Latest / The Real News Podcast / Can Anyone “Make It” in Today’s Music Industry?

Transcript

Can Anyone “Make It” in Today’s Music Industry? · The Real News Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: All right, welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about
0:10
Speaker 1: the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today.
0:14
Speaker 1: My name is Maximilian Alvarez.
0:17
Speaker 2: And I'm Jules Taylor.
0:19
Speaker 1: So you guys all know Jules as the producer of
0:22
Speaker 1: this podcast, but let me tell you something about Brother
0:25
Speaker 1: Jules here. Jules is a Renaissance man. He is a
0:29
Speaker 1: podcaster himself, as many of you know. He's a writer,
0:33
Speaker 1: a music producer, a poet, and a brilliant musician in
0:37
Speaker 1: his own right. And he does all the music for
0:40
Speaker 1: working people as well. And that's why I really, really
0:44
Speaker 1: wanted us to host this episode together. Because today we're
0:47
Speaker 1: actually going to be talking about the work that goes
0:50
Speaker 1: into being a professional musician and the realities of working
0:54
Speaker 1: and trying to make a living in the music industry today.
0:58
Speaker 1: And that industry, you know, looks a lot different than
1:01
Speaker 1: the music industry that we grew up with. Those 20th
1:04
Speaker 1: century days of vinyl records and tape decks and CDs
1:09
Speaker 1: and tower records and MTV, man, like those have gone
1:13
Speaker 1: away and given way to this 21st century age of
1:18
Speaker 1: MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, Ticketmaster, et cetera,
1:26
Speaker 1: et cetera. You know, you guys know what I'm talking about. And,
1:29
Speaker 1: you know, I love music just about every single kind.
1:34
Speaker 1: And I always have. And, you know, I need music
1:38
Speaker 1: to live. And life itself would be so much less,
1:44
Speaker 1: I don't know, magical to me if I lived in
1:46
Speaker 1: a world without music. And my playlists and my mixtapes
1:51
Speaker 1: are and, you know, have always been, I think, a
1:54
Speaker 1: Frankenstein's mix of just like the cheesiest pop music. the
1:59
Speaker 1: hardest hip-hop and gangster rap, like the most classic Motown,
2:04
Speaker 1: the rock and roll, indie, 80s, 90s, early aughts, Broadway soundtracks,
2:10
Speaker 1: movie soundtracks, you know, just like me, my playlists contain multitudes, baby, but,
2:17
Speaker 1: you know, I can't read music for shit, and I
2:20
Speaker 1: can't play an instrument to save my life, so my
2:25
Speaker 1: understanding can really only go so far here, but You know,
2:28
Speaker 1: I've always been and continue to be in just total
2:33
Speaker 1: awe of musical people. And Jules, you are a very
2:39
Speaker 1: musical person. You know, you live this, you breed this.
2:43
Speaker 1: And we're going to dig into this, you know, more
2:44
Speaker 1: with our guests today. But by way of, I guess,
2:47
Speaker 1: introducing the conversation, if you had like two minutes, like
2:51
Speaker 1: how would you sum up your entry into the world
2:54
Speaker 1: of music? And the good, bad, and ugly parts of
2:58
Speaker 1: your life as a working musician today.
3:00
Speaker 2: So, hey, Max. Glad to see you, buddy. Man, thank
3:04
Speaker 2: you so much for the invite to host this conversation.
3:06
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to be a part of. And I
3:09
Speaker 2: guess the short and simple of why I decided to
3:12
Speaker 2: make a go of music is that I consider myself
3:14
Speaker 2: to be, to a certain extent, largely unemployable. And I
3:19
Speaker 2: sort of just dreaded the thought of having to maintain
3:22
Speaker 2: a consistent nine to five. But I knew music was
3:25
Speaker 2: something that I could wake up early if I needed to,
3:28
Speaker 2: you know, but something I would wake up for anytime
3:32
Speaker 2: I could be a part of it. And so in
3:34
Speaker 2: some ways, it's the only thing that I can do.
3:36
Speaker 2: But in other ways, it's also led me to everything
3:39
Speaker 2: else that I do, you know, whether that's studio work
3:42
Speaker 2: or live sound and eventually music. things like photography and
3:46
Speaker 2: shooting music videos and podcasting, flying drones and everything that,
3:51
Speaker 2: you know, it all kind of just comes back to
3:52
Speaker 2: the central urge of wanting to figure out how to
3:56
Speaker 2: make a living out of taking the guitar on stage
3:59
Speaker 2: and just playing original and covers and seeing how to
4:03
Speaker 2: make it go with that. You know, somewhere in there,
4:06
Speaker 2: I decided to challenge myself, see if I could actually
4:08
Speaker 2: like make a living out of it. And that's ended
4:12
Speaker 2: up why I produce podcasts too. You know, I mean,
4:15
Speaker 2: so many gigs come out of needing other gigs to
4:18
Speaker 2: support the music. You know, it's like it's something that
4:21
Speaker 2: benefits you to help support it in some ways. I mean,
4:24
Speaker 2: it's like a dream, hope and a prayer. But like
4:26
Speaker 2: somehow you're like, hey, but I ended up with like
4:28
Speaker 2: seven career paths. So anyway, but that's that's how I
4:32
Speaker 2: got into stuff, man.
4:33
Speaker 3: Well, let's let's talk about this more. Right.
4:36
Speaker 1: Because I know I have so many questions and I'm
4:38
Speaker 1: sure our listeners have so many questions. Like, what is
4:42
Speaker 1: it actually like and what does it actually take to
4:45
Speaker 1: make a living as a working musician today? What does
4:48
Speaker 1: the music industry as it exists today take from musicians
4:53
Speaker 1: and take from the rest of us? And what are
4:56
Speaker 1: we getting in return? And like, you know, is that
4:59
Speaker 1: bargain worth it anymore? And how do the working and
5:03
Speaker 1: living conditions of music makers and, you know, all these
5:07
Speaker 1: money making schemes of the music industry change? How do
5:11
Speaker 1: all those shape the actual music that we make and
5:15
Speaker 1: consume and listen to and dance to and think to
5:18
Speaker 1: and live to? Like, how do they shape the ways
5:21
Speaker 1: that we relate to music itself? So this is what
5:25
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about today. And I am
5:28
Speaker 1: just beyond excited and really, really grateful to be talking
5:32
Speaker 1: with all four members of veteran Chicago rock band, The
5:36
Speaker 1: Empty Pockets.
5:37
Speaker 3: So they're here with us now to dig into all this.
5:40
Speaker 1: And thank you all so much for joining us on
5:43
Speaker 1: the show today. And Jules, thank you so much for
5:45
Speaker 1: co-hosting this, man. So let's go around the table and
5:48
Speaker 1: have you all introduce yourselves and your band to our listeners.
5:52
Speaker 4: Max, Jules, thank you so much for having us. That
5:56
Speaker 4: was so many insightful things you guys said already. I'm Josh.
6:00
Speaker 4: I'm the guitar player of the Empty Pockets, and I
6:02
Speaker 4: started this band with Nate. 20 years ago, our singer
6:06
Speaker 4: and keyboard player Erica is my wife, and I have
6:10
Speaker 4: made a full-time living humbly, a humble full-time living in
6:14
Speaker 4: music and the arts for well over 20 years.
6:18
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Adam.
6:19
Speaker 4: I play drums with the Empty Pockets, but also as
6:24
Speaker 4: a working band, I do a lot.
6:26
Speaker 5: We all do a lot of stuff that has nothing
6:29
Speaker 5: to do with music. So I do customer service and.
6:32
Speaker 4: Shipping, and we do warehousing.
6:35
Speaker 5: We load our own gear.
6:36
Speaker 4: We do a lot of work outside of just our
6:40
Speaker 4: instruments somewhat, unfortunately.
6:42
Speaker 5: I think we'll get into that at some point probably.
6:44
Speaker 5: But yes, drugs.
6:47
Speaker 6: Yes, we are all Renaissance people, as you said early
6:50
Speaker 6: in this broadcast.
6:52
Speaker 7: I'm Erica. I play keyboards, so organ, Rhodes, piano, and piano.
6:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've been a full-time musician for almost 20 years,
7:03
Speaker 6: maybe longer than 20 years. And my big role with
7:06
Speaker 6: the band is graphic design, merchandise development, and social media
7:12
Speaker 6: promotions and marketing.
7:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, we all have a lot of hats.
7:16
Speaker 5: Hey, I'm Nate. I play the bass.
7:19
Speaker 8: This is one of my hats.
7:22
Speaker 9: We have a lot of roles, and one of my
7:25
Speaker 9: roles is physical maintenance and So Josh and I actually
7:30
Speaker 9: built the studio room that we're in. And we have
7:34
Speaker 9: built this room out over 15 years or 16 years,
7:38
Speaker 9: quite physically. Like we literally have done all of the
7:41
Speaker 9: work or very close to all of the work. And
7:43
Speaker 9: it's just one of the things that you end up
7:46
Speaker 9: doing to become and maintain your status.
