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Patrick Hicks "Music Stories" · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listener's discretion is advised.7 million likes artifact after tech creator after text is music history live in stored for the podcast called Good Metro with After Text.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he joined me on the podcast today where we talked a little bit about music history, content creation, and where to industry is going in the future.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We've even addressed that ugly little rumor that TikTok is going away.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Hicks is on the show today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is caught on the mic.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Back in early 2020, like a lot of you, I too jumped on that infamous clock app, otherwise known as TikTok.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: At first, my instincts were solely protective.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have teenage kids, they were on the app, so I jumped on to monitor them.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Later that same year, I started this podcast.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Parallel to that, it has been a fantastic tool for connecting me with new audiences and really interesting and unique people to have on my show as guests.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Today I am joined by one of my most favorite current creators on the platform.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's also just recently become a podcaster himself.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: He hosts a show called Good Measure.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: His TikTok account can be found at Patrick Hicks Music Stories.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick, welcome to the show.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Doing great, Mike.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for having me on.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey man, thank you for being on the show.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta tell you, anytime I am cruising my for you page and I see your face pop up on the feed, no matter what I'm doing, even if I'm at my day job, I have to stop and watch whatever story you are telling.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: How did you come up with that concept?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's really like kind of evolved over the course of doing the videos, but uh it just started out.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: My wife kind of challenged me to do something creative.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we both are always just doing different creative projects.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're I've just never been the kind of person that's like, I have a job and then that's it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I've always been doing something, whether it's like I did improv at Second City, I wrote screenplays, I've just always been doing something.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So my wife was like, Do you got to do something new?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do like a 30-day challenge of something.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so I was like, Well, maybe I'll start my own TikTok channel.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, she kind of laughed at me, like, what are you gonna do on TikTok?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't know, maybe I'll tell music stories.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, nobody is gonna watch that.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, who would watch you tell a story about music?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't know, let me just try it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe like the fourth video got like 10,000 views or something, which to us seemed crazy.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, oh my God, apparently thousands of people want to hear Patrick tell stories about music.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who knew?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it started off just me just kind of going off the top of my head, like stories that I knew.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been just a huge music lover.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I read a ton of biographies and watch documentaries, so I was just like sharing some stories, you know, that I knew.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: But then, you know, on TikTok, you get a lot of comments, and I realized pretty early on, like, oh, people are gonna be questioning me on everything that I say.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't originally start like I'm gonna be a music historian or anything, but uh I, you know, I can't stand anybody thinking that I'm wrong about anything.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So then I started really doing like research, like even stories that I knew.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right, I gotta fact check these and do a lot of research.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And now that's kind of become my trademark, like the amount of research and time that I put into telling the stories and like the details.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so yeah, it just kind of evolved.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: They they got longer and more detailed, and what I was doing just kind of morphed into now.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like a lot of people tell me, like you said, like when my face comes up, they're like, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna listen, I know I'm gonna learn a lot.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: So and we went way past the 30 days, that's for sure.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic, man.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a specific genre that appeals to you more or that you like to give a little extra focus on over any other?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, and that's kind of my thing, too, is I go pretty wildly back and forth between genres.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think my first couple were, you know, like older rock and roll stories.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's really because when I grew up, like that was that was the music that they had music history books on.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So like Led Zeppelin already had 20 books that I could read all about their history.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'd say like what I know the most about is classic rock and maybe like 90s alternative, because that's what I grew up doing.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, maybe like after a couple of videos, maybe like six videos or something, I realized like, oh, I've only done kind of like rock bands, and that's not all I listened to, and that's not all the music history that I care about.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, let me make sure that I'm not just like attracting only, you know, old, like Steely Dan fans here.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so then I started doing, I think I did like a Jay-Z story and a Kendrick Lamar story, and then uh I started getting fans that were of every genre.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: So now I kind of have to keep covering everything, which uh is what I like.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't like being pigeonholed into one genre because I just feel like I'm a music storyteller, so there's good stories in every genre of music, so it's important to me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've delved into stuff I knew nothing about.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know a ton about K-pop, but I've learned you know a lot about K-pop so that I can tell K-pop stories.