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John Heintz- The Big Ol Nasty Getdown · Caught on the Mike...

• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mic.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: If there's anything I love, it is a good collaboration.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's when creative minds can come together and put something together that is a little bit different.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I gotta tell you, I don't know if it's just me.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe my next guest has noticed it as well, but there's been a movement towards neo-soul, neo-funk, neo reggae, and I have been here for it.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the whole world post-pandemic has been looking for music to make them dance and feel good again, and I'm here for it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me on the podcast today is my guest, John Heinz.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: He is the founder, he's the producer, he's a musician of the big ol' nasty get down.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, man?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Doing great.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Mike, how are you?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, thanks for having me on.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, thanks for being here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It turns the world, man.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so let's get right into it.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk a little bit about your origin story.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: How did your musical experiences, starting with guitar and bass as a kid, shape your identity as a musician and a producer?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting because I I started playing at a young age.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I started playing guitar at like six or seven, and then became interested in bass around 11.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I was also really into athletics at that time, and though that came much more naturally to me than music did.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I I played up until I was like 16 or 17, and then I went to the business world until I was roughly 30 when I had this kind of epiphany that my life was bullshit, and I really should have been pursuing something that was uh something that I loved and something I was interested in versus something that was stable and reliable.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I took a leap of faith at 30 after having that that more or less epiphany and decided I wanted to try doing stuff with music.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, I thought I was gonna be buying and selling guitars on eBay.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea what was getting ready to happen, and so the it's just this crazy set of this crazy situation happened where I wound up with the opportunity to go on tour with a band called the Lee Boys um in what was it, 2007, and decided to walk away from my career, which was in the insurance world.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I had owned an insurance brokerage working on commercial insurance and decided it was time to to pursue pursue music because when I would when I would have a tour bus drive by me on on the highway, I would get this like pit in my stomach, feeling like I had missed my opportunity.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I'm starting to look at the reality of being close to 30 and never having experience in the music industry, which felt like a a hurdle that was not gonna be something I could overcome.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And just all this crazy stuff happened, and next thing you know, I'm I'm rolling.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm out with with the Lee Boys, who they're an amazing band.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: They they have a bass player that you know, so I wasn't gonna become their bass player, but what they did was they brought me on the road and gave me the opportunity to get back up on stage and sit in with them, as well as learn the business side of things.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it was during that time out on the road with them that I started to formulate the idea for the get down because the Lee Boys being such extraordinary musicians that they are, and part of the festival scene lent to a lot of awesome musicians from the different bands also on the festival wanting to sit in.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And me kind of being tour manager, I was the gateway between.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I would get to know a lot of these players and and started coming up with this concept of bringing in a bunch of players from different bands into an isolated setting and also bringing in some music fans into the room to be able to have that energy feed that you get in a live situation in the studio.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, ultimately December of that year, the the get down came into came into play in a larger way than I expected because you know we we wound up with you know George Clinton was part of the very first record and and most of P Funk.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we wound up in a really unique situation having his blessing and his participation.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: So my my younger days of of music was very limited.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would I played in a church folk group as a child while I was in elementary school.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um I played in a band that didn't play out at all when I was in my mid-teens when I was living in Connecticut, and then you know, went went into the business world.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it it so it was just so unexpected.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like it, I couldn't explain it to you how it happened.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: It was just one of those things where the universe just everything aligned in a magical moment, and I took the risk to pursue it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that, man.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So did you have uh did your family have a musical background?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: My my uncle, um, who just recently passed away, he was the only real musician in in the family.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: My my parents are not necessarily music driven, they're more um they read a lot, they watch a lot of British TV, and uh, but not so much there wasn't so much gravitation towards music itself.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's probably because neither of them played an instrument or really participated in the creation of music, so they wouldn't um necessarily have a huge range of of music that I would have been exposed to at that time.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was mainly just like whatever was on church, whatever was in church music or um on pop radio.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then MTV came.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Then MTV came and that was a fucking game changer.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, holy shit.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into the brass tacks of the get down a little bit.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of talked about it very briefly, but what was the original inspiration or the philosophy behind setting up this rotating supergroup and this massive collage of artists across genres and generations?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: What problems were you trying to solve and what gap in the music world were you trying to fill?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, coming out of the business world right into the music scene, I noticed that there were so many musicians out there that had spent their entire lives focused on the craft of music and had not spent time understanding the dynamics of business.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I looked at the possibility of being able to create something where uh up-and-coming musicians could get together with living legends and everybody's voice be heard, where the spotlight would be shined on players that, for example, like everybody knows celebrate by cool and the gang.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: They know that horn line.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: The horn line's iconic, but who could possibly name the horn players on that?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And which is a shame because they made the song in a lot of ways, and only you know, Cool and JT really got the the notoriety there.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: But there are so there's so many people that are part of that creative process, and and their input is in these songs that are iconic, but they get overlooked constantly.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked at it also as an opportunity to be able to shine light on them.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I looked at it as an opportunity to be able to pool resources and be able to help one another with different gaps that they were experiencing with furthering their careers.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: For example, um, oftentimes, you know, somebody might be struggling with a publicist or a booking agent, or so on and so forth.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the vetting process is very difficult, painful, and expensive.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if somebody makes the wrong move hiring this or that to help represent them, that could really take down the ship.