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Jacob Givens- Content Creator - Waterproof Records · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: You might know him as the 90s music reaction guy from the internet, specifically Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube shorts.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But he also creates short films, sketches, and hosts a music podcast called Waterproof Records.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's also a musician with a few albums under his belt and a 90s themed cover band called Temple of the Dad.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The popularity of his viral videos have propelled him into such opportunities as being featured in Spin Magazine and taking over Smashing Pumpkin Instagram.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to welcome my friend Jacob Gibbons to the show.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get nostalgic.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, actor, writer, musician, content creator, and your 90s music reaction guy, Jacob Gibbons.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me on the show today, man.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, thank you so much, Mike.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm honored to be here.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for inviting me on the show.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is awesome.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have been following your content for oh, the better part of a year or more now, and I absolutely love it.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You did something recently.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is such a weird way to start a podcast.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get weird.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get weird.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you did something that I am as stubborn as a mule, and I hate to admit I'm wrong about anything.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So about six months to a year ago, I was having a conversation with some friends.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It might have even been with Adam Russell from Story of the Year.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we were talking really yeah, and we were talking about nostalgia, and we were talking about how it kind of has jumped a few generations.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: How you know you had the 70s bands like doing the tours in the 90s, and and the hair metal bands started to come back in the late 90s and do their big nostalgia tours, and there was just a big lull, and now we're seeing all the early 2000s emo pop punk bands doing their nostalgia tours to where I said, Yes, where are the 90s bands?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did nostalgia miss the 90s completely?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'd kind of written it off right until about a month or two ago, and I found out, and you're gonna love this.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: My 16-year-old daughter had discovered Smashing Pumpkins on her own.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, wonderful.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, on her own.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's incredible.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible, yes, good.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Her her life is better for it now.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, that led me down a spiral, and next thing I know, I'm buying the single soundtrack on vinyl, I'm buying the crow soundtrack on vinyl, and I'm getting back into the weeds of 90s music.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And like I I also attribute that to some of your videos, man.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's this whole nostalgia 90s wave.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I stumbled into it by accident.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: As you've probably heard the jokes before that it just doesn't seem like the 90s was that long ago.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there there it just feels like it was only a decade ago.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, it just it feels like time has flown by, especially in the 2000s, and it just doesn't seem like it was that long ago.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So my obsession and love of that generation's music, that's just been going on since I became an adult.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I just I continuously still go back to that era because it was my formative years, it was my teenage years.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: The most important uh musically for me, what influenced me as a songwriter, as a musician, just as a person in general.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep up with uh bands, but not at that same level of intensity.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I made my first TikTok that blew up, I didn't think I was doing anything of like a nostalgia, like I was hearkening back.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was just, it was honestly, it was for me.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: It started out where I had like 23 followers on TikTok, nobody was paying attention to what I was doing.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then when that first video went, I was like, wow, so people want to hear more about these bands.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just kept going and it kept going.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I stumbled into it, and now it does seem to be all the rage against the machine.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am still in a uh Facebook group of about 300 Omaha, Nebraska musicians, and your videos have been getting posted and passed around.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Unironically enough, your rage against the machine video was just posted the other day, and I said, Ha! Yes, I'm having him on my podcast on Sunday.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is fantastic.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, serendipitous.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Serendipitous.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was the one, the rage one is the one that really changed things for me.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: That was the that was the one that uh, you know, the others were getting a lot of attention, but once Tom Morello saw it, retweeted it, that's when the article in Spin magazine came out that said, like, this guy perfectly, you know, captures what it was like to hear these songs for the first time.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's when I was like, oh my gosh, this is my life now.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So well, let's uh let's talk a little bit about that.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's backtrack a little bit.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you kind of introduce yourself and let's talk your origin story?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: What brought you from then to now?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Origin.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is my Marvel moment, my origin story.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm originally born and raised uh Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's my hometown, that's where I grew up.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was uh I was a theater kid, drama nerd, um, but I also was in bands.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you too.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was a I was a drama nerd and I uh I was also in bands and really into music.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so um that was one of the ways that I kind of stood out in my my theater friends group is, you know, I I sure I liked the musicals and things that we were doing, but my CD case logic was full of just all the alternative and and grunge and that whole era of music.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my brother and I have always been incredibly music hungry and music savvy.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: When we were really young, when I was probably like 10 or 11 and he was 13, we discovered this college radio station uh that was playing in Oklahoma, and they had this programming called The Edge of Insanity, and we would tune in on Sunday nights and it would just fill our brains with the most obscure, random, crazy stuff.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so you'd go to school and nobody, you know, people were listening to CNC Music Factory and Vanilla Ice, and we were like hearing, you know, the dead Kennedys and like Susie and the Banshees, and we were we were hearing Pixies, and it was just completely changing our musical trajectory.