interesting live performance or something
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like that, and it seems to be the way people are consuming their musical up there.
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I can see that the competition of sitting and watching a dude do a live set
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on YouTube versus going to the pub and watching the dude do the exact same thing.
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I prefer the live version of that.
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I once had a conversation with a guy. We were standing, and we were at a place called,
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I want to say the Thunderbird Inn or someplace in Colorado,
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out it was out beyond like woodland
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party it was way out there anyway and there was an
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open mic night and there was there was a bands playing several that came up
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and a guy got up there and he was a bass player for one of the bands fucker
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had a five string bass and he was doing some bass solos that were blowing but
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blowing minds man and i'm sitting there and i'm enjoying it.
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And my man next to him we're drinking and I says.
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This guy's a master of his art. He is a professional.
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I don't know what he's doing now or where he's been. He was old.
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I think he had played for several prominent bands, in fact.
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I enjoy watching somebody who is a master of whatever their craft is.
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And this dude was a master of that fucking bass, man. He was killing it.
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You don't quite get the same thing watching the video. No. You can hear it,
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but you don't get the feeling that the guy was. Happening.
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I mean, the audience is part of the performance after all.
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Yeah, and there's different vibes, man. It's like whoever you're playing,
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it becomes part of the feeling that you're generating.
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But a band can do the same show night after night and it'd be a different vibe
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each night because of the audience as well.
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Participation or just excitement, just the energy in the room or whatever.
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So, yeah, man, I think the live music is, now when I was a bouncer back in the
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day, I got real sick of it real quick because I was always standing next to
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a fucking eight foot speaker, you know, whatever. But I always enjoyed live music.
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I don't think the internet, so I think possibly things ebb and flow, right?
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So instead of the internet being at odds with the little small guy,
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I think it's gonna, I think the live music scene will pick up sooner or later again.
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It has in some places already. I think it has already. I mean,
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on this trip here, what have I been in for five and a half weeks now,
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I've been all around and met a guy called Casey Meikle.
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He's a fiddle player and he's into old time string music. Nice.
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There's a really strong community, people everywhere, all over Tennessee,
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Georgia, and Virginia, South, North, was it North Carolina?
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Virginia. That area, around the Appalachians and further.
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That, you know, there's thousands of these people that are out there in their
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communities playing music and playing a good standard of music and sticking
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to these conventions and...
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It is one of the most enriching pastimes I think anyone can participate in.
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And if you get to do it with your family, that's even better.
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And a lot of these people are. Well, especially in the Appalachian region.
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I mean, there's a long history, long history of music and family music.
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Bluegrass as well. Bluegrass, yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah, that's good, man. So given all this, the current state of music,
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the question is, how do you come to being an NXS cover band?
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Which is awesome by the way well i was
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recently told by a new friend of mine a guy called charlie morgan
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who actually played with elton for
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six or seven years and another band called orleans and anyway he's up in nashville
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doing his thing he's a session drummer and a and a touring guy and a music producer
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of sorts but he mainly does drums and he was talking to me about how australians
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invented the modern concept of a tribute band.
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This tribute band started coming out of Australia some time ago.
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We've got, in Oz, a lot of our live music venues are within RSLs,
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return servicemen clubs, leagues clubs.
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These places have got biggish rooms, like theatre-style rooms.
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A lot of them are pretty good. A fair bit of money has been put into them,
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and they're like little 500 to 800-style theatres.
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So it's perfect for that. You know, people know what they're coming to get.
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It's easier to market, right? Yeah, yeah, that's it.
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And if you end up being able to pull it off and do a reasonable job of it,
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you can sell some consistent tickets.
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And the infrastructure is there for you to play these sort of size rooms,
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you know, 500 to 700 sort of thing. There's some bigger rooms as well, theatres as well.
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And certain towns in Australia, certain cities really get into it.
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Adelaide's one of them. support for live music in Adelaide, it's fantastic,
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they really come out to see it, same in Brisbane not so much in Sydney and,
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Even Melbourne, to the same degree. They're very enthusiastic about that.
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So, yeah, and it's also driven by a very talented front man who sort of put it together.
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He had a bit of notoriety because he was in the final 10 or something on the
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Australian Voice a few years back.
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So he got a bit of exposure there and he's particularly good at it.
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And he does the Hutch show thing. He does the Michael Hutchins thing,
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but not really. He doesn't try and really mimic Michael Hutchins.
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We sort of do our own thing with it, but he's also very good at singing the
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songs. That was my next question.
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When he sings, is he trying to be Michael Hutchins when he's,
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like, voice-wise? Blair Dwyer sort of does his own thing with it.
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No. Like, you know, you can see tribute acts and it's really cringy because
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they're genuinely trying to mimic. Well, I don't want to name names.
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You named them, but I told you I saw the band, or in a band.
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And that's when the guy was yeah I won't name names either that'd just be mean
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but yeah the guy was trying,
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very much to yeah there's an American tribute in excess tribute out here which
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yeah well they're having some fun put it that way but to start with there's
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eight of them or something instead of six or five yeah there's yeah there's plenty of dudes.
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But you know yeah I don't know it was still a good time anyway we'd like to
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come out here and tour but you could probably kill it then probably just get yeah well,
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It'd be great to do like a Vegas residency or something for a couple of weeks. Yeah.
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Start that off and then come down here. This is that where like has-been rock stars go.
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You got to be a has-been. You can't be a up-and-coming. You got to be a has-been that goes to Vegas.
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Yeah, I guess we're a step away from that again, right?
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Age-wise, maybe.
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Old bastard. All right. NXS cover, man. That's awesome.
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All right, all right. Let's move on. Let's see what else we got here.
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I got a list of questions, folks, for Charlie.
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I hate reading off a fucking piece of paper, but let's see. What...
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Have you experienced traveling alone? Any particular instances of either overwhelming
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kindness or overwhelming... Animosity.
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Animosity, or anything that stands out like that?
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Or has everything been just pretty...
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Just rolling around doing my thing. Look, you could say that the level of kindness
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and neighborliness from multiple people that I've experienced in places like Georgia, Tennessee,
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Alabama was overwhelming to a point once I'd experienced that consistently.
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Like everyone that I met was consistently neighborly and consistently curious about who I was.
