Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / Exploring Nashville’s Music Legacy: Sean Martin of The Quarantined on Mental Health, Gratitude, and Creative Resilience

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Exploring Nashville’s Music Legacy: Sean Martin of The Quarantined on Mental Health, Gratitude, and Creative Resilience · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashville.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Hi everyone, this is your host Sarah Harrelson of Taking
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: a Walk Nashville. I hope everyone has been enjoying their
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: new year, and I want to give a quick shout
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: out to Sennheiser today on this episode, I'm using their
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: podcast profile. Mike and I have been loving it, but
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: today here with me on Taking a Walk Nashville is
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Sean Martin, the lead singer of the grungepunk metal band
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: The Quarantined and this band sound grew through college and
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: internet radio play in the early twenty tens and all
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: of the members of this band are former students of
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. They recently released their
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: new album, A Version two Normalcy in November, with the
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: record being a cathartic confrontation with trauma and resilience. This
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: band has currently amassed over ten million views across TikTok,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: with one viral clip earning over one million views.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Walk Nashville podcast. Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: your hosts singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Sean Martin, Thank you so much for being here with
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: me today. How are you good?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Good? Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: So The Quarantine your band has been active for over
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: twenty years now. Can you tell us how you formed
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: this band and came up with a name for it.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it started with really a need to you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: have something of my own, you know, to as as
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: far as because in going to music school, you usually
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: go there because you're like I held to get as
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: much work as possible. I want to work as many
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: different people as I could, and for me, I was
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: doing that, but everything would would fall apart at some
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: point or another, like everybody would. It would eventually meet,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: you know, with some impossible problem and then just eventually
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: give it up. And sometimes the problems weren't so much
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: impossible as they were self inflicted. But you know, that's
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: also part of the music industry. But I knew that
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I had a bunch of songs and a lot of
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: things to say, and I wanted to give it a
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: vehicle and give it some you know, somewhere to go
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: with the everything that I knew had happened in my
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: life that I didn't know how to talk about the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: feelings that I didn't know how to express the kind
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: of person who I wanted to be, and who I
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: was didn't seem to be conducive to existing in the
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: rest of the world. Sometimes it's hard to be the
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: only one who's doing the right thing. You have to
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: make the choice between cutting yourself off for your own
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: mental health and desperately needing to be involved because it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: an existential problem that you have to face. And I
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: kind of feel like that's where my life has existed
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: for a long time, like probably before the military, but
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the military was definitely a prime example of this, and
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: through a lot of the therapy that I've done over
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the over the last twenty years since I started writing
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: that the first songs for This, for This, for This Band,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I know that I've grown a lot and learned a
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: hell of a lot of different perspectives and ways to
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: get to gratitude. And that's one of the most important
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: aspects this music has brought to me is because whenever
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: we're in a really, really bad situation, the thing that
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: we need that we don't actually know usually know how
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: to vocalize. When we're in the lowest, lowest point, what
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: we really need is gratitude and perspective. And if we
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: can get gratitude, get to someplace where we can see
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: gratitude and perspective for ourselves with the people around us,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: then we have a much higher chance of getting through
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: that suicidal feeling, that existential crisis, that between a rock
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: and a hard place kind of situation when we get there,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and that's where we can find solutions. And that's really
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: what the Quarantine is about. It's about being thrown apart
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: from society, thrown away from society, you don't have any
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: access to anything. What are you going to do on
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: your own? And are you going to come to the
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: right answer? And that's that's really what the Quarantined is
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: is really about. Meats.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And as you mentioned before starting the Quarantine, you
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: did serve in the US Army Airborne Infantry from two
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: thousand and four to two thousand and seven, and afterwards
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you dealt with PTSD following your deplointment to Iraq. So
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: did writing this music help you navigate what you were
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: dealing with post serving in the Army?
