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Randy Keith's Journey: From Music and Radio to Podcasting and Empowering Creators · The Scene Projects

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Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
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I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is my friend Randy Keith.
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Randy, welcome to the show.
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Thank you so much, Bubba.
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Well, it's a pleasure.
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Yeah.
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You're you're a musician.
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You're a podcast host.
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You you wear many hats.
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Why don't you why don't you tell us all about them?
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Yeah.
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I forgot to put one on now, so I apologize for the for the shiny head.
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But a a long story as short as possible, I am a Southern California native.
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I grew up in Los Angeles and started I was the son of two performers, who grew up in New York.
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So I was always, around music and performing and cameras.
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And as much as I tried to fend off a career in performing it, as as I said, and and my parents
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reminded me, it's in my blood.
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So so my my piano lesson started at two and a half, and I I always loved playing I always
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loved playing music and hearing something and playing it.
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The my my my classical piano teacher was all I always drove her crazy because I would go in
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and she would put a piece of music in front of me and she would play the first line and then
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I'd play it back.
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And so that was that was kind of an ongoing thing until until my teenage years when I found
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Elton John.
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And from then, I I started bringing all of that stuff into her.
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And she says, you need to practice your Mozart.
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You need to practice your Bach.
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And I said, this this is my Mozart and Bach.
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And from that that point, I was I was hooked.
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And and all I ever wanted to do was was play and sing Elton John songs.
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And at that at that time in high school, that was when I actually started my radio career.
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So that aspect of my life is as short as possible.
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I I've always enjoyed hearing myself talk.
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I started a make believe radio station when I was nine years old, recording myself, actually
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playing classical music and back selling myself.
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So that was, you know, that was Randy Keith playing Mozart in in C.
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And and that ended up becoming a a career for fifteen years.
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I got a job at a local station when I was in high school, a a suburb of LA, which, for
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Californians, is a small a small town of 200,000, was the was the radio station that I
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worked at.
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Kinda cut my teeth there.
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And then a couple years later, got a job at at a major LA station and made my way into traffic
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reporting.
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So that was, that was about ten years of my, of my radio career in LA, where I would, I was one
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of those, guys that would fly in the air and report traffic and see the pursuits, pretty
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much every story you've heard about, freeways and traffic in LA.
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I've I've seen it, heard it, reported on it, been there, done that.
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And after that, I said, I am getting the hell out of LA and gonna gonna do something else.
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So so at that time, my twenties was was my my tumultuous time of workaholism when I was when
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I was working at the radio station.
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I found, I found dueling pianos at a place called Hall of the Moon, which is a chain all
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over the country.
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They had a location in Hollywood at the time.
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Fell in love with that and started, and started performing there while I was working at the
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radio station, also doing network marketing.
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I was an Amway distributor for a couple years.
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There were I was working at a TV station.
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I was also a substitute teacher in that time, so I was, I I think one year I had, like like,
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nine w twos.
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It was it was pretty crazy.
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But like I said, I came to my senses by the time I was 27.
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I left LA and and was lucky that the the dueling piano world was able to sustain me
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professionally for well, until now.
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And, basically traveled from when I left LA, lived in the Midwest.
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I lived in Kansas City, for four years and traveled all up and down the Midwest playing
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at, at clubs and bars and restaurants and private events there.
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Ended up in Vegas, and then in Phoenix in 2012, where I met my wife, who ironically is from
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Racine, Wisconsin.
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Always kind of knew that I was, destined for a Midwest girl, and, we moved in the next year,
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got married in 2015, and moved to Florida in 2016, and had our son, Raiden, in 2021.
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So so she is also a performer.
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We perform together sometimes.
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I run our business, which is an agency that that books that books dueling piano shows all
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over Central Florida.
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And and just in the last couple of months, thanks to getting involved with podcasting and
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hear hearing and seeing one such as yours, I I got the idea, hey.
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You know this idea that I had twenty five years ago when I was working in traffic to write a
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book or somehow get some information out about all the stuff that I've learned?
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Now I'm doing it in a podcast.
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So, that's that's the the long and short, more long of, of where I'm at now.
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And you I love how you tried to fight the curse, and then you married a performer
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yourself and have cursed yourself.
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I'm so Of that's what I took away from all of that.
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Oh, that's great.
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That's awesome, man.