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Right. And I guess the interesting thing about being an Australian in America
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is that you get a bit of a window when someone meets
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you and they're genuinely curious yeah they hear the accent and
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they go so you get like this two or three minute window where
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you can talk or like you know you can converse with someone and they're actually
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paying you a bit and in that time if you're yourself and you're genuine you
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can you can build it you get a chance to build a bit of a rapport with someone
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so i wouldn't necessarily i was overwhelmed say i was overwhelmed by any one particular person,
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because I think that would maybe be a little bit weird. Yeah, yeah.
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But I was moved by everybody's, just the consistency of neighborliness,
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particularly in the South. That's good.
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And the South gets a bad rep internationally.
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It still gets a bad rep. Yeah, I know. And it's absurd.
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It really is absurd. And it's just a bunch of very naive individuals.
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Well, most people default to a stereotype of some kind.
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Yeah. So they stereotype the South for whatever, you know, the Civil War,
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racism, ignorance, things like that, I guess.
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In terms of like any animosity, no, not really.
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There's a couple of incidences where I've gone down, gone a bit too far down
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a no-three road or something like that. Someone said, you know,
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come out and said, are you lost or something?
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But that's, that, that wasn't too bad either.
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Well, what I hope. No gunshots. No gunshots. Except out here. Yeah.
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You know, Southern hospitality is a thing. Like that's, that was a famous thing for a while.
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Like you can pretty much count on if you're in the South, some little old lady
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is going to say, hey baby, what can, you know, whatever. But yeah,
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I find that these days, most people, it's a negative thing, like ignorance, for instance.
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Because like Alabama and Mississippi have very low education scores and stuff like that.
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And obviously that's not everyone. And obviously everyone doesn't,
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a lot of people have deep Southern accents for sure.
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But for me, I consciously tried to get rid of that. With the accent?
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Yeah. Yeah. Now I know I still have it, but-
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Not as bad as when I was young. Yeah, well, I mean, you can avoid the bigotry. Right.
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Whatever, it's hard. Yeah, I'm glad that you've had a good experience in the South in general.
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I mean, generally speaking, man, people are not, if not overtly kind,
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at least like, hey, can I help you? You know, that kind of thing.
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And that's good, man. And I'm not sure, I don't know, maybe traveling up north
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if you'd have got that same, it's possible.
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Yeah, maybe not. I mean, I have been to San Francisco and California.
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I definitely didn't get that there.
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So that was. When were you there?
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2019. Oh, shit. That was just before the mass hysteria of COVID.
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Yeah, that's right. Six months before or something.
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I was in San Francisco once in the 90s. It was after the earthquake.
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Not directly after, but like a few months after.
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Yeah, I didn't get a sense of overwhelming kindness from anybody.
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The people I was visiting, we were friends.
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But I thought San Francisco was a genuinely interesting city. Yeah. I liked it.
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I thought Alcatraz and the pier and all that shit was, I thought it was cool.
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It's definitely a fascinating place. The city in general was,
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I liked the, I liked the hills and the geography.
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It was so dense as well. It was like a million people packed into that little peninsula there.
25:27
You walk from one side to the other. Yeah.
25:29
25, 30 minutes or something. It was pretty crazy. But I had a good time.
25:33
All the things about san francisco in the modern day i
25:36
have no desire to go back there at all but i and i
25:39
don't know i'm just going off what i'm seeing on the internet which is
25:42
take you can take it or leave it well downtown's just flooded with it's it's
25:47
basically a tent city homeless shell the one giant i was like that in 2019 when
25:53
i was there when i was leaving on the day that i left i encountered a fellow
25:56
who is he seemed to be suffering from.
26:00
Some form of paranoia some sort of mental illness i don't
26:03
know what i don't know what was going on but we locked it
26:06
got a bit of eye contact from the guy and i was in
26:09
a hurry because i was returning i was getting out
26:11
of there yeah i'm getting ready to go to the airport and he
26:14
tried to stop me to do something and i just sort of i shrugged him off and said
26:18
mate i can't stop i gotta do something and because i didn't give him the time
26:22
of day he started getting yeah aggressive so i i just sort of prickly put a
26:27
bit of space between me and him and walked into the place I was going to and
26:31
shut the door behind me and he didn't come inside. Yeah.
26:34
That was, yeah, that was a threatening experience.
26:38
Yeah. The night before I went out and walked from one end of the city to the
26:42
other without thinking about it, I realized I got a cab back because it was a bit later.
26:47
I went to a jazz club called the Black Cat, I think, or the Night Cat. Night Cat?
26:54
Great, great little club. But yeah, that was, that was an eye opener for sure.
26:57
Particularly as in Australians, people camped up along the street all the way, you know, the whole way.
27:02
I was in San Diego probably in, I don't know when, 2010 or 2012 or something.
27:10
San Diego is awesome as well. I was amazed at just homeless guys on,
27:16
on the sidewalk at major, major buildings, sleeping bags stretched out.
27:23
It was bizarre. It was very bizarre, man.
27:27
California could be the greatest state in the union. They got everything, man. They got it all.
27:32
Mountains, redwood forest, desert, Baja, surfing. Oh, that great farmland.
27:37
Skiing, wine, and even Hollywood. I used to be enamored with Hollywood.
27:43
Now it's kind of gross, but I used to love the movies and all.
27:47
And I don't know. Anyway, Hollywood.
27:50
California. Yeah. Tragic. It's a tragedy. That's modern tragedy. Yeah.
27:55
All righty. Oh, yeah, because you're a bit of a renaissance man.
27:59
So balancing music, as grownups, we know we got to have priorities, right?
28:06
But how do you balance like your music and then your other endeavors,
28:10
like contracting and things, construction or whatever, all the things you do,
28:15
one, what's the priority?
28:18
And then is it you love the hustle, you love the business, you love doing it,
28:24
or do you get sometimes bogged down?
28:27
I think, well, number one is to be able to be self-reliant.
28:32
If you can't be self-reliant, then you can't build real self-esteem. Right.
28:39
So I think working as a musician and trying to facilitate that ambition,
28:46
and that creativity, the financial instability behind that got me used to a
28:55
level of anxiety around that that I don't think other people get used to.
29:00
So that, for one, desensitized me to that. I got used to living week to week.
29:05
And then you get used to banking on your talent, or not your talent, but your work.
29:11
The fact that you know that you've got a bankable skill if you can go out and get to work.
29:17
I mean, that's a standard thing, but you can't go out and get a nine-to-five job.
29:21
There's no such thing. You've got to have 20 different negotiations with 10
29:26
different small business owners a month.