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, absolutely. You know, the Quarantine is a political
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: vehicle as much as it is an emotional view. For me,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: they're both intertwined. I knew that I had to find
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: a way to express the things that were going on
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: in my head, and there wasn't people who I could
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: just talk to about it. But connecting with people through
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: music through covers has also been a very important aspect
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: because you know, if you put a as we've now
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: seen over the last oh, I don't know, maybe ten
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: fifteen years or so, an explosion in covers of different kinds,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: like my my my favorite is the slow piano march
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: for whatever song you know, like you'll take they'll take
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: last resort and do it as a slow piano like
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: a dirge you know it or some or something like that,
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: or I don't know, something pops on like take me
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: on you like definite, they didn't take take take on
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Me for a deadpool Like That's the most classic example
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: that I that I have with this, Like they I
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: would do that a lot, So I would I would
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: start doing covers of the Sound of Silence, and I
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: would start doing covers of Frank Sinatra and you know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: to bring them into a grunge context. And that's that's
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: something that a lot of audiences across the US have
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: really responded well to. When I've gotten and performed there.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: So it's there's a lot of different avenues I've found
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: to reach people through music. It doesn't just have to
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: be in one particular genre. I'm the kind of musician
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: that will take from any genre if it has good
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: emotional context and content.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and you can connect to other veterans through
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: your music. You're known to be a veterans' mental health advocate,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: and with your new album that's out now, you channel
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of your own experiences as a war veteran
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: and two reflections on trauma and healing and just finding
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: purpose and chaos. So is that kind of your hope
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: releasing this album that maybe other veterans can relate to
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: this music themselves and maybe they can find some joy
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: from it or ways to you know, get through whatever
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: they're going through.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, yeah. Although I will say it's not like
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: that TV. It's not so obvious that it's made for veterans.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I feel like the message is more universal than just
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: helping veterans navigate them. That's more of a like a
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: direct personal conversation, you know. The thing that I found
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in we're talking with veterans from all different eras is
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: you have to be able to meet them on their love.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: The music is there to make a point. Every song
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: that I write has a message, It has a lesson,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: It has a call to action for yourself, you know,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: something that's meant to be self reflective, that's meant to
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: instigate conversation, if only with yourself, but I found that
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: other people. When you start talking, other people will respond
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: to be able to open up more about it. And
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: these songs instigate those kinds of conversations. So the response
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: to that I've seen now internationally with really really cool
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: about it is the see that happen over countries' borders.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: You know, for example, Brazil. Most people in the United
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: States don't know deaction shit about Brazil except for Desnaris
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: is pretty nice, you know in the summer, like that's
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: all that they really know, and even that's kind of wrong.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: So there's there's a lot to that culture that is
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: very much about fighting the existing powers because they are unjust,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: because they are unfair, and there is a big push
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: for self governance, autonomy, community coming together, spending tax dollars
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: for the people who who pay the taxes, and creating
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: programs for them that benefit them. That's something that's big
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: that's going on in Brazil right now because they just
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: threw off a dictator. They just got Jarrea Bolsonara out
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: of power and they prosecuted him and that's a big,
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: big deal. So especially a version to normalcy, there's definitely
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: an asset of that in the music and I wanted
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: to create, especially with Nemesis. Nemesis is about confrontation. It's
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: about confronting yourself. It's about confronting yourself and what your
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: intentions are and what your actual follow through is. What
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: are the actions that create the end result regardless of
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: your intention. That is an aspect of the songwriting that
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: I wanted to bake into it that it is an
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: existential problem that you have to deal with when you're
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: when you're fighting a problem.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and in this album not only has important messages,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: but you recorded it at the legendary Blackbird Studios here
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: in Nashville. It's been known to produce some of rock's
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: most iconic records. The album, you worked with a lot
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: of great people and it was engineered and produced by
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Nathan Yarborough, who has worked with the likes of Alison
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Chains and Corn and then also featured Zach Rapp from
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Dream Theater on lead guitar and violin.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: So cool.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: What was it like working with these legends on this album?
