Guys and gals, welcome to another episode of Battle
Mastermind. Co founder and your Co host
here. Jason Stallworth also Co founder
with me and Co host The Great. Ken Candelas Here we are up to
episode 70. Yes, this is episode 70.
Man, that's crazy dude. Are we old yet?
Yeah, you know, we're just talking about age.
We're not talking about age in the podcast, by the way.
But I was telling you, I was telling Ken guys that I'll be 50
next year. I mean, we're filming this in in
August 2024, so May 2025, I'll be 50.
So yeah, we're just kind of talking about that.
How Like man, that's like the halfway point or maybe not even.
So anyway, you can go down some dark and scary roads of that
one. Now we are going to talk about
something interesting today though that I mean this is cool.
We're going to talk about the environment and no, that's not
that's not what you're thinking. The environment that is perfect
for you creating. Now, this could be music,
obviously, this could be, of course, now we're thinking about
our home studios where we go to create stuff.
It could be art, it could be writing, could be anything.
You know, sometimes I like to write as well.
You know, Ken, you know, you and I both we write blog posts.
You just finished an entire book you've been working on for home
Eric for the new release coming out in in September here.
That's going to have a book with it and everything you guys know.
I published my first book in 2017, heavy metal and weights.
I'm, I'm going to be working on something new here pretty soon,
but your environment for creation, Jen, you know, I want
you to tell the story that you started telling me before we
click the record button here. You just got back from like a a
really epic place that is like the perfect environment for for
creation. Yeah, it's a place called
Guilford Sound and it's in Vermont.
Guilford, Vermont. So very original.
So we, we took a, it's actually a retreat.
It's a studio and it's a retreat at the same time.
So it's one of those things where you book your session for,
you know, however long, you know, a week or so, and you go
there and they have accommodations for you, for you
to, you know, sleep on the premises, wake up and just get
to work. And I have never experienced
something like this before, not to this degree.
I've been in professional studios all over, but not to the
point where it's like, hey, let's stay here and be creative.
Because I actually wasn't hired to be the engineer for this
record that was being made. I was hired to be the drummer.
So it was nice because the engineers that I was working
with, I was very familiar with, I have very good relations with
and they were just, you know, I, I could trust, right?
I didn't have to put my engineering cap.
I knew this was not my role this time.
I was just going to be the drummer, be the creative.
And that's a really because when it comes to, you know, working
on a record, the last thing I want to do is put on multiple
hats at the same time. So it's just better workflow,
you know, get somebody else to record you.
And Jason, you've even done this with your own record, too.
You were like, I'm not recording my own vocals.
I'm going to get Cliff to do it right.
Yeah, that that was a huge thing for me.
And and me, it goes back to environments like OK, And
there's some things about my small little 10 by 11 home
recording studio, you know, you can barely call it that.
But I mean, look, we all have an interface, we have our dolls.
I mean the recording quality you get with minimal gear is, I mean
it's pristine, we all know that. I mean, even even the lesser of
the interfaces, most affordable interface these days, you can
still get a very high quality recording that you could record
something and release. But the environment for, for not
only creating but also performing as well.
Sometimes it might be a little different.
And in this case, yeah, I, I didn't want to record vocal
tracks and then have to be also the person behind the the
console manning everything, you know.
Oh, I didn't like that one. Delete, go back, whatever.
So yeah. So again, you know, I guess
we're talking about both environment for, you know,
creation and also performing as well.
Yeah, this was, this is interesting because the, the way
this turned around was my friend.
He was told he was given a tip about Guilford and he said, OK,
you were my who let me say my, my other friend, who is my
colleague, he's the 11 of the engineers.
He was the one who got the tip and that said Guilford was going
to be available because somebody had already booked it, but they
they couldn't make the booking. So Guilford's what It was
already paid for. It was some big artist, but it
was, it was already paid for. And they just, they couldn't
make the accommodation. So it was open and it was paid
for. So the guys at Guilford are
friends with my friend. And they said, hey, you want to
come in and do something here? Nice dude.
And then the person who hired me to do the drums, he was the one
who who got that information. He said, yeah.
And my buddy who's the engineer said, Ken, you know, you would
be great for this band. You should play drums on this
and we're going to go to Guilford.
I said, OK, I've never been to Guilford.
But you know, you look at the website and you're just like,
holy crap, this is like Dream studio, this type of stuff.
They had, you know, an API legacy console and, you know,
all the, all the microphones you could ever ask for from
$1,000,000 Studio. And this was so exciting.
So I, you know, and I actually, I got, I think the demos for
what I was going to play the night before we were leaving for
Vermont. So I'm like, OK, so we're just
going to have to rehearse this while we're there and then
we'll, you know, we'll nail the record.