29:28
Yeah. And then you've got to go collect your money. You've got to make sure
29:30
other people get paid. You've got to pay this.
29:32
So there's a certain level of hassle, I guess, that you get used to.
29:39
And then once you get sick of being broke all the time, you know,
29:44
And that's a bankable skill, that management, that you learn how to turn something,
29:53
to do something with absolutely minimal resources. Yeah.
29:57
And so you don't necessarily spend money to make money.
30:00
I mean, that's the saying, right? You've got to spend money to make money.
30:03
Yeah, true. But you can also put your sweat into it and put your smarts into
30:07
it and do it for as cheap as possible.
30:08
So I guess you just get really resourceful. and then
30:11
through all the the hospitality connections that i
30:14
built through music through gigging and all this sort of stuff and i'd
30:17
actually worked in bars and i and i had labor's jobs
30:20
and stuff over the years with builders and you know whatever you'd
30:23
pick up work where you could and i actually started to i hadn't really
30:26
developed any trade skills because i was just you know
30:28
it's a brickies you know it's a laborer you know
30:31
on a shovel or whatever right i wasn't
30:34
doing it enough i wasn't invested in enough for someone to
30:37
to be bothered to teach me some more skills so that it wasn't until I started
30:42
doing that a little bit more full-time like I take on I do it for three or four
30:45
months at a time full-time instead of a couple of weeks here or whatever started
30:49
to build some skills there and then the hospital things and then those hospitality
30:52
connections started to connect up with the construction connections and I.
30:56
Started to move more into, I did a maintenance thing for a pub group for five
30:59
or six years where I did a lot of maintenance for them.
31:02
And then another, I had a friend of mine that sort of helped me through it as well.
31:06
He was a, he was an artist out of high school. He went and did fine arts, great painter.
31:11
And then he's, he was in construction as well and design was using,
31:14
had a design construct business and ended up building house and stuff with his
31:17
dad with a builder's license, et cetera, et cetera.
31:19
So his experience sort of built up over the years, doing a very good friend of mine as well.
31:22
And he, we used to use it as a bit of a rehab as well. like you know what I
31:25
mean yeah you'd be tired as fuck you'd be you know you hadn't been treating
31:28
yourself properly and so you'd go and get a construction job for fucking six months and.
31:32
Put some money back in the bank blah blah so but you know in my late 30s that
31:37
or even early 40s those things started to combine and because I was I've always
31:42
been a pretty straight shooter and honest person I was also able to be trusted
31:45
in pretty tight in situations where a lot of people can't be trusted you know
31:48
there's alcohol and booze and stuff around people start acting out you know what I mean?
31:52
So I was able to sort of maintain a level of trustworthiness in those more loose
31:57
environments, so to speak. And so that sort of, and I had that reputation.
32:00
I've always had that reputation. So I started to get given positions of a bit
32:04
more, you know, guys with restauranteurs and stuff, started to get me to do
32:08
some commercial fit outs and stuff with them. And then I ended up managing those things.
32:11
I ended up doing a bit of that myself as well. And also through,
32:14
I mean, I always needed someone to practice.
32:17
So I wouldn't, I didn't want a high a rehearsal room.
32:20
Yeah. I'd get a commercial space and build a rehearsal studio and build another
32:23
one next to it so that I didn't have to pay for it, that sort of thing.
32:25
Yeah. So I did that like five or six times.
32:28
It was just an accumulation of that over the years and then,
32:32
but always in the background, it's always been this 20 hours,
32:36
25 hours a week, 30 hours a week, trying to make it in music,
32:39
trying to do something, always gigging.
32:41
I've always had, it's been maybe one and a half, two years out of that entire,
32:46
my entire life since I was 18 that I was, out of that, you know what I mean?
32:50
And I took a break from it. It's been pretty constant.
32:54
I know it's one of the reasons why I'm here in the States is,
32:57
you know, having come to Nashville 18 months ago with some friends,
33:01
we did a bit of a road trip from Colorado.
33:03
Well, as soon as I came to Nashville, I was just like, this is something about this place.
33:07
This feels like a collection of like-minded, well, semi-like-minded,
33:15
or at least people that, there's enough people here trying to do it that,
33:18
you know, about 10% of them are hardworking enough to be able to put it off.
33:21
You know, so it's. Well, I like one of the things you just said.
33:25
You said talent, but then you said hard work.
33:29
I'm of the strong belief that, yeah, as a youth, you might have some talent. Yeah.
33:35
But if it doesn't translate, if you don't put the hard work in,
33:38
it's not going anywhere. It's not going to do anything.
33:41
Totally. I think when I was young, I had a talent for drawing and stuff,
33:46
and I never developed it.
33:48
That's it. I didn't put the hard work in. Well, it's arguable that maybe the
33:52
skills that you've got is a shooter and your eyes. Oh, a shooter.
33:56
Now, look. Because that's a similar, like being able to- But just like artistic
34:01
talent, shooting, some people say, oh, I'm a natural.
34:04
But if you don't work on it, you're not going to get good at it.
34:09
You're not going to get among the best at it. For sure.
34:13
So everything, I think, even music or even technical skill, it's hard work versus talent.
34:19
Yeah it helps to have a little natural talent for sure but if
34:24
you don't develop that on your own like you have then
34:27
it's it's for nothing and you're just i don't
34:30
know i got an uncle who plays music and that and now because he's in his late
34:37
60s he plays in his church band and i think him and his homies go out and play
34:43
some like vfws or something once in a while unlike in australia,
34:48
veterans things, they don't seat five or 800, they seat 40 guys.
34:54
They're small, like little trailers or something. Some of the VFWs are run.
35:00
The veterans clubs with the RSLs, as we call them, return servicemen's clubs
35:04
in Australia, they have small things as well.
35:07
The main thing is that the facilities are good there, so you put on a show,
35:11
you've got a ticket to show, you've got to you know.
35:14
That's pretty good. Playing the VFW you hear, is it that big of a thing?
35:18
But playing it there sounds like, I mean, 500 people, that's a big room to make.
35:22
Well, look, I mean, there's a sort of a mellifluous force involved in there
35:28
as well, because the RSLs have all got gambling licenses, right?
35:31
So they're going to fill the seats.
35:35
They're going to fill the seats no matter who's there. Buses are the oldies.