7:49
Speaker 8: As a professional musician.
7:51
Speaker 4: You're also the vehicle guy.
7:52
Speaker 8: Well, that's true.
7:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:53
Speaker 4: It's a physical thing.
7:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. Physical stuff.
7:55
Speaker 4: Nate's very mechanical.
7:56
Speaker 3: Let's, I mean, like, let's not sell him short.
7:59
Speaker 1: Like we call that the getaway guy, you know?
8:03
Speaker 2: Well, Josh, Erica, Nate, and Adam, man, it's, it's so
8:07
Speaker 2: cool to be talking with y'all. And I think it's,
8:10
Speaker 2: it's funny how like immediately in this conversation, there's a,
8:13
Speaker 2: there's a sort of vibe of like anything we have
8:16
Speaker 2: to do to keep doing what we're doing. You know,
8:19
Speaker 2: I mean, that's kind of the credo around that I
8:23
Speaker 2: think of from time to time. But I guess I
8:25
Speaker 2: have a very broad question. And in that broadness, I'd
8:28
Speaker 2: like to invite you to get as specific as you'd like.
8:31
Speaker 2: But said very plainly, how are y'all making this work
8:35
Speaker 2: today in today's touring climate? So rarely do we get
8:39
Speaker 2: to speak to a band that has been together as
8:41
Speaker 2: long as y'all have. And so in this shared experience
8:44
Speaker 2: of performing, how are y'all contending with this changing landscape?
8:48
Speaker 2: Like where have you had to pivot? Not just like
8:50
Speaker 2: in rising gas prices and inflation and the ever more
8:53
Speaker 2: difficult task of convincing folks to put pants on and
8:56
Speaker 2: leave the house, but also like in the merch game.
8:59
Speaker 2: I mean, selling your music and physical media at shows
9:02
Speaker 2: is more often than the sort of t-shirt and trinket
9:04
Speaker 2: hustle at times, you know? Um, So basically the odds
9:08
Speaker 2: of an independent band being successful in air quotes, however
9:12
Speaker 2: we define that, right? If I'm going to use the
9:14
Speaker 2: word successful in terms of carving out a meter existence,
9:18
Speaker 2: those odds are ever more stacked against us. And so
9:21
Speaker 2: what are you doing differently today compared to, say, maybe 2005, right?
9:27
Speaker 2: And where are you all finding the most success?
9:31
Speaker 4: It's Josh here, and I'm 41, so... 2005, 2006, you know,
9:37
Speaker 4: I'm 20, 21 years old, totally delusional, you know, with
9:42
Speaker 4: no perspective on, how do I totally put it? Every
9:46
Speaker 4: time we go to a town, a fan says to me, oh,
9:49
Speaker 4: you got to come play in this place. We're in
9:52
Speaker 4: a 200 seat venue, right? Every time a fan is like,
9:55
Speaker 4: you got to come play this little place in my town.
9:57
Speaker 4: I look it up, that place he's talking about, every time.
10:00
Speaker 4: time is 2000 seats. People have zero concept. We're like
10:05
Speaker 4: a 200 seat theater band. People have zero concept of
10:10
Speaker 4: the amount of things between us and the era's tour.
10:16
Speaker 4: And I think to From my perspective, and I'd love
10:18
Speaker 4: to hear what you guys have to say to answer
10:20
Speaker 4: even just a part of that question is, we've doubled
10:24
Speaker 4: down on physical media so hard and we talk to
10:30
Speaker 4: and collect, and this is working increasingly better, I think,
10:34
Speaker 4: as a portion of the population feels more and more
10:37
Speaker 4: left out by the commoditization of music. You know, when
10:43
Speaker 4: you put music on a streaming platform and it's the
10:48
Speaker 4: same every single song ever made on every streaming platform,
10:52
Speaker 4: which is different than movies and TV, that becomes a
10:55
Speaker 4: water tap. And it's just a price race to the bottom.
11:00
Speaker 4: So we basically, while we put our music on those services,
11:04
Speaker 4: from our perspective, that's like a token.
11:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, we used to kind of be waiting for our
11:10
Speaker 7: prints to come. As some people say, you know.
11:13
Speaker 4: Attracting an A & R to ride?
11:14
Speaker 1: Like, you know, people.
11:16
Speaker 7: that we had a song that some, some radio people
11:18
Speaker 7: were like, this could be a hit. And then you're,
11:20
Speaker 7: you're waiting for that to be the case.
11:23
Speaker 6: Now that wasn't the case for us, but we were
11:25
Speaker 6: able to, over the course of the last 20 years,
11:29
Speaker 6: but really over the last kind of how you described
11:31
Speaker 6: 10 years, um, diversify our income streams. We went from,
11:36
Speaker 6: you know, playing whatever game we could get to becoming
11:39
Speaker 6: a backing band for artists with large followings and then
11:43
Speaker 6: opening for those artists to, gain awareness and gain more
11:47
Speaker 6: fans and also prioritizing an e-commerce strategy, which is what
11:52
Speaker 6: Josh was talking about, our physical products. And so like we've, yeah,
11:56
Speaker 6: we've moved away from streaming. Streaming is great. And we
11:59
Speaker 6: also listen to music there, but for our business, we
12:03
Speaker 6: are directing people to physical products and shows.
12:05
Speaker 4: You know, Jules, you had mentioned one of the reasons
12:09
Speaker 4: we all get into this is because like I just
12:11
Speaker 4: don't want to go to a nine to five every day.
12:13
Speaker 4: I want to do something different every day. So like
12:15
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago, this studio needed repainted. And
12:18
Speaker 4: one of the ways you stay a full-time musician is
12:21
Speaker 4: you don't hire a painter. You buy some paint and
12:24
Speaker 4: you paint the studio. So I found myself and Adam
12:27
Speaker 4: and Nate here. And Adam, do you remember what you
12:29
Speaker 4: said as we were painting it?
12:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
12:30
Speaker 4: I always say I could, I like any job, manual labor, the, whatever,
12:36
Speaker 4: like the hardest thing you're imagining is weeping today right now.
12:40
Speaker 4: I like that for like one day, three days I'm outside,
12:44
Speaker 4: I'm up on a roof.
12:45
Speaker 5: It's cool.
12:46
Speaker 1: A week.
12:47
Speaker 4: Well, like turning anything into a career is so daunting,
12:50
Speaker 4: but yeah, with that is how we save money and
12:52
Speaker 4: kind of stay afloat is like, we, we paid, did that.
12:55
Speaker 4: You were talking about building this studio and then I
12:56
Speaker 4: was like, oh yeah. And then it's white now because
12:58
Speaker 4: when it is repainted, we painted it and, and stuff
13:01
Speaker 4: like that is how we, yeah, we've kind of taken and,
13:04
Speaker 4: and we're not waiting for that lottery ticket. We would
13:07
Speaker 4: love our song to go crazy on the radio or
13:09
Speaker 4: streaming or whatever. not waiting for that lottery ticket we
13:11
Speaker 4: were acquiring fans one at a time and we're like
13:13
Speaker 4: doing all the work or we like to think we're
13:15
Speaker 4: doing all the work ourselves and we're we're desperate and
13:19
Speaker 4: we're doing it all jules had the same uh attitude
13:22
Speaker 4: as us in terms of i don't want to be
13:24
Speaker 4: a painter for a living i don't want to look
13:26
Speaker 4: down the barrel of that i'm impressed with somebody who
13:28
Speaker 4: can do that i know some amazing house painters but
13:32
Speaker 4: i'm not above painting i'm not above doing some electric Well,
13:36
Speaker 4: the thing.
13:36
Speaker 6: With owning an arts business of any kind, too, is
13:39
Speaker 6: that you are going to inevitably become a Renaissance person.
13:42
Speaker 6: You're going to have to learn about lighting so that
13:44
Speaker 6: you can make videos that resonate.
13:46
Speaker 7: You're going to have to learn about editing. You're going
13:47
Speaker 7: to have to learn all of these things about vehicle
13:50
Speaker 7: repair and, you know.
13:52
Speaker 4: The myth goes that when the Rolling Stones got to
13:56
Speaker 4: Chess Records here in Chicago, Muddy Waters was painting the wall.
14:00
Speaker 5: That's the myth.
14:01
Speaker 4: That when the Rolling Stones got to Chess in the
14:04
Speaker 4: early 60s, that muddy waters was painting. So it's not
14:07
Speaker 4: new at all.
14:09
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me too, because, um, so much of
14:13
Speaker 1: what you guys are saying, even as a self-professed non
14:18
Speaker 1: musical person or non musician, you know, so much of
14:22
Speaker 1: what you're talking about resonates with my own experience, um,
14:27
Speaker 1: as a creative, uh, and a creator in media spaces,
14:31
Speaker 1: you know, and like, just, just that need to kind
14:34
Speaker 1: of adapt to a, an ecosystem that's always changing. And
14:38
Speaker 1: there's always like, you know, opportunity in that as well
14:42
Speaker 1: as like a whole host of new threats and stressors
14:46
Speaker 1: to deal with.