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I've gotten into I think pretty much every genre at this point I've covered except for maybe classical, and that's the only one I haven't touched on, but uh so yeah, that's important to me is to make sure that I'm I'm all across the spectrum.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Since you take these deep dives, do you ever notice parallels from one generation to the next?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I ask is somebody that grew up in the 90s and lived through the 90s, we kind of had an obsession with the 1970s.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of that can be attributed to Richard Linkletter and the wonderful movie Dazed and Confused, but I've always felt that there was a direct parallel between the 1990s and the 1970s.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Am I alone on an island with this?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, I mean, I mean, the 70s and the 90s are my two favorite decades.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I do feel like there are a lot of you know parallels.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um especially in terms of like the music business.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the 70s were such a uh a big time for corporations, you know, buying up record labels, and you know, you're really seeing like arena rock for the first time, and rock and roll becomes this huge commodified business.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, that continues into the 80s, of course.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you get into the 90s, you're starting to see the downfall of that.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there's kind of this last, this last hurrah in the 90s, like when Nirvana comes of like, let's sign every alternative rock band in the country that we can find.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this huge boom of of uh, you know, signing all sorts of alternative bands and seeing like, you know, rock and roll have its kind of last gasp on the pop charts and stuff.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then by the 2000s, it kind of all comes crashing down.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there are definitely some some parallels between those two decades that are fascinating from a historical perspective.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was thinking about this a lot as I was conceptualizing what we would talk about in this episode, and I thought a lot about how the 70s, very similarly to the 90s, in in pop culture in general, things were getting niche down.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You had like disco, you had punk rock, you had arena rock, like you mentioned, you had the early seeds of heavy metal showing up in the 70s.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the 90s were very similar.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: You had grunge, you had pop punk, you had ska, you had rap rock, you had new metal, hip-hop had found its voice in the 90s more so than in the 80s.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is really interesting to me when you get down to the brass tacks of it, how much the 70s and the 90s really did resemble each other.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't even thought about the business aspect of it, and I'm a guy that spent a lot of time focusing on the business end of things when I was done performing in bands myself.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna say, I went to the school called the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, and they had like a music business program, and I did that in the early 2000s, I think I was there like 2005.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but so we studied the 90s a lot of like kind of like you know, where the music business is at and trying to predict where it was going.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'd so I kind of always think of the music business side first.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, same here.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, why do you think we as fans have such an obsession about the historical standpoint of some of our favorite bands and artists?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I don't know.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just think like music is just so powerful that like it it just becomes your identity in a way that I think other art forms just don't.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are definitely people that are movie people, but this is you know, it's not it's not so like my whole my whole uh personality is gonna be I'm into film noir or something.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like if you're a movie person, you're a movie person.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: But music is just so powerful that like you have people that are like heavy metal is my whole identity.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are gonna know by looking at me, by talking to me that I'm a heavy metal guy and uh, you know, or girl, or whatever it is.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's still there's ska people that are like part of the ska scene, you know, whatever your your sub-genre is, uh, you just get so into it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think it's just natural.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: You want to know like where did this music come from?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: What how did these bands get here?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I talk about all the time because mostly what I do is like origin stories that like these are like real life superhero stories, like these people have come into your lives fully formed, and then you want to know, like, well, how did they get here?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how did how did Led Zeppelin meet?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: How did they, you know, first start recording?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think it's just natural that you want to know these things, and then uh, and then it does become kind of part of if that's your identity, knowing a lot about your genre.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it becomes, you know, it'd be that becomes part of it, is like that's how you know who's really into your subgenre or not, is if they know all the same kind of trivia that you do.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, and some people obviously take that too far, but uh it's it's also you know just kind of fun.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you meet somebody else who has who shares your passion, you know, that's some of my best friends formed because I was in the punk scene back in the day, and you know, we knew everything there was to know about you know the clash and and the buzzcocks or whatever.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all about finding your tribe.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I were to throw it back to the fourth grade, I know that's a way back, but um, my dad was a professional musician before I was born, so I have it in my pedigree.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always been obsessed with music, but throwing it back to the fourth grade, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember having a tape recorder way back in the day.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, and listening to songs on the radio and waiting for my favorite song to get played so I could make that ultimate mixtape.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember becoming obsessed with a lot of my favorite bands, who was in what band, when was their next album coming out, what were some of their unreleased tracks and the B-sides?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've noticed a little bit of a generational shift, and what is it about this current generation where maybe they don't have the same obsession with pop culture and music at large as we had?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's just it's too much.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's too much out there.