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and then we uh and then that's when of course 91 was when everything changed in terms of just you know, when when when we all saw Smells Like Teen Spirit debut on MTV, you know, gone was the the hairbands and into you know the flannel.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so that really did change my life there.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But so once I graduated from high school, I I had a short stint where I lived in Illinois, uh Wheaton, Illinois, because my mom got a job teaching there, and and uh we ended up moving to Chicago suburbs.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I spent one miserable year in the middle of high school in this town, kind of starting over my junior year.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a it was a very rough year, as you can imagine, being a teenager and having to like start from scratch.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So my parents were kind enough to send me back to my hometown, my senior year, and I finished living with friends of the family, graduated with all my friends, uh, with all the people that I grew up with.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then, but when it came time to go to college, when it came time to choose universities, because you know, back then it was like that was the default setting.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: The the thought in your mind of like, oh, I won't go to college or I'll take time off.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't even in the discussion.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was like you just go to school, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I was all my friends and peers were choosing Oklahoma schools.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was common to go to OU, it was common to go to OSU, it was common to go to schools down that way.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: But my family had been living in the Chicagoland area for the past two years, which meant I was in-state tuition for Illinois schools.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a diehard actor.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: My dream was to one day, you know, be in the movies, be on stage, win a Tony.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was in every production you could possibly imagine in school.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was literally I was so hungry about acting that uh my senior year, I was in a play where I played a character who had radiation poisoning, and I shaved my head completely cue ball bald as a senior year.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: I took it seriously.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was like the Christian Bale of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was like method, and um I was so serious about it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I all I could think in my mind was I'm gonna make it as an actor, I'm gonna be on stage.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I auditioned, I went to this thing that was um in Illinois in the Chicago suburbs, you could audition for like a hundred schools uh all at once.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: You could basically go from room to room to room and audition for Juilliard and Tish and all these you know prestigious drama schools.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did that, and I I ended up getting into University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and I got a scholarship as an actor.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I got into some of the other, not to toot my own horn, but I got into some of the other more prestigious schools, but they cost so much money.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So much money.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I my parents weren't gonna be able to help me uh bankroll something that big.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So ended up at U of I, did the theater program, uh, met my wife.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: We got married literally the end of college.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: We got married super young.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was 22, she was 21.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: We met some of our best friends that we're still close to this day from LA, and they were like, you guys should move to LA.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we we had never considered that at all.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we moved to LA and we tried our best at like making it in the movie business.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the hardest part about trying to make it in Hollywood or make it in the movie business is we had two strikes against us.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: One, we were a married couple, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which already, this is a selfish city.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is a selfish city.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you're gonna come here to make it, you need to be looking out for only yourself.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be worried about how you're gonna provide for this marriage, you know, how you're gonna both survive.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it that was a that was a challenge.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And two, we just weren't wealthy.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: We just didn't have people bankrolling us.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have that support, you know, the people who would arrive and had a ton of help and support, no criticism to them.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a lot easier to like go audition for everything if you're not literally going, I I don't know how I'm gonna pay rent, I don't know how I'm gonna eat this week, you know?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a long road of, you know, she went after it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up getting a full-time job.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And all these years that I lived in LA, I just was trying so hard to make my mark in the entertainment industry.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying so hard.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was um, I wasn't able to audition like every other person.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I started screenwriting and I started trying to write scripts and I hustled and hustled and you know, lost hours, days of sleep, just you know, cranking out these screenplays and trying to get meetings and doing that whole thing.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that would always get like so close, and then it would just fall out from underneath.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I always describe to people, sorry, by the way, this is incredibly long way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, I love this.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is perfect.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, so so I always describe to people living in LA is like sitting down at a slot machine in Vegas, and you you have 500 coins, and you basically say, once I spend all of these coins, I'm getting up and I'm leaving.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you play every single one and you lose every time.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the last coin, you say to yourself, I'm leaving once I lose this last coin.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You play, you win 501 back.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it's like to live in LA.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Any moment that you feel like I can't handle this more anymore, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It does something enough that you go, Fine, I'll stay, you know.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that was the journey.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I screen I did screenwriting, I did stand-up comedy for nine years.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I would go out every night and and do comedy clubs, open mics, and hustled at that.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I did a group of friends and I, we made web series, we made a movie.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have a movie on Amazon Prime called I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we did everything.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything that they tell you to make it, like just keep after it, keep after it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then in 2020, during the pandemic, I just started thinking to myself, I don't care anymore.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care about chasing this entertainment dream.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't give a crap.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, I give up.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I give up, and I had a good job, I have a good job, and I was going, I'll just always do things to keep myself happy and entertained in my heart.