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: It was okay, so this might sound weird, but it
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: was extremely efficient. An efficiency in the music creation process
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: is one of the most and most invaluable subtle things.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: So I would ask for something and I would get
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: exactly what I asked for. That's amazing, you know. And
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: the fact that these guys have can have the ability
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: to hear something and go, oh, you're looking for it
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: more blue green ish, kind of a little red on
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: this side. I know exactly what you're talking about. Like
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: that is fucking insane. I don't know exactly how that works.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: But the fact that we were able to communicate so
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: well and to get to the result that we all
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: wanted extremely quickly was something that you know. I've tried
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: to record this this album three times myself, wow, three times,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and I spent a solid like over the entire period
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: of trying to record it and re record it and
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: mix it was about five years. So eventually, once I realized, hey,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I could take this to the best studio that I
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: could find, maybe maybe I should change my plan and idea.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Then I just started focusing on the best way to
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: play every single assect and get it down to if
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I have to re record five seconds, how good am
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: I gonna be at recording just that five seconds? And
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I mean I really went as deep as I possibly
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: could to make it so that when I showed up
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: at that studio I could be one take, chake the
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: whole entire time. And eventually that's what we were doing
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: with the guitars. But the vocals I still had to
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: go through and work them out. But I know that
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: I got compliments from Nathan and the cadio manager at Blackbird,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: and I know that I can definitely give the compliments,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the same compliments to Zach and to Lewis and Jerry
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: because they heard it. We're like, oh, I know exactly
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: what you're looking for. This is gonna be great, this
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: is gonna be fun. Then they would sit there and
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: joke for twenty minutes and then be like all right already,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and then hit the studio and knock it out in
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: like one or two takes. It was fucking fantastic, And
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: that's some great thing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, working with this level of professionals there used
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to being in this studio, and it's so important to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: save time in a studio obviously when recording, but I
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people don't realize a lot of
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: people solo artists and bands they don't bring they don't
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: always bring their band into the studio to record their album.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: They'll play with them live, but sometimes there's just a
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: different dynamic where there's you know, studio musicians who are
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: better in the studio than live. They're great at coming
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: up with the parts saving time, whereas that's not always
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: the case with the live band. So I think that's
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: a good point to mention because it's not always like
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: the same band that plays in the studio.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Right right, And other purpose that people go it is
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: they try to write in the studio. Everything was already
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: pre planned and so we had very much an agenda.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: So there wasn't much time for fucking around, you know,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: there wasn't much time for it. It was you're going
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: to do this part. It very much felt like a
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: construction project, you know, like you're gonna you're gonna lay
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the foundation at this point. Okay, so you're gonna then
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: lay the walls on the inside. Then you're gonna do this,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: you know, all those It was very much laid out
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to be a house at the end, and it wasn't
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: like we're trying to search or find anything. So especially
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: because that was the purpose, that was the intention, that
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: efficiency makes it just a wonderful experience, just a I'm
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: probably gonna be chasing that high for for a long time.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Like just to make an album in a matter of
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: a week when you've been doing it trying to make
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: it happen if for three years, is really truly an
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: amazing experience.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely makes it so fun to be able
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: to do it in that sort of efficient process, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: you can definitely tell.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: By the quality.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: So you recorded this album in Nashville, as mentioned, tell
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: us about your transition to Nashville and how you ended
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: up relocating here.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: So in twenty twenty one, I was living in Florida,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: and I really didn't like living in Florida. Eventually it
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: came opportunities came around to where I was like, well,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: I can either try to find a place to live
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: or just go on the road. And I decided I'll
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: just go on the road. And I had this crowd
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: funding campaign that I was doing for Instagram Hell and
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: or what would eventually become Instagram Hell and One Last Chance,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: two songs that are Instagram Hell, is going to be
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: released later this month, a new version that we did
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: at Blackbird Studio. But at this time we were I
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: was getting ready to record it in Boston with this
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: studio called Plaid Dog Records, and I had four or
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: five months or so where I had to prepare to
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: go and record at Boston. Everything was set, the crawdfunding
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: campaign was already done. It was just ready to go
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: and record it now. And I had four months where
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: basically all I had to do was not die. So
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I decided to go on an open mic tour. I
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: went and played open mics and everywhere that I could
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: find to play, from the East Coast to the West
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Coast and then back again. Then I went to Boston