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The thing
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is I always said that I didn't I didn't want it to become work, which is which I can I can
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really kinda give a perspective of now because I the way that things have worked out in both
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my wife and I, our lives, is that we have our business, which I developed first to try and
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get us gigs because I was tired of trying and scrounging around for gigs?
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And unlike most people who have their regular gig and then start their side that way, we did
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it the opposite.
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I started with nothing, created the business, and then once we had the business, then we both
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actually got hired at our full time jobs.
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So so now I I truly feel what it's like when I go to work at I work at Universal here in
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Orlando now.
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When I go to work there, I I love it, because I don't have to deal with any of the business
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end.
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I don't have to I don't have to bring any equipment.
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I don't have to talk to the client.
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I don't have to figure anything out.
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I just have to go on stage and play, which is what I realized in retrospect, what I meant all
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those years ago that I I didn't want it to become work, because it's the business end and
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the sales and the promo.
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And even though there are parts of that that I enjoy, it that's that's what becomes the grind
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that I get really tired of.
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Yeah.
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And it's funny how you would do it as an agency for someone else and, like, it feels different,
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but it does.
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I mean, I have no problem helping somebody else get a gig, but to have it in the back of my
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mind, like, man, I gotta go book this band.
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And for me, it's never been just like one other person.
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Right?
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A dueling piano show, pretty standard.
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You're gonna have two people.
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It's pretty easy to go.
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You know, my band has been anywhere from three to seven people at times, and, you know,
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everybody's schedules are going different directions and being married to that many
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different individuals, and I just couldn't.
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It's good.
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I didn't wanna do it anymore.
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Last year, I just used local guys wherever I landed or gals.
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Right?
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Where I was just like, you know what?
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I'm gonna be here at this time.
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If you can make it, great.
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If not, give my number to somebody who can.
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And let's Yeah.
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Because then because then the quality dilutes.
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Right?
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If you you know if you're not gonna be there or if the person that you work with that you trust
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is not gonna be there, then I gotta call, you know, 5 and string 5 and 6 string people, and
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it's like, I can't really vouch for them.
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If you wanna show, that's fine.
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But yeah.
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Exactly.
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I'd rather I'd rather just call somebody else.
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I don't want Well, and and for responsible for it.
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Right.
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Right.
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It's so it's so funny that you brought up 200,000 people, you know, a small a small town
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in California.
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Right?
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Suburban LA, especially.
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Well, that's our biggest town in South Dakota.
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Of course.
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And I live in a town of a thousand.
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So there's not a lot of players.
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They're even the people who are players, they're not professionals.
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Right?
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Yep.
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So it actually put I just put my talent into a different pool, where instead of looking for
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guys that could be at every show and were available, I was just like, well, I'll just
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find people that I trust that are professionals, and I will call them if needed
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and then just keep a list of professionals available.
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And if I gotta pay a little bit more for them to travel one way or the other sometimes, you
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gotta do what you gotta do, but it's better than trying to be handcuffed to someone else,
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trying to book gigs and do it.
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It just it was so tiring.
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And then last summer, literally went off without a hitch.
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It was one of my best summers in every aspect.
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The quality of the music was actually better because everyone was uncomfortable stepping on
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stage.
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Right?
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It was like, oh, shit.
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I've never played these songs before and anything.
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I'm like, hey.
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It's all good.
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Like, I I'm gonna walk on stage and tell them that we just met in the parking lot.
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Like, we have all the grace in the world Yeah.
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To go out there.
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And then when you do perform, the people are just blown away.
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So I don't know if that's sustainable for, like, coming back into this summer.
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Right?
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Because we'll kind of be doubling back over a lot of these spots, but, it made for a great
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year.
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And when you're playing the same set list, the dueling's a little bit cooler because you're
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taking a lot of requests.
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Right?
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So I was just really looking.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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So, you know, with my band to play in the same set list, the fun of it was playing with a
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different group of guys and gals every night and just kinda letting play a lot of
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traditional.
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So, I mean, same as the dueling, man.
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You're playing a lot of the same stuff that people wanna hear in that.
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For me, it's fishing in the dark and Copperhead Road, and I'll throw in some Sublime and
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different things.
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So I got a pretty big breadth of what I'm able to do.
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It just it make it kept it fun of playing a bunch of simple songs that to play them with
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the same guys every single weekend would get tiresome.