14:47
Speaker 3: Like it's, it's wild, man.
14:49
Speaker 1: We're talking on a podcast I made because I was like,
14:52
Speaker 1: people aren't reading my articles anymore. And, you know, and like,
14:57
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of, process has sort of led
14:59
Speaker 1: me to get into audio reporting and now video reporting
15:03
Speaker 1: and like any and all of the above, you know, I,
15:06
Speaker 1: I love to do, but that there also comes a
15:10
Speaker 1: price with being able to make a living doing what
15:13
Speaker 1: you love. And I wanted to kind of talk about
15:16
Speaker 1: that too, right? Because I, I can't speak from your
15:20
Speaker 1: guys's and Jules's vantage points, right?
15:23
Speaker 3: Like that is your art, right?
15:25
Speaker 1: That is still different from the reporting that I do.
15:30
Speaker 1: The two very much intersect. I bring a lot of
15:32
Speaker 1: my artistic heart and spirit into the work that I do.
15:37
Speaker 3: But I.
15:40
Speaker 1: Know just by being privileged enough to get paid to
15:43
Speaker 1: do that for a living... that it really changes my
15:47
Speaker 1: relationship to the thing I'm doing, to the ways I
15:51
Speaker 1: feel about doing it.
15:53
Speaker 3: And like, you know, the love when.
15:55
Speaker 1: It becomes a job, you know, takes on all of
15:59
Speaker 1: that baggage from, you know, like all the unloving parts
16:05
Speaker 1: of life. So how does that affect you guys as
16:08
Speaker 1: musicians and the music that you make?
16:12
Speaker 4: Man, what a great question. Like, there's so many pieces
16:15
Speaker 4: that one that comes right to mind to me, and
16:17
Speaker 4: I want Nate to speak on this and Adam as well,
16:19
Speaker 4: is they both had children. And we're on the road. And,
16:23
Speaker 4: you know, our dreams are kind of coming true. We're
16:25
Speaker 4: at the London Palladium. It's sold out. But a month
16:28
Speaker 4: into a tour doing something you love, too, there's an
16:31
Speaker 4: element of like, do I... love this the same amount today,
16:36
Speaker 4: you know, and I don't know, Nate, what do you
16:38
Speaker 4: think about, you know, you have to leave your son
16:40
Speaker 4: at home for the first time pretty recently.
16:41
Speaker 9: Yeah, so my kid had just been born and then
16:44
Speaker 9: we went on tour in the UK for like a month. And,
16:47
Speaker 9: you know, we were in Amsterdam and all over the UK.
16:50
Speaker 9: We took the channel twice. So there was a bunch
16:52
Speaker 9: of stuff where I was like, this is cool. I
16:54
Speaker 9: should be ever present in this moment. And also like,
16:58
Speaker 9: it's hard because I wasn't seeing my newborn kid and
17:01
Speaker 9: my wife. And like, you know, you try and balance
17:03
Speaker 9: that emotionally, uh, and then like you get to play shows.
17:09
Speaker 9: So like I get that sweet juice that I need,
17:11
Speaker 9: you know, in order to make it through the next
17:13
Speaker 9: couple of days.
17:14
Speaker 4: Jules definitely knows this feeling too. When you're on tour,
17:17
Speaker 4: there's the same amount of time in every day when
17:19
Speaker 4: you're at home, except the part that you're leading towards
17:22
Speaker 4: is like an hour and a half. And the rest
17:25
Speaker 4: of the day is like leading towards that moment or
17:28
Speaker 4: coming away from that moment. And it is like an exhilarating,
17:31
Speaker 4: but like strange experience.
17:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:34
Speaker 9: Yeah.
17:34
Speaker 2: And then you get to figure out that like an
17:36
Speaker 2: hour is just like a completely useless denomination of time.
17:40
Speaker 2: Like it's just not enough to like dig into anything.
17:44
Speaker 2: It's not enough to like really relax if you need to.
17:47
Speaker 2: It's just, but you have like an hour before this
17:50
Speaker 2: one critical thing happens before you have another hour or something,
17:53
Speaker 2: you know? But yeah, I totally, you know, understand that, man.
17:57
Speaker 2: Like being away from home, it's difficult to, you know,
18:00
Speaker 2: especially with the sort of uh, constraints that a lean
18:03
Speaker 2: and mean tour might have on its subjects, you know, uh,
18:07
Speaker 2: being away from home, being somewhat restricted in that sense, uh, and,
18:10
Speaker 2: and being torn between like, you know, like these beautiful
18:13
Speaker 2: things you're experiencing on tour while also having the, the
18:17
Speaker 2: regret of having to leave. Like I, I got a
18:19
Speaker 2: buddy of mine who plays guitar with like playboy Cardi.
18:23
Speaker 2: Like the guy is on tour with that guy, um,
18:25
Speaker 2: playing arenas. And, uh, even he, the other day texted
18:28
Speaker 2: me as like, uh, my wife's due in 12 weeks
18:32
Speaker 2: and I leave for tour on in, in 13 weeks
18:34
Speaker 2: or something crazy like that, you know? So, but I
18:37
Speaker 2: wonder also like, you guys also seem like you're, you're
18:39
Speaker 2: very chummy, right? You've been together a long time. But
18:42
Speaker 2: I would say that like touring and these moments also
18:46
Speaker 2: kind of create friction amongst band members and, and inevitably
18:51
Speaker 2: you end up with like some comical story at some point.
18:54
Speaker 2: Do you guys have like a singular story you could
18:56
Speaker 2: pick out of some sort of tense moment that resulted in,
19:00
Speaker 2: and something hilarious.
19:01
Speaker 1: And remember, this is a worker and labor-focused show, so
19:07
Speaker 1: we're really talking about, yeah, give us a worker's eye
19:10
Speaker 1: view into the labor of having to go on tour
19:13
Speaker 1: with each other and deal with everything you're dealing with.
19:17
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know.
19:20
Speaker 4: There are no funny stories immediately come to mind. I'm
19:22
Speaker 4: sure they exist, but we're... being a band is like
19:26
Speaker 4: doing a group project with your immediate family which is
19:30
Speaker 4: like horrible at times and also amazing and it's like
19:35
Speaker 4: it's hard to.
19:35
Speaker 10: Communicate the band dynamic because it's like i deeply love
19:40
Speaker 10: these people and we live in a van and sometimes
19:44
Speaker 10: an airbnb or a hotel so it's like there's.
19:46
Speaker 4: An interesting balance there too of uh and i think
19:48
Speaker 4: a lot of small businesses have this balance like where
19:51
Speaker 4: to put your office how nice of a neighborhood to
19:53
Speaker 4: put it in that type of thing for us it's
19:55
Speaker 4: like how much to spend on a hotel how much
19:58
Speaker 4: to spend because there's a balance between sustainability vibe morale
20:03
Speaker 4: like man We've cheaped out a couple of times and
20:06
Speaker 4: checked into a hotel and it's just, and you're only
20:08
Speaker 4: there for 12 hours and it's just crushing your spirit.
20:12
Speaker 7: Bloody handprints.
20:14
Speaker 8: Oh my God.
20:15
Speaker 4: Oh my God. You guys.
20:16
Speaker 3: Jesus. What motels are you guys staying at?
20:20
Speaker 5: Was that the Bay Breeze Inn?
20:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say. The Bates Motel, man.
20:24
Speaker 6: Yeah.
20:24
Speaker 7: We've got some horror stories for sure.
20:27
Speaker 4: And in terms of like, from a worker perspective, there's
20:30
Speaker 4: nothing reasonable or OSHA friendly there. about how a band
20:35
Speaker 4: operates at our level at all, right? It's like in
20:39
Speaker 4: band at 7 a.m., maybe stop for a lunch. We
20:42
Speaker 4: have a tour manager who does most of our driving.
20:44
Speaker 5: Before that, it must have been really unsafe. It was
20:48
Speaker 5: just us.
20:48
Speaker 3: It was just us.
20:50
Speaker 4: And, you know, you go to an interview, you load in.
20:53
Speaker 4: The days are 14 and 15 hours, I always call
20:57
Speaker 4: on tour, like a processing deficit. Like you can't even
21:00
Speaker 4: go through what you did today before you get tomorrow done.
21:04
Speaker 4: And we've learned a lot about how to plan better,
21:06
Speaker 4: about how to demand more. I like to say a
21:09
Speaker 4: gig is legitimate when they offer you a meal. Like
21:13
Speaker 4: sometimes you go to a gig and you're there from
21:15
Speaker 4: 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. and you're like, is there
21:17
Speaker 4: anything to eat around here? And they're not like not
21:18
Speaker 4: within two miles.
