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Freddy D'Angelo - Content Creator · Caught on the Mike...

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Disclaimer: 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_01: Listener discretion is advised.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I have to stop and think about how great our commonalities really are.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while I will have a guest on, and we will start comparing notes on our past lives.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Whether it be in the music business or some of our other creative endeavors, maybe it's the way that we were brought up, and then we have the aha moment of how much we have in common.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: My next guest is no exception to that rule.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: I am proud to welcome Freddie Angelo to the show today.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: He's a musician, a photographer, a videographer, among many things, as well as a podcaster, and we have a great conversation about our lives.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mickey.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is very timely for me.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: Another timely episode.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: I know I said that on several episodes as of late, but 2023 for me has been going back to my wheelhouse, going back to what brought me to podcasting, and that is music.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: So it's really fun when I make connections with people online to be on the show that also have the same background, but took a course in a different direction, but still had that love for music in their heart.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: My next guest is from St.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Louis, Missouri.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: He is the host of the I Am For Salons Content and Mindset podcast.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: He has been a musician himself, a rapper, content creator, and photographer, Freddie D'Angelo.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: How the heck are you?
2:08
SPEAKER_02: I am doing wonderful, and I'm so excited to be on the Caught on the Mic show.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for inviting me.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, it is my pleasure.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: I saw a post of yours in a similar Facebook group that we're both a part of, and I'm like, this is the guy.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: This is the guy.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: I gotta have him on the show.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, you have worked with people such as Big Sean, Billy Idle, Chris Stapleton, Gary V, much more.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: And I'd really like to get into that, but why don't I hand it over to you and without any further ado, introduce yourself and let's start talking a little bit about your origin story.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: My name is Freddie D'Angelo, and I am a 30-year-old content creator from St.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: Louis, Missouri.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: And I have a story of a lifetime I always tell everyone because I come from humble beginnings.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: My mother is from California, and my dad is from St.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: Louis.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh at the age of 18, my dad hitchhiked to St.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: or California on a whim because he wanted to become a professional musician.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: So he lived on the beach for multiple years, and one day he was down there with his brother, and he saw a lady walking down the street with groceries and said, I'm gonna make that lady my wife.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: And that lady was my mom.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: So he stalked her and whatever they did back in the 90s before social media, and he found out who she was and they got together.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: But I growing up, I always heard stories from my dad talking about how when he went to California, he got signed to a record label.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: So he was signed to a label called Alternative Tentacles.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: He was signed alongside a group called the Dead Kennedys.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: And one of the members from the Dead Kennedys was in the band with my father, and they were called the Jungle Studs.
3:52
SPEAKER_02: There's an album that you can still buy on uh eBay, and this album is them out in the middle of, I believe, Chinatown in San Francisco, and they have nothing covering their bodies but a piece of fabric covering the crotch.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: And they're the jungle studs.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, fantastic.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: My dad's wearing all these crazy ear piercings and necklaces and jewelry, and it's so crazy because uh if you go on YouTube, you can hear it, but it was an LP, so no CD players, anything.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: I didn't hear it until I was much older.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: All I would remember is he had this huge reel that was like tape, and he's like, Well, that's my that's the master copy.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: That's the master copy.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And he would just show about all these stories of like, yeah, man, I was famous, you know, I toured the world before.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: He showed me a photo once with uh the red hot chili peppers, and I was just like, that's the lamest thing I've ever seen before.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, you know what, dad?
4:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I just don't believe any story that you're telling me because you're telling me all these things about the 90s.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I was born in the 90s, and he's like the 80s.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I wasn't even born in the 80s, so nothing could have happened.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: I was just I was the arrogant kid.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: But at age 13, he put a bass guitar in my hand, and I joined a cover band with him and his friends.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: And there I was like looking back on it, I I laughed because we played songs of the blues, we played pop songs, we played rock songs, but I was laughing with my wife because I used to lead the song Semi-Charm Life by Third Eye Blind.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: And I finally looked at the lyrics for that song, and that's not what I was singing, right?