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked at being able to take all of us together and and see like what what people are having good experiences with and become a hub and a resource for a lot of players.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that was really the the reasoning behind it was to almost create a support system slash uh I don't know, um collective.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So like a cooperative, yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where where it was just you know, musicians being musicians being able to learn from one another, be able to share with one another, and be able to all further what we were in pursuit of in our careers.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you balance structure and and freedom in a project like this?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, letting artists improvise versus guiding everything towards a finished product?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's a couple ways that I approach the production side of things, but the the commonality between all those styles is letting the musician be themselves.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, allowing to have complete open-mindedness.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: My job is to be open-minded and then make the right next decision.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if I were to want to it wouldn't when we write the music, it's being written on the fly.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: For example, uh Crispy Chicken and Ain't Nowhere to Go.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Those were written and recorded along with five other songs, with no preconceived idea coming into the studio that day, but we wrote and recorded, yeah, I think it was six songs that day from scratch.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh Crispy Chicken was probably an hour and a half between the time that we hit the first note and what you hear now.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Minus the horns, because I didn't have the brass section there at the time.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I so I just shot those down to New Orleans to Big Sam, who's part of Big Sam's Funky Nation, one of the New Orleans greats on Trombone, and said, Sam, I need you to do your thing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do your thing.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Some sauce on it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and this man, he put some sauce on it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: I remember because that that solo that he does is just ferocious.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I was listening to it for the first time in the um, and I was in the car and I had the windows down, and I watched the people on either side of me, minute that solo hit, roll their windows down.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and I was watching with this like bounce your head.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh fuck, this is rad.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're feeling it too, you know.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's because that's the thing, is like I'm so attached and so personally involved with these that my love for it, it's subjective.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: It might be different than somebody else's who's gonna hear it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: But when you see somebody really just rocking balls to some of that stuff, it's just like, yeah, it's all right.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because back in the day, that's how you would tell if music was a success.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: You take you take your boom box out to the the park, put that shit on blast if nobody told you to turn that shit off.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: You knew you had something.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, test marketing.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally the ultimate beta.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that, man.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So with over now, this is my viewers and listeners are gonna be blown away by this, but with over 225 different musicians from 180 plus different bands contributing over the years, how do you coordinate schedules and these ideas and recording sessions?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's the most challenging part of putting all this together?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Besides paying for it, um, I would say right um is is definitely the tour schedules because everybody that's in the project, for the most part, has their own primary band that they come from, and those primary bands have their own tour schedules.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: So there's so many moving parts within moving parts that you almost have to be crazy to even try to take it on because doing a tour, for example, becomes the biggest challenge there.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is you've got promoters that want you to submit a lineup, and that's like six or seven months in advance.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know who's gonna have a tour announced within that window, and I'm not gonna sit there and be like, hey, so-and-so, you know, you agreed to these three dates with us, you're gonna have to pass on that world tour for the next six months.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's unrealistic, so there has to be a fluidity and and the ability for like you know, those promoters to understand that no matter what, I'm gonna bring a badass lineup, but I might not be able to tell you exactly who's gonna be there until a couple weeks ahead of time because of the nature of everybody's schedule being active.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that that becomes a real big hurdle uh when it comes to putting the band out on the road.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: But when we're out on the road, it's it's so much fun.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also you know, it's it's a lot of work because you're almost moving around like a little city of people, yeah and making sure that all of their needs are taken care of, making sure to keep your own needs in focus at this at the same time.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it it can be really demanding um and takes yeah, it takes a certain level of crazy to put the band out on the road.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just so people have a little sampling, just a little sampling.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's I'm gonna throw some names out that the normies would know, the guys that don't deep dive into the uh album covers.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: You have Cut Chemist from Jurassic 5 on there, Angelo and Norwood of Fishbowbone on your most recent release, Steven Perkins from Jane's Addiction, Jack Irons from God knows everybody every project from Red Hot Chili Peppers on, and and also Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers, and that's the small sampling.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the small sampling.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're talking about the logistics of trying to put this together for a live setting or recording sessions and such, you know, I hope the audience, after they're done watching this or listening to this, goes back, listens to volume one, two, or three, and kind of realize the fingerprints that are on these works, man.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's insane.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I look back at it and it's it's a little mind-blowing to me too, because I'm still a huge fan of these bands.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Huge, like that's the thing that's never left me.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I had too much time to be a fan before coming into the music industry to ultimately get that mentality of, well, I'm this now, so I don't, you know, I can't cheer on this or love that.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm still just a huge fan.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was with Peanut from 311 last week, and there you go.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we were at Norwood's 60th birthday party, and Flea was there, and Robert Trujillo, and basically all of our bass idols.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things I love about Peanut is he also has that same mentality that you know, not we're not too big or badass to be a fan and let that like 15-year-old inner child come out being like, Holy fuck, that's that person, that's that person, you know.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: It and so for me, like that it's it's really interesting when I look back at at who all is in it, because even even the last record, like I did a um I did a song that had Lair from Primus, Norwood, and Jack on it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And looking back, I was like, wow, I don't think there's ever been a track before it had members of Primus, Fishbone, and a former Chili Pepper all on one one track.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we did that with volume two, where I've got members of Living Color, P Funk, and Fishbone all on a track together.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: So things like that, I I I look back and feel really good about, but not sure how I made that happen ultimately, you know, because it's just like like what's the chances?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of looking back at volume one, volume two, volume three, what have you learned each time that you brought into the next project?