21:20
Speaker 7: Want us to help with that?
21:20
Speaker 2: Why?
21:21
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah.
21:22
Speaker 2: Or the the green room plate of mac and cheese,
21:25
Speaker 2: you know, like the yeah.
21:26
Speaker 4: Yeah.
21:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's a testament every time I talk
21:30
Speaker 2: to musicians, you can tell who's really giving it a
21:33
Speaker 2: go because they have all of the ingredients for the recipe, right?
21:37
Speaker 2: Like they have all the social media, all the marketing,
21:39
Speaker 2: they actually have the website, the domain, the EPK, the video,
21:44
Speaker 2: the bio written by a third party that you probably
21:47
Speaker 2: paid someone for, you know, all of these different things
21:50
Speaker 2: that this elaborate recipe that just equates out to a
21:54
Speaker 2: starting point, right?
21:56
Speaker 4: It's so depressing.
21:56
Speaker 3: It's a start.
21:57
Speaker 4: That's a starting point.
21:59
Speaker 3: It's all a starting point.
22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:00
Speaker 4: You're using it as a metaphor, but just to exemplify,
22:04
Speaker 4: like we're the empty pockets. We take that seriously. We
22:07
Speaker 4: write about labor issues. Our next album is called dear billionaires.
22:11
Speaker 4: And to that effect, when we, especially when we open
22:13
Speaker 4: for someone on a tour, back them up, there's like
22:16
Speaker 4: an elaborate rider in that, you know, deli tray and chips, whatever,
22:22
Speaker 4: all this food, fruit. We have permanent coolers. We never
22:28
Speaker 4: leave a venue without as much food and ingredients. Like
22:32
Speaker 4: we have banned salt and pepper, you know? Like we
22:35
Speaker 4: literally stop at a picnic table on the side of
22:39
Speaker 4: the road and unpack our coolers And that's mostly lunch.
22:44
Speaker 4: And we've really embraced that.
22:45
Speaker 7: And we really have to be thrifty, like, in every
22:47
Speaker 7: part of what we do.
22:48
Speaker 6: Not only have the margins gotten worse, like you were saying, everywhere,
22:51
Speaker 6: in hotels, gas, food, all the things that, like, make
22:54
Speaker 6: our engine run. But, like, we don't, I was watching
22:59
Speaker 6: the Today Show this morning, it happened to be on,
23:00
Speaker 6: and they're giving financial advice.
23:02
Speaker 7: And without a steady paycheck, none of those things work
23:05
Speaker 7: for us.
23:06
Speaker 6: You know, like, we can't go to a financial planner
23:09
Speaker 6: in the same way somebody with a 401k, or just
23:12
Speaker 6: even a regular paycheck can, we really have to take
23:16
Speaker 6: saving money and spending it carefully very seriously.
23:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's just a testament in so many ways, right?
23:24
Speaker 2: Whenever I talk to any musician who's making this go
23:26
Speaker 2: and making it work, is that like, you know, you
23:29
Speaker 2: don't really need the bosses, just the workers can do
23:32
Speaker 2: anything under any conditions, with any circumstances that come up,
23:37
Speaker 2: on the road, with unsure pay. And we're just questionable
23:43
Speaker 2: sleeping conditions. You know, it's like where there is determination
23:48
Speaker 2: and this sort of this deep written desire to create
23:53
Speaker 2: music and to do this as a main vocation, as
23:57
Speaker 2: a focus, as a primary way of living your life. Like,
24:01
Speaker 2: it's just a testament to the incredible sort of willpower
24:04
Speaker 2: that comes from artists who will do anything to continue
24:07
Speaker 2: being able to create art. And so I'm not worried
24:11
Speaker 2: about a dictatorship of the proletariat at all. Cause like,
24:13
Speaker 2: you know, wait, have you seen some of the musicians
24:16
Speaker 2: we talk to people, you know?
24:17
Speaker 3: So, well, I, that's what I wanted to ask about actually.
24:21
Speaker 2: Right.
24:21
Speaker 1: Is like, you know, because music as far as any
24:26
Speaker 1: of us, and I say us as like, you know,
24:29
Speaker 1: musical and non-musical people, but like living in America, you know,
24:33
Speaker 1: as having the culture industry that we have, like music
24:39
Speaker 1: was as much a potential career path as like being
24:43
Speaker 1: a famous actor or a famous athlete right i mean
24:45
Speaker 1: there's there is like a a sort of level of
24:48
Speaker 1: superstardom that was selectively occupied by people like us it
24:55
Speaker 1: seemed growing up and it was possible to play music
25:00
Speaker 1: that was so good that reached so many people that
25:03
Speaker 1: you could make not just a living but a superstar's
25:06
Speaker 1: living And you could have all the security you could
25:09
Speaker 1: ever need and the fight from your humble beginnings and
25:14
Speaker 1: insecurities would all be worth it if you made it
25:17
Speaker 1: to that star echelon, right? I mean, same thing goes
25:19
Speaker 1: for the way we I thought about being a professional
25:22
Speaker 1: basketball player with my brothers for many years growing up,
25:25
Speaker 1: you know, uh, or even people now who are in
25:28
Speaker 1: the media and, and like see the media as like
25:33
Speaker 1: the only path for success in journalism or in the
25:36
Speaker 1: media is the superstar path where, you know, like you're
25:41
Speaker 1: getting paid so much and you have such a far
25:42
Speaker 1: reach that you're Joe Rogan. And like, you know, you
25:44
Speaker 1: can kind of have that echelon that none of us
25:47
Speaker 1: are ever going to ever reach, uh, But I say
25:51
Speaker 1: that all to say, obviously, there's always going to be
25:53
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who still look at these industries
25:57
Speaker 1: and vocations and arts and sports this way. But I
26:02
Speaker 1: think the veil's been lifted for a lot of us,
26:05
Speaker 1: and we're like, that ain't happening. I ain't making it,
26:09
Speaker 1: and no one else is making it in today's economy
26:12
Speaker 1: in that kind of direction. And there is a lot
26:17
Speaker 1: to be mourned about that. But I think there's also
26:19
Speaker 1: something that's very liberating when we are not pursuing our
26:24
Speaker 1: passions like out of a place of desperation or, you know,
26:30
Speaker 1: like out of desires for lavish, luxurious, you know, ridiculous wealth.
26:39
Speaker 1: And that struck me in something that I'd heard y'all, Josh,
26:43
Speaker 1: and everyone with the Empty Pockets is like not something
26:47
Speaker 1: that you've been aiming for. But you want to make
26:50
Speaker 1: like a good middle class living. And so I wanted
26:54
Speaker 1: to kind of meditate on that, like how once we
26:57
Speaker 1: sort of recalibrate our visions, our imaginations, and our hopes
27:03
Speaker 1: for what we want.
27:03
Speaker 3: To do with this, like what does that give you back?
27:07
Speaker 1: That like a career trying to make it in a
27:10
Speaker 1: Spotify age as a superstar would take from you otherwise.
27:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally agree, man.
27:16
Speaker 4: I like to think of it also like, like, like
27:19
Speaker 4: it's like becoming an astronaut, you know, to, to say, Oh,
27:22
Speaker 4: I'm going to go have John Mayer's career, or I'm
27:24
Speaker 4: going to go have Taylor Swift's career. It's, it's absurd,
27:28
Speaker 4: like a very more than ever. And I think it's good.
27:32
Speaker 4: The niche application of taste is, has made it so
27:35
Speaker 4: there are even fewer superstars than there used to be.
27:38
Speaker 4: There are very, very few superstars. Like I said, when
27:41
Speaker 4: I was in my twenties, I had these like delusions
27:44
Speaker 4: and like you let those, I let those go. And
27:48
Speaker 4: I discovered about myself. And I think you guys would
27:51
Speaker 4: agree that more than the massive success, because that for
27:55
Speaker 4: the most part, there are exceptions that comes with chains
27:58
Speaker 4: with the, you know, with, You were successful in this
28:01
Speaker 4: lane and now you have to deliver this thing. You know,
28:04
Speaker 4: brilliant people like that guy, Larry, the cable guy, his persona,
28:07
Speaker 4: you're stuck there. You have to deliver your thing. What
28:10
Speaker 4: I want more than anything else, which we have a
28:12
Speaker 4: lot of, is freedom. We make enough money to get by,
28:19
Speaker 4: but we can do whatever we want. Our biggest constraint
28:23
Speaker 4: artistically is like ourselves. That's what keeps me going.
28:27
Speaker 8: Jules, you had.
28:28
Speaker 9: Mentioned it previously, the changing landscape of the music industry.
28:33
Speaker 9: And I think one of the things, because we started
28:35
Speaker 9: as a band in 2006, so the music industry was
28:38
Speaker 9: literally like falling apart or had already fallen apart and
28:42
Speaker 9: some of the gatekeepers or higher-ups hadn't admitted it to themselves.