5:28
SPEAKER_02: That was not what I was singing at all.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: You know what's crazy is you know, you and I, before we started recording, we were talking about parallels, and I'm gonna kind of back up a little bit.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: My dad has the same exact story, except he was based in Colorado.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: He moved out to California, it was during the 60s.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: He moved in.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: I I have never said this on a podcast before, but my dad moved in with John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Mama Cass, the Mamas and the Papas.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: My dad lived with them in San Francisco for uh a good period of time, but it's crazy because you know, my dad never got famous per se, but he had so many brushes with it.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I talk about the famed music venue here in Omaha, the ranch bowl, that is now long gone, but I talked about how that was the forest gump of music venues.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: I always thought of my dad as being the forest gump of music.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Like he crossed paths with so many people for not being a famous guy himself.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: It was insane.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: So listening to your story, I'm like, oh man, we're like we're like one in the same here.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: It's it's wild because you I guess in a day before social media, I cannot conceptualize how you could come across so many famous people.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: Like they say Papa was a rolling stone.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: It's like you could come across an avalanche into so many things.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he his claim to fame when he was young, he got to tour as basis for Martha Reeves and the Vandela's and played dancing in the street.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: And I used to, I just was like, okay, whatever.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: Everything that he did, I always said whatever to because it just wasn't real to me.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm like, dude, at by the time I was 13, he was a full-time nurse and he played music on the side.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: So I would always be like, dude, no, you you just don't know what you're talking about.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: I have friends who are, you know, their brothers or touring musicians right now, all this.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: But he put that bass guitar in my hand at 13, and I played all these songs with his band, and I stayed in his band until age 17.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: And it was at age 17 that I looked him in the eye and I said, Dad, I am never gonna get a girlfriend by playing these blues songs at this blues club where I am the youngest person by 20 years.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: But you were in the right place, man.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're in St.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: Louis, you're in the loop.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: Look, I was in the I was in the perfect place, but in my head, all I kept thinking, it's funny because I tell everybody this that I come across, like, I kept thinking in my head, I'm from a small town and I need to get out of the small town.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: Because however St.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: Louis is very big, St.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: Louis is very small at the same time.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: It's like now I can see how my dad could have met everybody when I go to the grocery store and they're like, Fred, how the hell are you?
8:14
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen you since high school.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing here?
8:16
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, grocery shopping?
8:21
SPEAKER_02: Because uh every time we would go out, someone would say his name.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: But I joined his band, and at 17 I told him I didn't want to be a part, and he told me, Well, what are you gonna do?
8:31
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I'm gonna go become a famous rapper.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: And for some people they might not know, Freddie D'Angelo is my stage name.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: So Fred Dickerson is my real name.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm Fred Dickerson Jr.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: And I came up with Freddie D'Angelo after a long pursuit of trying to chase like what would sound good.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: I went down my Facebook and I I would see someone named Michael Clark, and I'd be like, Freddie Clark, Freddie, Freddie Premier, Freddie Nintendo, and I saw one of my friends, David D'Angelo, and I said, Freddie D'Angelo.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, that sounds like a fancy artist right there.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: That sounds really good.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: So that this was right at I graduated high school when I was 17.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: So this was right at the peak of me trying to figure out who I was.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: And I was working after I graduated as a janitor at my old grade school.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: And I remember the guys there told me, I told them straight up, I'm like, I quit that blues band, y'all.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: Y'all should have seen me when I quit it.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: I walked up to my pops and I said, I'm not in your band no more.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm the star here and I'm gonna go become rich.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: And they just prompted me and said, Bro, you cannot be a rapper.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: You are literally the lamest guy that we know.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: You have no swag, you have no style, and I don't think you've spit a bar in your life.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: So that night I went home and I recorded a rap verse over a little Wayne instrumental on YouTube, and I got 4,000 views overnight.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm a celebrity, I'm definitely a celebrity.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: So I decided, all right, I'm going into college.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: I need to level up my rap game because I want to drop out of college.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm just turning 18 freshly, I need something to do.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: So I spent my college book money on a DSLR camera.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: Like I saw all these kids on YouTube, they'd be filming with a Canon T2i.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: It was an entry-level camera, and I said, I'm gonna buy one of those.