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Right?
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But then playing these songs that I love with a different, you know, with different friends
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every weekend, it was a blast, man.
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I had such a great time, and it made it less work.
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Right?
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Where everybody was happy to show up and no one was
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like You're having fun jamming.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It
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just That's funny you mentioned that's funny funny you mentioned Fishing in the Dark,
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because that was, Kansas City when I that was my first time I played in Kansas City at Toby
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Keith's Bar and Grill at Harrah's, and I got Fishing in the Dark requested, like, four times
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that night.
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It was the first time I'd ever heard that song.
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I was like, what is this song?
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And I just always remember that as being, like, my introduction to Kansas City and the Midwest.
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That is my introduction to our shows now.
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I was like, oh, I get literally get requested this every single time.
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I'm just gonna lead with it.
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I'm gonna lead with this, and I play it right into Copperhead Road, right into What I Got by
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Sublime.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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And then the Joker.
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So I hit you with, like, this huge list of classic songs right off the bat coming from all
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different directions.
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And that's kinda like my well, here I am.
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Right?
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Like
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Here's what we can give you.
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Trying to do whatever.
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If you got something that you think we may know, throw it out there.
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I mean, I'll tell you no.
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If I don't know it and we don't have a chance, I'm a tell you no.
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I've said it a lot.
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I got no problem.
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You know?
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Which I feel like in the dueling side of things, you don't always have that because you
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can just go to the music and and you have it kinda there.
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And and whether the quality is gonna be the best song you've ever performed in your life or
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not is pretty irrelevant, man.
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People just wanna hear something.
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That's that's that's that's what I pride myself on is, like, I know there are a lot of,
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especially, like, older people in the industry that do kinda stick to their set list, but,
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like, there is so my argument now is that there is so much content.
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So much content with with streaming that it surprises me how many you know, when I first
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started, I I started in the bars, and so we were just used to 21 and over.
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But throughout my career, playing on cruise ships, and now I play in a family restaurant at
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a theme park, we get kids coming in all the time.
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So I get everything.
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I mean, from heavy metal to rap to Disney stuff to baby shark
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Do you tell him, hey.
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That's the park down the street?
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Oh, yeah.
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We joke about that.
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Sure.
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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But, I mean, I I love that.
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I I I make a joke.
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It's not even a joke anymore.
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Literally, every night, I learn a new song because I actually I don't know if you can see.
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I use these I use Aftershocks headphones over over the ears, and I use in ear monitors now
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too.
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So if somebody requests a song that I actually have never heard before, I'll actually listen
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to it while my partner's playing a song, and I'll see if it's got three or four chords.
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Of course, most country songs, especially new country songs do.
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah.
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Sure.
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I could Yeah.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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Then I was like, okay.
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I can get through it, and and I'll play a song that I literally have never heard five minutes
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before, but the people who requested it are like, that's that's amazing, you know.
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That's one that's that's one of my my new kind of technological tricks, because I've I've
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given up trying to I've given up trying to learn new batches of songs, because they come
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out so fast.
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I mean, Morgan Wallen releases a new song every day.
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You know?
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Right.
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I mean Right.
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How are you gonna keep up?
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Where just give me the crash course two minutes before I do it, and I'll and I'll get it, like,
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60% of the way there, and you're gonna love it.
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You're gonna
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love it.
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Always the ones that they don't expect, you know, like, when someone throws out, you know,
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real slim shady or, you know, chop suey system of a down.
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Play slayer.
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That's what
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I always get when I'm playing my acoustic guitar.
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I was like, that's funny.
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You're you're I you're so smart.
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I need I I need I need I need to learn one of those because that actually that does come up
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more more than often.
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More more than would think.
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I don't know why that's the only, like, really heavy metal band that anybody knows of.
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It must just be the name.
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It's in the marketing.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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Randy, man, we could talk for hours.
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I think so.
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So I've actually been hit by a spotlight from a, I think it was a police helicopter, though,
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not a traffic helicopter in Los Angeles.
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Oh, yeah, buddy.
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I went to the Garment District, the first time I was in LA.
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I had ridden the bus in, and I I Oh, you're getting the crash course.
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Brother, for some reason in my head, I was like, well, how can I not be a crackhead bump
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for a night if I don't know what a crackhead bum for a night looks like?