So, and lo and behold, we actually did.
It was fantastic. It's one of those situations
where it's really appreciative to play with people that know
what they're doing. And that's why it's also really
important that if you're a musician and you want to, you
know, get to the level of professional musician, you're
that you're also not just playing on your own, but you're
playing with other people so that you are practicing the
nature of improvisation on the fly.
Because that intuition, I can't tell you how much it helps you
in the moments where you're just like, oh, crap, I got to learn
this song. But you can really kind of lean
in on your intuition and say, OK, this is how it's supposed to
feel, you know, And then your muscle memory starts to really
kick in. And those are really good, you
know, lessons. But lo and behold, we go to this
place and, you know, we've set up the first day.
And during that time, you know, while they're setting up the
microphones, perfect opportunity for me to rehearse with the
band. So we're just doing our thing.
And then at the end of the day, you know, we close out the
session, We're like, OK, we're going to come back tomorrow.
Everybody's going to get some rest.
And our accommodations were in an old house from the 1700s,
like 1760s. So even before the United States
was the United States. So this house was still had all
the old hardware from then. So you know, you're like,
there's no door knobs. It's literally just like latched
and open kind of thing. And you're walking through and
you're just like, whoa, this is kind of nuts.
And it, it definitely sets the mood.
And, you know, you, you go to sleep.
It's so quiet because here in New York, where I'm from, it's
so noisy. And you realize, you realize how
noisy it is in New York when you go to a place like Vermont.
And it's just dead quiet where I could literally just hear the
hearing damage I had. So yeah.
And then the next day you come in and you're just like, all
fresh. And it's like, you don't even
have to do any setup. You just go in and you start
playing. And it's like, whoa, this is
what making music supposed to feel like.
No talk about talk about environment for for creation and
performing when everything is already set up.
You just walk in, it's done. You don't have to do anything.
There is something to be said for that.
Again, I want to kind of switch gears same page, but just a
little. Let's let's switch gears to just
a typical home studio. Any home studio you guys have,
again, most everybody listening, you guys have a computer, you
have a doll you can plug in and record.
What are some things can do that people can do that everyone
listening can do to make it as close to that as possible?
Like are there a few like, you know, three or five tips or
something like that that you want to give?
I have some things to share as well, but to make it so that
where you just sit down and you can start creating versus what I
have to do this, I have to plug this in.
I have to do that and all these 10 things you have to do first
before you even get started, because sometimes that have to
do stuff before you start can just kill the mood.
Yeah, it's very difficult because I feel like what's
special about doing something like Guilford is that you leave
what it is that you know, and you go into a place that's
remote, that is an isolated area where you don't have contact to
the outside world. We're at home, we very much have
contact. So it's just like at a moment's
notice, we can just be like, oh, got to take out the trash, you
know, or anything, right? And that kind of environment by,
I think default is something that kills creativity.
So working from home, and I think for a lot of people, even
through the pandemic, I think we realized that working from home
for a lot of things is an ideal because, for example, I'm a
teacher, right? Having to teach on Zoom was one
of the hardest things I had to do because I'm constantly
dealing with students who are getting distracted by family
members or their dog or, you know, they got to do something,
they got to run an errand and, you know, they're on their phone
and they can't really see what I'm talking about because the
screen's so small, right? It's like all these things,
right? Like working from home.
We, we initially are like, well, this is, this is great.
I get to be on my couch with a laptop and I kick my feet up in
my boxers and I'm just, you know, doing my work.
But. I've been there.
Realize that, you know, working from home can be a very, very
big challenge because there's so many things at home that are at
our fingertips that we basically have ADHD and there's just like
so many things we want to do at the same time.
So I guess at home, to get as close to the experience of
remoteness as possible, I think you have to one, completely
block out the week and say I am not doing work on anything else.
Like you literally like you're not going to go to a job.
You're going to, you know, make sure like you're isolated.
You might even say I'm going to unplug the Internet, turn off my
phones. Whatever, not a bad idea at all
man. Just completely unplug.
It has to be like a super conscious decision.
It's not going to be something that you can just like, you
know, chill out about and then get maybe a friend who's
experienced who can help you and do some of those tasks with you
and just help record you. But the best way, and This is
why where I always say like the reason why I don't focus on
recording at home, but I do mixing at home is for that
simple reason that my home is not the best acoustically.