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are new approaches that you took this time for volume three that maybe you didn't do with volume one and volume two?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when we did volume one, I don't know how much of the backstory you know about with the production the way we used to do it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: The way we used to do it, so volume one, I flew in 35 musicians from 17 bands, and we basically had a had a house party in New Orleans in this mansion that was provided to us and wrote the album there pretty much during the the nightly jams.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then we finished it up at George Clinton studio because most of P Funk at that at that during that time was part of the project.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: So um that when we when we finished that, we only had 11 songs, and so that's what wound up on on volume one.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: We we had nothing extra to work with.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: What we had was what what we put out there.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Volume two I had a little more decision making freedom because we had extra tracks that I could carry over to either volume three or different different arm of the project.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was definitely by choice because I I wanted to have some ability to pick and choose which songs I wanted to put on volume two and which ones felt like they might fit in a better a better situation.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so for example, um Birds of a Feather, that was done during the volume two sessions and had been sitting in the archives, and then I I ultimately wound up putting uh Tim Stewart on guitar on that late in the game, right before um when when I started to kind of narrow down what was gonna be on volume three.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Volume two definitely felt like there was a little more production happening than volume one.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Volume one, we were just flying by the seat of our pants because there was no like we we had no blueprint to go by.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like we're gonna put a bunch of people together and see what happens, you know, and it and it could have wound up being a really expensive vacation getaway with no results, or what ended up happening um, you know, was the perfect situation where we wound up writing so much so fast that we had to go into the studio to record it right away because that initial trip was only supposed to be a writing session, and we were gonna come back later and then record it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it was just things were moving, it was it was beautiful, and so so now that was the big thing with volume two was well, was that just a one-time thing that we just wound up having everything line up the way we could have dreamed could you know our ultimate hopes come together, or is this a repeatable thing?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the first night I knew could because the second album we wound up um in a big mountain cabin in Asheville, North Carolina, and there was probably 30 of us up there for that one as members of Mudvane and P Funk and More Stay in the Time, Fishbone, you you name it.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: There, there was a lot of a lot of really fun people that were part of that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: And within and so I rented this big Airbnb, and we moved the entire living room out onto the patio and and turned it, yeah, and we turned it into this jam space.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: And within yeah, within 20 minutes of us first starting to get going, I knew I I I could feel it and I I could hear it that it's gonna be it's gonna be okay.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know how okay, but I knew we were at least gonna yield some material that that would be of a level that would match what what volume one was.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was gonna ask next was you know leaning into my own experiences as a recon.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Covered, retired musician myself.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when you jam with different people, everybody brings a slightly different flavor.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Each player brings a different flavor.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it challenging uh trying to put together a coherent sonic identity that stays consistent for the project?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with our live band, there's a lot of usual suspects that are part of the story band, yeah.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a core of players that I like to use for that, and then we kind of sprinkle in uh guest superstar artists, if you will.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: But everybody, and that's more for the marquee because that's what the talent buyer wants.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: But the reality is everybody within the project, whether they are you know from the biggest band in the world or the up-and-coming badass that you might not have heard of yet, gets treated with the same respect and as though love that, you know, because everybody has a voice that that should be heard, and some of the most beautiful moments of the project has been watching the openness.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, Fred Wesley, who played trombone with uh James Brown, the horny horns, and Parliament Funkadelic.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: We um for volume two, we did this session in Asheville, and Derek Johnson, who's one of the original uh trombone players of the project, Fred's his biggest influence.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So there we are, Fred and Derek in the in the room together, uh getting ready to track the horn section.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm watching Derek just hanging on to every word and watching everything that Fred was doing, and it was it was so cool just to watch him experience his biggest influence right there in the room and him standing next to him and them playing together.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, after we finished that song, I noticed that Derek is like really intently uh talking to Fred about something, and Fred's like super engaged.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so what happened was Fred started asking Derek about his pedal board.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Fred, yeah, Fred had never played through a pedal board before.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: So next thing you know, the the students teaching the teacher about the pedal board, and so it was just like seeing that that you know, and whether you're somebody's hero or or or whatever, you know, everybody has like something to contribute and something to teach and something to share and something to learn.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that that to me felt like the project was doing some stuff that was that was a little bit different than the average band situation.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: We were creating experiences and creating um opportunities for people that that have a lot of respect for one another to be able to be in the same room and their voices be heard on an equal level, and so I love that, man.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: God, I love that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was rad.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, that is so awesome.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is there somebody, and you know, it could be a marquee artist or not, but is there somebody that you haven't had the opportunity to work with yet that's like near the top of your list?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, Niall Rogers.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, you should have known, dude.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and and and we we text every once in a while, and and I remember we we had talked probably back to 2013, and he was busy working on some stuff for a theater project he was working on, I believe.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: But but um I I don't even know if I if I'm remembering his words exact, but it was like, you know, wow, I love that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: All of my friends are part of it.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, consider me a goodwill ambassador in the meantime.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I I've been wanting to circle back with with Niall.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um let's see, who else?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I have a list somewhere.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm sure you do because because it's like I I I know when I get asked different questions about, like, for example, like what's your top five favorite songs or who influenced you?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Right, it's like all of a sudden I go blank.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like as though I've never fucking heard anybody's name before, right?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I decided one day to to put down a little list just as a as a cue, just in case.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me let me think who else.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um dude, I I saw you worked with Corey Glover, and he's one of my most favorite vocalists of all time.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: All time.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, dude, he's great.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Corey, Corey's awesome.