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And when I found them, I was like, oh, I can hang for a night.
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And after almost getting in a knife in a box cutter knife fight and seeing all kinds of
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atrocities that I should never have seen at 19 years old.
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I decided LA probably wasn't for me.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I did make it back.
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I I got that feeling in 19 too.
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It just took me another ten years to get the hell out.
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Well and I landed back there a few years later with a friend of mine, and we, I was actually
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busking on Venice Beach for, like, three months before it got busy.
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Right?
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It was, like, March to May, and everybody's like, oh, wait for summer.
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Wait for summer.
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And it was like, man, just out here belting my acoustic guitar.
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Like, I can't compete with Harry Perry.
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Right?
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Like, at some point, I'm it's just too many people, and it's too much going on.
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Yeah.
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But, I mean, I was pulling a hundred to $300 a day off of the beach just playing songs and
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hanging out, man.
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It was incredible.
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It was incredible.
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That's amazing.
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It's the first time I felt, like, the value of playing music.
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I had played for before, and it made me friends.
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It got me late a couple of times.
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Right?
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But that was the first time where I was like, oh, you have a monetary value for your talent.
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And then that's what kind of started my whole journey.
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I I I made it back to Oregon after that.
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Lived in Bend there for a little while on the on the East Side Of The Cascades and Oh,
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beautiful there.
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A small town.
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Right?
15:30
Eighty, ninety thousand people for someone from South Dakota.
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That's a big town, but it was small enough that I kinda knew, I knew how things worked.
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And, yeah, man, put together some of my first bands in that area and still got some great
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friends from there as well.
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But South Dakota was calling me back home, and now I'm, you know, living in a town of a
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thousand people, little farm town.
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And but I still get to do what I do, and that's because of podcasting.
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And I think that's what's most interesting about your story is, like, the radio background
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and all of that knowledge that you have about radio and the production side and all the other
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stuff.
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It's still very relevant in this medium.
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It's just not over a broadcast antenna.
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Right?
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We're just delivering in a different way.
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And it's Right.
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I mean, I wasn't a podcaster a year ago.
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But Really?
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Wow.
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No, man.
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No.
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But I was real good at talking.
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I you had
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told any of my friends that I was gonna make a living running my mouth,
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they'd believed you.
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Not be surprised at all.
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Yeah.
16:24
No.
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Yeah, man.
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And now combining it with sales that I've done.
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Obviously, booked my own band for twenty years now.
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Like, having that and then the networking skills to be able to find communities.
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Right?
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Because that's what it is.
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I don't go out and find people.
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I go find communities, and that's where the people are.
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So, you know, a great example, I'm gonna shout out Moe Train right now.
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The podcasters of Facebook group has been such a blessing to me.
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I mean, it's got, like, 70,000 members now.
16:51
It's adding 300 new members a day or something, I think they were saying.
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So you have this awesome community, and then I'm just able to kinda jump in there in a
17:00
couple of interesting conversations, find my people, start engaging with them, and and your
17:04
your schedule fills up real quick when you put it out there into, into an area where people
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are looking to engage with it.
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So I think that's where all of this is going now.
17:16
Right?
17:16
You build your own
17:17
Oh, yeah.
17:17
That's what that's what's fascinating to me is, like, I'm I'm literally doing the same thing
17:21
that I was doing when I was 14 years old in my room, then it was CoolEdit Pro.
17:27
Now it's Audacity.
17:28
You know?
17:29
Recording, editing, and mixing.
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Like, there's no difference except now like you said, there is actually a community that I can
17:38
reach out to that it it's it's just mind boggling to me.
17:41
And and and I'm so grateful that that that I was able to reach out to you to just to chat.
17:47
Because like I said, you I I saw your post in in the in the in that group, in Motrain's
17:53
group, and I just listened to one episode.
17:56
It was the one before your before the Christmas break.
17:59
And I was like, oh, man.
18:01
This is like, every single thing you guys were talking about.
18:04
Every single thing about the vacation, about being with family, about mental health, about
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shopping, about every single thing.
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I'm like, okay.
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I gotta take notes.
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I gotta write them an email.
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I gotta say, you know, I relate to this.
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I relate to that.
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And, like, it's, it it's it's it's just really cool.
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Well and I and I appreciate that, man.