The quality of the recording that you're going to get here is
going to be, you know, even if I had great microphones, it's not
going to be the same room. It's not going to be, you know,
something like where you go to a real recording studio where they
have those high quality rooms and they're acoustically treated
and they sound great. And those are going to be with
preserved on your record. It's worth paying that money to
go and record, you know, and not having to buy the entire
microphone locker for your home studio because it's like, why
would you do that? You still have the wrong
environment to record in any way.
So go to a studio that's actually properly built and then
you can, you know, mix at home. I tell all my students to focus
on like your monitoring and your listening environment for mixing
up at home because that's what's going to be the thing that can
really help you. Realistically here recording,
unless you're just maybe a vocalist or you're just doing,
you know, like an acoustic guitar, you could probably get
away with that at home and it'll sound great.
But like drums, that's just another level of unless you're
lucky to have a very nice acoustic space for that at home,
that's going to be the most challenging.
And even then, you still have to deal with distractions, right?
So that's, that's my opinion on it.
I think there's a lot to be gained from this experience of
how to look at making music, which is, you know, like I said,
how I thought music needs to be made and there's a lot of value
in that. So.
I'm so glad you brought up drums because as far as recording
goes, I would almost argue that if you're recording acoustic
drums, which which I applaud any drummer this recording with
acoustic drums. And I'm not knocking people that
record with electronic drums. Look, there's a there's a time
and place for everything. And if you don't have the means
to do something, then then do what you can with what you have.
I'll say that. But I mean, if you want to go
next level and ultimate level, dude, having Ken on the acoustic
drums, that's where where to where to be.
But I would argue that that might be the most important
instrument that you record that you have to have all this stuff
Ken that you're talking about. Look, vocals, would it be
perfect if I record even in my studio here, I've, I've got some
sound barriers with, you know, with, with cloth and curtains
and that sort of thing, right? It wouldn't be horrible.
And I mean, I've recorded vocals in here for masterpiece, you
know, now I'm not, you know, I'm not some Sebastian Bach or
Céline Dion or whatever, right? It's metal.
I'm OK. So it's a little rough and I'm
not going to pretend I'm the best vocalist.
You know, I, I do what I can with what I have again, but I
would say drums are even more important than that.
I I think what lacked in the earlier recordings in the early
days was probably just that if you go back and listen to a lot
of metal albums, testaments, I'm not picking on Testament because
it's a great album, but practice what you preach.
I would listen to that because I love the album so much, but the,
the kick was like, you know, and you could hear it from afar.
I mean, I'd be asleep listening to it.
And again, I can't take anything away from that album.
I and I'm, I'm choosing that one over many.
But if you go back and listen to old recordings, I think if
anything is lacking, it was maybe the, the bottom end
overall. And of course the drums where
now we know more about recording drums, mic techniques and that
sort of thing. But yeah, it's, I think it's
super important to know where your weak spots are.
It's like, OK, I, I would never drag a drum set up here in my 10
by 11 room and try to record drums.
That just wouldn't, wouldn't be ideal.
And as far as creating the environment to perform, I think
you know what I mentioned about recording vocals someone else's
studio on my last album, Ken, what you mentioned about going
to this place and probably any other time, especially when you,
when you recorded in Kia studio, when you recorded for our song,
the Metal Mastermind song, you are your master.
You recorded drums. You weren't trying to, you
didn't have like a laptop beside you trying to man the dawn and
all that stuff while you're trying to record.
No, you had another, you had a helper, someone to to manage all
that. Yeah, it's really important to
make friends in these situations.
Like even even despite the fact that, you know, we're moving in
a direction where every artist is kind of doing their own
thing, there's still a market for engineers studios.
And, you know, the bedroom studio has its uses, but it's
not the end all be all for everything, right?
I think we forget that sometimes when we're recording, we're
literally dealing with physics. So you can't, you know, just
unless you got like a black hole for, you know, reverb chambers
in your place where you can just make the entire drum set sound
not like a room that it's being placed in.
You have to, you have to still deal with that, right?
So, and you know, I feel like a lot of the digital technology
that we have helps quite a bit, but it's also like if you have
to go and do all that work to upend what you recorded because
it was recorded in the wrong environment, wouldn't it have
just been easier just to record it in the right environment in
the 1st place and just spend the money because like now you're
just spending time undoing what shouldn't have been done.
That's that's the thing that I think we forget about.
It's like, Oh, yeah, well, I'll fix it in the mix is like the
worst thing anybody could have ever made-up because that's not
what mixing is supposed to be. Mixing is supposed to elevate
what was already recorded. Mixing is supposed to be a
breeze. You should be spending like six
hours on a mix, not, you know, 60 days because you're like
thing is like reported so horribly.
You know, that's that's the the difference.
You know, when you go to a real place with real engineers who
know what they're doing and you're spending the money and
it's like, yeah, well, guess what?
