Guys, welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind, cofounder
and your cohost me, Jason Stallworth and also cofounder of
Metal Mastermind and Cohost The Great.
Ken Candelas, good morning. How are you, man?
I'm great. We appreciate you guys.
I know we say that all the time. I hope you don't get tired of
hearing but we we dearly appreciate all of you listening
and being a part of metal mastermind you you were so
important to us. Thank you for being a part of
this awesome metal musician community that you have built.
We didn't build this. You guys built it right.
We're all part of this together. But Ken and I, we always have
discussions just him and I sometimes Ken because they they
get a little you know we we share what we're going through
with with the business and and some personal challenges which
all these revolve around. Like Ken, our our home lives are
good. We have zero issues in that
department. But our a lot of our
frustrations which is what we're going to be talking about today,
frustrations and how to handle it and a lot of stuff that you
just feel like your back's against the wall and things just
aren't moving in the direction that you want.
But Ken and I, you know, building a business and working
on albums and everything that goes with that, you know, making
a living in the arts, you had this pretty lengthy discussion,
dude, probably at least 30 minutes, man.
And we, we should have filmed that for like an insight
exclusive or something. But I just really, really good
heartfelt conversation, man. But frustrations can.
I'll, you know, I'll let you kick it off with just kind of
how you handle it in. When when we work on on our
music, I think one of the biggest things about working on
your music to get it to the other side of it being released.
Especially if you care deeply about it.
Is is is how long you realize the process takes.
You know you, you come through and if you're if you've never
released an album before, it's just to put it in in in.
Especially as an indie musician, it takes it takes a lot of
effort, especially if you want it to be of a high production.
These sorts of things take time and if you're doing them on your
own, you just have to be aware and prepared that you will, you
know, spend a significant amount of time.
One of the things that I guess, you know, if we were to go back
in history a little bit when we we had you know, record labels
just constantly funding artists, literally living out of a studio
for months on end. Where they were able to just
create and capture those moments, we don't really have
that kind of style of recording anymore, or at least it's not a
common thing. Now it's a much more rare thing.
You you have to have your own funding or if you if you're
still with a label, they don't even, you know, give as much of
of an advance to artists anymore.
So you have to be more creative with your time.
And when you are sitting there and you're creating your song,
creating the song is one thing Jason and I, you know, we're
involved in, in my own music and you know, Jason played guitars
for back in like 2019 and it's 2023 now, you know.
And it's it's gone through a lot of its own hurdles.
You know my own personal issues with my my record.
You know, that's just life, you know, making you take detours.
But we just had this small discussion on, you know, am I
holding myself back from, from releasing this?
And quite honest, I think it's not necessarily that I'm holding
myself back, but that what I'm building with my own music is
more than just an album. It's it's a story.
And there's. 27 pieces of artwork that goes along with it
and you know, it's just this big conglomerate of you know,
creativity. So struggled and been frustrated
very much so with my own journey because this thing takes a long
time to create. Frustration.
Yes, very, very true. How do I deal with it?
I remember why I do what I do. You know, I I am, I'm an
educator, I'm a teacher. And you know, I whenever I show
my students my work, it's still in progress.
But you know, them knowing me personally gets them a little
bit of access to it. They're very inspired by it and
they can't wait to hear it. So that certainly helps having
having the feedback from. My students, my peers, and
people who have been on board and they're totally gung ho
about it, that that all helps. I think having a support that
you can rely on is is imperative.
If you if you are truly alone, it becomes very hard to move
past some of that mental blockage.
I think you know, if you if you have somebody that you can lean
on, whether that's a significant other, it's a business partner
or it's a or, it's a really, really good friend because we
we're human. We need to deflate, you know, as
much as we need to also inflate our inspiration, you know, we
also need to deflate certain things in life and decompressed
and, you know, recenter ourselves and come back to it
and be stronger than we were before.
It's not always easy getting back on that horse because when
you fall, you know you hurt your back, OK?
You know, because when you do, you're you're you're more
determined about it. It takes more to get back on
that horse the second time that it was the first time.
So you getting back on that is a telltale sign that you'll be
fine. You know, you just got to keep
going. And I I truly believe in that.
You know, we've shared kind of the same struggle.