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And I appreciate you connecting and wanting to connect.
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And that's what we're finding out in the world now, and I I have a lot of these.
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I mean, I do 10 plus interviews a week at this point, and it's the same feeling from
18:37
everybody.
18:37
Everybody wants something real.
18:39
Right?
18:39
Like, we've seen Joe Rogan getting stoned and doing beer bongs with his buddies.
18:42
Right?
18:43
Like, that's great.
18:43
It's great content.
18:44
I'm not trying to be Joe Rogan.
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I'm trying to have real conversations with real people that I find interesting just like he has
18:50
for ten plus years.
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Now he was in a position that he didn't ever need the podcast to be anything.
18:56
Right?
18:57
It was always just something fun.
18:59
But what they've all shown us is that this is the vessel for delivering messages, man.
19:04
Like, this is it.
19:05
Beyond advertising, and we know a lot of the business people picked this up early on, like,
19:09
this is how you generate leads for your business.
19:12
It's just it's how it's how it's how it's done.
19:17
Right?
19:17
Like, that's just all I could say now.
19:18
Like, radio is dead.
19:20
TV is dead.
19:21
Radio's radio's been dead since since I worked in radio.
19:25
I mean, everybody could see the everybody could see the writing on the wall, and I'm Facebook
19:28
friends with all my old radio colleagues and all these guys that have been working for
19:32
thirty, forty years.
19:33
Now I see, you know, the layoffs and the New York stations are cutting news, and it's like,
19:39
okay.
19:39
Well, we we saw that coming.
19:41
Like, that that was that was pretty obvious with the Internet.
19:43
And it hit us even harder out here because it just shuts whole stations down.
19:47
You know what I mean?
19:48
I don't know if it's Soros' company that's buying was Clear Blue or whatever.
19:52
Big company is Clear Channel.
19:54
Right?
19:54
Buys up all these little stations, runs them the ads.
19:57
The people who are buying ads are gonna keep buying them.
19:59
They automate everything, fire 80% of the staff, and I watched it happen to, like, three
20:04
or four stations just in the last year and a half around our local thing.
20:09
And that was always like that was my thing, like, to get on my local radio station.
20:13
I got a good friend who still works out in in Rapid City, South Dakota and is a DJ there and,
20:18
you know, does sales.
20:19
And, like, for him to play my song out there was awesome.
20:23
Right?
20:23
I got such a great feeling out of that, but then they're so limited on what they could do,
20:28
and as that's kind of the inspiration for why I started, why I was focused on musicians, doing
20:32
the songwriter showcase.
20:34
How can I get these people's music out there?
20:36
You know?
20:36
And now that we're starting to gain in popularity, I'm having to worry more about
20:39
copyrights and all these things.
20:41
So I'm having to go and do a little bit of homework of, like, how can I still do this but
20:45
not get you know what I mean?
20:47
Not that I'm getting monetized anyway, but to to start having stuff taken down for silly
20:52
reasons, you know, whether it's some contracts or whatever with people or whatever.
20:56
It's what my it's what my stepdad calls a quality problem.
20:59
We're we're growing too big that now we have to worry about licensing or paying more taxes or
21:04
whatever.
21:05
It's like, okay.
21:05
Well, that's that's great.
21:06
That's great that you're growing.
21:08
Right.
21:08
Yeah.
21:08
It's better than just toiling and anonymity.
21:11
Right?
21:11
Sure.
21:12
And that's what I was committed to not doing with this podcast.
21:15
We set out a goal, last year when we started was, like, hundred episodes before the end of
21:20
the year, and we weren't starting until, like, April.
21:22
Right?
21:23
So it was already a tall ask, but it it was looking for different avenues to get episodes
21:28
out there.
21:29
Right?
21:29
Like, I can sit behind a microphone.
21:31
I can only do so many interviews in a day, but what else can I do?
21:33
So like, well, I'll I'll put together these few songs, and then I'll give a little commentary
21:37
on it.
21:37
That's something.
21:38
So we were running, you know, three, four episodes a day to build it up on one channel.
21:44
Well, now that I moved over to a bigger channel, our our, you know, sponsors and our
21:48
network, the c suite radio network, now I have five channels.
21:53
Right?
21:53
So now I have five channels that I could put daily content under and just start to push this
21:58
thing down, and I can start a new channel whenever I have, you know what I mean, the need
22:02
to.