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all that matters.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just, I'll just continually create and write and film sketches and things just for me.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to make it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I gave up.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, did did I really give up?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, because it's like I kept doing things.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I I made a I made a TikTok and the rest is history.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it just as to quote the Godfather, just as I wanted out, they pulled me back in.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And now I get to experience an entertainer's life in a a way that I never thought was possible because I get to bring joy to people.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the coolest thing that has ever been given to me.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: That those two decades of chipping away and trying to break in another way, in some regard, I feel like everything happened exactly as it should be.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I in a weird way, I'm almost 45 years old, and I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: All the time and energy that I I spent writing jokes on stage or acting on screen or you know, playing in bands and loving music.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like they all filter directly into this one avenue, and I get to be a hundred percent Jacob Gibbons, and it's great.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's my origin story, dude.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this this is why I didn't, you could have kept going because there are so many parallels between yourself and myself that are unbelievable.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the moving around a lot as a kid, that was that was me too.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the theater, the doing the band thing while also doing theater, that was my life as well.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I chose to try and pursue music versus pursuing college, which was hard as hell.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: But your slot machine analogy, yeah, that that describes the music business to a T.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like every time I wanted to quit, I was just like, okay, you get to open up for so-and-so band, you get to play for this many dates on with this band or that band.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, I guess I'll keep doing it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the analogy.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and the authentic authenticity of getting to be yourself.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I found the same thing becoming a podcaster during the pandemic, I I never would have thought, like, I would have never thought that I was going to be like essentially the modern version of a talk show host.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a new world out there, you know, where you get to kind of define how you want to present yourself.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that even if we get, you know, for anyone out there who has a small audience, big audience, whatever it is, it's just incredibly rewarding to do things the way that you want to do them.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a rewarding thing.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: You you you get control of how you present yourself, and that's a really nice feeling.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, it's like, you know, you mentioned how Tom Morello had shared your rage against the machine video, and just recently you took over Smashing Pumpkins social media, uh, this which is huge.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh unbelievable.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, did you think that would happen before 2020?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, never in a million years.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, um, you're a music junkie, I'm a music junkie.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been a music junkie and um played in bands.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in the past 20 years in LA, I had my acoustic guitar sitting in the corner that I would pick up and strum and you know, occasionally play a pumpkin song or a weezer song, or you know, or I'd go on a camping trip and bring my guitar with me.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: But music has always been a part of my life.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm one of these people that listen to music constantly, almost to the annoyance of those around me.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm at my job, I listen to music in my office.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm in the car, I listen to music.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't ever really sit quietly.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so when this all happened, I didn't think that for one second, when I made these videos, that it would bring me closer to musicians and the music world and bringing, and I I it's it's crazy to say now, how did I go from age 22, you know, on without ever making this such more a part of my life?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was so laser focused on um being an actor and being a writer and bring being a comedian that I didn't even think that this was possible.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact that I made a video and Tom saw it, and then and then now I'm at a point now, this is the craziest part.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: I make a video about a band, and the band contacts me usually within a couple days.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like I made a video about Silverchair, and Daniel Johns is messaging me from Australia.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like these things, you go, I can't believe that I can make a video, and then the artist who made made the song is like, love this.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, what?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: What universe do I live in where this happens?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just shocking.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you probably had the same thing that I did whenever you were grinding and you're trying to do it and you're trying to accomplish your goals, you're like laser focused on these goals, and people keep telling you, Well, you just gotta do it for yourself, you just gotta do it for yourself.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I got to do it for myself.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, totally, yeah, but totally but now you're finally doing it for yourself and you're reaping these rewards because you're doing it for yourself.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's crazy how it works like that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was it's so funny that you say that because that is really something that I don't know if you can ever do if somebody tells you to do it, because the pursuit of a creative career comes with all these caveats of how difficult it's gonna be, right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to give up so much, and people sing, you know, tell you the horror stories, and you go in, it's just not music, art, acting, all of these creative industries.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: People go like, Well, do you have a backup plan?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have, you know, like are you gonna be able to do this?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you go in just going, I've got to make this work, this determination.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so you rarely stop and go, you know what, it just makes me happy.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I do it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that maybe some of the success comes to people earlier because they get to that place somewhere um early.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: But it took me forever to just be okay with I don't care if anybody's watching, I don't care.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: This makes me laugh, this is fun for me.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm enjoying it, I'm entertaining.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it truly reads.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's visible on camera.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's visible in my TikToks that this isn't a chore.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I don't sit down and go like, well, it's time to make another video so that I can get all those likes and clicks.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, I mean, every time I do one, I am Jonesing to be like, oh, oh, oh, I can't wait to, oh, this is gonna be so fun.