James: It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross, and I'm here with Matt Hoos of alive in Barcelona. How are you doing today, Matt?

Matt: James. I am doing fantastic. It is another beautiful fall day here in Colorado and in Colorado at the fall time, it's a pretty magical time of year because we have all the Aspen trees and all the Aspen trees do this wonderful job of changing colors. And this is like the quintessential picture that you've seen of fall of these just beautiful white stemmed trees that have all sorts of colors from yellow to beautiful oranges, blushes, and reds.

Matt: That's where some of the cities in Colorado like golden actually get their name is from the changing of the Aspen trees. So it's actually a phenomenal. Lots of people uh, from around the world have come to visit and see and photograph and just enjoy. So we've been able to enjoy that, that the start of the change of the trees throughout the whole state has just been absolutely excellent.

Matt: Got a chance to go walk around with my kids yesterday. And we stumbled on a little turtle nest and it's just a great day, man. If I was any better, there would definitely have to be two of me.

James: that's great to hear Matt. I'm happy to have you here. I'm also having a great day for very different reasons. The red Sox last night, and for a guest that I'll introduce in a second, you probably don't follow baseball over in the UK, but the red Sox it's the playoffs right now. They were down one to nothing in games for the division series.

James: Then they won the second one in last night in the 13th inning. So four more than they're supposed to play. They got a home run and won the game. So if they win tonight, they're moving on to the next round. And that is the next thing that I'm super stoked about today is we have giant Walker here today. We have Steff on vocals, Jamie on guitar and Alex on drums.

James: How are you all doing?

Steff: Yeah, I'm good. Thank you.

Alex: Good.

James: That is stellar to here. And got to ask over here, like Matt was saying, all the leaves are changing. How has that in the UK?

Steff: It's actually quite a nice day. It's not random for once, which is which is pretty raw over here this time of year. It didn't know how it is up in Newcastle Alix, but it's quite, it's quite sunny down here actually,

Alex: Yeah.

Steff: a pleasant surprise.

Alex: up here.

James: Nice, nice. Yeah, you got that like one in 10 chance, right?

Steff: much, yeah, pretty

Steff: much it's it definitely gets slightly better the most healthy gap, but.

Matt: I was lucky enough to spend the summer before last, over in the UK. And we were there for, I think it was like 40 days total. And while we were there, we didn't have a single day of rain. We actually, we hiked the west Highland way in Scotland. And then we went down to London for a couple of days.

Matt: And literally the entire time that we were there was during that European heat wave, the entire trip. We never saw a single day of rain. Everybody that we came in contact to, it just said the same thing. I said, I'll just a miracle. It's not raining today. And after we hadn't had rain for like 40 days, everybody just started saying, oh, you didn't even get to visit the UK.

Matt: It's not this isn't the UK at all. You can see it's not smoggy and cloudy. It's beautiful.

Jamie: Hmm.

Alex: Yeah. If it isn't, if it doesn't great, then you didn't have to visit

Alex: that's a room.

James: Yeah. I remember I visited Birmingham once years ago. And it was gray and it drizzled and I was like, yeah, this seems about on par.

Alex: We are

Steff: Okay.

James: But it was still fun to trip. And my hotel is on top of her record store. So props to the UK for having record stores underneath hotels, like just randomly there that worked out quite nicely.

Jamie: it or not, this still exist,

James: Yeah, exactly.

Jamie: but now

James: Anyway, we're here to talk about your music and how you run your business because band time is always business focused. First things first, just want to let our fans note that you just dropped your single, the fact in fiction a few weeks ago on October 15th. do you want to tell us a little bit about that song and how you came together as a band, you know, kind of what your history is how you all got together?

Steff: Yeah, certainly. So, um, I guess festival, like style-wise influences are like Soundgarden kind of, Ooh, Deftones raise your hands machine. basically that kind of heavy, progressive rock. And so this is our first single um, and we've got maybe some more singles in the pipeline. We'll have to stay tuned for that.

Steff: In terms of how we, how we got together, basically. Um, I mean, Jamie actually went to school together back a while ago up in Newcastle. Um, And then we Mount our bass player, Jordan at college, we did music together and then we will move down to got a uni down in Guilford, which is as such, it's kind of just out, just outside of London in Surrey, in the south of England.

Steff: And then we actually met Alex who also went to uni with us at the academy of contemporary music. And funny enough, who also ended up being from Newcastle. So by all, from all from Newcastle, but just traveled kind of 300 miles to find each other, basically.

Alex: Yeah,

James: small world.

Steff: Yeah.

James: Well, that's great. And so this is your first single, how long have you been together as the band?

Steff: Well, so as as our current project, since September, we've played together before in under a different name. And we'd been playing together kind of as our current lineup since 2015. yeah, quite well, I guess if you were counting all of our kind of collective, I don't, I'm trying to say

James: So that makes me curious. You mentioned before we started recording that the single, the fact and fiction you've actually had that ready since February, but you said this band has been together since September.

James: Does that mean last September or was the fact and fiction originally written for your previous spanned?