You know, I've been working on an album as well, and I
mentioned this on my channel on several podcasts.
But Long story short, about 2 1/2 years ago, the album was
pretty pretty close to being done.
I even had the drums recorded for it.
You know, Cameron Fleury out of Canada.
He recorded the drum tracks for it and I had the rhythms down,
had some of the leads down. But then I put everything on
hold because Ken, you and I wanted to really pursue metal
Mastermind and this was a a brand new adventure.
So I'm like, well, chasing two large rabbits you you probably
won't catch either one. So I'm like let me put that to
the side because right now metal Mastermind is more important
that we get this off the ground. You know, you and I had a vision
for it. So we we've got to take this
opportunity and run with it, which we did, which I'm, I'm
proud of that decision. I would never take that back for
anything. I love what we're doing.
Had we not started it, we wouldn't be sitting here right
now talking to you guys. But revisiting that album 2
years later, it's like, oh, I don't like certain things.
So I I have changed many, many things on the album.
There are times where I want to scratch it.
I'm like, you know, maybe I'll just work on something another
album and just scratch this whole thing, which I don't think
that would be a good decision either.
So anyway, I'm, I'm at the tail end of it here sometimes can and
you, you and I both talked about this earlier and to everyone.
A lot of times our frustration can come in our ability and this
is something we talked quite a bit about, you know, metal
mastermind. And it's like we, you know,
you're an accomplished musician. Ken, you're an accomplished
composer. I've been playing guitar and
write music since 1989. I've been playing live, you
know, for just about that long. So but even with all that you
can, you can have those moments where you just lack off and it's
in yourself and your abilities. It's like okay was this, is this
really good enough? You know, and out there nowadays
everybody's a critic. I mean, I guess everybody's
always been a critic, but you can base decisions off what you
think others will think. And we've talked about this
before as well. And I guess what I encourage you
guys not to do is, well, it's just that don't worry about what
others think, but don't worry about what you think others may
think. A lot of that is just kind of
conjured up in our own heads, right?
There's a lot of negativity around.
There is a lot of opinions floating around.
But even the most confident people, you know, actors alike,
they can lack confidence at times.
And that's something I think we all can struggle with from time
to time. Totally.
Confidence is a huge factor in all of that.
You know, the most successful people are usually the most
confident too. Yeah, they are.
So building up confidence is a huge part of it and you know,
is. You kind of have to grind
through a bit. You know, you can't.
You don't start off with just, you know, all this confidence,
you know, sometimes, you know, even myself or you can feel like
this imposter syndrome that, you know, are we, are we doing the
right thing? Are we are we giving the value
that we're supposed to give to people?
You know, yeah, walk away thinking, oh, I can follow this
guy. I mean as an educator, I I
struggle with that for, for a while because you know just a
little back story here at like 2019 was also when I started
working as a as a professor, you know, a year before you know the
pandemic and all of this was it kind of fell out of my lap.
I didn't intend to go to my job that I have now as wanting to be
a professor. I was actually going for an
interview to be a technician to to just you know run the studios
and things when they went down and all that kind of stuff.
But the my boss then had looked at my resume and said, hey, this
guy looks like he could be actually a decent teacher and.
You know, they asked me whether I'd be interested.
I said, I guess and you know, it went really well.
Well, and then I got the job. But even when I got the job, I
didn't, I didn't start off with like, hey, here's a handbook,
here's how you start teaching. You know, it's like, cuz I
wasn't, I wasn't involved in teaching at all.
This straight like I actually told sometimes my teachers
before I would say no, I I don't want to teach.
Like I want to just be the engineer.
I want to do that. And then coming here, I was just
like, OK about and I was plopped into the middle of a semester.
I wasn't even plopped in the beginning of 1.
And they're like, OK you're just going to pick up where this guy
left off. I was like, what?
Talk about being. So, but it was a sink or swim
moment, you know. And I swam and it just kind of
naturally evolved over time as that I took on and became one
with being a teacher. I I say teaching chose me.
It wasn't me that chose teaching and that confidence over time.
It became something that I embodied through the in some
ways, the validation of my students.