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be a great idea.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And half the time I I limit myself because I visualize these things where I'm like, okay, for this one, I'm gonna drive out to the desert and I'm gonna smash cut to me being in this, you know, oasis, or then, and then I go, you know, I I have all these ideas, and then I I realize I'm a father with a full-time job, and I can't, you know, just go go rent a drone and get that helicopter shot for November rain.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's what's in my head.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do, I want to do that, you know.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, of all the videos that you've made, do you have a personal favorite?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was really fun to do hum um stars when I when I blew myself up.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, okay, I got it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's my most favorite video of yours, and I saw the poster behind your head, and I'm like, that's my most favorite video of yours, too.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was one, that was one that when it came to me the idea of that explosion, we are really big into Halloween in this house, and so I have a fog machine, and I was like, Oh, I could I could make it look like once it kicks in that like I blew up.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as that notion crossed my mind, it was so fun to do because it's such a simple sight gag, but it really does illustrate what it was like to be sitting there, and he's like singing so softly at the beginning, it's so quiet, and then out of nowhere, you just get you just get knocked knocked back, you know.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one that was the most fun to make, uh, I think.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say for what it's the way that it's changed my life the most, I would say the mayonnaise smashing pumpkins video because being a 30 plus year super fan, to even be contacted by them, to work with them, to get this opportunity off of a song that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can still make me weep like a baby.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was uh I've I've told this before, so so I you've heard it, but I I almost didn't do it because the song is incredibly sacred.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a song that I adore so much that uh not adore the album.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, but uh it's a song that I love so much.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um I when I was filming it with the leaf blower in my face, I watched it and I was like, is anybody gonna think I'm making fun of the band or make like is this coming across like I'm mocking or I'm being critical?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was this moment where I paused and I went, like, I don't think I can release this.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, my wife Jamie, she goes, No, she goes, they know your heart, they know that you're a fan, they know that this is meaningful to you.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, but it's you, and she really encouraged me to do it.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that was one that I was on the fence.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I just I if the band ever saw it, I don't want them to ever think that I'm like, you know, being being mocking the song in any way, which I definitely was not.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was just looking for a site gag to to illustrate that feeling.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that is that is long answer.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: That is the one that is most important to me in the end, yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So how has the family reacted to the um the engagement and your growing audience?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so supportive.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I am the luckiest guy in the world.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my my wife loves every minute of this for me, and uh, she had to watch me night after night go out to do comedy and come back and be pretty, you know, deflated, defeated.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, after, you know, my sets would go fine, the jokes would go fine, but you'd be performing for two drunk people at a at an empty bar at one o'clock in the morning for nothing, for no pay, no money.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved doing it, but she just saw me trying and trying and trying and trying and trying and trying all these years.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she is so awesome because I get invited to a concert, I think like every day now.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I literally have to sometimes say, I can't.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I literally cannot go out for the eighth night in a row to another show.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, boo hoo for me.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's like, oh, Jacob, so lucky.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I get invited to shows so con so much that I'm like, I just don't have the endurance.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm in my 40s and I can't go out every single freaking night.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have a job, I have the kids.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my boys are my two sons, love it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: My eight-year-old pitches me ideas for things that he thinks I should film.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll fit we'll film them together and then I'll I'll put them in my drafts, you know, so that he can, you know, see.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then my 14-year-old, it's so funny because he just doesn't care about social media yet.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So he loves this for me and he says, he says the sweetest things.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's like, I'm so happy for you, dad, that you're living your dream or whatever.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't, it doesn't seem to impact his life at all.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he he does have some friends who are like, dude, whoa, no way, your dad's like a really big deal on on TikTok or whatever.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they they react more than he does, and he's always like this.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, I guess, you know.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's crazy.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's so funny because I have a I have a 14-year-old son as well, and it's kind of to a similar effect to where at first he was almost kind of mocking me and making fun of me for it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like it was like, okay, okay, but now he's like, he'll be like, So who are you interviewing this week?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I followed them on TikTok.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy, or I follow him on Instagram.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's like, wow, that's cool.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually kind of a little bit cool in my kids' eyes now.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: My, my, my, I love that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: My 14-year-old does the funniest thing because I'll go, I'll come in the room and I'll be like, You're not gonna believe who messaged me and I'll say it.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he'll go, Of course they did.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's literally, he just says, Of course they did, because it's gotten so frequent where it's like it's not even a surprise to him anymore.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm constantly surprised.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm constantly like, no way.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Dad, of course, this is just how it goes.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's crazy.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, as far as your personal discovery of music goes, because music comes and goes all the time, we consume it a lot differently now than we did back then, where physical product was much more relevant than what it is now.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, vinyl making a huge comeback.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I that might change things, but yeah, how would you compare discovering music back then to discovering music now?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look, the tools are easy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to have Spotify in your pocket, the playlists, you know, and having these algorithms that will push things to you based on your certain tastes and interests.