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's too many bands, there's too much music, there's too many genres, there's too much history.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, when I was first starting to learn about rock and roll history in the 90s, it's you know, it's like 40 years worth of stuff to learn.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't, it wasn't so much, you know, before you were caught up.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we also didn't have a lot of other things to do.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just spent all day reading biographies, watching MTV, watching VH1.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I watched every behind the music that came out, no matter what the artist was, because you know, what else was there to do?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, now if I had to learn, I gotta learn the whole history of, you know, hyper pop and every different kind of electronic music.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I, you know, like people ask me all the time, like, I love heavy metal.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: When they ask me what metal bands I like, you know, it's like I like Metallica and Black Sabbath and and Megadeth and Slayer.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they're like, oh, I there's 3,000 more bands that have happened since then that you have to know about.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just it gets too hard to keep up.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of don't blame, you know, younger generations.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, they also in a way probably know more than me about about you know certain things.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just um it's just different.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a totally different world.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think it's cool.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they have access to stuff that we didn't have access to, like, you know, just bands like I don't think I heard I don't know, Captain Beefheart until I was 25 or something, and now you could listen to every single song he ever put out, you know, whenever you want.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this, you know, advantages and disadvantages.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I try not to be like a crusty old guy and and look down on different generations, you know.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I get that.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I get that, and that's a fair point of view because when I really think about it, as a father of teenage kids, I do kind of notice a little bit of generational gatekeeping and some of my peers being that curmudgeon that we all otherwise would look down upon.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it is worth noting generationally how the consumption model has changed.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: From your point of view and from a business aspect, what is the biggest change that you've observed in your lifetime that has actually impacted the business of music as a whole?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just I mean, the fact that we've seen like digital and and streaming take over everything is just crazy.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I when we were studying in 2005, I mean, people were still not sure what was gonna happen.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like people were still thinking that you know they were gonna sue people who downloaded albums and that physical albums were still gonna be a thing.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, the writing was pretty on the wall though.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like once once the technology existed, there was no going back.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, once I found out, you know, I got ripped off so many times paying$20 for a CD for one good song.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Once you found out you could download whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this is when in the days when it took like three hours to download a song because you know my internet was slow, but it was it was worth it.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Once that technology was there, like you're not you're not going backwards from that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so seeing that in my lifetime has been crazy.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: When I mean the most important thing in my life as a teenager was collecting CDs and like saving up money, going to the CD store, like seeing what I had what I could afford that week.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was my whole life.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And to see that, you know, I don't even own a CD anymore.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even think I have a CD player except for in my car.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, you know, completely changed.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: So downloading and streaming and having everything, you know, at your fingertips, you know, it's it's cool.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but of course, I'm still I'm like still bitter.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: You kids don't even know what it was like to have to go to the blockbuster music every week.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um that's a really good point.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of makes you wonder if that's why vinyl is making such a strong resurgence, because people have been missing out on that ritualistic experience of taking the album out and listening to it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I mean the owning physical like art, it's still cool.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I didn't get rid of my records.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I do still have my vinyl.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, of course, people still are always gonna want to hold on to those things.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I think now for the most part, it's like you probably listen to the album on Spotify, and if you're like, okay, I have such a good connection with this album, I want to own it on vinyl, and now I'm gonna spend the money.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot different than you know me buying like crash test dummy CDs or whatever.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my buddies and I have this text chat group.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's all comprised of former musicians, guys that kind of got their start in bands during the 90s and the early 2000s, and we talk a lot about where the business of music has gone.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: A subject that's come up a bunch of times is the narrative that the music industry's downfall can be tied to the internet, um, file sharing, pirating, what have you.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But something we commonly circle back to is the gluttony of the 90s business model.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: How, if, say, Limp Biscuit hit big, the industry would then be in a mad rush to sign every single band that sounded like Limp Biscuit, and you quantify that time and time again over multiple genres, uh, multiple bands, multiple styles of music.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Am I off base with saying that that's also part of the reason the business model took a downturn in the late 90s and early 2000s?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean I think that's yeah, I think that's huge too, is the fact that like every time a band broke through, the the instinct was let's find a million bands that sound just like that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, instead of let's find the band that is doing the next thing, like if that had been their focus, then uh, you know, I think the industry would be, you know, possibly in better shape.