That's an investment. That's why the studios of that
were, you know, recording all these record label projects.
The record labels would shell out $150,000 of dough into a
record because that's what it took to make the best that they
could make it be. Because at the end of the day,
you're going to be living with that for the rest of your life,
right? So if it's something you care
about, do it up right, Spend the money.
I know it's hard. I know it's like, oh, man, I got
to, you know, spend $3000 for this studio today.
And it's like, yeah, well, do you want great drums or do you
want subpar drums? That the moment somebody hits
your record and they listen to it, they're just going to be
like, because that's what's going to happen subconsciously,
whether you realize it or not. If it doesn't have great
production value, people immediately tune out because
they're so used to hearing the great stuff and that's what they
want. You know, the performance always
comes first, but that production value comes right after.
And people sometimes won't even last long enough to hear the
great performance that you had just because the moment they
turn it on, it's like looking at the cover of a book.
They'll they'll walk away and go to the next thing because it
sounds like crap. That's huge.
What you just brought up the cover of a book.
I have a good friend of mine. His name is Dale.
He he runs self-publishing with Dale.
It's a YouTube channel. And I, when I was going to
publish my first book in 2017, I was, you know, watching videos
about that. And I ran across him.
I commented and he saw I play guitar.
He plays guitar too. So, you know, we became great
friends after that, a great dude.
But yeah, he, he talks about the covers of your book.
It's great if you have an awesome book, but if you can't
get people to to be attracted to that, if you can't captivate
someone and capture their attention, it's almost like
YouTube, same thing. Can we, we could make a
phenomenal video, but if the thumbnail, you know, it's
arguably that's the number one thing, the thumbnail may be the
title as well. With thumbnail, if that's not
engaging folks, they don't care. So same, same with production.
If the production is not good, you know, we, I think, I think
the YouTube or maybe it's social media, Facebook metrics, the
meta metrics, there's actually a metric for three seconds.
Like people, this many people watched your video or this
percentage watch your video at least for three seconds.
And you're like, really our, our attention spans is that far gone
that we can only last. But people were scrolling,
right? To your point, if they don't
like what they're seeing or hearing, they scroll to the next
with with streaming these days, if they if they don't like the
first, you know, first few seconds or at least the
production value, if the production value is is just not
there, then they go to the next song.
Right, right. And this actually comes to a
point where I was watching a YouTube by then, I think the
name of Damien Keyes, marketer. Marketer, right?
He's he's been doing music business for a long time and he
has this argument of saying how how music videos are not
relevant anymore. I've heard that I watched the
same video you watched just last week, but go ahead, yeah.
And yeah, so I had some some mixed feelings about it.
So the first thing that I understand his point is to say,
well, why spend all this money and time on a on a music video
when you know people's attention spans are only like 3 seconds,
right? Just make Tik Toks and make good
Tik Toks and whatever, etcetera. And it's a lot on TikTok.
But I, I looked at music videos and maybe this is just like
millennial and, or, and older who think about this stuff.
But when we grew up with the NTV era, yes, to me, music videos
were another form of art expression.
And I always looked at that as a complete idea of what the artist
was envisioning in a visual sense, not just their music,
right? And my thoughts were, well, OK,
that may be true that people have very short attention spans.
But if that's the case, you could always repurpose the music
video. You could always, you know, chop
up the chorus and use that as a TikTok splice or whatever.
But if you wanted to create art in the 1st place, I think music
videos still have their place there.
So it's, it's something that I was just a little bit bothered
about, but it's like, I get it. I I understand where Damien was
coming from, but I don't know. What do you think about that?
I, I am 100% with you and I'm 100% against not making a music
video. I'm not saying make one for
every song 'cause that gets pricey.
But you know, can even, even lyric videos that you and I have
put up. I've got lyric videos on my
YouTube channel. And do they get a ton of views?
No, but they're out there and the people that have watched
them have, have left me some just some lovely comments and,
and they'll sit there and watch it and just listen to it.
And that's just a lyric video. That's what with nothing, that's
just the album cover. You know, Ellie, you're I say
your your fiance, but your wife now you know, she did the
artwork for my last two albums, which is big shout out to Ellie,
Ellie Elizabeth the day is she's also our vocal coach on metal
mastermind quick plug guy. So metal mastermind.com.
You can find Ellie's course, metal vocal virtuoso real quick
Ken, we're talking about studio build.
You have an entire course, like college level course because you
are a professor on the science of sound and how to build out
your studio called metal studio designer.
So head over to metalmastermind.com guys and
check out all of the courses and resources we have for you there.