35:39
They bus the people from the old people looking after the different hospices,
35:44
things around or whatever, they'd bust them all in to chuck their pensions into
35:47
the bokeh machines and then roll them back.
35:52
It's pretty wrong i'll say it is wrong all right
35:55
who are your i don't
35:58
want to put a number on it but your major music influences like growing
36:02
up but now even or who are you looking at who's who's your go-to stick a cd
36:09
in the well we don't do cds anymore either do we i don't know like recently
36:14
i've sort of revived a whole bunch of rock stuff i don't know being a national
36:18
just i saw a couple of rock things that were pretty cool.
36:21
I went and saw the Babies last week, which were pretty awesome.
36:26
And because I've been driving around, I've been moving around for the last five
36:29
weeks, you know, all over. I spent a lot of time on the freeway. Yeah.
36:35
I've been listening to a couple of Metallica records.
36:40
And stuff I haven't listened to for years. Yeah.
36:43
Some hard rock that I haven't listened to for years, just because it's good
36:46
driving music, you know, even some Slayer and stuff.
36:48
Anyway so you know because i used to be a bit of a metalhead back in my back in my teens anyway,
36:55
uh but you know charlie crockett someone that you've introduced me to which
36:59
i've listened to that album that you were talking about and i like that and
37:03
this this whole the strength that the old time music i went and saw quite a
37:07
bit of that while i was in nashville and went to a,
37:09
fiddler's convention over in air at mount airy in virginia north carolina a
37:14
couple of weeks ago And that was a fascinating experience.
37:17
I met a whole bunch of people that are doing that as well, banjo players,
37:20
fiddle players, bass players.
37:22
Yeah. Just fantastic stuff. I don't know, when you make music,
37:27
it's sort of – it's a different thing.
37:30
It's almost like you're not necessarily – it's more like you're exploring something
37:34
out of curiosity as opposed to out of – you're not necessarily drawn to it.
37:39
You're like, oh, what's that? I haven't heard that sort of something before. So it starts to be –.
37:44
Yeah, I don't know. I listen to, I do, day to day, like as well,
37:48
I find myself enjoying a lot of silence as well. Yeah.
37:55
Like I actually quite like driving and like there's done, you know. I empathize. Yeah.
38:01
Sometimes silence is golden. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
38:07
I like it good. Now it's not exactly silent, but sometimes I'll go on a bike ride.
38:12
I mean, you can hear the tires on the road, but that's it.
38:17
Is it a push bike? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the perfect speed
38:22
to take, I reckon, to take in the world on a push bike. Yeah.
38:27
That's a great way to do it. Like, walking's a bit slow.
38:31
Yeah. Car's too fast. You can't take it in. But on a push bike,
38:34
you see everything. Your bike is just right, man. Yeah.
38:36
Observing the world from the bicycle. when I was a bike messenger in Atlanta
38:41
the city you don't get a lot of observation because you have to be switched
38:45
on because people are trying to you're trying to get someplace fast and people
38:50
trying to run you off the road,
38:52
but out in the country man you know taking a 15 mile per hour cruise and you
38:58
get to see details but you're still moving yeah I like it and sometimes in silence,
39:05
sometimes I'll throw my headphones on but I'm a pushy. Yeah.
39:11
Well, you got one. No, there's some where you can hear through.
39:15
Oh, yeah, of course. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
39:17
Yeah. I wouldn't be out there with like noise canceling headphones on.
39:22
I'd get run over immediately.
39:24
It's like the kids that wear them on building sites. Have you seen that?
39:28
Crazy. Nuts. It's crazy.
39:30
All right, back on travel. Is there any places that you've been dying to go to?
39:36
No, you've been here. You're here. Yeah, I know. Any places that you've never
39:41
been, that you like, it's on your butt.
39:44
I got to go before I die. I got to go to this place.
39:47
Nah. Nah? I don't get like that. I'm more about people. Yeah.
39:52
There's a, I've never been to New York. I've been to the States a few times.
39:57
I'm curious about it just to go and see it. Right.
40:00
Pretty fascinated with Scandinavia as well. Something about that place.
40:04
Something, you know, higher up the Arctic, something up there.
40:07
I'd just like to see it for its desolation or something.
40:10
I don't know what it is. I have a stepbrother that lives in Finland. Okay.
40:14
How he got there, I have no idea. Why he's there, I don't know. Go and visit him.
40:18
I wouldn't mind that. Like I said, we're not cold weather people,
40:21
but I have a fascination also with that part of the world. Maybe it was Empire
40:26
Strikes Back or something.
40:28
Yeah. The first scene of On Hoth. Yeah.
40:32
Well, I don't know if there's any place I'm dying to go to. I would love to see.
40:36
I think I like that it's curiosity more than anything.
40:41
Some of the Pacific, I've got a mate who's a really canny guy.
40:44
He's a New Zealander, and he's a boat guy.
40:49
He's a harbormaster. He was working, doing the fly-in, fly-out stuff in WA,
40:56
dredging sea channels and stuff at the big mining ports up in northern Western
41:00
Australia and northern Queensland and got a lot of experience there,
41:04
accumulated a bit of cash, came back to Sydney and started a chowder,
41:07
bought an iron hull boat and converted that into a little charter for Sydney
41:11
Harbour, started taking backpackers out and a little party boat.
41:14
And then moved that, expanded that, matured a little bit, started to mature
41:19
a bit and then he got another boat.
41:21
He's since moved to Vanuatu and he bought some land on Vanuatu and he's putting
41:28
in a little cyclone mooring and he's building a little resort there,
41:32
little compound sort of vibe and chartering, he's got one of his boats that
41:37
he had on the harbour in Sydney.
41:39
He sailed it there, he moated there or whatever, got across there.
41:43
I don't know how far, it's quite
41:45
a way. It's like 2,000 nautical miles or something. It's quite a track.
41:49
But I'd like to see some of that. I'd like to see some of those Pacific islands.
41:53
I've never been there. My mom's from New Zealand and I've got a bit of,
41:56
I would like to see that. Yeah.
41:59
I've got a curiosity about that. I've got a curiosity about the Polynesians
42:04
as well for some reason. I feel a bit of an affinity.
42:06
There's a lot of Maori and Cook Islanders and Tongans and Samoans in Sydney. Yeah.
42:12
And people have always sort of got along with something about them. I don't know.
42:15
So I'd like to go and see where they're from. Yeah.
42:19
And some of those Polynesians, but interesting people.