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, of course, when Limp Biscuit comes out or, you know, Creed, and it's like, all right, let's let's sign every band that sounds like this, and only, you know, how much room is there for those bands?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's only gonna be three or four that are gonna be super successful, they're gonna be at the top.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I think greed and just following trends instead of you know setting their own trends.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all that kind of stuff.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's you have these giant corporations and there's millions of dollars on the line.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: The the art is not gonna be what comes first.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's part of part of the downfall as well.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's almost a duality to it because you look at Kazah, all the streaming platforms, Napster, everything that came out that the industry says hurt the industry, but it also begs to question if early on in the late 90s and early 2000s, what could have happened if the industry had just leaned into that digital model early on?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Would the industry be in much better shape than what it is, say, right now?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think 100%.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's stuff that we talked about in that music business course, even in 2005.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like trying to sue, you know, your your fans or trying to shut down Napster is the wrong approach.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you had it's inevitable.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And like you have to figure out how to monetize it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, every artist that I know hates Spotify, but nobody was trying to come up with a better solution.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So when Spotify came around, you know, or Apple Music or whatever, we were just kind of like, all right, I guess this is like the best thing we could figure out, but nobody tried to figure out anything better, nobody tried to figure out anything that would be more fair for artists or you know, that would be better for the industry.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: They just hoped that it would go away or they could sue it out of existence until it was too late.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're like, well, all right, I guess this is this is all we can do now, and now you can't even make a living off selling records anymore.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of ironic that you were taking a music business course in 2005 because 2005 is also when MySpace had its big boom, and you think about the impact that it had on the industry, and there's a fair argument to be had that the Screamo, emo, pop punk genres wouldn't have had their big uprising had it not been for MySpace, and I think that's a good example of how digital worked.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, MySpace was huge.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the in that time period.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: People today are not gonna remember, but everybody had a MySpace, and you had to have your top eight friends, and you had a song playing on your profile.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: MySpace sold to Rupert Murdoch's company, and it was sold with the express purpose of turning it into a fully functional music platform.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the irony of it is that it failed miserably.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, simultaneously, Facebook went from being privatized to colleges and universities to being a public entity, but that was huge, man.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Really huge.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's uh it's crazy how fast and you know these things come and go that we've seen in our lifetime.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, MySpace was everything for a few years and then it became a joke like so quickly.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let's shift gears a little bit and let's talk a bit about your content creation and these music stories that you've told.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: What has been the largest impact that you've experienced so far sharing these stories through your TikTok page or channel or what have you?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a good question.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, the biggest impact for me is just like the amount of people that say, like, I love these stories, I wait for these to come out, like, I love your storytelling.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and people have have said personal things like these really mean a lot to me on a personal level, or you know, these are I would have shared these kind of stories like with my dad, who's passed on.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I get messages like that that are really heartwarming.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's the the the best thing for me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then also like I I have like had some of my favorite bands like follow me back, like Green Day and Pearl Jam follow me on on TikTok, which if you had told 14-year-old me that that was gonna happen, I would have thought that was insane.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I've had you know like random like comedians and filmmakers and and a lot of kind of random people reach out and say that they like my stuff, which is really cool.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then kind of in a tangible way.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always wanted to be a writer, like I've always you know wanted to write books or columns or whatever.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had a blog for a long time.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um once I got to a certain number of followers on TikTok, I was like, oh, I wonder if I could, you know, use this and leverage this into like some kind of book deal.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I came up with an idea for a book and wrote a proposal out and sent it out to a bunch of agents, and then I was able to land a literary agent um who's working on on selling a book to a publisher.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully that happens sometime this year.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's been a very slow process, but uh, I don't know anything about the publishing world.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So my agent tells me it's normal, so so we'll see.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's been really cool.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I've done some like brand deals, like I've worked with some record companies and stuff, and all stuff that like I just never dreamed in a million years was gonna happen.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I've haven't even been doing this a year.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's like gonna be a year in April.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So uh to have all this happen so fast has been really surreal.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think if a person were looking for a net positive or a silver linings moment in the midst of the pandemic post-mortem, you think about the way that we've changed how we communicate with one another, and TikTok was a huge beneficiary of that change in modality.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And despite all of the ugliness that happens online, if we were to look at something fondly, it's how accessible people become on that platform.