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: And I bought one with my book money and enrolled in photography for an easy A because I needed some sleepaway classes so I could stay up all night and produce beats and work on my music.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: I ended up getting that A in photography, which was phenomenal, and the teacher ended up for our final project, it was to film a music video.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, all right, I could do this.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: I just put my camera up, asked some people in class to get in a video.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: It was like everybody in my class hated me because the teacher's like, this right here, Freddie, this is phenomenal.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: This is great.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, there's no way it's great.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: He's just tripping.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: So I rolled in intro to communications the next month or the next semester.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: It was a mass communications class.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: I enrolled in there and we had another opportunity to film a music video.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: But this time, instead of me solo producing it, it was me and five people within my class.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: And these five people within my class, they all said, All right, let's try to figure out something cool.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Hey, hey, hey, I know I've slept through every single test this semester.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: I know I've done everything wrong, but you guys, I got this one.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: And they trusted me.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: And I went home and I created this would date the time, but I created a Gongam style remix video.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: We we I'm pretty sure we got one of the professors at the college fired because we were on the roof of the school.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: We got access to the roof, and we're doing a gongam style dance on the roof.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: And at that very moment, once again, I'm like, here I am looking down at everybody at my college, and I'm like, I'm a famous rapper up here, guys.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, three people said they saw us on the roof.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: If you can't tell, I had an issue with thinking I was famous just because a simple thing would happen.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: But so there I was, I released that and I said, I have two hits right now.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: These videos got me a lot of praise, and I need something new with my career.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: So I had been filming rap videos for myself, none of those took off, nothing blew up.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: But every time I did a video for someone else, I got such a good reaction.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget, I was scrolling Craigslist and those scary ad section, which you know, if you've ever been on Craigslist, most of the requests on there are not family friendly.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: Right.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: And I saw a request that someone said, We're looking for a videographer to film a rave here in St.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: Louis.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: It's four hours for$250.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: And I said, That's more money than I'm making in my day job.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: I got this camera, I got, I want to be a rapper.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: I was like, maybe if I go there, they'll let me rap.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: That was my that was the really the only reason I did it.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: And I've got to this concert and there were 700 people there.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: 700.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And I remember going behind the artist on stage and I raised my hand up and I watched has 700 people in the crowd raised their hand up with me, and I just started rocking my hand, and the whole crowd went with me.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: And I was so stoked.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Once again, I think I might be famous.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: But it was at that very moment that I realized I did not want to be in school anymore.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to work my job anymore, and I wanted to chase photography, videography.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: I no longer even wanted to be the musician, but I used those music videos I filmed, those class videos, and now this first rave to start submitting applications to become concert photographers.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: After the first rave, within five months, I had to drop out of college because during finals week I had submitted, and out of thousands of applicants, I got the opportunity to shoot Soundset Music Festival in Shacopee, Minnesota.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: And the lineup was Nas, Two Chains, Wiz Khalifa, G Easy.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: And I always tell everybody this is the section of my story that I call Truth Hurts because Wiz Khalifa was my favorite artist at the time.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget that morning.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: I I borrowed my dad's car.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm putting in quotes since you guys can't see it.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: Borrowed his car.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: He did not know.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I got an opportunity to become famous, man.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: So I took his car and I drove 13 hours.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: I dropped out of school.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Like uh, I just I was like, I don't, there's nothing else I gotta do.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: I went there and Wiz Khalifa got arrested at the border, coming from Mexico into the States.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: And they told me that, sorry to tell you, but Wiz Khalifa is no longer going to be here today.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: And I said, You're kidding me.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: Like, I just quit my entire life.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: I had a full-blown panic attack.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: There I am, 6'3, crying, sobbing, and everybody's just like trying to console me.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: This is why I call this the truth hurt section, because there was a lady over there playing the flute, and an agent came over and said, Hey, would you like to interview my artist?