You know, when students had told me this was this was something
that they benefited from, that certainly helped, or my
employers, they told me that it benefited the school that
certainly helped. And then, of course, there was
my own nation. You know, to say that, yeah, you
know, even though I don't know necessarily what this topic is
about today, I'm going to figure it out.
I'm going to do a little bit of homework and I'm going to make a
presentation about it to make. When I do talk about it, I can
convey at least something that can get across to the student,
and that was huge. You just nailed something very
important, Ken, and something you and I learned from from Leah
McHenry. In our time, the savvy musician
Academy is we'll figure it out. You know, you're always going to
figure it out. If if you want to figure it out,
you'll find a way, man, you will find a way to do it.
So valuable lesson we learned is as simple as that is, you know,
very powerful. I mean, it's kind of like, you
know, when when I left my corporate job and I didn't have
the income that that that income was not replaced when I left my
corporate job three and half years ago, I took a voluntary
layoff and I've got it. I got a small severance, a
little bit of funds that they had in an investment account and
I'm like, all right, well this, this will hold us over till a
year, for about a year. And I'm like, well just I'll
have to figure out how this is going to work, you know and and
I eventually did and not to see it hasn't been a there are
always uncertainties when you work for yourself or when you
jump out there and do something that that is seemingly outside
of the norm. But, but again, you just figure
it out. Sometimes I believe that when
you're back against the wall and certain things, man, because
it's like, okay, I have to figure out a way.
I don't want to go back to what I was doing.
There's nothing wrong with what I was doing.
I mean, I met some great people there, actually.
I saw a dude that that I worked with, hadn't seen him and you
worked there in the gym this morning.
So, you know, I I met a lot of great people.
I learned a lot of great things. So I certainly don't want to the
same thing negative about my corporate gig.
It was great. I if I didn't have this drive to
do what I do now I'd probably still be no, it was it was it
was a great position they had and I've worked with a lot of
great people but I is I knew that there was something else
that I wanted to do with my life and this was it.
I just didn't know how I would I would make it as a fulltime
musician. I'm like you know can we.
We figured out this platform here metal mastermind and and
some other things and you know here we are dude, we're we're in
some people's eyes. We're living the dream and I'm
very grateful for that. Even with the struggles, you
know, and we probably won't get into that part on the podcast
here, but you and I talked about some of the struggles.
There's some financial struggles that come with with running your
own platform. You know, there are some
uncertainties that come, there are good times there, a lot of
peaks and valleys, but you just have to know that no matter
what, you're going to figure it out.
Yeah, you have made a great point there.
I I also really. Firmly believe that growth is
equivalent to recognizing resistance and so when you when
you come to a point where there's a there's your your
movement forward, it's all about deliberating and deciphering
what is the resistance that's in the way and how to you know.
Get around. I actually received the
compliment from a good friend of mine who said, you know, the
thing about you is you always seem to, you know, be like a cat
landing on its two feet. Yeah.
And I said, you know, I appreciate that.
I, you know, I don't always know how things are going to work
out. But you know that that does warm
my heart. You have to be able to.
Adapt and you know still land on your two feet and you don't know
what you know and you take a risk here, you know that could
mean cascading effect way or that way.
And you know sometimes it's just it's okay you.
Sometimes you just have to take a calculated risk and say you
know this is what I'm going to do.
And I will say this, ever since starting Metal Mastermind,
things have been. Much easier for me to work
around. That is an absolute fact.
The challenges that come across with making a platform like
this, having to build the website, having to build the
intricate payment system, having to build.
The marketing, the blogging, the YouTube video, Facebook ads, all
this stuff that you don't really think about when you start
getting into business. We've done so much, man.
Yeah, there's so much that goes into doing an online business.
And you realize you're like, Oh my God, this is like a behemoth.
We built an entire course platform on top of that.
So we didn't outsource any of this either.
Ken and I built this whole thing ourselves.
So yeah, not to say you shouldn't outsource things.
I believe been getting getting proper help, but you know from
from the ground up when you're just starting, it's like you you
kind of take when when you we didn't have any funding or
anything like that. We just like, hey, let's do
this. So we just kind of did it, you
know, and boom. Yeah, I mean there's there's a
there's a good and bad to that. You know when it's time to hire
somebody? The bad news is that it takes a
long time because in the beginning you're like, why do I
need to hire this guy? I can do it myself.