28:46
Speaker 9: The nature of the landscape was changing. And so we
28:50
Speaker 9: found that certain people that we would hire in positions,
28:53
Speaker 9: that's like their mindset. Like, let's get you to superstar
28:57
Speaker 9: down level. And I feel like going through that cycle
29:01
Speaker 9: a couple of two, three times, we were able to
29:04
Speaker 9: not only learn, but then solidify both in our minds
29:07
Speaker 9: and then out loud later, like here's what we consider success.
29:13
Speaker 4: And it's such a good point.
29:14
Speaker 8: If we can just do that, like we're a success.
29:19
Speaker 4: And philosophically, when Eric and I met before we got married,
29:22
Speaker 4: like one of our first dates, we went on and
29:24
Speaker 4: on to each other about scale. And Adam feels passionately
29:27
Speaker 4: about this as well. There are certain things in the
29:29
Speaker 4: world that need scale, right? We shouldn't do small businesses
29:32
Speaker 4: to get to the moon. You know, I get that.
29:34
Speaker 4: We need a certain amount of scale to make computer chips.
29:37
Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean every burger joint and coffee shop
29:41
Speaker 4: and bookstore needs to be scaled and there's an element
29:44
Speaker 4: okay we have economies of scale on one side but
29:46
Speaker 4: there's an element of massive inefficiency and what we found
29:51
Speaker 4: and we keep finding in entertainment in general is that
29:54
Speaker 4: the basic strategy to make someone a superstar is is
29:58
Speaker 4: brutal millions on raw awareness.
30:02
Speaker 7: Blanket, blanket marketing.
30:03
Speaker 4: That's why people get annoyed about hit songs, was they're
30:06
Speaker 4: hearing a song over and over again that's not even
30:08
Speaker 4: meant for them. Like, nobody wrote espresso from me. You know,
30:14
Speaker 4: like there was, but why did I hear it a
30:16
Speaker 4: hundred times? Like I wasn't interested. I gave zero indication
30:19
Speaker 4: of the choices I made in my life. Sabrina, it's
30:21
Speaker 4: for me.
30:21
Speaker 7: It's for me.
30:22
Speaker 4: And we have the ability with technology to target so
30:26
Speaker 4: accurately now. So like the major labels, including big movies,
30:31
Speaker 4: Marvel movies and stuff, they're all still doing this super inefficient,
30:35
Speaker 4: and we've decided the opposite. We want to build our
30:38
Speaker 4: small business and keep building it, getting razor focused. We
30:42
Speaker 4: get new fans every day, and we're trying to maximize
30:46
Speaker 4: their fandom of us and their value to us, but
30:49
Speaker 4: without worrying about getting to 10 million people a year.
30:53
Speaker 6: What I think you guys will appreciate is that we
30:56
Speaker 6: are a band, and yes, we're making music, but we
30:58
Speaker 6: took e-commerce strategies that are not based on music, that
31:02
Speaker 6: were based on books or Smaller items. And we kind
31:06
Speaker 6: of did our own authentic application of that for our career.
31:10
Speaker 6: And that has allowed us to expand our audience and
31:13
Speaker 6: find our audience through advertising, targeted ads, and.
31:18
Speaker 7: Word of mouth.
31:19
Speaker 4: Touring is about 40% of our revenue. It's something like that.
31:23
Speaker 4: a lot of our revenue is physical music. And a
31:26
Speaker 4: lot of that is shipped from here. I'm talking about vinyl,
31:29
Speaker 4: talking about CDs, not as many for us. It's a
31:32
Speaker 4: different type of band, not as many t-shirts for us.
31:35
Speaker 4: So I'd love to do more shirts. And that's all
31:38
Speaker 4: about just like using classic commerce, e-commerce and marketing logic
31:46
Speaker 4: to build a fan base in the same way that like,
31:49
Speaker 4: you know, a book company or a razor company would
31:52
Speaker 4: build their fan base.
31:54
Speaker 2: I love that y'all brought up Sabrina Carpenter. Cause I,
31:56
Speaker 2: she was not on my radar. And then this last
31:58
Speaker 2: album dropped and her marketing was all over the place.
32:02
Speaker 2: And I just slowly got initiated into the house tour track. And, uh, uh,
32:07
Speaker 2: and you know, the, the, the, the one where he
32:09
Speaker 2: talks about maybe it's slow or whatever, but now I
32:11
Speaker 2: know her lyrics. I know her like kind of visual
32:14
Speaker 2: signature and it's, it's funny because, Come.
32:16
Speaker 1: On, man.
32:17
Speaker 3: Man Child is a bop. The whole album is a bop.
32:21
Speaker 3: It is awesome. Man Child is such a bop. It's
32:23
Speaker 3: such a bop.
32:24
Speaker 1: Men today need to hear it. It is an anthem
32:28
Speaker 1: for the ages. That and Olivia Dean's Man I Need
32:31
Speaker 1: are like two of the most essential songs that every
32:34
Speaker 1: fucking man who is alive today needs to hear. And
32:38
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an accident that our zeitgeist is
32:40
Speaker 1: producing such songs desperate beautiful pleas from women for men
32:45
Speaker 1: to fucking be better and i think it's through music
32:48
Speaker 1: where a lot of men learn that kind of thing
32:51
Speaker 1: um and i think that's a good thing i didn't
32:53
Speaker 1: i don't mean to stand on a soapbox here but
32:54
Speaker 1: i was just i didn't realize i was going to
32:56
Speaker 1: defend sabrina carpenter so virulently but you guys stirred me
33:00
Speaker 1: up baby.
33:01
Speaker 4: And this newer album is fantastic uh and there are
33:05
Speaker 4: all these you're right that that thread is all around
33:08
Speaker 4: music taylor swift olivia rodrigo has that same vibe maybe
33:12
Speaker 4: men will listen i don't know.
33:13
Speaker 1: They will and i think there's there's honestly uh and
33:16
Speaker 1: i'm just speaking personally here and then then i'll we'll
33:18
Speaker 1: kind of bring things around the final turn here because
33:21
Speaker 1: i can't keep you guys for too long although i
33:23
Speaker 1: could talk to you for hours um you know like
33:26
Speaker 1: i i think i had reached a state of exhaustion
33:29
Speaker 1: uh recently and and it felt like a almost a
33:35
Speaker 1: decade long period of cultural exhaustion, right? I mean, like,
33:39
Speaker 1: and I don't think I'm alone. I think a lot
33:41
Speaker 1: of us felt that and we receded into it, especially
33:44
Speaker 1: with COVID. Like we watched the same series that we
33:47
Speaker 1: already had seen, movies we already knew, songs we already
33:51
Speaker 1: had on our playlist. Like I know for myself, like
33:54
Speaker 1: as a lifelong lover of art and culture and new things,
34:00
Speaker 1: I really like retreated. And I think part of it,
34:03
Speaker 1: not all of it, was fueled by the sort of
34:06
Speaker 1: feeling that it's like, nothing's good anymore. Like, you know,
34:08
Speaker 1: or like the quality of everything is sucking just a
34:11
Speaker 1: little bit more each time. And I'm not participating in it,
34:14
Speaker 1: damn it. I'm going to hang on to the things
34:15
Speaker 1: I know are good and just listen to those for
34:18
Speaker 1: the rest of my life.
34:19
Speaker 7: Right.
34:19
Speaker 1: So that's, that's the kind of petulant place that I
34:22
Speaker 1: was in as like a modern music listener. And again,
34:26
Speaker 1: I feel like I've talked to a lot of people
34:28
Speaker 1: who felt that same way. And I think that actually
34:31
Speaker 1: the Spotify algorithms and stuff sort of reinforce the that
34:35
Speaker 1: sense of, of, you know, like just playing the hits or,
34:38
Speaker 1: or like kind of trapping us in these silos, these
34:41
Speaker 1: cultural silos, instead of getting to explore and experience and
34:46
Speaker 1: find bands like yours that we would like, but have
34:49
Speaker 1: no idea exist, you know? And, and I know that, that,
34:53
Speaker 1: you know, people are looking for that. They're hungry for that.
34:56
Speaker 1: And I am so goddamn grateful when I hear it
34:59
Speaker 1: coming out of my speakers, and I, I guess to
35:02
Speaker 1: just tie a bow on the point, like I've been
35:04
Speaker 1: hearing that of late with some songs that, that have
35:08
Speaker 1: given me some hope in, in pop culture of late.
35:11
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it goes back to, yeah,
35:14
Speaker 1: like Olivia Dean, Rodrigo, you know, like Sabrina Carpenter and,
35:18
Speaker 1: you know, the somber, you know, I think like, you know, there's,
35:20
Speaker 1: there's a lot of necessary cultural, like discussion that is
35:27
Speaker 1: happening in and through those songs that like needs to
35:31
Speaker 1: be had and isn't happening in enough places.
35:33
Speaker 3: So I thank music for that.