42:22
Yeah. These huge dudes that are just like, they're just, they're quite,
42:27
they're generally pretty gentle. I mean, some alcohol.
42:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until you booze them up and then they'll beat you to death.
42:35
Some brutal Samoan types. Yeah, they can be. I know a few guys.
42:41
There's definitely a bit of a bad stereotype-wise, and you do see it,
42:47
but the vast majority. Yeah.
42:50
So I'd like to go there and maybe go and see Vanuatu. But again, it's pretty unstable.
42:56
Parts of it are pretty unstable at the moment. There's a lot of stuff going in that area.
43:00
China's sort of coming in and investing and building seaports on different islands
43:03
and making these sort of deals with local governments and then,
43:06
so there's, but you know, there's still, and there's still a French,
43:10
heavy French presence in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
43:14
And there was a thing, a bit of a, any government, there's a,
43:19
I think in particular in Vanuatu, there's a rejection of the French influence
43:26
still over the island there, which is sort of going on.
43:28
So there's a bit of civil unrest at the moment.
43:31
And there's a nasty little earthquake there, I think.
43:35
I'm not too long. Really? Yeah. I've been dealing with a bit of shit.
43:39
That's interesting. Yeah. South Pacific Islands. Yeah. That's interesting.
43:42
Yeah. I've never been to anything like that. Any-
43:46
A lot of European, Middle Eastern places. That's it.
43:52
I haven't even traveled America that much. Yeah. My wife and I have never seen the Grand Canyon.
43:57
If you live in America, I think you should probably see the Grand Canyon. Probably.
44:01
We've never been to New York either. Yeah. I've been to New York flyover,
44:04
you know, like layovers and whatnot. Yeah. I've never been to New York City.
44:09
I'm curious about that as well because it's- Just have a walk,
44:12
yeah. So much math, so many people there.
44:15
It's a small space. What does that do to a place? It's a small space.
44:18
To pack that many people. What does that do, like, spiritually,
44:21
conscientious, to a place?
44:23
It's hard to say, man. You know what I mean? In the 70s, New York was famous
44:27
for the crime. I mean, infamous for the crime.
44:30
And it was horrible. And gangs were running the streets. And just shit was run
44:35
down. Like, the whole city was run down.
44:37
Except for, you know, where the rich people lived. That's turned around for sure.
44:42
But I don't know, man. Like you hear about gangs and they got their little,
44:46
you know, three square block radius
44:49
and they don't go outside of that and nobody goes in. So it's weird.
44:53
New York City itself. Where do you know where those boundaries are when you're
44:55
not from there? You know what I mean? One minute you're walking down one street
44:58
and then you're taking it.
44:59
Now I haven't done the math on this, but New York City in its totality is probably
45:04
less ground space than Rome, Georgia.
45:10
Do you know what I'm saying? I wouldn't be surprised. Rome's pretty spread out.
45:13
Yeah, so, you know, squeeze 10 million people in there.
45:17
If you squeeze 10 million people in Rome today, Rome would collapse.
45:22
I mean, absolutely collapse.
45:24
I don't know. Madness. New York City.
45:28
I'd like to go to Australia, man. I think that'd be cool. Check it out.
45:33
I mean. Go on there. And I don't just mean Sydney or whatever.
45:36
I mean, like, go on a proper road trip. Hike out in the bush.
45:45
Trolling Queensland? Queensland. Got to watch out for the crocodiles.
45:50
Northern Queensland. Yeah. Northern Queensland and also northern Western Australia.
45:55
I mean, there's beautiful places all over.
45:57
Southern Western Australia is very good. I think the best place,
46:00
if you're going to go to a city or somewhere that's urban, is Fremantle, WA.
46:06
Go to Fremantle, WA because it's a nice place. It's an old port town,
46:12
lots of Italian influence.
46:15
Back after the war, there's a couple of waves of immigration.
46:19
And they've had a really good influence on parts of Frio as well.
46:24
And it's a nice place. There's a nice university there. It's a good spot.
46:29
Beaches are cool. People are cool.
46:31
So Perth and southwest Western Australia is a nice.
46:35
Margaret River, all that area, that whole wine region is really good.
46:38
But if you want to have a look at what something's uniquely Australian.
46:43
Northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and northern Queensland,
46:48
go to Arnhem Land and go to the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland,
46:53
check out the Great Barrier because it's right next to the Great Barrier Reefers.
46:56
Yeah. You can do some diving away there.
46:58
There's something very, very fascinating about the Kimberley and what do we
47:02
call them now? First Nations people.
47:04
Right. Aboriginals. Yeah, yeah. In that particular region.
47:09
It's almost like you can feel the presence of them when you go there.
47:14
There's something about the atmosphere of that place, which is deeply connected to that.
47:19
And that's a really fascinating place for that. Nice. That's awesome.
47:22
That's the Kimberley and the, and the sort of, there's a bit further south as
47:25
the Pilbara, but the Kimberley region in Western Australia is a very,
47:28
very cool place and very uniquely Australian. Uniquely Australian. Yeah.
47:33
That's what you need when you travel. You got to see what, what makes a place,
47:36
what it is. Don't get bitten by a taipan.
47:41
Don't get bitten by anything. Avoid everything.
47:45
Here's what I found in my travels there. Like places, some places may look different
47:49
or there may be, you know, urban like Seoul, South Korea was just packed,
47:56
you know, high rise buildings everywhere.
48:00
Shit was 24 seven. There was always restaurants open and things open.
48:05
People always coming and going, buses running all night long, et cetera.
48:10
But I find, or what I found, even in Germany, even in Afghanistan,
48:16
even in Korea, is people are generally the same.
48:22
And not cookie-cutter the same, but they'll treat you like you treat them.
48:29
They're generally... That's generally how it goes down. Generally kind.
48:34
You know what I mean? And they're generally helpful. Generally.
48:39
And I've had awesome experiences in every, every place I've ever been meeting
48:44
local people because most of them now Germany, sometimes they're kind of assholes,
48:50
you know, in what way go on?
48:52
Well, generally speaking, I would say Germans don't care for Americans too much.
48:56
Yeah. I'd say that because of the American soldier presence. I guess.
49:02
Yeah. There was such a presence for so long after. Yeah. Yeah.
49:05
During the 20th century.
49:07
And it's not to say it isn't earned, man.
49:10
Yeah. You know, you can get over there and do a lot of hard drinking and terrorizing the place. Yeah.