22:02
So that's really what we're pushing is to empower more creators to just create.
22:07
If you don't know all of this, like, everybody wants to be a podcaster now.
22:11
Well, not everybody's gonna be able to learn all of the ins and outs of all of it.
22:16
Right?
22:17
Like, guys like you and I, Randy, we're very capable, and we've been doing this long enough
22:20
that to pick up a new skill that's kind of in this or to work with a new platform, it's
22:24
relatively easy.
22:25
People that are coming in fresh with an idea, some of them don't even have
22:29
a What kind of mic do I buy?
22:31
Well, we wanna be able to start them from there and not on a one to one conversation level.
22:35
So kinda setting up the frameworks for a podcast university.
22:39
Not that there's not other people doing it out there.
22:42
I I just feel like what we're doing, and especially for musicians, that's where I'm
22:45
trying to get these people off the fence a little bit.
22:47
Like, look, invest in this thing.
22:49
Grow an audience using this that once you're set up is very, very cheap to run.
22:55
Right?
22:55
Once I can give you kind of a crash course, you can do it fairly easily for very little money,
23:01
but, I mean, I tag my own music on my intros and outros of every song.
23:05
Right?
23:05
Like, so subliminally subliminally, my songs are going in people's heads and I'm growing
23:10
that.
23:10
I haven't seen it pay off in streams yet.
23:12
I don't know if that's helping, but if it does, that's that's bonus.
23:16
Right?
23:17
So not only do you have the million podcast plays, but you're getting some royalties cash
23:20
the other way.
23:22
I would encourage everyone to do so and at least roll the dice.
23:26
Nobody's giving you anything.
23:27
You gotta take it.
23:29
Yeah.
23:30
And we and we know how, how much musicians love to be salesman.
23:33
So, you know, it's like you say, it's a it's it's a skill set that, you know, it really is
23:39
it really is necessary.
23:40
You know?
23:41
You you got you gotta have it.
23:43
And if you don't, that's where we kinda want to come in and start to facilitate more
23:47
conversations.
23:48
Can we grow this into where we can pay creators?
23:51
Right?
23:52
We can pay you to be out there.
23:53
I don't know if we get to that point, if we ever need to, or it's more just like, hey.
23:57
We'll let you in the club for free, and this is a Right.
24:00
I don't know how it all works, man.
24:01
Like I said, a year ago, I wasn't a podcaster.
24:03
Now I have a podcast network that I'm running.
24:06
Right?
24:06
And, and pretty competently, I would say.
24:09
You know?
24:10
So we're just gonna keep pulling on this thread.
24:12
We're gonna keep making a ton of content and and trying to talk other people into getting
24:17
off their butts and doing it too.
24:18
It's literally as easy as getting on a Zoom call, you know, when you're being forced in the
24:23
Zoom calls for work, right, for your crappy job.
24:26
Well, imagine if you could turn that same medium into something that you want to do.
24:31
And, yeah, we're just gonna keep going.
24:34
I I feel like I don't wanna do anything else.
24:36
Right?
24:37
I I I know that feeling.
24:39
And and and I and I I appreciate people like you in the space that are that are doing that,
24:43
because it's just it's so it's so motivating and encouraging, you know, to just to to just
24:50
keep going.
24:51
You know, whether it's my content or my wife is also a creator aside from music.
24:56
She is also working on a book.
24:57
She she's got the she's got the fiction mind.
25:00
I've got the non fiction mind.
25:02
And and so that's another thing that it's like, this this is this is the year.
25:07
We've said this this is the year of our our we've you know, we talked about stuff.
25:10
We've had ideas, but it's like, you know, seeing seeing projects like yours, it's like,
25:15
okay.
25:15
Well, let's do it.
25:16
Let's be a part of something.
25:18
Well, exactly.
25:19
And if you don't start, like and that's why so many people wanna have it perfect to roll out.
25:24
It's like, look, it's not it's never gonna be perfect.
25:26
It's probably not gonna be very good to start.
25:28
Like, just get moving.
25:30
Right?
25:30
Just get moving.
25:31
Every all this content is so throwaway content.
25:34
Right?
25:34
There's very little of it that people are going to hold on to, you know, as me
25:39
as this out there so so it'll you'll be discovered.