35:35
Speaker 1: And I wanted to sort of bring us back around
35:38
Speaker 1: to that sort of beautiful, necessary part of what music
35:42
Speaker 1: is for all of us and what we look to
35:43
Speaker 1: music for. And I wanted to ask y'all, all of you, Jules,
35:47
Speaker 1: you're included in this. I'm roping you into our final round.
35:50
Speaker 1: But like, let's start with like, what is your least
35:53
Speaker 1: favorite part about being a working musician? And what is
35:56
Speaker 1: your favorite part that makes that and everything else worth it?
36:00
Speaker 4: Uh, I'll, I'll start and say my least favorite part
36:03
Speaker 4: of being a working musician is that it made music work.
36:07
Speaker 4: And this was alluded to earlier, but like I leave
36:10
Speaker 4: here a lot of times and I put a baseball
36:12
Speaker 4: game on or sports talk radio on or something like
36:14
Speaker 4: that because the sap so little bit of my, like, uh.
36:18
Speaker 5: You know, like my musical energy. And so anyone who like.
36:22
Speaker 4: Has a nine to five job and you get a
36:24
Speaker 4: pizza and some beer on a Friday night.
36:25
Speaker 5: You play music with your friends.
36:27
Speaker 4: Know that I am so jealous of that. And like
36:30
Speaker 4: the magic in that is a little bit is a
36:33
Speaker 4: little bit lost. I will say we're almost chasing that.
36:36
Speaker 4: We are.
36:37
Speaker 9: Yes.
36:37
Speaker 4: And and paradoxically, and I love paradoxes again, the strength,
36:41
Speaker 4: the weakness, the pro, the con. I always say, like,
36:44
Speaker 4: we're a band. Like, we're arts kids. Like, we couldn't have...
36:48
Speaker 4: We all committed to being artists.
36:50
Speaker 5: We're artists.
36:51
Speaker 4: And the irony is we ran headfirst into running our
36:55
Speaker 4: own small business. And I was playing around with spreadsheets
36:58
Speaker 4: and exporting CSVs this morning as Aerie was doing her
37:02
Speaker 4: design work.
37:02
Speaker 5: As, like, Nape was patching... Is patching, like, a hole
37:05
Speaker 5: in the... The asphalt.
37:06
Speaker 4: In the asphalt in the parking lot. And Josh literally
37:10
Speaker 4: has his hands on all of that stuff. And to me,
37:12
Speaker 4: it's both.
37:13
Speaker 5: I like that.
37:14
Speaker 4: I like doing the spreadsheets, but also like that's, we do,
37:17
Speaker 4: we do this, we do the drums and stuff.
37:19
Speaker 5: So, so much less. It's like a.
37:22
Speaker 4: Fraction of what we do is play music. Mostly like
37:24
Speaker 4: we're running a.
37:26
Speaker 9: Small, small business.
37:27
Speaker 4: That's a great answer. I think my least favorite part
37:29
Speaker 4: or one of my least favorite parts is feeling like
37:32
Speaker 4: I'm getting in the way. or looking down on or
37:36
Speaker 4: kind of sending in any way to like the hobby musician.
37:38
Speaker 4: So it's a similar thing to you. And while not
37:41
Speaker 4: getting invited into the hobby musician world anymore, both the combination.
37:45
Speaker 4: So it's really similar to what you're saying. You know
37:47
Speaker 4: what I mean? Like I, and when I do get
37:49
Speaker 4: invited to the dudes who didn't great musicians who now
37:52
Speaker 4: do other stuff, Maybe it's just in my head, but
37:55
Speaker 4: I feel like a little bit like I'm intruding, like
37:57
Speaker 4: I'm doing, like I don't love to do, Eric is
38:00
Speaker 4: such a great singer, like, and she doesn't love to
38:01
Speaker 4: do karaoke and everybody goes crazy, but it feels like,
38:04
Speaker 4: am I intruding on this mace? The paradox.
38:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:09
Speaker 9: The least favorite part for me, I think, is early mornings,
38:15
Speaker 9: late nights while you're chugging it out on tour. And
38:19
Speaker 9: sometimes this can become never ending based on the schedule. Like,
38:23
Speaker 9: I don't deal well with life without my, I don't know,
38:27
Speaker 9: 10 hours of beauty sleep.
38:28
Speaker 8: You don't get this good looking without a lot.
38:30
Speaker 5: Of sleep is what I'm saying.
38:32
Speaker 9: And so everybody out in audio land, I'm gorgeous.
38:36
Speaker 5: Very attractive, mate.
38:39
Speaker 9: I've been compared to the Greek gods of old.
38:42
Speaker 8: And so the morning's late nights, it just kills you
38:46
Speaker 8: after a while.
38:47
Speaker 9: And like, you feel that every one of us, if
38:49
Speaker 9: we're out for long enough, you get sick. And then
38:52
Speaker 9: you're spreading sickness around the van because you're all just
38:54
Speaker 9: sitting in a dumb.
38:55
Speaker 5: Van for hours. Like, I don't like that part.
38:58
Speaker 9: But it all pays off because while you're on the road,
39:02
Speaker 9: you get the purest of the sweet juice, which is
39:05
Speaker 9: you're playing music live and you enter, you all enter
39:08
Speaker 9: this flow state together. You're creating art that may never
39:13
Speaker 9: exist again in this moment. Oh, worth all of that
39:17
Speaker 9: early morning, late night stuff. And let me just cut
39:20
Speaker 9: off Erica really quick. Because we'll get to Erica.
39:24
Speaker 4: Nate went there, so let me just say in case
39:26
Speaker 4: my wife listens to this, I miss my wife and
39:28
Speaker 4: children when I'm on a road.
39:30
Speaker 5: It's the real answer. Sorry, Erica, go ahead.
39:33
Speaker 7: Good job, band. Good job. Mine is similar to Bates,
39:39
Speaker 7: whereas he was talking about late nights, early mornings.
39:42
Speaker 6: What we do, the travel and the carrying of equipment
39:45
Speaker 6: and gear and bags that we do is hard on
39:48
Speaker 6: the body.
39:49
Speaker 7: And we went in age order in this wrap up
39:54
Speaker 7: and I'm the oldest.
39:56
Speaker 6: And as we get older, like taking care of your
39:59
Speaker 6: body has become like much bigger of a priority.
40:03
Speaker 7: And it turns out it serves the music part like
40:06
Speaker 7: a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot. You
40:09
Speaker 7: need to be in good health. You need to be
40:11
Speaker 7: in good shape.
40:12
Speaker 4: That's such a labor issue across the board. You know,
40:15
Speaker 4: you have to take care of your body to keep
40:16
Speaker 4: being whatever profession it is you are.
40:18
Speaker 6: And I had to do a lot of like doctoring personally.
40:21
Speaker 6: I have a lot of chronic health stuff. So it's
40:23
Speaker 6: been like a lot to navigate.
40:24
Speaker 7: You come home from tour and you're rushing appointments in
40:27
Speaker 7: and you're trying to do things that you can, you know,
40:31
Speaker 7: apply on the road.
40:33
Speaker 6: So it is really difficult. But that being said, it's
40:36
Speaker 6: led me on a path to be stronger physically, mentally.
40:41
Speaker 6: And the best part is being on stage, connecting to
40:46
Speaker 6: my best friends.
40:48
Speaker 7: Up there, the new.
40:50
Speaker 6: Friends in the audience, and feeling this like cosmic moment
40:53
Speaker 6: that we share and no one can take away from
40:57
Speaker 6: us no matter what happens.
40:58
Speaker 7: It's a radical act of joy. And in a time
41:02
Speaker 7: where there's fascism coming our direction in many ways, what
41:07
Speaker 7: we can do is create and give and be with
41:11
Speaker 7: one another and love one another.
41:13
Speaker 3: Well said.
41:14
Speaker 1: Excellent. Yeah.
41:15
Speaker 3: Beautifully, beautifully put.
41:17
Speaker 2: Matt, well, to follow all that up, man, I guess,
41:22
Speaker 2: you know, my least favorite thing about being a professional
41:25
Speaker 2: musician is that everyone sees the work as play and
41:30
Speaker 2: then Well, I mean, so one instance of this, right,
41:35
Speaker 2: is that like I think of myself somewhat like a
41:38
Speaker 2: carpenter in the sense that I have a truck and
41:40
Speaker 2: I have all of my tools in it and I
41:42
Speaker 2: drive around and.
41:43
Speaker 3: It's a beat up.