49:19
So I think- Badly behaved. Yeah. Badly behaved American soldiers will create that.
49:25
Yeah. I think it's similar in Japan, Okinawa, where there's a Marine base.
49:29
I think the Japanese don't care for an American soldier,
49:33
Marine, but generally speaking everywhere else yeah
49:36
well i remember i was talking to mention
49:39
fremantle before it's where i used to live there and there used to be a big naval base
49:42
there that there was access to the indian and you
49:45
come around the south around the bottom of australia and stop in fremantle fremantle
49:49
used to be a big u.s naval base not so not so much not for a few years now but
49:53
they're thinking about i think they're thinking about reinvigorating that as
49:56
a thing but we used to get every six weeks to be a a big aircraft carrier come
50:02
in and the guys would get three years,
50:04
sorry, three days leave and they'd get off the boat flush with cash and just
50:09
fucking go by the list. Three days drunk.
50:13
We used to busk. We'd be busking and we knew when they were coming in.
50:17
So this was like 93, 94, 95.
50:22
So Nirvana had just come out and
50:25
Soundgarden and we'd always put out a few gunner's covers or something.
50:29
We'd get down there and my brother would sing. He had a really high voice and
50:31
play all these grunge covers and he used to throw 50s at us.
50:34
We were like, fucking all right. Let's go.
50:38
We didn't mind. That's pretty good, man. Getting $50 bills. Yeah,
50:42
it didn't happen that often. That's funny. Depending on how drunk they were.
50:47
Yep, the American soldier and sailor.
50:53
Yep. I've been a part of that. I'm not speaking from a point of innocence here.
50:58
Yeah, yeah. I've been that guy. Yeah.
51:01
Anyway. Traveling, yeah, it's awesome. Traveling.
51:05
Well, being in another place is awesome. I hate travel, aircraft.
51:10
I don't like- Yeah, that bit's not too good. The whole process of the airport,
51:14
coming, going, the whole thing, being on the plane, it's all miserable.
51:20
You don't? Yeah. That's the good. The seats are- Now, I don't do first class, obviously. Yeah.
51:25
No, I'm in cattle class, man. I'm in economy. One time in my career,
51:29
I got upgraded to a first class seat. Wow.
51:33
It blew my mind. And it was overseas, so- Yeah, it's a totally different experience.
51:39
It was just a whole nother. Yeah.
51:40
I got upgraded by a mate. Oh, man. At one point. I was just like, what? You get a bed?
51:45
Yeah. I never seen anything like it. I was so like- You could sleep?
51:50
Yeah, it was amazing. That might change my attitude on travel if I did it,
51:54
but who can afford to do that?
51:56
Yeah, exactly. But who can afford to do it?
51:59
All right, I got another quote from a fellow. I had to look this guy up.
52:03
His name is Miguel de Unamuno.
52:07
Muna Muna. Okay. And he's a Spanish writer, philosopher from late 1800s.
52:15
Fascism is cured by reading. Racism is cured by traveling. You put any stock in anything.
52:22
Now, the comparables here to Mark Twain and what he said, I think,
52:27
are very, very close to, very close anyway.
52:32
Do you see that as being true? Definitely. It's a much simpler way to put it.
52:39
Mark Twain's a little bit more poetic. Yeah. But look, racism.
52:44
Yeah, I'm curious about it in Australia, for instance. Racism is a- Because
52:48
I know- I think there's a lot of confusion around basic tribal instinct that
52:56
we all have to look after our tribe and affiliate with whatever that is.
53:02
You know what I mean? So there is, and that is conflated, that natural feeling
53:07
has sort of been hijacked from,
53:11
by, you know, the postmodernists to weaponize the idea of racism. Yeah, yeah.
53:19
And so it's totally normal. I mean, you come up across a girl the first time,
53:23
you know, in your life, and you wouldn't say that you're necessarily racist,
53:26
but you're fucking scared.
53:28
You know what I mean? Like, it's just anything, anything that's different,
53:32
anything that's outside of your environment, whatever.
53:34
And I think the more that societies become integrated, the more the kids grow
53:37
up in an environment in which different races are there, right?
53:42
But you try and integrate a bunch of people with another bunch of people just
53:47
off the bat without any sort of attempt to, and you bring a kid that's never seen,
53:55
you put a black kid in a white school, predominantly white school,
53:58
all the other way around.
54:00
That kid's going to be naturally wary, okay? That's not racism.
54:05
That's just your basic sort of survival instincts going, I'm in an environment,
54:09
and I don't know, I've never seen this before.
54:11
Right. Now, that's a totally natural, normal feeling. And look,
54:14
people feel shame for that immediately.
54:16
And you shouldn't feel ashamed for that. Right. Because it's a normal feeling.
54:21
What we do as human beings is use our brains to process those feelings. Right.
54:27
And at least you'd hope that's what's something we could strive for.
54:31
But just blanketly sort of saying that anyone that has any sort of opposing
54:38
feelings or natural sort of things about someone that's different is racist is completely unfair.
54:46
And racism is something you develop over time. I believe it's a learned thing.
54:54
And kids might be a bit wary of someone different or a bigger person or someone
54:59
like that, whatever. Or even someone who's got a physical handicap,
55:02
like immediately, oh, shit, what's that?
55:04
That's weird, I don't understand that, you know. It's-
55:10
And people say that Australia's- Look, we had an interesting referendum a couple
55:15
of years ago, which we called The Voice.
55:17
Okay. Now, this was something that was put together by the left-wing government
55:22
in Australia, which was framed as a voice to parliament.
55:28
Okay. But what they were actually doing was they were taking some government-appointed
55:34
representatives of local councils and giving them a little seat in the capital
55:39
to determine as a satellite to all these places who was able to speak to the government.
55:46
So they were creating another layer of shit for the people that- They're making
55:53
life better for you by creating another layer of them. Sorry?
55:56
They're creating life better for you by adding another layer of bureaucracy
56:00
for you to fight through. Yeah.
56:01
And so people already had things going on with land councils and they were trying
56:05
to get representation in the government.
56:07
The problem is no one was doing any work to process what was going on,
56:10
so I thought, oh, we'll just add some more people to do some more work.
56:12
So that's what the whole thing was about it, and the Australian people saw through it.
56:16
And there was a really important person in that, Jacinta Price,
56:22
I think her name is, I can't remember her name, I can't remember her full name,
56:27
but that's sort of worse than that.