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's how 90% of the bands are really coming my way now, uh, despite like friends.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have some, well, maybe not 90%, but I'd say like 60, 70% of the time, it's just from a playlist that streams, and so you can discover a lot of stuff that you would normally uh know.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I I still rely upon what we did when we were teenagers, which is your music friends, right?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody's kind of got the everybody's dipping their hand in the pot of of new music and bands.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so you always have these reliable friends that will message you and say, you gotta listen to this, you gotta listen to this.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really, really the source that I love the most because it reminds me of the feeling that we had when we were younger.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been tested, the band has been tested and true.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like the friend is recommending it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you know it's not gonna be one great song.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's the thing that's that's tough about.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, well, we dealt with this too.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Remember back in the day, you'd hear a song on MTV and you'd go buy the album, you'd buy the tape, or you'd buy the CD, and the whole thing would be garbage except for one song.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd be going, you'd go through the whole thing and you'd go, I spent all this money, and this CD sucks.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that that still can happen on Spotify where you hear this one great song, and then you go over to the band and you go through and you're like, oh yeah, well, that's really only the song I like on here, you know.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, but it is it's a lot easier to discover things than and I also think that that's the problem with why we can't be as focused on bands like we used to.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: You just it was such a slower stream that you could really become a fan, geek out on their entire c catalog, and focus, whereas now it's coming from all sides, it's just it's just constant.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much music all the time that's coming at you that it's it's kind of hard to sift through.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: The excitement of discovery is sometimes gone, and that that's almost heartbreaking to an extent.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but to to your point about the one track on the album that you love and the rest of it is god-awful.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have this long-standing theory that that has as much to do with the downfall of the old structure of the music business as piracy did.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, I think that's a fair point.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fair point.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a podcast now called Waterproof Records, and you kind of break down the skeleton of some of our most favorite albums.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about that.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I um I started the show uh you know in 2021.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been making videos for you know the internet for a couple months at that point in time, and um, because this all happened for me.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said 2020 initially, but I it was 2021 actually that the the first thing went.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I made the show, it's called Waterproof Records because when I was my son was my oldest was about three, um, he was taking a bath and we were, you know, I was I was in there with him and we were talking about like one day I want to own a record store.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he was playing with a like a blank CD in the tub, and he was kind of dipping it like this, and he go, and I said, What should we call it?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he just looks at me and he goes, Waterproof records.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, I was like, that's the coolest name ever.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, we're doing it, we're doing it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that weekend I had him all day to myself, my wife had to be somewhere, and we decorated his bedroom like it was a record store.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: We brought in some of my vinyls, we made a sign, we agreed that the image was gonna be a record, was like a setting sun over the water.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gonna be like a horizon thing.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we drew it, we we put a sign that said Ewan's picks and then Jacob's picks, and we took pictures and we sent it to my wife, and we're like, this is our record store.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that had been a dream of mine for the longest time.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I was gonna do a podcast, I it was like the default.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was like it's gotta be called waterproof records.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the tag is your unsinkable tunes from the past, present, and future.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it was this idea of like, you really can't, these these won't get lost.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're never gonna get sunk, they're never gonna get um submerged in in time, or you're just gonna always want to go back to them.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I started that show and I knew it was gonna be me by myself when I started because I was like, I don't have any guests, I don't have anybody lined up at all.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I just started talking about albums and I would come in and I would a lot, you know, the the stuff like the pumpkins, uh, you know, Siamese Dream, that's easy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I could have done that one in my sleep because I know all those things.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Other ones I have a fair amount of knowledge on them, but I'll do a little bit of you know, light reading or research to refresh my brain.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I'm encyclopedic knowledge in my mind of all these albums, but do a little bit of research.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then when the guests started to come in, um, that was interesting because I the question I always ask my guests are, what is your waterproof record?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I always point it to say, what is the one that if you're a musician, you heard it and you were never the same.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: You were like, I have to get it, I have to get a guitar tomorrow.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have to play drums tomorrow, or I have to start singing in a band tomorrow.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the one that that blew the doors down, change your life.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked that of every guest that comes on the show.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it, you know, it's it's been so far, it's been no repeats so far, which has been cool.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the albums they share, I don't even know.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that well.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had Patrick Hicks on, yeah, and he he chose notorious BIG.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you want to talk about an area that I am clueless on?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's hip hop, R and B and rap.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't listen to it as a teenager.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a that was an instructional lesson right there for me, where I was learning as he was sharing his record with me.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's kind of the crux of the show.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: So do you feel as an artist yourself that you could say that there's a uh a waterproof record for almost every five year span of your life?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if I could nail it down to one for myself.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I always give that I always give that option to you to guess, which I say, look, I know it's hard to choose.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to choose because what was your waterproof record at 15 is very different than the one at 25 and 30 and so on and so forth.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll say, why don't you talk about the one that leaps out first?