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: We yeah, that track hasn't come out yet.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um the track with Vernon is on volume two, which was like one of the ultimate guitar solos.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: I remember it was it was pretty bad because I had a different guitar player that was trying to to solo in that section, and it just didn't feel like they were identifying with the song as much as they probably needed to for what I was looking for.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And at one point I was just like, man, well, what about you played it like the way Vernon Reed would play it?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of style, right?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And they just looked at me like that ain't happening, and so the next day I hit Vernon up, and well, Vernon wound up on wound up, might as well just get Vernon Reed.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm asking somebody to play like Vernon Reed, maybe I should just reach out to Vernon.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, and to this day, I believe Vernon has given me the most notes per money uh per dollar that that anyone on the anyone on the songs have ever done.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like his solo is ridiculous, it's like two and a half minutes of just sheer shredding.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And dude, cult personality, that solo is in my top three.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be cult personality, Mr.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Brown's style, or no, sorry, not Mr.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Brown style, Mr.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Crowley, and No More Tears.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I love those.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so to get like a almost cult personality style or yeah, or driven type of solo from Vernon was was just incredible.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the first time that members of P Funk, Living Color, and Fishbone had all been on a song together.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's insane.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Cult is like my go-to karaoke song.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: So like I try and do my best, Corey Glover, and like I tell you what, man, I don't think the world appreciates Living Color the way that they should.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, they really don't.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is so good and covers so many different genres.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Go beyond cult of personality.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the entire catalog.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I love that.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're so good.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, and really nice guys, too.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's the thing.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, you know, they played a show on Halloween a couple years ago in my market, and everybody was saying, like, Corey and like Doug and and and Vernon were just interacting and mingling with the crowd before and after the show, which is awesome.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's fantastic.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're very, very approachable.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: And pound for pound, talent-wise, those guys are insane.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, holy shit.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the most recent press release uh emphasizes that the project is a DIY triumph.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, outside operating outside rigid formulas and major labels.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: What are the trade-offs?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: What do you sacrifice and what do you gain by keeping this project independent?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, business guy, that's my business question.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um by doing it the way we do it, it gives me, I guess, for lack of better terms, control of the music and the ability to let it be what it's going to be in the time frame that it needs to be.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because I look at all the songs as being like living entities and they they have their own needs, they ask for certain things, you have to nurture them almost like a child, and then know when they're ready to be sent off to school.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of which is you know, it's tough because you know that these things that you care about so much are about to get public scrutiny, same way as sending, you know, setting up when a kid leaves home.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you just you just hope that you've given it everything that it needs to be the best that it can be, and know how to not over-parent or over-produce a track.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so not having a label in place though means that I have to kind of wear all the hats.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: The only the only thing right now that is subbed out is uh public publicity, the the PR, uh publicist with Sam being on board with big picture media.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um other than that, everything else is done pretty much by me, which it it can take a lot out of you, whether it's on the uh getting burned out, um haven't one of the hard you know, I always laughed at one of the joys of releasing music is to never fucking have to listen to it again.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's yeah, you know what I mean?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, all right, don't have to listen to this shit anymore.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on to the oh my god, dude.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I have had that conversation with so many musicians.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, and the thing is what they say on camera versus what they say off camera, two totally different things because the obviously on camera you gotta sell, you gotta sell, sell, sell, sell.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But off camera, it's like, okay, how excited are you to have this release party and just start working on your new shit?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, exactly.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had the best night's sleep the day after the thing finally fucking came out.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually leaving tomorrow to head out of town for a couple days just to reset.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because one of the things that I did, you know, you're asking what's different from album to album.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Between volume two and volume three, I wound up putting, I think I've got roughly 130, 140 songs in the back catalog that haven't been released yet.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: So volume four, volume five, volume six all have their music set aside.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've got two more EPs that follow up the repurpose purpose EP.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: That one's a weird one because I decided to take one isolated drum track and send it out to 15 of my favorite bass players and let them make the first move on it.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I built up each song as their own and put out the EP that's literally on the same chassis.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Every single song is on the same exact drum beat, but you wouldn't know that it was.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's like amazing.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could even go back and listen to some of them and say, Oh my god, it sounds like that one's 15 BPM slower than the last track, but it's literally the same, unedited, un you know, the same thing that everybody got.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because from a scientific experiment, you have to have a controlled uh element that you're starting with, and if it starts to sway from that, then you know the ultimate experiment, you can't tell the the kind of results that you wind up with.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, like I did this um seven inch with Remko Hendricks, he's an amazing Dutch play uh bass player, and he was one of the first people that was part of the repurpose purpose idea.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is we cut the beginning of the drums off of his track, and it didn't fit the mold of the rest of them.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we wound up using that for the for his thing by itself because it didn't have that intro that all the rest of the songs had, so it had to be very much contained in the sense that everybody's getting the same thing.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna we're not gonna change it, we're not gonna edit it.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: Work within these bounds, these boundaries and see what happens.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it, I mean, it was incredible.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: And especially with um the pandemic happening, everybody was home.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was looking for some kind of creative outlet, everybody was looking for a place to continue to earn.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: So now all of a sudden, with a project like big old nasty get down that's made up of people from all these different touring bands, everybody's home.