So you get a lot more time just doing things yourself and that
can be very overwhelming. And my gosh, the amount of
emails is like, how many emails do we have to?
It's kind of insane, man. So it's a process, though,
that's what we're saying. And when you decide that you're
gonna build. Something that you want to
create as your legacy, you know, whether that's your music or
it's building a flower shop, who knows?
It's it's all about, you know, making sure that you're staying
true to what it is that you, you you stand for.
You know, if you, if you don't really have your heart in it,
it's infinitely more, more, more challenging.
And you have to always remain true to that.
You have to always say even though, despite the fact that
you might be frustrated. Is this still your life's
mission? And if you still say yes, then
yeah, okay, then you, you know, this is just a hump in the road
and you'll get through it. But yeah, if if you don't, if
you don't feel that way, then you you need to really think
about the resistance that you have in your life and why that's
the case. I I love that resistance, man.
You know, I I think I sent you a little video on the way home
from the gym this morning. Being underweight.
You guys know, I I love weight training.
That's something that's been a staple in my life from an early
age, something I'll do for the rest of my life, just as much as
I'll play music and know I'm competing and all that stuff or
whatever. It's just something I love to
do. But I was telling Ken, I'm like,
think about you've got this weight on your chest.
Let's say it's a bench press for example.
And yeah, we want to be, you know, all in like we just push
through it. But sometimes the weight is
actually too heavy and it is not moving and it is crushing you.
So you have to know when to make the appropriate move and pivot
and like you said, can earlier adapt, adapt to the changes,
pivot accordingly. I'm like you might sometimes
need to slide out from under that weight.
Okay. And then go to something else
that's going to build that. Sometimes it's not about just
pushing through, because sometimes we can push towards
something and it's just not budging.
And then we'll spend a lot of time and energy trying to push
something that maybe it wasn't meant to be pushed at all.
Now that thing you're pushing is not your your overall vision,
your passion, your dream is above all that.
Your vision for your life is above all that.
It's above the weight that you're trying to push in your
life right now, right? Some of you may be struggling
with a certain thing, and you're just trying to push and push and
push. Not in every situation, but
maybe the answer isn't necessarily pushing through that
particular weight, but pivoting and finding a way around that.
This going to kind of make you flow.
Like I love what Bruce Lee said, he's like, you know, flow like
water. So maybe there's another crevice
in there that you need to be exploring to get through or get
around so that you can pursue that vision that you have.
Hopefully that makes sense. Absolutely no.
Yeah. Not forcing things to to work,
you know, it's it's it's like. You know, it's another good
analogy is you ever try, like, unscrewing something and you
realize, oh man, this is really tough.
So let me just, like, let me just wrench it and, like, really
try forcing it out. And then all of a sudden it
breaks the thing that you were actually working with and you're
like, God Dang it, well, that's exactly the idea, you know.
And if you keep forcing things, you're eventually just going to
strip the screw. So we talked about this earlier.
We know. We even talked about there.
There's a fine balance because I I can be a workaholic coming
from the corporate background. It's like always someone
creating more work to do and there's always stuff right.
But it it it's not necessarily things that are moving the
needle forward. It's this is just kind of like
busy work. It's not really not really doing
anything, you know. And I can, I have been, I've
been the king of just staying busy of of doing more and doing
more and doing more can run on the treadmill really, really
fast and just put all the effort into that and not go anywhere.
So it goes back to that balance of do put in the work.
Yes, you need to put in the work.
You need to work hard work. I mean that that would get you
so far, right. You need to work diligently and
work smart and work on doing the appropriate thing to get you to
that next level. Sometimes that might be a little
difficult, sometimes it might not.
There's a balance between putting in the time and putting
in the the work and the energy of balance between that.
And also can you and I talked about being the type of person
having the type of mindset that attracts great things.
If you marry those two concepts together, I believe you're
unstoppable. Yeah, and if you can remove as
much distraction as possible, that would be ideal.
I have been turning off notifications from all of my
apps, all of the social media apps, all of this, all of that,
even when you don't necessarily respond to any of that.