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to go and record it, and went back to Denver,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: and then from Denver, I went to Deadwood, North Dakota
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: or Deadwood South Dakota. I lived there for a little bit,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: then I went to Pennsylvania. Then I decided to come
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: here to finally do the real thing of recording the
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: album that I knew was I was finally ready to
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: do it and you know, try to go after the
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: the industry that's that's a Nashville Because I had already
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: been in Los Angeles, and I'd already known that there's
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of things that I liked about Los Angeles,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: but it wasn't really the place for me. Nashville seemed
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: like a good, a good, a good place to start
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: for for Mike music. I've I've found that there's a
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: there's a real gratitude now for people not doing you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: just country music in Nashville. It seems, I don't know
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: correctly if I'm wrong.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you were thinking about Nashville in
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: early two thousands, you would probably say forget it because
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: it's just a country music scene. But now it's opened
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: its stores for rock and pop and all sorts of genres.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I've in the short amount of time that
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: i've that I've that I've been around here, it seems
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: like it's very much a musician's city, not just the
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: country city. Yeah, everybody loves their cowboots, and if you know,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: somebody starts singing Shania Twain, people are gonna fucking dance. However, However,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: there is also a real, you know, sense of community
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: that people want to have and are trying to build
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: and trying to curate as well. You know, even the
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Session musicians were very much it was very important to
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: them to foster the community around them. It was very
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: important to them to you know, go to other people's
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: shows to you know, facilitate for the other musicians who
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: they knew when were friends and knew that were good people.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: That's something that they they consciously chose to do because
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: they knew that it helped the community, not just one
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: person like that's that's really super rare, and a in
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a big music community, that's really rare. I mean, there
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: were semblances of that in Denver. But the truth was
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: is that everybody who I was hanging with in Denver
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: was just as poor as everybody else. Nobody really had
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the ability to put some real money into whatever project
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: they were doing. They were all trying to make the
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: best with what they had. They didn't have that access
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to major promotions or major marketing or major studios or
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: a way to make their ideas greater than just them
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: playing it live. And they would play it live, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: they'd put their whole heart and soul into it and
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the performance was great, but it only lasts that far,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: and it's important to know that, you know, to have
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: people who know the music industry is more than just
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: creating a flash in a pan. It's about building something
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: that has longevity and has legs and wheels if you
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: will to be the vehicle to carry you someplace. I
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: wanted to say in Denver, but there wasn't a lot
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: of people who really knew and understood that concept. But
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: when I walked into the studios here in Nashville, they
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: were telling me, hey, fucker, this is what we're doing here,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: and that is that's that's awesome. That's exactly the kind
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: of community that I that I wanted to try to
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: embed myself and to surround myself with people who really
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: were making a conscious effort to do something laughing with
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: the music talents that they had and which is significant.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the community here is so great because
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: you know, everyone has the same goals and we're all
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: working hard to even earn enough to be able to
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: record that album in a studio here in Nashville. We
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: understand the work ethic.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of the taking a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: walk Nashville Podcast. Welcome back to Take in a Walk Nashville.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: When you came here, you know, you said you were
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: doing open mics across the country before you landed in Nashville.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: You you were also doing videos on social media at
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: this time. What was the clip that went viral for
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: your band on TikTok and did you expect it to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: have the outcome that it did.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: No, No, not at all. So the clip that went
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: viral was actually one of the major influencers that we
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: partnered with had a took one of our songs and
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: it went You got like six or seven million views,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: and it's it's reposted on TikTok. You can go and
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: go and find it. We saw a huge spike in
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: the Spotify numbers because of it, and so we made
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: a post and said we got this song to one
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: million people, and then that helped it get to another
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: million people. And it's I don't I don't even know, man,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Like the treason the matter is is that that kind
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: of that kind of shit, it gets out of your
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: hands and you just you put out a lot. A
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: lot of this was allowing somebody to tell me what
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I should be posting, and that normally wasn't the process
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: how I would do it. I would put up whatever
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: I thought was, you know, what I was feeling at
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: the moment, or you know, whatever I felt like doing,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and all in overall, it was an inconsistent social media
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: plan because it wasn't really a plan. It was just
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: me using it as a sounding board for people who
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: I thought were listening. Once I started to understand the
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: strategies behind what you posts and how you put it
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: out and what everything that goes around it, and all
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the different ways that you can promote it that doesn't