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then let's talk about some of the other ones on the sideline.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I try to get them to narrow into one.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I do have some guests that go, oh, without question, without question.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know exactly which one.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's this one, it's this one.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's just some people have that experience where they'll go, this is the number one, the ultimate.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so yeah, I I think that it, you know, that question.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got to know what is your waterproof record if I pushed you right now to say this is it, what would it be?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would say probably because it took place in the middle of my span of running doing the whole band thing.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would say morning view by Incubus of all albums.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, great, great, solid album, really, really cool.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's atmospheric.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's there was something about that album when it came out, what I was doing at that point in life, because I equate albums to the different seasons of our life, you know.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um the movie Inside Out talks about core memories, so I always tie albums to core memories.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like this would be my so if I would say that would that one's kind of the all-encompassing the umbrella of of everything, but you know, there's a few others like Jason Isbel Southeastern.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few hip-hop albums in the mix, you know.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, Stone Temple Pilots Purple, like I wanted to be Scott Wyland for a short period of time, you know.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's there's so many, so many.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Music are our tree rings, you know.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like those those albums are the rings on a tree.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's like every year you you get another one.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I have, oh yeah, I have so many albums that really, if I pop it in, I'm like, oh, that's being at University of Illinois in the fall of 99 when I really liked that girl, or whatever.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like they that there are albums that take you back to a very specific window of time in your life.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um it it's so true.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a tough question.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I always lean on, you know, you play music.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I I for me, I for me, it's funny because Siam's Dream is the one that I get asked, you know, is is that's the waterproof record of all time for me.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the one that actually made me pick up guitar and like wanted to play was probably uh Metallica's black album.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I was really, really into Metallica.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: I uh and I know that I know the diehard Metallica fans would be like, black albums when they started to suck and everything before then is whatever.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it was, I mean, look, man, I was in like fifth, sixth grade or whatever when it comes out, and so I'm getting the black album, and then I'm going back and I'm getting into Justice for All and Master Puppets and Ride the Lightning.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting into all of them.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but that that is the one when I heard Kirk Hammett play and I was like, I want to play like this.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna, I wanna play guitar like this guy, and uh, which I never I never accomplished.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I am I am a good guitar player, I'm a good guitar player, I can play in bands, I can you can throw a song at me, but if you said solo, uh, you know, do do uh a solo off Ride the Lightning, I'd be like, uh sorry, not gonna happen.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot shred, that's for sure.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: As far as your musicianship and the types of bands that you played in, how would you kind of describe that?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when I was in high school, it was like, you know, it was the alternative stuff, you know, the two guitars, bass, drums, vocalist.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I uh for a short period of time in high school, when I was living in Illinois, I was in a band we were called the Tesser Act.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a reference to Matt Madeline O'Lingle's A Wrinkle in Time.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but we, you know, in the book it's it's Tesser Act is one word, but we broke it up as in like the Tesser Act.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So silly.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we were in that band and we were doing everything from uh rage against the machine covers to we were even playing a Grant Lee Buffalo song called Mockingbirds.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing all sorts of random stuff, and then we were writing our own music that was very pumpkins inspired, of course, all those octave chords, just like like Billy was throwing down back then.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then when I got to be in my 20s and 30s, I released an album in 2007, and really it was it came out of a I've got to put out music.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm by myself, I don't have a band, I don't have a drummer, I don't have a bass player, I don't even have access to a lot of equipment or gear.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I had I had an old hand-me-down uh Mac computer, and Garage Band was just starting to kind of become the thing.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the first time that the tools were available where if you had an idea, you could lay it down pretty easy.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I started experimenting, and I uh in 2005 I put out this thing to just friends and family that I called Stage, and it's not very good.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I I it's totally overly ambitious with all these MIDI instruments, and then um and then in 2007 I did this album called From Out of the Deep End, which is available on Spotify now.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: I put it out because I was on a live stream one night with TikTok, and we were just talking about bands, and I was like, You guys know I was like three sheets to the wind at this point.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of whiskey, and I'm like, I'm like, you guys know I have an album?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, no way, you know, these people in the room, there's like a hundred people in the room, and they're like, play it, play it.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, sure.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm playing the album for them, and it's it's so funny because you're going, oh man, this is this is 16 years ago.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I've grown a lot, and you know, maybe maybe it's not that good.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you're getting worried in your head because you're going, ah, but they were going, This is this is really nice.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: You need to put this out there, you need to put this in the world.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know what?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just let's just put it out there and let it let it exist.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is recorded in an apartment and it is very stripped down.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing that breaks my heart about that album is um it was so vulnerable and honest, and um also my voice was just better than I was 27 years old and I was singing so much more that I still had this really nice falsetto.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I could get, I could really get up there with those notes.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of the songs that I wrote were really inspired by Jeff Buckley, and I was able to not quite go to his level, but I could sure as hell belt some some good notes out.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I cannot do that anymore.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can't.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I I've been I've been warming up my voice for a year now in this in this cover band that I'm playing in, and my falsetto is just completely gone.