41:45
Speaker 2: Vehicle that takes me from contract to contract where i
41:48
Speaker 2: unload my stuff and i plug in and i do
41:50
Speaker 2: what i do but right but if i get pulled
41:53
Speaker 2: over i'm not a worker all of a sudden i'm
41:56
Speaker 2: a long-haired guy that probably has some weed in the
41:58
Speaker 2: car and i ain't out doing shit i'm out playing
42:02
Speaker 2: is what i'm doing not working right um and so
42:05
Speaker 2: yeah and the whole small business thing behind stuff man
42:08
Speaker 2: it's It gets rolled real fast being like the envy
42:10
Speaker 2: of every married guy being like, oh, you have so
42:12
Speaker 2: much freedom and you just go play music. And it's like, no, man,
42:15
Speaker 2: like I have bills, dude. Like this is work. But
42:19
Speaker 2: not only that, like it's like you must have so
42:21
Speaker 2: much fun doing this. I was like, oh, you think
42:23
Speaker 2: I have fun trying to write heartfelt poetry? You know,
42:28
Speaker 2: like I take this work more seriously than anything else
42:32
Speaker 2: in my life to where like this pen and paper
42:34
Speaker 2: has ruined me. Like, putting pen to paper to put
42:37
Speaker 2: down some sort of heartfelt poetry that can also be,
42:41
Speaker 2: you know, abide by a catchy melody to where I
42:44
Speaker 2: can go out and project that into the world for
42:46
Speaker 2: that singular cosmic moment that I live for.
42:49
Speaker 3: That is work.
42:49
Speaker 2: And people somehow think I'm, like, enjoying the process at times.
42:53
Speaker 3: You know?
42:55
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's a weird paradox, man, because... You know,
43:00
Speaker 2: it's like, you'll always be a disappointment to your parents
43:03
Speaker 2: who wanted you to become a doctor, but somehow you
43:05
Speaker 2: have to hold the knowledge of a doctor, you know, like,
43:08
Speaker 2: and train yourself physically to get to this apex of
43:12
Speaker 2: performance and you're 40 now, you know, and you do
43:17
Speaker 2: this and somehow there's still people that look at you
43:20
Speaker 2: and they're like, I don't really understand what this guy does.
43:23
Speaker 4: You know, so spot on Jules.
43:26
Speaker 7: Sometimes I got to meet you in a mall once
43:29
Speaker 7: you're still doing that.
43:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.
43:31
Speaker 2: Or like, but it goes like, Oh, you're still doing
43:33
Speaker 2: the photography thing. What do you mean? I'm still doing
43:36
Speaker 2: the photography thing.
43:38
Speaker 3: You know, like it's a vocation. It's a career path.
43:41
Speaker 3: It's an, it's a form of art.
43:43
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, I don't, I don't know, man.
43:45
Speaker 2: It's like, uh, But when you do have the choice
43:47
Speaker 2: in this world of pouring over Excel sheets or breathing
43:50
Speaker 2: in toxic chemicals, right? It's like, I'd rather the Excel
43:54
Speaker 2: sheets be my Excel sheets, you know? Like, I'd rather
43:57
Speaker 2: all this stuff be for me. And that's where I'll
43:59
Speaker 2: work 80 hours for myself so I don't have to
44:01
Speaker 2: work 40 for somebody else, you know?
44:02
Speaker 9: Yes.
44:03
Speaker 4: Give me some toxic chemicals with those Excel sheets. I
44:07
Speaker 4: want to do it for myself.
44:09
Speaker 6: We could talk about the baseball card gum that he
44:11
Speaker 6: ate that was like 10 years old.
44:13
Speaker 4: Great point, Jules.
44:15
Speaker 1: Hey, man, like sadly, if you if you listen to
44:17
Speaker 1: a lot of the interviews we do on this show now,
44:20
Speaker 1: you'll realize that we're all getting blasted with toxic chemicals,
44:23
Speaker 1: whether we ask for it or not. But we're all
44:26
Speaker 1: going to be part of the fight to stop it.
44:28
Speaker 1: And we all got to be part of the, I think,
44:32
Speaker 1: solution to our own critiques of like the culture industry
44:36
Speaker 1: and the music industry especially. Right.
44:41
Speaker 3: And I would say the same is true for media
44:43
Speaker 3: and journalism.
44:45
Speaker 1: You are right to not like a lot of the
44:48
Speaker 1: things that are unlikable, but if you want the things
44:52
Speaker 1: you like to continue to exist and flourish and give
44:55
Speaker 1: you what you get out of them, you've got to
44:57
Speaker 1: support them. That's true whether you're talking about this podcast,
45:02
Speaker 1: The Real News Network, Jules' musical work, The Empty Pockets'
45:06
Speaker 1: musical work, independent creators everywhere. If we don't have your
45:12
Speaker 1: guys' support, there is a very real chance that we'll...
45:16
Speaker 1: go away or stop being able to do what we do.
45:21
Speaker 1: Even though we love what we do and we love
45:22
Speaker 1: doing it for you and for anyone who will ever
45:26
Speaker 1: hear it, see it, learn from it, get something from it.
45:29
Speaker 1: Like we're in it to win it, baby, but we
45:31
Speaker 1: need you guys to, to be part of it. Like
45:35
Speaker 1: we do it for you, but we can't do it
45:37
Speaker 1: without you. And so like ending on kind of that note,
45:41
Speaker 1: I wanted to just like sort of say that for any,
45:44
Speaker 1: Journalists and media makers and people who are interested in
45:48
Speaker 1: making a career out of that, since it's the one
45:51
Speaker 1: part of this discussion I can speak on, the advice
45:55
Speaker 1: I tend to give people is that don't commit yourself
45:59
Speaker 1: to doing this for a living. Commit yourself to doing
46:02
Speaker 1: it to fight for life and follow where that leads you.
46:07
Speaker 1: And in fact, it may be right and good and
46:10
Speaker 1: better for you to have multiple sources of income so
46:14
Speaker 1: that you don't have to make the object of your
46:16
Speaker 1: devotion and your skill, you know, like serve all these
46:20
Speaker 1: other ends, which means you're not going to be able
46:23
Speaker 1: to do it the way that you want to. The
46:25
Speaker 1: work is going to suffer. You are going to suffer.
46:27
Speaker 1: But there are still some pathways available to come through.
46:30
Speaker 1: join me at the table of the suffering and do
46:33
Speaker 1: this work you know professionally um but they are so
46:36
Speaker 1: few and far between and the ecosystem is changing so
46:39
Speaker 1: much so i can't in good conscience like advise anyone
46:42
Speaker 1: or coach anyone on that i can just tell you
46:44
Speaker 1: that i am you know like what i did to
46:46
Speaker 1: get where i am what i think we all need
46:49
Speaker 1: to do to do the work that needs to be
46:51
Speaker 1: done but the future is never assured and you know
46:54
Speaker 1: like you know we don't know what the That would
46:59
Speaker 1: be my central advice is, you know, you got to
47:01
Speaker 1: make a living however you can.
47:03
Speaker 3: And if you're committed to this, you know, do it.
47:06
Speaker 1: But don't make it all dependent on your ability to
47:10
Speaker 1: make a living from it because that may actually be
47:13
Speaker 1: more of a devil's bargain than you're looking for. And
47:16
Speaker 1: it may take the love of this from you. So
47:19
Speaker 1: just be very mindful of that. And now to all
47:23
Speaker 1: the musicians, the artists, the creators who have been listening
47:26
Speaker 1: to you brilliant people talk about, Your working lives for
47:30
Speaker 1: the past hour. I wanted to kind of give you
47:32
Speaker 1: all the last word on that, like any sort of
47:36
Speaker 1: advice you would give to other working artists out there
47:40
Speaker 1: or other folks who want to make a living making art.
47:43
Speaker 1: And also, please tell our good listeners where they can
47:46
Speaker 1: find more of you and your art.
47:49
Speaker 3: And the new album.
47:50
Speaker 4: We're The Empty Pockets everywhere, at The Empty Pockets on Instagram, TheEmptyPockets.com.
47:56
Speaker 4: And we have a new album out on Friday, October 23rd,
48:00
Speaker 4: called Dear Billionaires. It's our musical letter to the 3,600
48:06
Speaker 4: billionaires in the world. I would say to all musicians
48:11
Speaker 4: aspiring of any kind, I... increasingly agree with you max
48:16
Speaker 4: and i have met more musicians younger people that are
48:18
Speaker 4: saying i'm gonna commit my life to music but not
48:21
Speaker 4: commit my financial earning to to that and i think
48:25
Speaker 4: there's a lot to be said there and i think
48:27
Speaker 4: it's worth saying from our perspective we are a very
48:29
Speaker 4: middle class band and yet still i can think of
48:33
Speaker 4: dozens of times where we were so lucky where I
48:37
Speaker 4: look back and I think, oh my God, that happened,
48:39
Speaker 4: and that happened, and then we toured the UK three times,
48:42
Speaker 4: or that one thing got us 200 gigs. So you
48:48
Speaker 4: gotta be there. You can make your own luck, but still,
48:51
Speaker 4: nobody's getting anywhere on their own. A ton of people
48:54
Speaker 4: have helped us, and we've gotten very lucky. I would
48:57
Speaker 4: tell artists, anyone trying to make it, have realistic expectations.
49:02
Speaker 4: And I think for a lot of people, that means
49:03
Speaker 4: coming to grips with, you're gonna make $ 20, 000 or.