But back to the music video. Yeah, I, I watched the same
video you did. I just thought about a week ago
and yeah, I, I kind of maybe the data does show.
I mean, data doesn't lie, right? I mean, if, if your metrics say
that X amount of people watch this much of the video.
And here's my thing, Ken, is if you can't sit through more than
three seconds of my video and, and it's a good production, it's
a good quality, it's a good song, then I don't know that
you're the right person for me. I don't know that you're the
right audience for me. So I'll say that I, I think this
whole thing with, with short attention spans now, I think a
lot of that has to do with, with our nutrition and exercise and
that sort of thing. We're not going to go down that
road. That's a completely different
discussion, but I think we have a lot more control over over our
attention span than people think.
With that said, I would rather pull somebody in that's already
looking for what I have. Home Eric, your album can your
your project here your whole world, right?
Because Home Eric is, is an entire world on its own.
So you created that and you're not even going after people with
with your music, right? You're not saying, Hey, come
listen to my stuff. That's not what it's about.
What you've done is you've created something and the
production quality is there and more so right, like and then
some, your production, your videos, everything is pristine,
but you've created something that someone out there or many
people out there, they're itching to find something like
this. And when they stumble upon you,
those hardcore fans, they're going to watch your music video.
And those are the type of people that you want coming into your
world. I don't necessarily want, I
don't necessarily want people that's just going to watch a few
seconds and move on to the next. And I'll, I'll tell you
something else real quick that I heard today by Pat Flynn
another. You know, Ken and I, we, we're,
we're, we own our own business here.
So we're marketers too. So we had to keep up on the
marketing world. But, you know, Pat Flynn was
talking, he was talking about, you know, getting the right type
of people into your world. And he talked about how going
viral is definitely not something that you should go
after you. You mentioned that a lot of
people or some people, they'll have one video or something just
goes viral. And going viral means you're
attracting all different types of people.
But these folks have a hard time selling a product.
They have a hard time capitalizing that and gaining
off of that. It's just, OK.
My video got millions of views. What now those people, because
they're so spread out and there's no niche, then well,
they're not going to buy anything from you, right?
Or, or your your sales, whether it's music sales or you're
trying to sell a product or whatever, it's going to be very
low because you don't really have a core audience with that
with viral. So let that be a lesson to to
all of us, all of you listening right now, going viral is really
I don't know that that should be the goal.
It's not mine. It's not, it's not Metal
Masterminds. You know, we don't have a ton of
views on any of her videos, but for the comments that we get on
her videos can. I know they're helping folks and
that's what we care about more than anything.
So you want to pull the right type of people, which is going
to be a condensed audience, not trying to appeal so much to the
masses. Yeah, it's not, it's not as
sexy, but it's the it's honestly the real truth.
Honestly, you should be very careful about going viral
because if you go viral for the wrong thing, then you've just,
you know, made the algorithm pump and now it's going to
deflate immediately because what you're really about is what
people didn't want to see, you know?
So that's really scary. I'm much more of a fan of, and
we've learned this with Leah McHenry, which is to build your
own castle. And for the longest of time, you
know, you know, you don't go out, you know, looking to get
struck by lightning. You know, if lightning strikes,
you just have to be prepared for it.
But we're not, we're not trying to fly a kite in the middle of a
of a of a thunderstorm, right? You have to build the
infrastructure, right? That's where you got lightning
rods on, on skyscrapers, right? But do you have to build a
skyscraper first? So those kinds of things I I
think is really also important to remember where you're just
viral. Virality can be a good thing,
but it can also be a bad thing. You have to make sure that you
totally understand what your music is about, what you stand
for, your whole brand, that whole kind of thing that still
applies. And your knowledge of how you do
everything and how you communicate authentically with
confidence and all those things take a lot of time.
And you know, a lot of people who are learning about music,
they're relatively young for, for the most part.
I mean, we have people, of course, that are lifelong
learners and they're still trying to do this stuff.
But you know, a lot of my students, for example, are very
young. They either just came out of
high school or, you know, they're in their mid 20s, some
of them in their early 30s like I am.
But some of them even forget that.
It's like, hey, this is like a lifelong journey.
And you're in an era now of the music industry where you are not
trying to really get on a record label because the record label
is not going to really help you. Even if you get signed, that's
not a guarantee that they'll even focus on you because
they're going to focus on the people that are bringing in
money. And then if they have leftover
funds from that, then they'll try and help you out.
But then even still, then you still got to pull your own
weight. So it's not necessarily a good
thing if you're an undiscovered artist who doesn't have anything
and you're asking a label for money.