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Umest to, though, is it is a pretty damn good feeling when somebody that you've looked up to for a portion of your life gives you that follow back or interacts with you online.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty mind-blowing, actually.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's it's so cool.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like the kind of democratization on on TikTok is you know, you could comment on on somebody's famous's page and they'll they'll like it or comment back.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I had comments from like everybody from Hall of Notes to T-Pain has like commented on my videos, and it's it's uh it's definitely cool.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no other way this could have happened.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Has there been a specific interaction that you've had online that you just freaked out about and you screenshot it and had to share it with everybody you know?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, pretty much every time it's somebody that people would know, I think it's cool.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: There was one recently this actor named Sean Whalen started following me.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know him, he's like, you know, in Twister and he's been in a bunch of stuff.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um Yep.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in my household, his got milk commercial was like so famous among me and my family that we loved that commercial.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if your listeners haven't seen it, he does this got milk commercial from probably from the 90s, where he's this expert on the uh Hamilton Burr duel, and then he's like eating a peanut butter sandwich, and this radio station calls in, is like, you win a bunch of money if you can tell us who won the famous duel.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, uh.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: But like they can't understand him because he is has a mouthful of peanut butter, and then he goes to like drink some milk and he doesn't have any.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that that commercial was just huge in our lives.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we would just quote that all the time.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think even when like the Alexander Hamilton like musical came out, that was the first thing I thought of was that got milk commercial, and um I don't know.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that one was a cool one for me.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, uh, he sent me a nice message too that he liked my stories.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the got milk guy is watching me tell stories about bands?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: In a hilarious twist of irony, Sean Whalen is doing my show in two weeks.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no way, really?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's even more ironic is it's a connection to a similar effect.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he's doing this brand new movie called Crust, and the lead actress in that movie was a recent podcast guest.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So once I saw that she got cast in his movie, I saw he was doing a TikTok live.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I jumped on, I pitched the episode to him, and the next thing I know, I'm talking to his personal assistant, and uh here we are.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, his TikTok content is awesome too, because he he did his thing, it was just a countdown of like, here are all the nicest celebrities I've worked with, and he's just very positive, which is something like I try to do on my platform too.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, I like his TikTok content a lot.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I do as well, and I think that's a great point, and something that you, he, and I can kind of all share, and that is a goal towards positive content because we're really humanizing celebrities and the human experience at large.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's led to my appeal of your content because I think you do that very eloquently.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it's it's I think the people that are the most successful on TikTok, it like they get it.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: They know how to let us into their world and like see them be real.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like Lizzo is is huge on TikTok, and there's other there's other celebrities that maybe sell more records, but they don't know how to do TikTok, and so they don't have as many followers, and you know, she's able to like make such a deep connection with her fans.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts about the possibility that TikTok could be outlawed in the United States?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you paused and given yourself a chance to think about it?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, pretty much when things first started to happen.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know, take off is the right word, but once I started getting a lot of followers and it seemed like, oh, this is gonna be something I'm doing for a while, we started thinking about like this is this could all be taken away in like a second.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like if everything is just based on this one app, not even legally, but just like we're talking about with MySpace, like a new app could come along and TikTok is no longer cool and it dies.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, pretty much right away, my wife, my wife is like my brand manager.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've been like, okay, how do we expand this?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do we make sure that not all the eggs are in the TikTok basket?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, so I do post my stuff on like Instagram and YouTube and like other other platforms, although I'm by far bigger on TikTok than anywhere else.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: But uh trying to do that, trying to do the book thing, you know.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just launched this podcast to hopefully get some more people there.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, if TikTok does go away, hopefully people I'll have enough of a presence, people could still find me.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um, it would be a shame.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, TikTok just was like the perfect thing for what I do.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I came along at the right time in TikTok's kind of rise too.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it would be it's is the stuff does not translate as well to other apps, so uh it would be a shame.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I you know, I don't feel like you know, TikTok or you know, any anybody owes me anything.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if TikTok taketh, TikTok can take it away or whatever.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, if that happens, I don't know.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: I still have a normal job and a life and uh kids, so I would just probably go back to being normal me and just be like, this was a weird blip in my life.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: At one point I had 300,000 followers on a dance app.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Move on.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, hopefully that doesn't happen.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if I was a software developer with Meta, I would be trying to figure out a way to make reels a lot more accessible in the same way that TikTok is right now.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot, yeah, a lot of people are on reels, but uh I just think people are not watching long reels.