56:29
And she's now a government, she's
56:31
a senator in Australia, and she's a half Aboriginal, half Irish woman.
56:37
And she came out and explained it.
56:40
So, the Australian people voted against, clearly voted against this idea that
56:45
we're going to add more bureaucracy to get in the way of Aboriginal land councils
56:49
being able to do what they need and the different things.
56:51
And that was viewed and pushed by the government and by the left at the point
56:55
in time as Australia is a racist place.
56:57
Now, it's like any colonial place. It has a history.
57:05
But in modern terms, Australia is not a racist place. We take more refugees
57:11
from anywhere else in the world per capita.
57:15
Like Sydney, where I'm from, man, it's a melting pot. And we're not really integrated
57:19
as such yet, but we're getting there.
57:21
And people, you know, it's like the big Islamic community in Sydney,
57:26
which is a little bit touch and go sometimes.
57:28
It will be, for sure. But at the same time, they're in Australia.
57:32
So they've got to abide by our laws. and there's something that,
57:37
and for the most part, they're in Australia because they want to live in Australia.
57:42
You know what I mean? They're escaping something. They're getting away from
57:45
the tyranny of where they come from. So they appreciate that.
57:48
Yeah. It's generally the second generation that become, the first,
57:51
the women and men that come here, they're cool because they know what they're coming away from.
57:58
Yep. Their kids are generally cool, the oldest ones, and it's the next generation.
58:03
Because they, all of a sudden, they've created a bit of wealth for themselves
58:06
and they're in a situation, they spoil their kids because of what they know
58:09
and they want to give their kids absolutely everything.
58:11
But they still carry these underlying hostilities.
58:14
And so these hostilities come out and they don't temper, particularly their
58:17
young men, they don't temper their young men. And Australian young men aren't
58:20
used to that level of aggression.
58:22
So they dominate in a lot of ways, you know what I mean?
58:25
Madness. Yeah. That's mad. I mean, it becomes, look, it's, but we work it out.
58:30
I mean, Australia is one of those places where, And you can have a bit of a,
58:35
it's a little bit of, you can have a bit of socially acceptable to butt up against
58:39
someone sometimes, you know what I mean?
58:40
It's okay to have a fist fight. It's okay to do these sort of things. It's okay.
58:43
And again, we don't have the, firearms, just none of the public has firearms.
58:49
So what's the worst that's going to
58:50
happen? Are you going to punch on with someone? Well, I'm sure there is.
58:54
I mean, sure, there's a lot of ways to hurt a person at the same time,
58:57
but that threat's not there.
58:58
I'm sure there's two or three stabbings a year in Australia anyway.
59:02
There is. There is predominantly, but that's, I mean, that's,
59:05
there's, there's, there's a bit of knife crime, but that, again,
59:08
that sort of comes from a different element.
59:09
Again, that's more like youth, youth stuff, 13, 14, 15-year-olds running around. Yeah.
59:15
That's, that's a different part. Yeah.
59:17
Yeah. I think, I think you're, I like your take on the racism piece.
59:22
It's, I think racism is a learned behavior.
59:25
I think natural weariness or protective, you know, self longevity,
59:32
right? If you're in a different environment, you're going to protect yourself
59:36
until you're comfortable, however long it takes you to get comfortable.
59:40
In any environment. So I don't think it makes you racist to be nervous or cautious
59:46
in any environment. Yeah.
59:50
So something new happened today. You experienced the Waffle House.
59:57
Yeah. I gave the Waffle House seven out of 10.
1:00:01
Seven out of 10. Seven out of 10. Where's the other three at?
1:00:04
What happened? Well. What's the good bit and what's the bad bit?
1:00:08
Seven's good, man. That's good. Seven's good score. That's not a 10.
1:00:12
Maybe seven and a half. I'm a 10 for 10. You're a 10 for 10 on the Waffle House.
1:00:15
I'm a Waffle House fan, fanatic.
1:00:18
Well, I'm biased. I've got a bit of racism towards American takeout because
1:00:23
it's got such a bad rep for its nutritional value. You know what I mean?
1:00:26
But the Waffle House, and so I threw the Waffle House into that basket.
1:00:30
I stereotyped it into an American fast food, high calorie, high sugar,
1:00:37
badass, give you cancer place.
1:00:40
Whereas it's not. No. It's breakfast was good. It's a little greasy.
1:00:44
The coffee was good. The staff were good. Yeah.
1:00:46
There's a good little vibe in there. I like the classic setup.
1:00:51
Yeah. You know, it's much better than a, what's the place? The Texas stop sign?
1:00:57
Dairy Queen? Dairy Queen.
1:00:59
Dairy Queen or a Wendy's. Oh, that's just national change, man.
1:01:04
I mean, Woff House is now a national chain too, but. It seems to have,
1:01:08
still has a person, the business feels like a small business still. It does.
1:01:12
Yeah, it does. The pride that they take in it.
1:01:15
Now there's places in Georgia, well, in the South all over, where there'll be
1:01:19
a Waffle House on opposing corners of an intersection.
1:01:25
There's so many waffles. And they compete. They both make money. Yeah.
1:01:29
I mean, you can call it competing, but. Yeah, true. That does help.
1:01:35
I'm sure if they could put one on all four corners and make money, they would.
1:01:39
But there's several places here in the South where there's opposing waffles on opposing corners.
1:01:46
And that's awesome. I love it.
1:01:49
One or the other. You can go get the same meal. You can have a double breakfast
1:01:53
and no one's going to know about it. You have a second breakfast.
1:01:57
Seven out of 10. All right. I guess that's all right, man. Well, what's 10?
1:02:02
I don't know. I would say if you had like a smoking hot waitress,
1:02:07
but you're not going to have that the whole time.
1:02:09
You're not getting a smoking hot waitress. That's always good.
1:02:11
But if you just, if you...
1:02:17
Is the rating just for takeout joints or is it restaurants across the board?
1:02:22
No, no. It's in its own class. Diner. kind of okay if it's yeah it's still about
1:02:26
seven can you call waffle house i guess you can call it fast food yeah i mean
1:02:31
for fast food i give it a nine yeah yeah okay okay i'll give it a nine,
1:02:36
now one thing that's common about waffle houses in the summertime usually it's
1:02:41
fucking sub-zero degrees like you have to bring a jacket in it wasn't today
1:02:46
which was bizarre so normally they They got the AC fucking cranking.