15:19
SPEAKER_02: She's got an opening, and I was a clarinetist growing up, so I'm like, I hate the flute.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Whiz Khalifa's not gonna be here.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: The the girls playing the flute over there, that girl playing the flute was Lizzo.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I knew that was coming.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: I knew that was coming.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: So before we get too much further into this, at this point where things are kind of starting to hit this cross section, had it occurred to you that you were in the moment or in the process of drawing parallels to your dad's experiences?
15:53
SPEAKER_02: In a way, yes, but at the same exact time, my biggest motivator was since he didn't have physical proof, I wanted to bring him back physical proof.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: To be like, Well, yeah, see, I could show you I've done it.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: So it was a competition between me and him, and he always played fair with it because he said, Well, if you think you can go do it, then why don't you go do it?
16:16
SPEAKER_02: So wow, I utilized that Whiz Khalifa concert because he ended up showing up.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: He came out that it was one of the best moments of my life, I will say, because there's 30,000 people at this concert.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: Remember, went from 700 and in five months to 30,000 in a different state.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: And he came out on stage and said, He that if I don't know if you know anything about Wiskhalifa, but that was the day that he broke Twitter because he posted a selfie on his phone in jail, and everybody said, How did he get his phone in jail?
16:49
SPEAKER_02: And then he walked out on stage and dropped a mixtape and said, Here's my new project, you all.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: It's called 28 Grams, and then you start rapping songs from it, and it was live.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: I got in trouble because I was dancing, I was doing my trap arms in the in the crowd.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm in the press pit, just trying to shoot photos.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's there trying to shoot, and I was just so excited because I'm like, it finally came through.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm breathing the same air as Wiz Khalifa.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, I was so close, I could have pulled that man off stage because that's how close I was.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: And once again, I realized that this right here was something that I could do infinitely.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And I utilized that concert and ended up going down a path where I started doing more rave events and EDM events, and those EDM events took me so far.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: I started making a habit out of flying to Colorado, which is funny that you said Colorado.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: I went to Colorado for the first time when I was that age.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: And the next thing you know, I'd been there 10 times before that year had been over because I was being flown out there to Red Rocks in different venues to shoot photos.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Like there was one time that was magical where I'm underground Red Rocks, where if you've ever had the luxury of being down there, every famous person who's ever been there has signed the wall.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: I got to sign the wall, and we were there for two different sold-out concerts at Red Rocks, no tickets available, and they got awards after the concert, and I'm there feeling living life.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget because I was there with the artists, and this was my humbling moment because remember, I always wanted to be a musician.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: So I was we're backstage and I was playing my music, those music videos I filmed, and one of the DJs said, You know what?
18:30
SPEAKER_02: You should uh you should stick to photography.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: And I was crushed.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: I was crushed because I'm like, I'm at the top of my game, and I'll never do this.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: And it was at that very moment, I want you all to remember this while you're listening.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: It was at that very moment that I quit chasing music and I went full time with the photography videography.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: I hate to say it, that that was the motivating factor of me to achieve success because someone who I viewed as a mentor to me told me that my craft was less than theirs because look at them at a venue, and then I'm the person who they paid to come to the venue.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: While there's some truth to it, there's also a different way that that could have been handled.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I made it my mission that day to see how far I could take my photography and videography, and I pushed the limits, I pushed it, I pushed it, I pushed it.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: So uh Big Sean came to St.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Louis at a pop-up show, a free show with Metro Boomin, who's also from St.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Louis, and they needed a videographer that night.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: And by turn of events, I ended up being Big Sean's personal videographer that night.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget, because there I was backstage.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm getting real vulnerable with you all.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: There I was backstage, and I saw a woman back there, and I'm like, man, I I nudged Metro, and I'm like, hey, whose cousin is that?
19:49
SPEAKER_02: And he's like, it's nobody's cousin, and I took that as like a all right, well, don't talk to her.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: That cousin, quote unquote, that was Siza, the singer, and she was just over there by herself, and like I I almost went up to talk to Sizza, but there I was once again.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: The same thing as the Lizzo situation.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: But uh, all in all though, the opportunities that came were so immense that I ended up shooting photos of every single one of my favorite artists within two years.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: My very first year of concert photography, I did 150 concerts across the United States.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: At this point in my career, I was at 33 states in two countries that I traveled just off of my photography.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: And I will never forget it got to that point.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: This is uh 2016 now, it's probably three years after I started.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: And my dad told me, he said, Well, you know what?