49:07
Speaker 5: Something like that.
49:08
Speaker 4: You're gonna have to live on that if you wanna
49:10
Speaker 4: be an artist for a good amount of time. And
49:13
Speaker 4: the harsh reality is, well, I think it's kind of, again, paradoxically,
49:17
Speaker 4: it's uplifting and it's harsh. A lot of people, I
49:19
Speaker 4: would say, like, your art is fine. People make, there's
49:22
Speaker 4: great art everywhere that you've never heard of or seen.
49:25
Speaker 4: There's great artists everywhere. A lot of people, like, if
49:27
Speaker 4: you really want to make it work, if you're committed,
49:29
Speaker 4: like you need to kind of treat it like a
49:31
Speaker 4: small business or something and treat your, yourself as an artist,
49:35
Speaker 4: like a small business.
49:36
Speaker 5: And we don't want to do that. We hate pricing
49:39
Speaker 5: our artwork out. It's hard. It's tough.
49:41
Speaker 4: But that's the reality is like good arts everywhere. If
49:44
Speaker 4: you really want to like make it a business, make
49:47
Speaker 4: it a business.
49:49
Speaker 5: Good book.
49:49
Speaker 8: It's tough.
49:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.
49:51
Speaker 6: I would say to piggyback off that, that balance is
49:55
Speaker 6: really important. You know, commercialize what you can so that
49:59
Speaker 6: you can keep making art, but don't lose the joy
50:02
Speaker 6: if you can't.
50:03
Speaker 4: Or find the perfect balance.
50:04
Speaker 6: Or find the perfect balance. Um, and, uh, I also
50:08
Speaker 6: agree that artists need support and, uh, that could change
50:13
Speaker 6: the world.
50:13
Speaker 8: And, uh, let's not forget, uh, the album comes out
50:17
Speaker 8: October 23rd.
50:18
Speaker 4: You can pre-order it now.
50:19
Speaker 9: If you want a pre-order from us, you can go
50:21
Speaker 9: to our website, pre-order it there. I have also been
50:24
Speaker 9: telling people to go to their local record store that
50:26
Speaker 9: they like to go to and request the album, you know,
50:30
Speaker 9: pre-order it through them. keeps the local economy going we
50:33
Speaker 9: love local record stores we want to build relationships with
50:35
Speaker 9: them and we also want you to spend your money
50:38
Speaker 9: at a local record.
50:38
Speaker 4: Store and we can say exclusively here we haven't said
50:41
Speaker 4: this publicly at all we are going to be releasing
50:43
Speaker 4: a special variant pricing so i want to make it
50:47
Speaker 4: clear the physical cd is exactly the same it's not
50:51
Speaker 4: signed it's not deluxe but we're going to Sell it
50:55
Speaker 4: to billionaires. If you are a billionaire, you can get
50:58
Speaker 4: our album, which we're selling for $ 20, for $ 285, 000. So
51:02
Speaker 4: that's going to be on our website next month. And
51:05
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure some billionaires are going to want that.
51:08
Speaker 4: They know they're superior, and so they know they need
51:10
Speaker 4: a superior version, which is actually the same, but costs $ 285, 000.
51:13
Speaker 9: I would welcome billionaires of all stripes to go ahead
51:17
Speaker 9: and take advantage of that billionaire pricing.
51:19
Speaker 8: And we handle all the packages.
51:22
Speaker 4: So if we see any billionaires buying the regular, we're
51:25
Speaker 4: going to see that.
51:26
Speaker 5: And we're billing you.
51:27
Speaker 4: I'm not sending that to you, Elon Musk. No way.
51:30
Speaker 9: J.B.
51:30
Speaker 5: Pritzker, come on, man.
51:31
Speaker 4: What are you doing? Buy the right version.
51:33
Speaker 8: We have a billionaire version for a reason.
51:36
Speaker 4: And to all the musicians out there, I would say,
51:39
Speaker 4: you know, continue to practice your dream.
51:42
Speaker 9: Go after it. But also, like, diversify your skill set
51:45
Speaker 9: as much as you can. Because you never know, A,
51:47
Speaker 9: what skill is going to become handy at a gig,
51:51
Speaker 9: on the road, dealing with merchandise or recording people, dealing
51:56
Speaker 9: with people inside the business. Diversify your skill set as
51:59
Speaker 9: much as you can. And, you know, get ready to
52:03
Speaker 9: make a lot of bean recipes for 10 or 15 years.
52:06
Speaker 9: You're going to live on a lot of beans.
52:07
Speaker 5: It's going to be fine. You're going to make it.
52:10
Speaker 8: Just beans.
52:11
Speaker 7: Yeah, be a learner. Be a learner and eat your beans.
52:14
Speaker 8: Eat your beans.
52:19
Speaker 3: All right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
52:22
Speaker 3: us today.
52:22
Speaker 1: I want to thank all of our guests from the
52:25
Speaker 1: great Chicago rock band, The Empty Pockets, Josh Solomon, Nate Bellin,
52:30
Speaker 1: Adam Belasco and Erica Brett. You can go learn more
52:33
Speaker 1: about The Empty Pockets and you can check out more
52:36
Speaker 1: of their music. Just use the links that we provided
52:38
Speaker 1: in the show notes for this episode. And of course,
52:41
Speaker 1: I want to thank you all for listening. And I
52:43
Speaker 1: want to thank you guys for caring about this. We
52:45
Speaker 1: do this work for you, but we cannot do it
52:48
Speaker 1: without you. Working People is a proud member of the
52:51
Speaker 1: Labor Radio Podcast Network, and it's brought to you in
52:54
Speaker 1: partnership with In These Times Magazine and The Real News Network.
52:58
Speaker 1: This show is produced by the one, the only, the
53:01
Speaker 1: great Jules Taylor. And man, Jules, thank you so much
53:05
Speaker 1: for doing this episode with me, brother. Like that, I
53:07
Speaker 1: thought that was awesome.
53:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I always love talking to musicians in
53:12
Speaker 2: the sense that they have their ear to the ground
53:16
Speaker 2: for alternatives to wage slavery in this cursed system, man.
53:22
Speaker 2: And so however they can gain traction, however they can
53:26
Speaker 2: get ahead, however they can make things work, it's not
53:30
Speaker 2: so much a picking of the brain of music theory
53:32
Speaker 2: or what music you're listening to that happens within conversations
53:35
Speaker 2: of musicians.
53:35
Speaker 3: It's more like, how are you doing this? What are
53:38
Speaker 3: you doing? What's working for you?
53:40
Speaker 2: So it was really great to hear that from a
53:42
Speaker 2: band that 20 years. It's a long time to be together,
53:45
Speaker 2: you know? So definitely some cool advice in there and, uh,
53:49
Speaker 2: and some really cool moments as well. I really appreciated
53:51
Speaker 2: being a part of this.
53:52
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man. It was great. We got to do
53:54
Speaker 3: more like this.
53:55
Speaker 1: And before we wrap this thing up, I wanted to ask,
53:59
Speaker 1: where can people find more of your music?
54:02
Speaker 2: Uh, you can search my name on any of the
54:04
Speaker 2: streaming things. Um, or you just turn on my website,
54:06
Speaker 2: which is JulesTaylorMusic.com.
54:11
Speaker 1: We'll see y'all back here next time for another episode
54:14
Speaker 1: of Working People. And in the meantime, go explore all
54:18
Speaker 1: the great work that we're doing at The Real News Network,
54:22
Speaker 1: where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices
54:25
Speaker 1: and stories from the front lines of struggle. Check us
54:28
Speaker 1: out across our YouTube channel, our different podcast feeds, our website.
54:33
Speaker 3: And our social media pages.
54:35
Speaker 1: And help us do more work like this by going
54:38
Speaker 1: to therealnews.com forward slash donate. And becoming a supporter today,
54:43
Speaker 1: I promise you guys, it really does make a difference.
54:47
Speaker 1: I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of
54:51
Speaker 1: each other. Solidarity forever.
54:55
Speaker 2: Yes, I live on.
55:09
Speaker 11: Wherever hungry, hungry are.
55:12
Speaker 3: We, just as hungry as hungry.
55:14
Speaker 11: Can be, it's sung, I live on, yes, I live on.
55:19
Speaker 11: While mean things are happening in this land, it's read
55:22
Speaker 11: or sung, I live on, yes, I live on. Wherever
55:26
Speaker 11: the book of mean things are happening in this land,
55:29
Speaker 11: it's read, I live on, yes, I live on. Whatever
55:34
Speaker 11: the videotape or media show, I live on, yes, I
55:39
Speaker 11: live on. If I have help to make this a
55:43
Speaker 11: better world to be in, I live on, yes, I
55:46
Speaker 11: live on. When my body is silent and insolent and brave,
55:51
Speaker 11: I live on, yes, I live on. When my songs
55:57
Speaker 11: and poems are read, I live on, yes, I live on.