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have success over there.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: So and I've tried making my content shorter, and then it just that just doesn't work either.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So just weirdly, TikTok was the perfect storm for me.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the reason I asked that question is there have been a lot of videos on TikTok talking about people disengaging from the app, the possibility of it being banned, and people losing followers and what have you.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I addressed the issue head on in a video that I had made myself just recently.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I suggested was people that have a strong following on TikTok and want to move to another platform, utilize us, utilize the hundreds of thousands of podcasters that came about due to the pandemic.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Coincidentally enough, you yourself have just recently launched a podcast.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that a little bit.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm only five episodes in, so it's pretty uh pretty new.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's called Good Measure with Patrick Hicks.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I actually had a podcast with my wife before um I ever did TikTok.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: We did a movie podcast, and then we had our second kid, and it was just too much work to keep doing it.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we stopped and then I started doing the TikTok thing, and what I liked about it is it was easy.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: I could, you know, record it real quick and put it up and have immediate gratification.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: But so many people kept asking me, are you gonna do a podcast?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna do something longer form?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I just kind of waited till I had the idea of what I wanted to do, and I thought I had the time to do it.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, so it's finally out, and uh it is a lot more work than Tic Tac, but it's pretty rewarding.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just basically what I do on TikTok stories, but they're longer.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I put three stories together in an episode, so each story is like 10 or 15 minutes, and then you get a 45-minute episode.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, just getting a little more in-depth on on music stories and and they're all connected through one theme.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I tried to to like give you some stuff that you can't necessarily get on TikTok.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I put in, you know, more music, more like interviews from the artists, like archival material and stuff.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm pretty proud of it.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it turned out like how I wanted it to.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I am doing it like in seasons, it's not gonna be every week forever, um, because it's just a lot of work.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're in the first season, I'll probably do like eight to ten episodes and then take a break and re-evaluate.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: I just listened to your most recent episode, and man, I don't want to spoil it because I think one of the best things that you do is that big reveal at the end of the story.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so great.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: How did you come up with that concept for both the TikTok and the podcast where you talk about something ambiguously and then don't make that big reveal until about three-quarters of the way through the story?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was another thing that was just like totally organic.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was telling these stories, and you know, I was always just looking for like unique angles to tell the story.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to tell the same stories that people would have heard a million times.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if I was telling a story about a band that everybody knew, I would look like, I what's an interesting way that I could spin it.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I was doing one on Nine Inch Nails and I was researching it, and um, like one of the things I thought was interesting about Trent Reznor's background is like how straight-laced he was as a kid.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he like got into music because he saw the Eagles and he was like a Boy Scout and he was in the band, and everybody said, Oh, he's this nice piano player.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: He reminds us of Harry Connick Jr.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's this nice clean-cut kid.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and he also uh Trent is his middle name.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was researching it, I was like, oh, you know, it would be kind of a fun way to tell the story is if I just tell the story about this nice clean-cut kid named Michael, who's this like hard worker, and he grows up, he moves to Cleveland, which is, you know, I do not think of nine-inch nails when I think of Cleveland, Ohio.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um and like he got his start by working in this um recording studio, and he was the janitor, and he would like work there and he would ask, like, at night, could I record in here for free?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like such a good janitor.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, This kid's such a hard worker, he's great, sure.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Give him free studio time.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And at night, he like makes this solo project on on his own that that turns into nine-inch nails.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I just thought, like, oh, that juxtaposition would be really funny if uh you build it up as this clean-cut kid named Michael, who then like, and then this is his music, and you play head like a hole.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I don't know, that got like a really good reaction.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, ah, it's just kind of like a fun way to tell the story.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I did a couple like that, and then just so many people were like, Oh, I love these because it's like a game.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can try to guess who you're talking about, and that kind of like just became my thing.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did not think of there's this guy, Paul Harvey, that everybody starts saying, Oh, you're the modern-day Paul Harvey.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I had never listened to Paul Harvey.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of know who he is just from like pop culture, like there was a Simpsons reference, but I never listened to him, so it's just kind of a coincidence.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, so that just evolved organically, and now so many people tell me that they like that that I don't know, I would feel bad not doing it that way.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: I every once in a while I try to mix it up and and not do it as a reveal, but if people tell you they're playing drinking games to your content, you know, I don't want to ruin somebody's drinking game.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have one story that you've told that you feel stands out above the rest, like your most absolute favorite story that you've shared online?