Your eyes wander. You know, they look at the
phone, they looked at, there's a notification, your screen turns
on, and just a second of time that is away from what you
should be doing. And it could very much, like,
lose your train of thought. When I started doing that, I
started noticing that I was a lot less stressed about certain
things and that I got just a little bit more done.
Sometimes what you can do is set a timer for yourself.
You know, let's say once every 30 minutes.
And at 30 minutes, a 2 minute break, a 5 minute break,
whatever, so that you can just alleviate yourself from just
constantly getting too swallowed in your work and just giving
yourself that mental break. These are all just tips and
tricks. You know, you find what works
for you, but eliminating distractions is super, super
helpful. And when you, you know, you do
something like turning off your notifications.
I mean, it's it's an amazing thing.
How much you actually realize, Oh my God, like, I just spent
time just like focusing on stuff that didn't matter.
Like you were talking about the busy work, you know, and it's
like okay I had I have to like recall my time and put this
where where I really care about. Yeah.
And that's that's so. That's so pivotal and it changed
quite a bit of my focus. I've been really busy lately
with just my job. But honestly, when I do get to
work, I do get to work, man, it does.
It does do a a a good deed. And you know, again, it it it
is, you know, my project is something that takes so long to
do because of all the detail that's required in it.
But if I wasn't so you know determined and focused do it it
it it would be it wouldn't see the light of day and I know it
will it it you know I can be frustrated all I want that it's
not out in the world now you just got to take the time that
it's going to take it will happen when it was meant to
happen like you said to you know not forcing it.
Sometimes these things they they will come to fruition.
When they come to fruition, it's not like.
Oh, I got to get and catch the bus, you know, in 10 minutes,
and that's my deadline. It's not like that.
It's it's a longterm thing. If you're creating something
from scratch and this is the first time anybody will hear it,
give it the love that it needs the TLC.
Don't stress about that too much.
It's okay to feel a certain type of way of where you are in the
project, but you just need to let it breathe.
And let it do its thing. Do it right first, you know, you
know. Then when you get the Netflix
deal was like I mentioned, it's like the question I asked
earlier and and and can correct me if you feel differently about
this man. But I mean would you say there
there's a balance between, you know what you're talking about,
but at the same time don't allow that to be an excuse to not move
forward and not work on things. You know, sometimes you say,
well, it's just the, and I've done this before, This is why
I'm sharing it. You know, it's like I won't work
as much as I need to on that project.
And I'll just say, oh, it's just taking time.
It's a big project. So I think maybe there's a fine
balance between maybe do give yourself some deadlines without
destroying the creative process. Because I understand that just
because I schedule time to write music today doesn't mean that
great music's going to come out, you know, So we all, we all get
that there, dude. It will take me days to write
lyrics for a song where other times I can crank it out like in
30 minutes. It just an I I don't know how
much control that we have over that may maybe more than we
think go, you know, go with a steady pace but also allow the
creative process to do its thing as well and understand it
doesn't have to be done right now.
I think it is a good idea to give ourselves certain deadlines
and schedule things out to where, OK, this is what I'm
focused. On 100% and and I I hope that my
message was not to to say that you can just relax about
everything. I think that not beat yourself
up if something's taking a long time.
Sometimes things just need to take a little bit longer than
other things. Yes, if if you want to continue
to do you know music or anything that's in the arts, time in time
is relative. If you are in the in the middle
of, you know, creating your first album, then you should
just take the necessary time in order to make the right album
for yourself. Because you know, what if it's
your first album? You don't have an audience
that's begging you for this content.
So just make it right, you know, take a little bit more time to
make it right. Don't, don't put yourself in a
predicament where you, you, you, you just want it out there and
not necessarily the thing that you wanted to put, you know?
And there there's a thing, there's a truth to it too of,
you know, just do it and just move forward.
But. Your intention is to create
something, and if you don't know what it is and you need to just
experiment to do that, but just do it in a way that you could
live with yourself. Look, when I when I made my
first Homeric album, I had no idea that it was cinematic
metal. I had no idea.
You know, I just experimented. I created a lot of music and I
called it in the beginning, symphonic progressive death
metal. That's what I called it.
Yeah. Which is cool, man.
Which is really cool, I mean. It's cool.