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a vocal teacher out there in the world that wants to help me get it back, please.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I'm I'm older and my voice just got got deeper.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And those notes, I'm sure if I really, really had some vocal training or whatever, I could probably do better, but I just can't sing that high anymore.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so the stuff I'm doing now, I'm recording an album that I'm hoping to put out this summer.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a lot more access to the tools.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is one of the cool benefits of being where we are now in our lives.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: One, I can get a hold of the things, and also I have a tremendous amount of friends that have gone, oh, you need drums?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: No problem.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: You need you need this?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: No problem.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you have I have I have just out at the butt, you know, I've got so many people that are like coming out of the woodwork, like, yeah, man, I'll help you with whatever, whatever you need.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's so exciting to be given this opportunity.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for this next album, I'm gonna do a little mix of some of that softer side, that acoustic side that I had on the last album, but I'm really going for like a handful of songs that are distortion, drums, rocking out.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've always dreamed of having an album that somebody pops in and that they react like the hum video that they go, whoa! I'm like, I can't wait to do that.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do that to somebody, I'm gonna make their head explode.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the plan.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love to hear your passion for it still, because I think it's so easy to make an exit from original music and end up jaded.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because sure present company included, I think some people get artistic minded first and then commerce-minded second, and then you get another group of people that are commerce-minded first, artistic side second.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: So they focus on the wrong thing.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the the art becomes less important, the commerce becomes more important, or the artist doesn't focus enough on the commerce, so they don't know how to market themselves and and what have you.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, long tirade aside.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's great to see somebody our age, because we're the same exact age.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I told you that.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I love it.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Save age.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I love seeing you so passionate about it, uh still at our age, because I I know whenever I walked away from it, uh, people say, Man, you could still be doing it now.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you not doing it now?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you know, I had honestly made peace with being done with it, and it it was I think that's also a rarity.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what fuels your passion uh to stay involved with music with the cover band and your original music?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think it you and I are kind of a sliding doors situation here because think about this, we're same age, and I went after an acting career, a writing career, a performance career, and I didn't pursue music.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when I put out when I put out the 2007 From Out of the Deep End album on CD, I got it, you know, I had a uh MySpace and I played one time in LA at this place, and all my friends came and I loved it.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: But back in 2007, it was just a different world in terms of getting your music out to people, right?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like you physically had to hand them a CD, and it was very difficult to stream or anything like that.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I early on what thought, well, I'm just never, it's never gonna break through.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never gonna get all that.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to my acting and my my work there.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: You could say that I have the same level of jadedness or hurt from uh decades long of entertainment um, you know, pitfalls and mistakes and things not going well.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, making a movie with my friends that we, you know, financed and put out there and really gave so much of our heart and souls floor.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then for it to do, it does fine, but it didn't change our lives.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it didn't it didn't do the thing that you that you dream.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so you made a good point about commerce and art and all that.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: So music has stayed art my whole life, it's always been just a joy, just a thing that I get to have that belongs to me.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if I lose sight of that, if I make this album and I get too focused on like, you know, how many people are listening, then I'll then I'll then I'll lose what I love about it.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll lose everything that I love about it.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: What I love about music is it just it just it's such a I mean, is there anything better?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Better?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anything better than just getting lost in a song that makes you cry or getting pumped up by a riff that just like blows your mind or just hearing a moment soar and you just go somewhere else for a little bit.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I it still has that effect on me.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I can still listen to a piece by explosions in the sky or Russian circles, and I can be staring out, and I can just be like, this is taking me away and out of my body right now.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then I can go and listen to a pumpkin song or a pixie song, or and I'm I'm suddenly I'm 14 again.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I am that kid.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back in high school.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or I can listen to a song right now by idols and I can or narrow head or I can listen to some of these modern bands.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Manchester Orchestra.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Manchester Orchestra will put out stuff and I'll sit there.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm getting, dude, I'm getting chills on my arms right now, just thinking about it.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just thinking.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because it pulls me and reminds me, it's just such a great place where it doesn't need any, it doesn't need any airs that are put on.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to pretend to be anything.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: People are always saying in my comments, like, yeah, well, that sucks, or you know, I like this better, or this is better.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't have time for that nonsense ever.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Ever.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: You don't, you don't, you don't come to my party and tell me what's better or worse or something sucks.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can walk your ass out out of here.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's that's my attitude.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm kind, I don't get in fights.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't go, you know, I block the trolls when they're mean, um, but I I don't get in fights about it, but I do not have time on this earth to sit here and worry about what is cool, what is what is something that somebody approves that I like.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Forget it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love it, I love it, and I'm gonna keep loving it.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my passion, dude.