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my yeah, definitely.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: The my favorite story that I ever told is probably my worst performing video of all time.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was about Nina Simone, who is like one of my favorite artists, but she was involved in this insane story where she was used by the CIA as part of a Cold War operation without her knowledge.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I had sort of heard the story.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's this amazing podcast called Wind of Change.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, like a limited series podcast, but basically it's about this idea that there's this Scorpion song called Wind of Change.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the reporter hears this rumor that this song was actually written by the CIA and not, you know, by the band.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was written by the CIA as part of like their effort to, you know, fight against the Cold War.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so the podcast delves into like examining whether this is true or not, and I won't spoil the conclusion that they come to, but they get into the history of like, well, would the CIA ever do anything like this?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is the CIA involved in the arts?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they mentioned in one episode, like they did do this to Nina Simone.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, this is really fascinating.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to learn more about this.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I got like really into it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's this uh professor who is kind of the one that uncovered this that wrote a book.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: I got into that.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was reading like newspapers like from Africa.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So basically what happened is Nina Simone gets asked to do this benefit concert in Africa, and it's gonna be a bunch of African-American jazz musicians who go to Africa and put on this concert.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and she thought it was just being put on by this organization.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: There was just this organization with like a fairly generic name, like you know, the Organization for African Arts or something.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so they go over there uh and they do the concert, they come back, they're like, okay, it was fine, like it wasn't that well received in Africa, but they don't think too much of it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then it comes out later that that organization was secretly funded by the CIA.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole idea was they're, you know, there's all these newly independent nations in Africa, and America is worried that they're going to go to communism.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So to show them like how great democracy is, part of their plan was to show them jazz.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here, look at the great American art form of jazz.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is an example of why democracy is great.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um they had done it before where they had Louis Armstrong go.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in that case, they told him and he didn't like it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Don't ever make me do that again.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so then when they did it to Nina Simone, they didn't tell her, and she never found out her whole life.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um so anyway, so that's like the story I told, and also got into like her history a little bit and how she's probably the worst possible person to do this to because she was like so upset with America and their involvement in Vietnam and their treatment of African Americans during the civil rights movement that she left the country and like uh was an expatriate for most of the rest of her life.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh if she would have found out that the CIA secretly used her for this operation, like she would have been so upset.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: So for sure, for sure.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't it didn't like get uncovered until until years later when they like investigated all this.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was so fascinating.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like I love Nina Simone's music, and uh it it did so badly that I thought there was some kind of mistake, and I took it down and reposted it, and uh no, it just uh you know, I guess maybe it's a little heavier than my normal content, but it just did not do well at all.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: But that's kind of the way the algorithms work sometimes.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the thing that you think is your best material is just not received, and it gets missed by all the right people.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I literally told my wife, I was like, I'm posting a video right now, this is gonna be viral.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Two million people are gonna watch this video.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like 20,000.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, while you were telling that story, I couldn't help but think about a podcast that came out recently, and I think you'd enjoy it.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was called uh Waiting for Impact, and it was about this boy band that just kind of appeared and then disappeared out of nowhere.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were featured really briefly in the Motown Philly video, and it's done by Dave Holmes, you remember from MTV, and it's supposed to be pretty good.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta check that out.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's next for Patrick Hicks if you were to lay your long game out?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, I mean, I'm hoping that the podcast uh you know does well.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping that uh my book gets published this year, and then I think the ultimate goal is a TV show.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of people comment like this should be its own TV show.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you not on Netflix?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that would that would be my ultimate goal for this year is find a way to turn this into you know some kind of music history TV show, which I think is definitely like lacking.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's not really content like this out there on any streaming platforms, and I think there should be.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so that's that's kind of the ultimate goal, and um yeah, and hopefully TikTok doesn't get taken away and I just keep uh building up there.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Paramount Plus just recently tried to relaunch Behind the Music, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just does not have the same feel as the OG Behind the Music did.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: I watched it too.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just you you just can't go back like that.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not to like toot my own horn too much, but I do think what I do is like an evolved version of Behind the Music.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I go back and watch these behind the music from the 90s that I remember loving, and like some of them are not good.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, some of them are not good, and there's so much filler.