25:41
Right?
25:41
Yep.
25:42
Yeah.
25:42
Just just especially early on.
25:44
Now once you have established something, you have to start looking at it differently.
25:48
But when nobody is listening, who cares?
25:51
You know?
25:52
Just start putting it out there.
25:53
It's, you know, it's not necessarily as performative as you make it out to be.
25:58
Right?
25:59
Like, this isn't your big recital after you've been practicing all the time.
26:02
Podcasting is literally the practice to get you Yeah.
26:06
Maybe onto a stage to deliver a message as a paid speaker.
26:09
Maybe it convinces you to write a book.
26:12
Like, having seen the CEO level that a lot of these people are cashing in on their name and
26:18
their expertise on is like, man, my people got plenty of stories.
26:21
If you just want us to own our story and to go out there and sell that, I'm a teach a million
26:26
people how to do this, and I'm gonna do it as fast as I possibly can.
26:30
Because, having having these conversation has affected my life.
26:34
So if they can affect anyone's life past that, right, you're already winning.
26:39
It's already having exponential, you know, an exponential difference out there in the world.
26:45
So would you how do you stop having conversations?
26:48
Like, once you start thinking of it that way, how do you stop doing what you're doing?
26:54
Yeah.
26:56
You don't want to.
26:57
No.
26:57
I just can't.
26:58
I got a I got a calendar that's filled into next month with interviews.
27:03
Right?
27:03
That's
27:03
fantastic.
27:04
Well, now we have established something.
27:06
Right?
27:07
And people are coming in.
27:08
People are seeing the work that we're doing and seeing it working.
27:12
Right?
27:12
We went from 50 views, on a video a piece to now, you know, the reels are seeing 500 views
27:18
when they go out.
27:19
Like, that's a 10 x difference.
27:22
That's nothing to be like, still is 500 views not shit compared to Joe Rogan's podcast.
27:27
Yes.
27:27
But I'm not comparing myself to him.
27:30
I'm comparing me to the me I was a month ago, and my numbers say that we're doing pretty damn
27:36
good.
27:36
If we can continue this trend of growth, we're going to be a competitor of Joe Rogan's given
27:41
more time.
27:42
So Or what I'm looking at or what I'm looking what I'm looking at is all I care about, of I'm
27:47
competing with is the algorithm to to get me paid.
27:51
You know?
27:51
Right.
27:52
But, I mean, that that's my goal is I don't need Joe Rogan's followers.
27:57
I just need need enough to, like you said, to have the community that we that we want to
28:01
build to to get the message out and and to support our families and our communities.
28:06
Right.
28:06
And then it grows, and then it's more, dueling piano gigs.
28:09
Right?
28:10
You get paid a little bit more because you got a little bit bigger name, and people want you
28:13
to come play their wedding or who fucking knows, man?
28:16
Like, where it goes is up to you.
28:18
This book that you're writing right now, you're doing book tours because you have audience
28:22
that's out there waiting for it, but none of
28:24
it happened.
28:25
I've got a I've got 10% of my downloads, in the last thirty days are from Sweden.
28:31
Nice.
28:32
And I'm like looking at that, I'm going, first of all, how did that even happen?
28:35
You know?
28:36
How did how do these people find it?
28:38
And like, what does that mean?
28:40
Like like you said, like, I have no idea in another couple of months if that leads to some
28:45
discussion that I have with some, you know who knows?
28:48
I have no idea.
28:49
No.
28:49
But that that would never have happened if I didn't just put it out there.
28:53
You know?
28:53
It's like fishing.
28:54
One of my goals.
28:55
Yeah.
28:55
It's like fishing.
28:57
If you have a product yeah.
28:59
Exactly.
29:00
Well and it's like, you know, you're you're you're throwing a big net out there.
29:04
You're gonna catch something.
29:05
Right?
29:05
And if you're in the right area and your product is is man willing with the right
29:09
people, eventually, they're gonna start swimming right into it.
29:12
And that's really where the tide is gonna turn, and that's gonna happen this year.
29:17
For us, we're putting out so much content and so much varied content.
29:20
Something's going to hit.
29:22
And it's exactly why I'm open to working with everyone, you know, as simple as just having a
29:27
conversation on our podcast.
29:28
Come and have a conversation.
29:29
Talk about you.