So you have to do the work. You just have to, that's if you
want to do this as a, as a career, you know, if you're a
hobbyist, that's one thing. But if you're, if you're career
motivated to do this, you have to build it.
And that's going to take time. So those indie artists who are
successful, a lot of them have been working on this ten or more
years, just working on what is their identity, their brand.
The of course, focusing on the music, trying to get quality
recordings out of that, you know, maybe going to a place
like Gilbert or something and then doing all of this marketing
research to try and help promote their stuff.
Because that's another end of it, right?
You could be all this other stuff, but then if you just
don't know how to market this thing, that's going to also lead
you to disappointment or worse, ruin if if anything.
So that is a huge perspective shift that I think a lot of
people have to adopt. Some people are aware of it or
they just don't want to do it. And that's fine, you know,
because it's like, if, if this is not for you, let yourself be
honest with that. I have, I have told people that,
you know, it's like, listen, you, you claim you want to be an
artist, but I don't know if you think you want all the things
that come along with being an artist.
It's like you have to do this because you can't see yourself
doing anything else. Because if you have thought
about doing the music industry as a way of earning money, you
are in for a world of hurt 'cause there's a lot of money up
front that you may not see come back to you, you know?
But if you're just like me or Jason, who are just like, well,
we do this anyway because honestly, it's Our Calling, then
there's a chance for you, right? So that's, that's, that's huge,
man, because that, that kind of thing.
It's it's like it's the hard pill to swallow.
It is, it is. And you know, you could have the
greatest song too, Ken, like we talked about earlier, you can
have the greatest song, greatest video, but it, but if the, the,
the cover's not great, if it's not attracting people.
And I will say, even if you have production quality, let's say
you, you do all the right things.
You go to a studio and everything's done pristine, the
production's right. And then you just put it out
there like, hey, I just dropped my new song and crickets.
No one listens. Probably has nothing to do with
your song. It has to do with, with what Ken
just talked about. And that's also knowing the
business side of it, the marketing side of it.
And there are, there are a ton of resources out there.
You, you guys, most of you know, if you've been listening to Ken
and I for a while now, or if you're part of Metal Mastermind,
you know, Ken and I started this company.
Metal Mastermind is, is a legit, you know, it's a legit business.
We started this because we met in a marketing course by Leah
McHenry, the Elite Savvy Musician Academy.
We were the first generation elite students.
I guess this is probably like almost five years ago or so.
It can make me longer than that. And we yeah, 2016.
Wow, dude, wow. And we've been, we've been
building this for for quite some time.
You know, it's just been a slow growth.
But but every step we've taken, I I think we've built something
really solid here. You know, I'm, I'm very proud
of, I'm proud to tell people what I do for a living.
When I meet people, when they ask me what I do yeah, I'm a
musician. I have my music and all that
good stuff. That's that's a big part of it.
But but I'm also the Co founder of of this really cool community
and education platform for metal musicians.
And they're like metal musicians, you know, so it's,
it's just a cool thing to say. I'm very proud.
I've never been proud to say, well, I work for this company or
that company. I'm just, you know, I'm like,
can we just not talk about that? But now I'm very proud to say
what I do for a living. But you know, you do, you do
need to A learn how to market or, or B, have the money to, to
pay somebody that knows how to market.
And there are resources out there like like savvy musician
Academy. You know, Liam Mchenry's course
is great. You know, we've been looking at
Andrew Southworth. He's great.
You can look him up on YouTube. You know, so there are a lot of,
a lot of great resources out there.
I would say don't pick. I would say just pick one
because you might get conflicting information and then
you, you get, you know, what paralysis via over analysis type
of thing going on. But there are companies also
that you can, you know, can you do a mix of both?
You know, you, you've hired also a company that got you on metal
injection and metal sucks. So you went that route as well.
And you're also you're also marketing your own music.
So you're hitting it from from different angles there.
So I think if, if you do something you really want to do,
then just start, just start exploring those routes.
You know, it's, it's a, it's a really cool and really beautiful
thing. And I would also say this, I
know a lot of musicians don't want to be on social and, and
YouTube and that sort of thing, But I would encourage you, you
don't have to be on everything, but pick one platform.
I'm, I'm going to say YouTube. I think.
Can you, you agree with me on that?
Because it just allows you to get more reach.
And to me, people that are going through social media, whether it
be TikTok and scram, whatever, they're on there because they're
bored. So they're scrolling.
They have nothing better to do and they're just in the scroll
zone. When you think about YouTube,
you go there to learn something. You're usually typing in how to
fix my washing machine. That's a real search I did a
long time ago and I was able to fix my washing machine probably
save me 300 bucks. So that's my my point though,
And now people search for, you know, how to play power cords or
whatever, you know, and my videos pop up.