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's all it's like watching an episode of 90 Day Fiance, it's all it's just all this like and then the tragedy struck.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, get to the tragedy already, like just get to it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: But they drag it out.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I mean I grew up on it, so I don't want to trash talk it too much, but I just think we want the something that feels like behind the music and that feels like what we remember it being.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if you actually go back and look at it, it's not as good as we remember it being.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta do something more involved.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a byproduct of.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Social media, maybe it's a byproduct of us getting older.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if our sense of authenticity has changed as we've matured, you know?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe some of that cheesy narration just doesn't go over as well for us like it did back then.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and also, you know, it didn't it didn't ever go very deep.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was doing my um video on the band Sublime, uh, one of the interviews I read with one of the members was uh saying, like, I did this whole hour-long interview with VH1 for Behind the Music, and then I didn't use a single thing that I said.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then you watch the behind the music, they don't even mention him.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: He's not even in the behind the music.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, what I try to do too is find those stories that's like this has been left out of the mainstream narrative.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because anybody now could just read a Wikipedia summary, and that's really all Behind the Music was, but that's all we had back then.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: But like I try to go deeper in my stuff and find, you know, the people that they didn't necessarily talk about in the Behind the Music.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a good launch point for you might be a YouTube channel or a web series on YouTube, you know?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely thought about that too.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just a matter, you know, there's so many things I want to do.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter of having the time and finding the right thing to do.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I've definitely thought about that.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of my favorite questions and one I ask in pretty much every episode is you group all of your experiences together, more so the experiences that you've had in the last three years.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: What is your advice for making the world a better place and the way that you see it tomorrow than what it is today?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that's a heavy question.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I think that there is a lot that people can learn about TikTok.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think overall it is a net good.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what I've learned from TikTok is just listening to people and getting perspectives that you never considered before.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I follow so many creators on TikTok that are not represented in the world.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: I follow disabled creators, Muslim creators, you know, like creators from different countries that that I never, you know, saw any movies or anything said in before.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um just listening to what people have to say and listening to people's perspectives.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one thing like blew my mind is I follow some creators that are like adopted and they kind of talk about their experiences with adoption and make me think about that in a different way that I never thought of before, you know, about how like adoption can be traumatic and that you should really only adopt a child if it's for the child, you know, not just for yourself because like you want a baby.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh damn, I never considered that perspective before.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's just happened to me a million times on TikTok with so many things.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I my stuff is very light and fluffy pop culture stuff, but I do try to highlight, you know, artists of every you know, color, creed, nationality, sexuality.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that that stuff is important.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you see the humans behind these things, like that makes an impact uh, you know, on your world.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you um I don't know, there's just so many examples.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh I follow little people creators, you know, that that talk about their experience with the world that that I could not understand.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and it makes you know makes me a better, more empathetic person.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just listening to people that are different than you and getting different perspectives is super important.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And TikTok is just such a great tool to make that happen.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just flip up a couple times and you're gonna see somebody with a whole different worldview than you, and if you just listen to them, you know, it's it's really eye-opening and interesting.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody should watch more TikTok, I guess is my takeaway.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I absolutely love that, and I would say something you and I share in common is a celebration of the human experience, and I think you do a really nice job with that with your content that you create online.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoy it, I know thousands and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, yet, enjoy it as well.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some of your heroes enjoy it, and I love that and celebrating all the things that make us unique in this world is very, very important.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick Hicks, thank you so much for doing the podcast.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to talk to you some more.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: The world's a better place with you in it.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you so much.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: This was super fun.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, I would like to thank my friend Patrick Hicks for being on the show today.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can look him up on TikTok under the name Patrick Hicks Music Stories, and also look him up on Instagram under PatrickHicksMusicStories.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find him on all podcasting platforms under the podcast name Good Measure with Patrick Hicks.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of fun.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot wait to have him back on the show.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you are giving a follow to all of Caught on the Mic's social media on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, and on Twitter that I don't use very much, and I desperately need to update my YouTube channel.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can also visit me at www.cotonhe.com.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.