Also didn't really understand at that time what I was really what
I was really creating. So, you know, sometimes you do
need to go through the process then find out this is where it
takes you. That's another truth to it too.
You know, there's a lot of truth to all of this.
What what's important is whether or not you feel best represents
you now. Because in the future, whatever
it is that you decide to put out, it's always going to be
using that as a reference. And you have to also be aware
that your followers are going to expect a certain thing.
So when you decide that you're going to get, you know, onto
your second, your third, your 4th, there is going to be
already some frame of reference for somebody.
You're going to have to either step it up, you're going to have
to either you know, make more. You're going to have to develop
it somehow. It's a tough thing to to to
really crack. It's it's not something that
there's like a cheat code for it, just it's just you working
at it. It's a tough thing to to to
really crack. It's it's not something that
there's like a cheat code for. It just it's just you working at
it and enjoying the process as it goes along.
Don't let the short term frustrations demotivate you to
stop. You just gotta muscle through it
man, and it's okay. Sometimes it can be a little
hard but don't worry about it it'll the pain will pass.
It will pass. I I think we did figure out a
cheat code for that on down a B left right something like that
oh the days of old school Nintendo man the spot of the
times of that. There there's this real cool
game by the way not to get off track but it was called Ultima
4. It was a role-playing game.
But yeah you know you mentioned the journey guys and I I you you
must okay this is this is a command from Ken and I the like
part of the whatever commandments however commands we
have for metal mastermind well this is a command.
You must enjoy the journey guys embrace the journey even even
the hiccups man you know if you if you learn to even embrace the
hiccups. I've learned so much about
myself especially this year. One of the things like I don't
get I don't get frustrated in traffic anymore you know I just
I chose not to. It's a decision you make, right?
You can choose. Because when we get frustrated,
we're living in that past moment, right?
Rather, I I choose to enjoy the journey along the way.
So if I'm stuck in traffic, maybe I look off to the side and
I see something unique. Maybe there's a Bunny rabbit
over there. We saw some bunnies the other
day. You know, it's just weird stuff,
guys. Even the painful parts.
Sometimes you can laugh at yourself.
You can joke about it. Sometimes you have to be a
little bit more serious about things, you know, depending on
what it is, But allow yourself to be frustrated, but maybe just
for a few seconds and you just go back to you know what, This
is part of the journey and and I love what I'm doing.
I love what I'm pursuing and I'm gonna enjoy the ride.
Beautifully said, man. So Jason, what's your metal song
of the week today? Dude, dude, it is.
I'm looking up on my phone right now.
I I sent this to you this morning when I was in the gym, a
song by a band called Deceased and it's called The Kept KEPT
the kept by Deceased and that was from their 2005 album.
As the weird travel on the recording of this album was kind
of, I don't want to say raw, not in a sense that they're not
tight, they're tight, but it kind of reminded me of player
type stuff. But this is more, you know, more
definitely. But just kind of you had that
raw energy to it, if that makes sense, man.
You know, it was overproduced. And I know we probably overuse
that word these days. It's really kind of some classic
death metal if there's such a thing.
And I just, I don't know, man, there's a vibe to it that I
really love. I'm like, you know what, This is
the song of the week. This is it.
We're going to. So yeah, they kept by the band
called Deceased. My choice was warming.
Warmin is a is a is a band that I think was an offshoot from
Children Of Bodom. I think it's the keyboardist
players band and there's this whole song on the album called
Accept the Fate, The Return of Salieri.
I like that one a lot. It's got a little bit of a
neoclassical type of vibe and I'm into all that baroque stuff.
So Salieri was actually a classical composer, which is
pretty cool. So.
Well, guys, that wraps it up for another episode of Metal
Mastermind. Thank you so much for being a
part of this awesome musician community that we've all created
here. And we really hope you got
something out of today's podcast.
I mean, all of our podcast, but you know, we we kind of went in
some heartfelt stuff. Hey, Speaking of Metal
Mastermind and your skills and and, you know, really growing
your confidence, do check out our courses.
We have the guitar courses. Ken has a theory course.
We've got vocal courses. We've got a whole library online
courses you can take at metalmastermindcom, so do check
those out guys. And until next time, as always,
create your own sound.