So when you get my, my point to everyone is when you give value
and then people will be more drawn to you and they'll they'll
be more interested in what you have.
I've done my best to give a ton of value on YouTube for guitar
and that sort of thing. And before I had courses
available, I had people saying, I want to send you something.
I need to send you money. Like you helped me so much in
this video. And guys, I'm not Tooting my own
horn. This is just this is from the
comments. You know, we've had that on
Metal Mastermind. You know, the video's there
actually someone, someone asked if we could adopt them.
So yeah, that's one of the comments on one of our videos.
But in any case, you know, I, I say that to say this, that as
long as you're given value, you're giving people value.
It's much easier to build your audience that way and pull
people in and then say, OK, well, hey, here's here's what I
just created. And they're more apt to, you
know, they're already in your world.
You've already you've already hooked them, right?
Absolutely, absolutely. It's it's a unique path for
everybody to, you know, I think if you're, if you haven't
marketed your music to the degree of what we're talking
about, I do recommend buying a course, learning a little bit
about what it takes, you know, whether that's savvy or Andrew
Southworth or in the future, if we ever do, you know, something
like that. Similar on metal Mastermind,
which is probable. There is definitely something
that can be gained from just trying to expand your pool of
knowledge and seeing and experimenting with that
information, just understanding the fact that you're going to
have to adapt it at some point in your own way that works for
you. There's not like A1 size fits
all type of thing for this because you're dealing with
people, right? And people were there's always a
variable of chaos, right? So you have to just understand
that your, your approach and what you do and what you create
has its own unique characteristics and charisma
that needs to be highlighted and accentuated.
And you can only do that through trial and experimentation,
right? So that kind of mentality is
really important because otherwise you kind of set
yourself up for disappointment. And, you know, it's kind of
similar to, I guess, in a way, like comparing yourself as a
musician to other musicians, right?
You don't want to do that either.
You know, you might look up to somebody, but don't compare
yourself to Dave Mustaine when you're not Dave Mustaine, you
know? You know, So just perspective is
really important here and that's what keeps you going because you
can always rely on, you know, your ambitions, your dreams and
the things that you're trying to accomplish will always need a
healthy outlook. If you always look at your music
and you're you're depressed by it, which you know, in one way,
shape or form, there definitely will be a time where you're
depressed about it. Because I was depressed about my
music. Hell, you think I wanted to keep
making music when my my band broke up?
I mean, that was one of the hardest things ever that
happened in my life. So but you can take a break if
that's what you need, right? Music is still here for you.
And I'll even share something that I was just talking to
somebody on the way home yesterday where when I was going
through that moment, I remember Elizabeth basically telling me
like. Your music will come out when
it's supposed to come out, right?
If I was to always say to everybody, 'cause I usually do
that, I say it's my sacred duty to do something like home, Eric,
right. Well, if you're attaching this
sort of divine, sort of, I get perspective to that.
Who are you to say when the divine will make its appearance,
right? So if it's divine, it will be
ready when it's ready, and then that's when the the world is
supposed to know about it. So I just that's where your
faith is, right? I am faithful to the music, the.
Only thing I'll say to that is is don't you know?
And, and Ken, you did a great job with this, but don't allow
that to keep you from working on it.
Don't don't say, well, I'm not I'm not going to work on it this
week because I'm just too tired. Don't use that as an excuse.
I guess. I think it's kind of marry the
and not to get biblical on you, but there I think there's a
verse that says something about faith without actions is dead.
So have that faith and belief in yourself and your music and and
then even in in the divinity of what you're putting out there
and know that that timing, I believe, will fall into place.
But I also believe that you need to take action steps for that to
happen. You have to kind you got to kind
of like if you say you have faith in something and not even
going, you know, religious on you guys or anything.
This is this is faith in yourself, faith in what you're
doing, faith that, hey, this universe that we're part of
that. This is what you're supposed to
release at some point. I think to truly believe that,
then your actions have to align with that belief.
So I just I just want to preface that, you know, Ken, you're
absolutely right. It'll it'll be at the right time
and as long as your actions are or aligning with that, I think
that right time definitely will come.
May not be the time we want it to be right, but it will
eventually come to you. So that definitely believe that.
Yeah, we have to, we have to keep moving forward that that
kind of hiatus, if you have to take it, you have to remember
that you still have to come back to it.
So it's not, it's not a an excuse to give up.
It's an ex, it's a, it's a, it's a hiatus.
It means I'm, I'm going to walk away for a little bit for a
certain amount of time, but I will come back.
I will come back. So don't forget to come back.