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: have anything to do with the posting itself is kind
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: of nutball, Like I don't know if a lot of
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: people have done influencer marking for their songs, but it's
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: a weird world, man, and I will say it works.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: It's not is very counterintuitive, I think for most musicians.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: But it was. It was really it was really great
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: to see that that kind of response, and it was
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: really consistently, you know, two hundred to the three hundred
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: thousand or so views on a lot of the content
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: that we were doing it. It was just the stuff
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: that we had recorded at Blackbird Studios. We had got
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: in the Massenberg Room or released what I call the
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Masson Bird Room, which is this room that has one
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: hundred thousand one by one would spheres we'll say, that
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: are strategically and mathematically placed in the room to make
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: it a perfect sounding room. And it's really really amazing
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: to be in there a lot. I mean, it's everybody's
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: favorite room because it looks the coolest, you know, it
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: looks super dope. So we decided to shoot the the
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: recording of the of the vocals that we were doing
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: in that room, and you know, it just happened to
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: really capture people's eyes, I guess, and I have no
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: idea how to make it happen again. Maybe we'll do it,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: maybe we won't. I don't know. You know, it's it's
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I what's really odd about it for me, and the
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: reason why I speak kind of tentatively about it is
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: because I wrote an a part blog in two thousand
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: and twelve, twenty thirteen about the Try and a part
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: of it, Part seven was about warning the community about
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: putting likes and views as a way to discern who
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: was good and who was not. Because I saw what
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: was coming, which was we're gonna end up fighting with
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: dog videos, we're going to end up competing with baby videos,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: and that's not that's not the point of what we're
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: trying to do. And we have to be able to
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: understand that views and likes are a temporary litmus tests.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: They are not the end all be all of somebody's
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: existence in or they shouldn't be the end all be
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: all of somebody's existence in the music industry. And I'm
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: pretty sure nobody fucking listened to me, so we it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: a little weird for me to get to that other
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: side of you know, getting a lot of views and
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: knowing that a lot of people have seen my content
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: when before, you know, I was talking to an audience
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: of you know, maybe a couple thousand ye And it's
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: it's quite a it's quite a different feeling. But I
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: know that what it really does is set the table
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: for me to start interacting on a greater scale with
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: more and more people. And that's really the point.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: And that's the great thing about it. You've converted so
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: many fans online to your music that you maybe wouldn't
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: have been able to reach through doing live music. So
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I think that's definitely the great thing about it. But
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: you're also going viral in more ways than one by
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: working towards a more perfect union in partnership with free
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: toolove dot org. Can you tell us what this partnership
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: is and how it came about.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that that came around in two thousand and nineteen,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I think, and it was. It's more of an alignment
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: of goals. Free love is has a a lot of
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: different ambassadors who represent different aspects of life. You know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: each of the different ambassadors that they have have or
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: advocates that they have, have each of their own unique
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: story something to say. We partner on really the goals
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: of trying to use music as a advocacy platform and
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: to have a set of values and attentions that we
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: embody to make a statement. You know, I've been in
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of the planning stages and trying to get
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: everything like in my head so that I understand all
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: of the different moving pieces of what this whole business is. Like.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: I'm still coming into everything that I actually have and
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: utilizing all of the different aspects of who I am
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: as a person in the entertainment industry. For example, I'm
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: going to have a meeting next week with a company
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: that will help me write a book, and that book
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: is going to be is going to be the first step.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Because I already have multiple stories in and outlines that
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: I've written for TV series, for movies. This is going
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: to be the next set to get my story and
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: message across so that people can get a true vision
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: of where this shit actually comes from, and also as
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: a great method for explanation of what happened and why
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: it's important, you know. Then along with that, there's there's podcasts, interviews,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: and there's live you know, TikTok live, YouTube live. Then
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: there's live performances. Then there's advocacy work, then there's music education.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: There's so many different avenues two share your talents across
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: the board, and I'm still figuring out all of the
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: different ways to go and do that. So it's been
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: really really exciting to start seeing a bunch of different
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: opportunities come up. Because I have a certain level of
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: people on Spotify or a certain level of people on TikTok.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: To me, I see it as just another barrier that
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: I have to overcome in order to get me in
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the rooms that I need to be to say what
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I need to say, to play what I want to play,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: to share what I want to share, to express what
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: I want to express, And that's really the goal. That's ultimately,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: that's the goal, as long as it gets me in