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, holy shit, this is really sad what's going on in the world right now, but this is incredible for me to be able to do a lot of production and reach a lot of people that I had hoped to work with someday and be able to have a good turnaround time.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'll yeah, I'll get a lot of players that that are all about it, but the reality is this the schedule just doesn't allow it until it allows it, and that could be a couple years.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, I'm I'm patient.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I I'll take songs that I hear XYZ person on, and I'll just put it to on the back burner until they come around and they surface organically into my world or their their schedule frees up.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, sometimes it doesn't happen, but a lot of times it does because you know they start hearing who all's involved, and um it seems like oh okay, well that that must be a legit project that I can lend my name to.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because the thing you have to remember is these people are also trusting me with using their name publicly, and I have a responsibility to protect the group of all the players and not um it's unsanctioned endorsement, is what it is, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so it's a big responsibility there to to make sure that at all times the the best of us is being put out front.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um I love that man.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, kind of kind of leaning into that, how do you measure success as I hold up the air quotes for the get down?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in streams?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is it an artistic fulfillment?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is it in community impact?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: And really, how the fuck do you even measure success in the music business anymore?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's so true.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because like I coming from the business world, success is money.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just not the case in the music industry.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is, but it isn't.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: For some people, maybe even a lot of people, it's a money-driven pursuit.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's never been about money for me, it's been about the love of the music and being able to try to do something that helps the greater good of the community.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it also puts me in a horrible financial position at times trying to do that.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's at times I'll look back and I'll be um you know, wondering if thing because I see, I'm not seeing what's been done.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm seeing what still needs to be done most of the time.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's rare that I'll stop and I'll look back and be like, holy shit, there's 225 people that have come on to this idea that I had and given their best and given me material that's what I feel like is is really strong, and sometimes even the strongest stuff that they they may have been on.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I'll look at that as you know, some some success being able to get uh a lot of players I love involved in the project.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: But it's times like this talking to folks like you is when I get the the feeling that all right, this is this is something that people are interested in because I'm behind the scenes so much.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, while my contemporaries are out getting the love of the audience and playing the live shows and having the fun there, I'm stuck sitting here trying to figure out how I'm gonna get this vinyl order and come up with the cash for it, you know what I mean?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, and so I'm just sitting there with no real things that are putting fuel back in the tank until we release the album, or until I go out on the road with the band.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that's the burden and the cross that people that really care about their art bear is they don't get to experience the success.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for anybody that's out there that thinks the old music industry exists and it's a great get rich quick scheme, get in your DeLorean and go back to 1997.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: That shit doesn't exist anymore.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't, and it and the problem is it's changing by the day, yes, so there's no way to be hip to what's going on now because now is old news.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know what I mean, and so it's it's with the algorithms and the way social media is controlling things, it it's a handy tool, but it's also something that destroys the possibility of an up-and-coming band succeeding.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're in a situation where you're having a hard time paying for gas from one gig to the next, and the only way that you're gonna be able to get the word out there about your show in any given market is to put money behind a Facebook post to just reach the people that already have said that they want to hear what's going on in your world, they may never get the chance to even get out on the road because preach, you know what I mean?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's insane.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's weird because the pendulum is so extreme on both sides.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: You you would think we were talking about politics, but I won't.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the pendulum is so extreme on both sides.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a uh uh music manager by the name of Dave Rose, he creates a lot of good content for platforms like TikTok and Instagram and such, and he made a video recently about this alarming trend that he's starting to see, where the traditional pop song, the perfect time used to be three minutes and 30 seconds.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: But because of the way people's attention spans have shortened, that you're gonna start seeing like a lot of two-minute, two-minute, fifteen-minute long songs coming.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a pendulum on the other side where people want authenticity.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said at the start of the episode, like people are coming back to funk, they're coming back to Seoul, they're coming back to reggae, they're coming back to live shows, jam bands, and stuff because they want to feel the music again, not just experience a pop hook, you know?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was talking to Leo Nocentelli from the meters a couple weeks ago, and he he was talking about how he was around some major promoters recently, and you know, the the word on the street is people are looking for the real deal, they want the real shit again.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that that is, I think, starting to push that that trend towards all the Neo and all the you know the stuff that gets lost in the cracks because ultimately the the ones that make it the furthest are the ones that are most like one another in the pop world, and it's the ones that are not going to disrupt the radio listener from changing the station so they don't miss out on the advertising revenue from the station's point of view.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it creates sort of a generic blandness that's commercially available and doesn't allow for bands that have unique instrumentation, unique lineups, and different sounds to be able to get the kind of airplay or mass exposure that you know most of the the pop artists are are getting access to.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um that makes it really, really hard to be able to compete, especially as a do-it-yourself operation, like compete with a major label and get the same kind of uh opportunities that they have.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, we've we've been able to break a lot of the rules.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like we got New York Times top 10 playlist on volume two with Creatures of Habit up there with Kendrick Lamar, Justin Timberlake, Lana Del Rey.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and that was a that was a moment of like, wow, it's really you know, people are are open to letting us sneak through the cracks if we can bring them something that's different and unique enough to to make it worth it.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember that morning too.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was having coffee with some friends, and they're like, So how's it going with the project?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm fucking over it.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so over it.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm I'm gonna go get some applications today.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and um, and they're like, really?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just I was burned the fuck out.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I get home from from coffee and in the uh in the inbox was exciting news from my publicist.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Pop that open, and she's like, the New York Times has picked you for the top 10 playlists for blah blah blah blah blah.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh fuck, I guess I have to keep doing this.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing, dude.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just about the time you're ready to pack it up, you've been kicked in the nuts so many times, you're like, oh shit, I gotta win.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a total small win.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big win.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big win.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I guess I'm signed back up for this shit.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was talking to Samantha, my publicist, this morning, and I'm like, man, just if I can get Rolling Stone and a Grammy, I could stop doing this shit and just go like get a day job.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm I'm so grateful to be in the position I'm in with this.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: But but there there's there's a lot that that it takes out of you that that the majority of folks don't see or don't necessarily want to see.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know, there's definitely times, even though I don't think I could ever walk away from this.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's times that it's So trying, where it's like, what am I fucking doing?