20:43
SPEAKER_02: If I wasn't a nurse, and then I'd probably be out there traveling and you know, hanging out with these people.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, who would you hang out with then?
20:51
SPEAKER_02: And he told me to list, so I went and booked shows with those people.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: And it gave him so much life.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: He was he was working overnights, which was like I very much value because he would work overnight.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: So after the concerts, I'd be calling him up, being like, Yo, Pops, check out, check out this.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: You'll never believe all these crazy things that I saw.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: And he'd just be sitting there listening, like, yep, that's cool, that's cool.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: And I got to the point where I felt cocky.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: I told my mom and dad, I said, you know what?
21:17
SPEAKER_02: I want to take you all on a vacation.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: We prepped for a trip back to San Francisco.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: So my pops wanted to show me the places that he went whenever he was a musician.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: So we traveled back to San Francisco, and he'd show me Twin Peaks, he showed me the place where they shot the photo, and he was showing me all these places.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, the band of data remembers playing, and I told him, I'm like, man, this band's awesome.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: And I have this video clip where literally I'm filming, I'm filming the water, he's driving, and he says, You know what?
21:52
SPEAKER_02: The only thing I want in my life ever was someone to do this drive with me across this bridge.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: And I I didn't even listen.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: I just kept saying, Yeah, man.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Man, you see that water down there?
22:01
SPEAKER_02: The water's awesome.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just I'm lost in my own world.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And it's crazy how fate works because there I was chasing my dreams, showing off, doing all this stuff.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: And I will never forget the most humbling experience of my entire career happened.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: When I felt like I was at the peak of it all, there I was.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: I came back home to visit my family for a weekend, and my dad died.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: He suffocated from a heart attack, and the ambulance showed up two seconds after he was gone.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: And they tried to resuscitate him for an hour, and I sat there, and it was so weird because I had my dream job, I had my people proud, and then everything was just wiped away in a second because the hardest part of it all was I wasn't upset that everything had been taken from me.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: What I was upset about was I no longer had anyone I was in competition with.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: I no longer had that friendly chase for my career.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: My dad was a music-playing man.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: He was a music-playing fool.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget one of my first times filming.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: He was the magic creator of this life, let's say, because he knew what he was doing.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: One of the first times, I had to be like 11 or 12, he would have me come out to his shows and start filming them.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, honestly, time when both of our parents came up, there wasn't the little device in their pocket that can document every single thing.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: So, but it was always kind of the same thing.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: It's it's like I have to outdo it so I could document it, just so later on in life when my kids ask questions about or challenge the things that I've done, they know it without a shadow of a doubt.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: They absolutely know it.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: So you took this path from music to photography and videography.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: You've worked with a lot of well-known names, well-known people.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: How did that bring you to where you're at right now?
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Everything in life is about how you pivot.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: I always tell everybody it's all about how you pivot to the change and how you adapt to it all.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: I traveled in music and photography and was a photographer or a session musician for six years of my life.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: I spent majority of my time away from my family, majority of the time away from my friends, and more so I was stuck there because it was the closest thing I had to my dad still.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: So I would just keep putting myself in these opportunities so that I could feel a little something.
24:38
SPEAKER_02: While I was in the midst of all of that, I decided that I needed to remove myself from the music because it was just like a cycle of trauma.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: It's like I'm just I'm forcing myself to be depressed essentially.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: While I'm not coming off as depressed, I'm singing depressing songs about people being gone, I'm doing all this.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: And while I'm figuring out what I was gonna do, I ended up getting a referral from a girl on Facebook by the name of Megan Fairless.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: And Megan was a wedding photographer from Illinois.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, Missouri, Illinois, there's the border there, and she was probably about an hour and a half from my home.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: She recommended me because she saw all the stuff that I was creating online and the concerts I had been to.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: I had never once met this girl in my career.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: She referred me to a man that was an author and a motivational speaker, and things snowballed from there once again because I gave them a little taste.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: We had a random one-off gig.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: The motivational speaker asked me if I could work the next day.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: He called me up, was like, Can you work tomorrow?