29:30
I'll talk about me a little bit.
29:31
We sure we share it out with the world, and, everybody gets to know us.
29:36
And you can as you add time to that, it's only going to grow.
29:40
Like, there's no, yeah.
29:43
Especially if you find a community.
29:44
Now if you're just talking to yourself into you know what I mean?
29:47
You're doing the Bill Burr rant and you're not Bill Burr, I don't know that that's gonna go
29:51
anywhere.
29:52
Right?
29:52
Because I'm I'm building my audience from your audience.
29:57
Like, there's people that hear this that are huge fans of yours that become like little fans
30:02
of Bubba Starts and what he does, and then we keep growing.
30:06
And then the same thing, there's gonna be people that I throw this out to in our world.
30:09
They're like, oh, I love dueling pianos, and I'd love to, you know, learn more about this
30:13
crazy guy, Randy, who flew in helicopters over LA for a decade.
30:17
You know?
30:18
And then they stick around.
30:19
And if you just keep having those, you know, two, three years down the line, you have a
30:25
massive audience now.
30:26
And it's learning how to to monetize a small audience as you're building that bigger one.
30:33
Well, I have to star this episode because I don't know if I told you, but, I'm I'm very
30:37
honored because this is actually my first guest interview, on on somebody else's podcast.
30:42
And I know you said you've got your you've got your calendar lined up and and as part of, you
30:47
know, building the community, I've been been starting to do that, but I've been real real
30:51
excited about this this talk.
30:53
So we'll have to we'll have to bookmark it so can come back in three years and, you know, see
30:58
see what the numbers have done for both of us.
31:00
Yeah, man.
31:01
Well and why don't you go ahead?
31:03
Let's take a minute and plug everything that you got for everyone.
31:06
I appreciate you coming on with me today.
31:08
I'm so happy to be your first one.
31:11
This is how it grows.
31:13
Once you get comfortable being a guest on somebody else's, I think that's where 2025 is
31:17
gonna have that massive growth.
31:19
For me, it is being a guest now.
31:22
Right?
31:22
Having something to talk about is key, and you've got plenty.
31:25
You talked for the first ten minutes of the show, and and we barely scratched the surface.
31:29
Yeah.
31:30
Well, again, I I I appreciate the opportunity.
31:33
So, yeah, just to just to cap off, my name is Randy Keith, and I'm going by the freeway
31:39
traffic expert.
31:40
It's how I have everything under my, labeled under my podcast.
31:43
The podcast name is mastering the commute, smart driving and traffic tips.
31:48
So we're taking each episode and tackling a different topic, which is actually being pulled
31:53
from the content of my my book draft, which I'm determined now I'm gonna be finishing up by my
32:00
birthday, which is May 1 this year.
32:02
So you can go to drivesmarternow.com is the website.
32:06
Drivesmarternow.com.
32:08
Name of the of the the podcast is Mastering the Commute.
32:12
All the content's there.
32:13
Follows on all the major platforms.
32:16
And YouTube and Facebook are my are my main social media platforms mastering the commute,
32:23
doing a bunch of shorts just as you were, think talking about there.
32:27
I put up my my first short the other day.
32:29
Has like a hundred views already.
32:31
I was like, where did that come from?
32:33
Like, okay.
32:34
Like like I said, I'm just posting every day, you know, just little little tips, little
32:39
things to make you think differently every time you get behind the wheel.
32:43
Because for me, with my with my, resume in my head, every time I get behind the wheel, I see
32:50
somebody do something like, okay, I got it.
32:52
I gotta write this down in the book.
32:53
I gotta tell somebody about this.
32:55
And so that's where my head has been for the last twenty five years.
32:59
And, it's really exciting to even just in close friends that have started to listen to the
33:03
podcast like, oh, yeah.
33:05
Never thought of that.
33:05
Or when when my wife says, you know, I never thought of that, that's that's a big
33:13
improvement.
33:14
You know what I mean?
33:15
Over over the, the last argument that we had when we were when we were driving together.
33:20
Oh.
33:21
Definitely what I'm going for.
33:22
Yeah.
33:23
Well, that's great, man.
33:24
I I just I appreciate you so much for coming on.
33:27
And Randy, Keith, thanks for being part of the scene.
33:29
Thank you, Bubba.
33:30
Appreciate it.