1:02:51
The windows are all, the condensation on the windows. Yeah.
1:02:55
And it's about 38 degrees in there.
1:02:58
So that's the downside to the Waffle House. Right. Pretty good on a hot summer
1:03:03
day though, wouldn't it?
1:03:04
Yeah, for me. My wife hates it. She loves the Waffle House, but she brings,
1:03:08
there's a sweater in the car. Yeah. Yeah. Just for that.
1:03:12
Waffle House, a little piece of America. It's Americana at its finest right there.
1:03:18
Well, it's a small business and they're a chain now, but like I said,
1:03:22
I don't think they're further West than Texas.
1:03:25
I don't know how many, I don't think there's any up North. There might be one
1:03:28
in Illinois. You know what I mean?
1:03:31
So it kind of emanates out from the South and then dissipates.
1:03:35
I love the Woff House, man.
1:03:38
I love the Woff House. It's a staple. What else, man? What else is hot?
1:03:43
So what do you got coming up next?
1:03:44
When's the next time you're playing music? We're playing in Brisbane in Queensland.
1:03:48
We're doing a doubleheader with the Australian Queen show. I'm playing an In
1:03:52
Excess Tribute act called Don't Change.
1:03:55
If you want to check it out, it's Don't Change In Excess Tribute, I think.
1:04:02
Yeah, something like that. Don't Change In Excess Tribute. Well,
1:04:05
Ultimate In Excess. Don't Change Ultimate In Excess Tribute on Instagram.
1:04:09
I don't know what it is. Get it together, Charlie. Get it together.
1:04:11
Give me one sec. I should know these things. Anyway, we're playing in Queensland.
1:04:16
We're doing a doubleheader with the Australian Queen show.
1:04:19
So it's a Queen and then NXS. Yeah, we're doing a set each.
1:04:22
We're going to open with the set that NXS did at Wembley in 87,
1:04:27
and then the Australian Queen show is going to close with the set that Queen
1:04:32
did at Wembley in about 85, I think, but not the label.
1:04:36
I saw NXS and whatever the Devil Inside tour was in 86 or something.
1:04:44
Something like that. It might have been it. They might have done Wembley on
1:04:47
that tour. It might have been that same tour.
1:04:50
I'd say it was. Devil Inside was the name of the tour, I think.
1:04:54
Could have been an earlier tour. Anyway, so yeah, playing in Queensland and
1:04:59
then going to Fremantle, not playing in America.
1:05:02
When are you coming to America? Ever and ever? Yeah, it's Don't Change In Excess Tribute.
1:05:07
There you go. There's the handle. Don't Change In Excess Tribute on Instagram.
1:05:11
I'm back to Sydney on, well, tomorrow.
1:05:14
Yeah flying out of atlanta been here for
1:05:16
six weeks got some good stuff recorded some
1:05:19
good music in nashville going to be releasing that work i've made some good
1:05:24
contacts there and i've got some good working contacts now in nashville where
1:05:27
we're going to do a bit of stuff remotely between sydney and nashville hopefully
1:05:31
i can help some of my musician friends there as well connect with some of these
1:05:35
guys so that's pretty cool be releasing some music there,
1:05:39
planning coming back out here in a few months,
1:05:41
yeah good man.
1:05:45
I've been in for six, it feels like I've moved here. I've been in for six weeks.
1:05:50
I don't really want to go home, but I have to.
1:05:54
Well, hopefully you will be moving here soon. All right, man.
1:05:59
All right. Well, thanks for sitting down and talking.
1:06:01
I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. We got stuff to go do now.
1:06:06
Yeah. All right, good people.
1:06:09
That's Charlie Hart, and he's an interesting guy.
1:06:13
And if you like NXS, give them a listen. What is it?
1:06:18
Don't change. Don't change Ultimate NXS. It should be that. But if you want
1:06:20
to look me up on Instagram, it's charlieheart.live.
1:06:23
H-E-A-R-T, as in your heart.
1:06:27
Charlieheart.live. Yeah, charlieheart.live. And yeah, go listen to some NXS anyway, because, yeah.
1:06:34
I don't want to say they were an underrated band, but in America, they had a few big hits.
1:06:39
But they had a body of work that most people haven't heard. Massive. Massive.
1:06:44
Massive body of work. That's true. And let's see, what's coming up for OSS?
1:06:49
We got Dynamic Two Guns. No, no, no, no.
1:06:53
On July 5th, we have a Sons of Liberty Two-Gun match. That's what's coming up.
1:06:58
So jumping that. And then we got some workshops this month, or for July,
1:07:04
Pistol and Rifle. We have a Wild Card Day.
1:07:07
And then August is going to be two workshops and a Wild Card Day as well.
1:07:10
So if you think you can shoot guns and you want to come out and try to shoot
1:07:15
the OSS, sorry, the Blackjack 33 challenge to earn yourself a coin,
1:07:22
come on out and do it. No one has earned a coin yet.
1:07:25
It's a very challenging set of drills. There's six stages in total.
1:07:32
All these coins and no one has one yet. So come out and shoot the,
1:07:36
shoot the challenge with us.
1:07:38
Other than that, please give us a look on twoteamguys.com for some scenario
1:07:43
adventure based teamwork and leadership development training,
1:07:48
anything from land navigation to search and rescue mountaineer to long range
1:07:54
evasion, all kinds of good stuff there.
1:07:57
And then thanks for listening to the podcast. We hit 5,000 listeners and that's awesome.
1:08:04
I think in the scope of life, that makes me very happy.
1:08:06
So let's try to get to the next 5,000. Please share, like, follow,
1:08:11
comment, all those things to make the algorithms work for us.
1:08:15
And again, folks, reach out edgarmills at isprayshootingsolutions.com.
1:08:20
If you want to submit a paper, I'll look over that and put it up on the Ginto podcast.com.
1:08:29
If you have a suggestion for a guest on the podcast, come along.
1:08:33
Or if you just got suggestions for topics you would like, you'd like to hear
1:08:37
me expand on, please hit me up.
1:08:40
And once again, if you're a homie out there in need, if you are having hard
1:08:45
times, PTSD or whatever else, please, please, please reach out to Edgar Mills
1:08:50
at Osprey shooting solutions.com.
1:08:52
And we will help you get to the right places.
1:08:55
All right, good people. Thanks very much. I love you guys. Spread the word.
1:08:59
Music.