25:47
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Uh, I guess I can.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: That gig ended up having me working alongside Gary V.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: I ended up having dinner at Sarah Blakely's house.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh, her husband, uh Jesse Itzler, is one of the most phenomenal speakers of my life.
26:02
SPEAKER_02: And I always tell everybody that it's that pivot.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Once I figured out that I had reached my full potential in music, because there's no diss to anyone who is a full-time musician because I value what you do.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Me personally, I couldn't live that lifetime full time with how much I would need to be away.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not home for an entire month and I got to come back, pay bills, and it's like so much has moved on in life.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: But I used that opportunity to find who I truly was.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: Like I always had a motivational bit to me.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: My best thing that I would do was to post on Facebook every day all the motivating pieces I would have.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of the lines from my song that were everything you dream is within reach if you chase it.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: So I always told the motivational speakers that I wanted to become a speaker and a teacher.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: And every single person was very open to the idea of, okay, you're going to open up a lane.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: If you want to open up a lane, what are you going to open up that lane in?
26:56
SPEAKER_02: And I worked with the motivational speakers for so long, and I realized that I never truly had that same connection that I had with the music.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: While I learned so much, while I got to craft all this content and work with all these great people, I didn't feel like I myself had the opportunity to teach.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I was always the student because I always was around people who were bigger than me or people who had so many years on me in business.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until I met my wife during all of this.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: I met her right before the world closed down with COVID.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: We went on our first date, and she had a love for the beauty industry.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: Full twist from what I was doing at that point.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: And she had a love for the beauty industry and wanted to start marketing for beauty businesses.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: I had been working in salons as a wedding photographer or doing one-off shoots for salon businesses.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: And I thought we should team up and collaborate and work on projects together.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Because the one key factor that I saw about the hairstylist that I also saw within the artists, because our tagline for an artist by an artist, the hairstylist is the same as the musician on stage.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: Their work has the possibility to see millions.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: They could post a photo that goes viral, or they do the hairstyle of an artist that's going on stage for that night, and people see their work over and over again.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: The stylist just did not see their work as valuable as it truly was.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: So I saw an opportunity for myself to be able to teach and be able to coach and be able to grow with these people.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: And we started our salon marketing business in December of last year and ended up getting 11 salons across the nation for us to do their digital marketing plans.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: So now my wife and I craft full digital marketing plans, coach stylists, teach them the fundamentals of how to craft great content, grow a brand, grow a business, and get referrals from the work that they are creating.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: So you've actually segued that into your own podcast.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: So let's why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: So at I'm for salons, I am number four salons.pro, we offer full courses that break down every single thing that I learned within the last 12 years as an artist and every single thing that my dad taught me about knowledge.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: So, fun fact is my dad and my mom wanted me to become a teacher.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: I was in school to become a science teacher because I thought science was the coolest slacker sport.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: Like you got to blow up things, you got to throw stuff off the school building, you got to figure out how fast balls went in sports.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: And I thought that'd be the perfect thing for me.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: I could go be a science teacher, I could be cool, but I never saw the teaching thing through.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: So I took all of the knowledge that I've learned over the years and I packed it into a course that breaks down the fundamentals of every single thing that you would need to know to become successful in building your own beauty brand.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why we decided to go this route, because I've taught photography for so many years.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: I've taught so many people how to craft photography, but I did not see a group of people catering to those type of artists that were the hairstylists, the barbers, and the aestheticians.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite moments was going to my barber shop locally and getting my hair cut and talking with my barber, figuring out what was going on with him.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: So we packed all of this stuff into a course and a podcast.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: The podcast is the I'm for salon's content and mindset podcast.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: And there I attach an episode about content creation from me or one of my team members, and we team that up with someone from around the world to bring them knowledge that everything that they're trying to chase is attainable.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: Like some of our upcoming guests, we have people from L'Oreal, we have people from Redkin, we have people who've owned salons for 30 years, and we've also had motivational coaches and people who come from different walks of life.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Because what inspired this was we have a salon in Kentucky that we do content for.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: And one of the artists said, You know what?
31:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm from a small town with two stoplights.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: And I moved to this city in Kentucky because this is a big city.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Do you know the world could be bigger than that?
31:17
SPEAKER_02: And she like her mind, you could see it in her eyes that her mind was like, Well, this is as big as it can get right now.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: This is as big as I can go.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: And we brought this curated content from the salon or this curated content for the salons so that we can open up the mindset of the artist to know how truly big life can be for them.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: If they truly chase it, if they chase that dream with everything that they have, they can attain, they can attain the similar success that I did, or even bigger and better things.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: Because truth be told, I just scratched the surface.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: My big thing was jumping world to world to world and crafting content, making my money and growing with that.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: But if someone stuck to it, someone could have taken my place in one of the industries, someone could have done anything.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: It's everything you dream is within reach if you chase it, and that's what I have to say.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: So you started this business in the heat of a pandemic, essentially.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the world has changed.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, a lot of the service world has changed.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, consumers are a lot, I hate to say this, but consumers are a lot more entitled than they used to be.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, so so people in general are a lot harder to work with.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: We've got socio-political divide going in the world where you are on one side of the fence or you're on the other side of the fence, and um people pointing fingers at everybody.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I think the world of podcasting is very effective because you can open up that line of communication and you can move past those barriers and point out the fact that we have more in common than we do different.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: That is the biggest lesson that I've learned as a podcaster.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: So, with that said, you know, as we're starting to kind of hit our marks here and and wrap some things up, what's your advice that you've learned over the past three years for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Don't get offended because someone doesn't understand what you're going through.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Because truth be told, that was one of my biggest hangups is I guess I believe that every single person out there knew more about life than I did.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: So whenever anyone gave me feedback, I always took it as them trying to take me down.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: And now I promote to everyone that be kind to people because you don't know what they're truly going to.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: I know that's the the stereotypical go-to, but you never truly know.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: There I was a tortured soul, and I just wanted to get out of the world.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: And there could be someone out there who is a dreamer who doesn't have someone as encouraging as I did to tell them to chase that dream.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: I like to be that person like my dad was, because one of the things I always envy with him is I was like, you work full time, you got kids.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: How do you have time to be talking to the church kids?
34:23
SPEAKER_02: How do you have time to be taking the church kids on a vacation, not like vacation out of town, but like an hour away to a cave site?
34:30
SPEAKER_02: How do you have this time?
34:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's he always told me it's what if they don't have someone that has time.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: So I try to be that person who has the time that can break down things for people, educate people, and leave them feeling like someone actually truly cares about what they're doing, because that little sense of someone caring more than someone at home might might be what makes someone out there a millionaire.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: Ah, I love that.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you tell all of my listeners where they can find you online?
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: You all could find me at Freddy.media, freddy.media.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: That's where I post all of my selfies behind the scenes of me working.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: You can find my educational content for my salon and beauty industry at I'm for salons, and that's on Instagram, that's on Facebook, or you could find us on our websites at I'mforsalons.com and I'mforsalons.pro.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Freddie D'Angelo, your story has been fascinating to listen to.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for doing the podcast.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: The world's a much better place with you and it, my friend.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: I truly appreciate that, and thank you so much for offering the opportunity because it's people like you that give others a light to shine that makes the world a better place as well.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: Ah, thank you very much.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: Once again, I want to thank Freddie D'Angelo for doing the podcast again today.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: There was a very interesting story.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: You heard him, you know where to seek him out.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you are following Caught on the Mic on all podcast platforms and all social media platforms.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: You can also visit me at www.caughton the mic.com.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: This is the first episode of 2024.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: I am trying to fill the calendar.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: If you know of somebody that would be a great guest or caught on the mic, make sure you tag them on the comments of social media or send me a message.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Let me know.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Caught on the mic at gmail.com.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Clark.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you.