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: a room with someone and they can have an experience
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: of understanding, a moment of clarity, a to see through something,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: to feel something real about this world, not just be
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: caught up in the duplicity, in the stupidness of how
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: everything is really really fucked up and every single part
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: of your life seems completely organized and you don't have
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: a fucking say in any of it. At some point
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: you have to have a moment in which you can
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: have a real conversation with yourself. And that's what my
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: music is for. That's why I play, That's why I
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: pick up the guitar and I sing. With the intention
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: that I do and I played with the intention that
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I do is to get through to people and not
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: just be superficient. I love that.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. I think that for me, that's
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: the whole purpose of music, And as musicians and people
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: in music, we should be advocates for other people and
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: their stories and their voices. So I think that's great.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: If people want to see the Quarantine at an upcoming
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: show or follow you. Where can they find you?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: You can find me on social media TikTok, Facebook, Instagram,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: a website, the Quarantine dot Com. You can find us
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: on YouTube as well. We've got you know, we're developing
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: all of our social media more and more. So give
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: us a follow and a like on any of those things.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Send us a message through our website and we'll we'll,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you know, get in contact with anybody. That's great. But
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Great.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Well, my last question a famous question I always like
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: to ask every guest who's on taking a walk Nashville, Sean,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: do you have a favorite place that you like to
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: take a walk in Nashville.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: You know, I actually haven't gotten around to walking much
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: in Nashville, but I will say this. When I first
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: got to Nashville, I went to a place where I'm
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: sure you know, called Painter's Allen. It was up off
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: of Broadway and there was It gave me the same
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: feeling that I had walking down Los Palmas in Los Angeles,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: like a little grungy people say on the outside smoking cigarettes.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: You don't know who the hell they are, and there's
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: you know, four or five venues and every one of
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: them is just popping off. And I went in there and,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you know, just hung out there for a while and
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: realized that there was an open mic at one of
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: At one of the places, I forget the name of it,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: they had a situation where the mic was they would
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: pick five musicians, pull them up on stage, and make them,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: you know, pick a song and play. And so I
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: went out there and I was already well versed in
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: this entire contest, because that's exactly what we did for
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: lpw's and Musicians Institute. So i spent three years doing
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: this already, so I'm completely ready to go. I know
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: exactly what to do. I'm prepared to have all my stuff,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: you know, ready to go. I'm I'm ready before everybody
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: else is on stage. And we go and play eight
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: no Rest for the Wicked, and it was very, very
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: surprising for the majority of the audience because they'd never
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: really heard somebody play guitar, and because I play it fast.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I play it like a rap rock song, not like
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: a just city and grooving that kind of thing. I'm
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: trying to push it forward like a punk song. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: the audience response was fantastic and It was really a
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: great experience in talking with the band leader, the house
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: band leader and asking them all about Nashville. So I
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: would say when that was the first little walk that
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: I took in Nashville. So that was the very serendipitous
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: just walk that I happened to take in Nashville, and
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: it landed me already in knowing that, yeah, I should
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: probably come here.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: And say yeah, I love Yeah, I love printer Zali.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: There's so many great bars there, places to see live
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: music like alley tabs, a lot of great boogie bourbon
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: and blues and jazz restaurants and places to see live
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: music there. I love it. And it doesn't feel like
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: you're quite like downtown off Broadway. But a little fun fact,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: in case you didn't know, Printer's Ali used to be
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Brothels back in the day in Nashville before they converted
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: it to live music venue. So it definitely has its
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: own kind of.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: Charm. I guess, yeah, it kind of looks like that. Yeah,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: you can see some history in there, and like you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: you go to Portland. Portland is the same thing, like
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: all all all the buildings along the waterways are old,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: old buildings and they all used to be brothels. Yeah,
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of some that are like vegan brew house
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: restaurants now super nice, used to be brothels. Like there's
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: a real there's a real fun history and it's and
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: it's really like you you go there and it's like,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: this is a little different. This isn't you know what
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: what is Brad Paisley's you know, super stage, this is
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: this is a little bit more grungy, and it's a
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: little bit more of my speeed, you know I liked.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely more grungy as its own little charm. Oshawan.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on Taking a Walk
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Nashville today. I hope everyone will check out your new album,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Aversion to Normalcy.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thanks so much
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: for having me. It's been awesome.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Please check out our other shows produced by Buzznight Media Productions,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Comedy Save Me and Music Save Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and Taking a Walk hosted by Yours Truly Buzznight. All
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: of the iHeart Podcast network