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I could be chilling on a beach somewhere, and you know, the whatever's being spent on this album, I could be chilling.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, I'm putting myself in a position of discomfort for dude.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think you and I could write a joint book together and we can talk our our our experiences, DIYers and like like the the struggles of the imposter syndrome and uh and and like everything that that's challenging that comes along with it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: But then you have the pinch me moments.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: You have those moments where you're in a room with such great creatives where you're like, is this really my life?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is this really fucking happening right now?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally, dude.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: So which brings me to this what collaboration surprised you the most that you least expected, and how the artist showed up unexpectedly for you?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Chad Smith was one that was that was pretty rad when that happened.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I had gotten this idea after watching the Sound City documentary about the the the Neve that Dave Grohl wound up buying and bringing up to the studio.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh got determined that we were and and just totally set on the idea that we were gonna mix volume two on that board.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: And again, the universe provided uh my buddy Jason Wish had uh had known Dave Grohl's wife for a number of years, so he he reached out to her and she passed along the studio manager's number, and then uh I got in touch with him and they invited us to come up and and mix the album up there, which turned into several years of doing some some unbelievable collaborations up at that studio.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: So one day we were sitting around and um I think it was Lou who's the the head engineer up there said, you know, we just had Chad in the studio working on some stuff.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: This seems like it would be something right up his alley.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Yeah, I think this this would be that's a great idea.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Chad wound up hitting me up before I reached out to him saying, Hey dude, you want jam?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: Or something along those lines.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so um we set up a session, and it was Chad and Stephen Perkins that day on drums.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and so those moments are like the holy shit, you know.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: I got Perkin.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Fuck, there was a day that we had Taylor Hawkins in the studio, Chad, Chad wasn't there, but um, yeah, Taylor Hawkins, Stephen Perkins, and Jack Irons all in the room, and it was just like whoa, yeah, holy shit.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what's what's crazy is like, you know, uh a lot of people, I don't know, a lot of people out that are not music nerds like we are, right?
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, Jack and Taylor from you know Foo Fighters and Jack's work with Pearl Jam for a short stint of time, but those guys were like really uh diverse players, they played every style under the sun, and they're so fucking good at it, too.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: They they are Jack.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: Jack is one of the most amazing stories in contemporary music, I believe.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah because I I don't know if if you know this or not, but he is the reason Pearl Jam happened.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: I did not know that.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: So remember, they were Mookie Blaylock for a period, right?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And during that time, I think it was Jeff gave Jack a mixtape of Mookie Blaylock saying, Hey, do you would you want to come and drum for us?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we're also looking for a singer.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so Jack hadn't been ready yet to you know start touring again and playing with the band, but said, Hey, if I if I hear of anybody or anybody comes to mind, do you mind if I pass this along?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: So one day he and Eddie Vedder were surfing, and Jack handed the tape to Eddie.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: Eddie listened to some of it, then went out and surfed and wrote three of the songs from the first album before he came back.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so that wouldn't have happened without Jack.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um the being the original drummer of the Chili Peppers.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: If you think about that, then it would have been different than what they are now.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um and if you take those two bands out of the equation and you look at modern music, at least in those genres, whoa.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: The whole first half of the 90s wouldn't have happened, right?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: But then you also look back at bands that got overlooked like Fishbone.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and those bands wouldn't have happened without a fishbone, yeah.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so it's all it's all interconnected at the end of the day, and that's that's part of what I've been doing with the project is following that lineage and making sure that it's not only a bunch of great musicians coming together, but it's also historically uh a project that represents the the movement of music throughout time, at least of my age range.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we've we've got players.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, our youngest player, she was 11 when she first started playing for Ellen Oliverio.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, she's amazing.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, if you are paying attention to anything we're saying, you need to go watch that video.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wrong was it wrong side of the law, the one we did with her.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and any of any of out of Ellen's music is is just incredible because she's the real deal.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's not one of these things where what's gonna happen when she turns 18 and all of her peers have caught up to where her talent level is.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: She's exceeded that.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: She's solidified her place in the industry and is highly, highly respected, and also carries a level of professionalism that is outstanding, that's better than some of the you know players that have been doing this for decades and decades.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, Ellen has been an amazing person to work with.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, her and her dad Hovak are just incredible.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: We've got another song coming up with them that's gonna.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've got to wrap that up when I get back from the the little post volume three break, which would be October 4th.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: I get back and kind of jump back into finishing up volume four, finishing up the this uh new the the new song with Alan, and then working on a project with uh the Dutch bass player that I mentioned before, Rem Kel Hendricks, doing a really special thing with him on uh that I can't talk too much about, but it's it's gonna be badass.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been enjoying this conversation with you, and I gotta say, like it's immaculate how this small collection of serendipitous moments have led to this great collection of work.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do you see the get down evolving in the next five to ten years?