And, you know, maybe you need to go to and do a, a retreat at
Guilford and then just start creating new stuff.
Who knows, right? I mean, that's the magic of
places like those, you know, you don't don't skimp out on on the
opportunity if you ever get a chance to do something like
that. That is cool, man.
That is I'm, I'm glad you got to go there.
I was kind of jealous and like, dude, yeah, when I text the
other day, like I'm in Vermont and I, I made a joke.
I'm like, where's Vermont? Like, I know where Vermont is,
but it's like, but no one ever talks about this.
It's like in Wayne's World and you want a vacation to Delaware.
I'm like, oh, great. Oh, man.
But I'm glad you had a good time out there.
Thank you, Sir. Oh, brother Ken, dude.
So what's your metal tune of the week?
My metal tune of the week. You know what I think I'm going
to say the album Immutable by Meshuga.
Meshuga is been a long standing band that I I, I love.
I think immutable it's it's I think their more recent works,
but when I heard immutable I felt like that was the most I
think commercially viable version of Meshuga.
I think they're older stuff is certainly more niche oriented,
more for the, you know, heavy duty fan.
But I think Immutable is an important record for Meshugga
because I think it's the thing that allows other people who
don't normally listen to Meshugga to actually maybe grow
a relationship with the band and open the door to what is Gent.
So I'll tell you, I've heard a little bit of it, like when I
first, when I first heard of Meshugga and, and all these
people talking about Gent and it I didn't even know what Gent
was. We used to make the sound.
I mean, this is way back in high school, like in the late 80s,
like so you know, just the palm muting sound, right?
So I kind of thought that was gent or whatever.
I didn't, I didn't know. I remember making a video on how
to gent and it wasn't even anywhere near what gent actually
is because I didn't really know what it was.
I I thought it was like something that, you know, I
remember from way, way back that was, you know, created, but
never like never went viral. Quote UN quote.
But no, I, I did listen to a little bit of the sugar.
Don't remember which album probably about a month ago and
actually enjoyed. I'm like, this is, this is
pretty cool, you know, and then so I'm going to check out this
record you're talking about too immutable.
My tune of the week is actually it's Arch enemy's latest release
here in 2024 called Dream stealer.
The video's cool on that too, but it's a single.
Now I want to say this is without Jeff Loomis because I
know he he left the band recently.
Not sure what he's doing now. I, I love Jeff Loomis's playing.
He's he's amazing, but I'm a I'm a big arch enemy fan.
I, I love Michael Abbas playing just as much.
I love his writing style, man, his just the riffs and and the
melodies, you know, you know, I'm a I'm a with a melodic
sucker here. Yeah, you did a, you did a cover
on that in, in the Homeric record snowbound.
Yeah, that was Oh. That's right.
Yeah, that's right. Dude.
That. Was an arch enemy tune that we
turned into sort of like AI guess a a Hallelujah type style
performance. It was.
It was a very uplifting version of what the original is.
Very cold and dark, very cool. I say I'm a huge Arch enemy fan,
but I didn't even know that that was an arch enemy cover until
after the fact. You know, it was from the album
Wages of Sin and it's it's I think I don't know if it's their
closer on that record, but it it's an instrumental only.
It wasn't one of their popular songs, but it's, it's an
instrumental guitar solo that it, it, it, it was beautiful.
And I, I, I looked at it as a very cool ode in a different way
to a band that I really like in a more melodic fashion.
So it, it was, it was fantastic. You did a great job.
Thank you. Thank you.
You know, and this, I had a lot of fun working on that album,
dude, a lot of fun. So yeah, guys, the Homeric, the
Circle of Dead Children, that will be released, I believe
September 20th, right Ken? And you have pre-orders now for
the CD. You've got some merch out there
and such. So yeah, on.
Metal Mastermind. Yep, it's on, but if you go to
Metal Mastermind, guys, just click on the shop button there.
It'll take you right to our shop.
It's integrated in with with our website there.
My merch is on there as well. So hey, check that out and don't
forget to check out Metal Mastermind in general, guys, you
know, check out the shop, but see also all the resources and
courses, online courses that we have for you real quick.
Our courses are, are just a one time affordable fee and that's
it. There, there are no, there are
no subscription fees for the course.
So once you get it, you've got it.
I'm working on some upgrades and a new course coming up.
So more to come on that. Yeah, but head over to Metal
Mastermind. Check that out.
I want to thank everybody once again for hanging out with Ken
and I. It's always it's an honor guys.
It's it's really truly an honor for Ken and I to to serve you.
That's what we do. So we appreciate you.
Hope you guys have an awesome rest of the week.
As always, create your own sound.