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I you answered that in I I feel like I teed you up for the perfect answer that.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, pat on my own back here, but pat on your back, sir, because because that that honestly, that's the honest to God truth.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, whenever I walked away from it, uh unironically, my very last show was after a couple of really big shows.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: I played with Avenge Sevenfold, Three Days Grace, Seven Dust.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, huge, huge.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was me walking around this festival that we had just played, and I had said, you know, I don't think it's ever gonna get any bigger than this.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what is a bigger gangster move than to say, you know what?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm gonna walk away from this now because I've done everything that I've wanted to do.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's a peace of mind that you can buy.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, and I think I said the same thing about being an entertainer too.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that the more sincere and honest we are, life will have you involved in what you're supposed to be involved in because you can't stop.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can't stop.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: I will never stop um wanting to make a silly face on my phone for people.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll always I when I get messages that they say, thanks for being a light in this dark world, thanks for lifting me up.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've been going through a hard time.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was really depressed and I watched all your videos and now I feel so good, or or you've reignited my love of insert band here.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that is the most fulfilling thing in the world that I can give on my time, on my limited time on this planet.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Could I give joy?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Could I give hope?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Could I give positive energy?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I don't spend any time on my stuff being critical.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't waste my time.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody asks me all the time, what bands do you hate?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: What song sucks?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know what?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: If we're having a beer sometime and we're sitting across from each other, we can have that conversation.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: But there are plenty of critics in this world that want to get out there and and talk badly about what they don't like.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's not my space.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's not my head space.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to do it, I don't want to put that bad energy into the world.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just not for me.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think the subjectivity of criticism changes as we get older, too.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we like to virtue signal about the things that we love.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're younger, that entails putting down the things we don't love as much.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when we're older, we can kind of look at things and appreciate the finer elements of everything.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter, you know.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's everything's something special to somebody else.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: You set up my final question, my final big question that I ask every one of my podcast guests so well.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now it almost feels like a redundancy asking you, let's do it it let's do it anyway.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's your advice for making the world a better place as you see it right now?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Be a hundred percent.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: You be you, give the world you.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that even the people that approach life with sardonic or negative or kind of a pessimistic outlook, I don't I don't know if that's 100% you.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: If it is a hundred percent you, then okay, I guess that's what you want.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that we all have such interesting stories and perspectives in your life that you've lived is uniquely your own.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that sharing what you've learned with people and you know, it doesn't have to be as an entertainer or making TikTok videos or making Instagram reels or whatever, it doesn't have to be that way.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you know something in your heart to be true, everybody does, that somebody needs to hear or somebody needs to know, or you have a gift or an ability that nobody knows how to do but you.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I just my my advice is be yourself, be be who you are in your core, who you know you to be.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if people are critical, they go, don't do that, that's weird, or uh that's that's a strange choice.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, don't care.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: Don't care.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: We all we all die.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: We all die.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: The time here is short.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's just not enough time uh for all of us to to be able to try to impress others or try to be something that somebody wants you to be.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that just be yourself.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love that.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love that we got to spend a little time together this afternoon.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am now very, very super proud to call you a new friend.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, Mike.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I hope we can do this again in the future and stay in contact.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you my number.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's stay in touch, let's talk.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh, you know, if you're ever out this way in Los Angeles, please let me know.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, love to hang out, we'll go see some music, we'll go hang out.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh absolutely, man.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a pleasure to be on your show, and I'm really digging the format of uh of this this platform that you record on, and I'm I think I'm gonna I'm gonna totally use it for mine.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: So awesome, Jacob Gibbons.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: The world is a better place with you in it, my friend.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being on the show today.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Mike.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, I'd like to thank my friend Jacob Gibbons for being on the show today.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: What a great chat! I'm hoping to have him on again in the future.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did indeed trade phone numbers.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Search him out, particularly on TikTok.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's where he gets the most traffic.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't seen his rage against the machine, Allison Chains, and Hum videos, you are totally missing out.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're giving me a follow on all social media platforms, TikTok, Instagram, the rarely used Twitter, and Facebook, or visit me at www.cotonTheMic.com.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: CaughtonTheMic at gmail.com.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to start looking for sponsors for the show.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: So email me for sponsorship opportunities.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I want to read your ads.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: This has been caught on the mic with Michael Clark.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.