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Will you continue with full volumes, live shows, or mentoring more cross-generational exchanges, kind of like with the the aforementioned bass players?
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I mean ultimately I'd like to find a place where I can have this be on the business side, sort of on autopilot, where I've got the team in place that can really help me make sure that all the grounds are covered and we're getting the the most opportunity to be in some form of spotlight.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not looking for fame, I'm not looking for a financial windfall.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also I'm just looking for the ability to be able to keep doing it and be able to keep putting money into different players' pockets that at that time that might be something that's saving them from a situation or creating a space of opportunity in between tours or or whatever where I can continue continue to do that.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'd like to be, I mean, ultimately, because the project was never about me, this can go on long beyond my years.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd love to be able to find somebody that that gets it that can handle it with the care and the respect that it needs to keep it going for however long it's meant to go.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I don't know what that real answer is of how long this is supposed to go.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's like like we've talked about being independent, there's those moments where it's just like I can't do this anymore.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's been times that I've been in that spot, and ultimately I it closes down my imagination of how far this could go because it's it feels like wow, do I want that much work the rest of my life and and have to deal with so many X factors?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's never really with the players, it's it's more just like the circumstances of trying to cover the cost of pressing vinyl or finding opportunity to be able to earn when we're not touring to help offset what I have to the kind of exposure I'm I'm risking.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that that I would love to have the ability to not um have as much stress as I have taking the risks I'm taking.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I call them riks because you know, music's so subjective, and you can put every last penny to your name into a song that goes nowhere, and then you've got nothing other than the song, which you know, if if for the most part, it should be that you're proud of the song, and that's the reward.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: But when you start to get into the business side of things where you have to figure out how to be able to bring in income to be able to keep moving forward, then it you know it it becomes more of a challenge and you have to think about things more than just being proud of a song being being there.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: You have to figure out how you're gonna get it out to the world to be able to even hear that it exists to say whether or not they like it, you know.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's yeah, it's so it's a lot.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny you say that because we live in a society where if you tell somebody, an anonymous person on the street that you're a musician, they want to preach to you about the conventionalism of the life path that you're on, or lack of conventionalism on the life path you're on, but you will see that same person show up at a Taylor Swift concert, and it's like, guess what?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't take a conventional life path either.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it's like you know, yeah, that people people have a funny way of viewing it if they haven't participated in some form of it.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's and you know, you can't blame them.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's if they don't know, they don't know.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the only way you would know is because you know, as you know, being part of the industry, that we are experiencing one life at at a pace that is much faster, I think, than what a lot of people in traditional jobs are experiencing.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're dealing with personality circumstances that yeah, everybody in the workforce has to deal with.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, everybody's got an asshole they work with, but um there's just situations that happen with us that just is unique to anything else, and and so when you try to explain that to somebody that is in a more con uh more traditional field, it makes no sense to them.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I I remember I I won't mention any names or bands, but I was on tour with a band where somebody had a heroin overdose on stage, and they were picked up, taken backstage, brought back to consciousness, and told don't do that much next time.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's insane.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what other job can you can you have something like that happen and then basically be told maybe not do that much that next time?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you wind up in just really bizarre, bizarre situations that have different sets of rules and standards than normal life would have in some ways.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: What do you hope people take away from listening to the volume three in this latest collection of songs?
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hope.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, a positive, a positivity that that is uh communicated through the music and uh an escape from the daunting times that we're in right now.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Somewhere to just kind of clo close their eyes and just lose their mind to whatever they're hearing, and if it's not with us, well put on something else.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, hopefully when they listen to it, they'll want to keep it on and and take the ride.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because it it really is a journey of a lot of people that put a lot of love into this, and this is the end result of the you know the collective effort.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was driving home and I was listening to volume three today, and I I was I was just driving home.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's rainy outside, I was a little tired, I was a little worn down, but it I got a smile on my face, and it was because I was thinking about that concept again, kind of to re-tread it, that I was pointing out at the beginning of the episode, at the opening of the episode, how people are circling back to the authenticity of music that makes them feel good again.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I I thought about a parallel to me as a podcaster of like what my purpose is as a podcaster, and it's like escapism, ultimately, escapism during a time where we probably need it the most, like being entertaining and making people feel good.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: That leads me to my closing question, which is something I ask everybody, and I think it's very relevant to the topic today, and that is what's your advice for a viewer or a listener for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today based on your experiences.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh selflessness, open-minded, and adaptability, I think are key.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think we've become a society that's really closed down to larger social socialization.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, like what we were talking about before about how you tell if a song was was worth a shit, you know, when you take that radio out into the the park and and you know, hope that nobody tells you to turn it off.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_02: These days it's such an individual experience a lot of times where it's like, hey, check out with my earbud.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a one to one ratio versus maybe like a one to fifty ratio that would have been with with the boombox.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that um because we are becoming so uh online driven, it's really causing an isolation and and uh sense of community is not as strong as it was when I was a kid.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's just so much that's different in the world that has changed, and you know, people of my generation are are still trying to hang on to what's normal for them while trying to adapt to this new idea or the these new ways of interacting and uh so on and so forth.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so I I think bringing bringing community back is is really a a key and and being willing to share knowledge and share experience that might help somebody that's trying the same pursuit avoid certain pitfalls.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, like I've made a ton of mistakes over the years with the big old nasty get down.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there was no blueprint, so I was bound to fuck shit up left and right at times just because I had no knowledge of how to pursue it.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Now I can take that information and pass that along to the next musician to give them a heads up of maybe don't do that.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you do that, this this might happen, and if this happens, well, this, this, and this might happen, and you might wind up phased out of the industry, or yeah, you know, uh exhausted cash-wise to be able to keep going.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think that just being able to pass along experiences is really key as well.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I couldn't have gotten to the place that I'm at without having uh that information passed along to me.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: Gary Scheiter and Bolita Woods of P Funk were like my mom and father in in the industry.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um because my my real parents, they they're absolutely super supportive, but just couldn't answer questions that I had because they just hadn't lived in that lifestyle or or had experience in the music industry.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: So Gary and Bolita were huge, huge role models, and Gary in particular passed along just tons and tons of information that became critical in continuing on in the early days.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Leo Nocentelli from the meters is another one who's um really stepped up and been uh a person that's taught me a lot.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, it's just trying to learn from everybody and figuring out from them what I can pass along to the next generation to be able to be of any help or or positivity.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've become a society that has completely changed the difference of monocultural experiences.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like we all used to gather around the TV when the MTV video music awards would come on, and then we'd all talk about it the next day, or the Super Bowl the next day.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now, because to your point, because of this online presence, we're only seeing things with tunnel vision and experiencing them by ourselves.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not experiencing the communal aspects of it.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people do miss that, and that's why sporting events are still so huge and concerts are still so huge.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I 110% agree with every last drop that you just uh that you just shared here.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, man, why don't you tell my audience where they can find you and your music online?
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so let's see.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh big old nastygetdown.com is our website.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: Our insta is uh at big old nasty get down.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: My insta is at getdown music.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have we're pretty much on all this uh the major streaming sites, and uh yeah, whatever whatever the preferred streaming site is, you know, we should be able to be found there.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you want physical albums, we've got a a store, and you can just go on the website and hit the store button.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we've actually got a unique store because I carry merch from a lot of the players, bands that are part of the project.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing, and it keeps it you know really awesome because here's the thing like an album sale is an album sale, and that revenue is gonna help the same way, either way, whether it's my album that's being sold or one of uh you know Galactic's albums that's being sold.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Either way, it's still helping keep the thing moving, and it's also giving exposure and giving a platform for these other bands that the members are part of, you know, uh another another place to get exposure.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: So we we've got, I don't know, I think a hundred and hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty titles uh in the shop.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: We got the bad brains reissues, the funkadelic.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Love it, you know, all that stuff.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: So uh it's really cool.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I get to work with uh artist tribute org music.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um they you know opened up an account for me so I can order you know anything out of their catalog, and then color red music, which is out of Denver, which is Eddie Roberts from the new Master Sounds uh label.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_02: I've got an account with them, so I carry a lot of their catalog as well.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, all at the end of the day, we're all trying to achieve the same and get forward motion.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if I can help them and they can help me, you know, we're we're doing something, we're doing something right.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I gotta tell you, uh, I am happy as shit that Sam connected the two of us because we are very like and similar-minded guys.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I hope beyond this we stay in contact and that you'll come back and do the show sometime.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed this episode.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks, man.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love to anytime as well.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when we hop off this, I'll give you my direct contact.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise, likewise.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, ladies and gentlemen, make sure you check out the big old nasty get down.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing nasty about it.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's all tasty, man.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like go enjoy some music, uh, live life.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and John, thank you so much for doing the podcast.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_01: The world is a much better place with you and it, my friend.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, thanks so much.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate that.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it was a real honor getting a chance to talk with you and being on the show.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta say, I super, super, super enjoyed that conversation with John.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to now call him a friend.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you follow the big, whole nasty get down wherever you can find.