Steff: Yeah. So we essentially, I'm kind of over locked down kind of wrote a collection of songs that we say, and had plans to obviously record. And I ended up recording them in February with, with preschooler at stakeout studios. And I kind of as I said, we'd been planned the, our, our old name for yeah, about five, six years.

Steff: we kind of just got to the point where obviously everything kind of over locked down, I'd kind of come to a bit of a standstill. And we had these songs that we were like super, super happy with. Obviously kind of the first time we'd really properly, kind of got them recorded in a studio and got them mixed.

Steff: We're like a hundred percent happy with, with how they were sounding. And we just kinda got to a point where we felt like this is kind of the last time that we can kind of probably almost like start fresh with everything and

Jamie: reinvest in everything and just really start again from the ground up because funnily enough, it's quite relevant actually. Being at, you know, from, from a business perspective. we started the old band, the other band them with a completely kind of different group of musicians. So, and two of the main staff were original originals, I suppose you could say,

Alex: Oh, geez.

Jamie: orgies and, um, yeah, there was two other people who, when we moved down south, they kind of went, no, we don't wanna, we don't want to commit to that.

Jamie: So we moved as to, and kind of, you know, just formed an under the same name, but almost completely different lineup, completely different dynamic, different direction. And that would have been the ideal place to restart everything and renamed. But for some reason we just didn't and partly because coming up with a by names, so bloody hard

James: Oh,

Jamie: you know, to find the right walk the line between.

Jamie: Is this cringey or is this not, or is this, is this cool? Like, you know what I mean? Like, who's the judge on this kind of stuff.

Jamie: It's just so hard to come up with something

Matt: Nothing makes you feel older than trying to think of a band name. That sounds cool. We, we did have the same issue when we rebranded from the persevering promise to alive in Barcelona. And I mean, in nine years as the persevering, like we did more in the first six months as a live in Barcelona than we did as the persevering promise and w and pretty much everybody that we came in contact with equated that to our rebrand.

Matt: So, you know, there's, there's a ton of power in that changing, you know, E it's like, for us, it was still the same group of dudes, even as just kind of similar to what you were saying, but we just changed names. And then it was like, oh yeah. You know, when we were young and making a band name, we were like, yeah, this sounds cool.

Matt: And this is alliterative, and this has this personal meaning to us and blah, blah, blah, this, and then now, you know, we get older. Alive some, you know, like, oh, where do we, where do we want to live? Like, is this cool? Is Barcelona a cool place? Am I going to get canceled? If I have Barcelona in my, in my band name, it's just such an interesting paradigm.

Matt: Change that as you get older, like you're saying like, is this cool? Is this, is this what we're supposed to do?

Jamie: Yeah.

Steff: Yeah, definitely. I think, especially like you say with like change and music and kind of obviously changing members as well. I was kinda like we, yeah, we kind of just like with staff to record and we're like, we really want these songs to kind of

Jamie: given the best

Jamie: chance possible, I guess. And yeah, that was themed. Like it was a long time coming anywhere. And it's the first time where we've all felt like the, the names been fully kind of realized and suited the image we'll want to go for and the, the, the sound of the songs as well, actually.

Matt: That's

Matt: fantastic.

Jamie: which is so hard to do.

Jamie: So.

James: I think it fits the fact and fiction so well, because it's such a massive sound and it's like, okay. Yeah. I could see like giants walking around, blasting this on like a boombox or something, you know?

Steff: That's awesome. That's really great to hear because it is one of those things. Like it, I think there's a certain type of people that are just really good at coming up with names and we just aren't those people who are so um, they literally took us aside. Jamie, wasn't an exaggerated. It literally took us about three months to like, we, we would have like a week weekly catch up on a Sunday and be like, right.

Steff: These are the names that we came up with. And literally like three months

Jamie: honestly, if we could, if we had like an NFL, a pair, but with all the Amazon, I mean, some, some, some of them are just like, really, like we were considering these, we were actually considering these at some point. And, uh, yeah,

Matt: I'm replaying some of those same

Matt: moments in

James: I absolutely feel your pain.

Jamie: Yeah.

James: Yup. Even banned hive. A friend of mine came up with the name. I cannot take credit for it. It was a, we were looking for a new name and a friend said, oh, how about Bandhive? And I was like, oh, that, that, that might work. Let's give it a shot.

Jamie: so names, it doesn't hit you straight away as well. Sometimes it's like you, I mean, we were sat on giant Walker for so long just being like, is this the one? Is this the one? And I guess you can't be too precious about it at the same time, but like, you know, you also don't want it to just be so kind of flagrantly just decided on and just like, yeah,

Jamie: whatever, like, I guess this works.

Matt: You end up with a foo fighters, situation. Or like Dave girl said that he never would have named foo fighters, the foo fighters. If he had known that their music was going to get popular, it was a joke to him. And then lo and behold, I mean, and that's kind of how I think band names in general are just kind of a joke.

Matt: Cause I mean, I've literally had. Every band name on the planet. And it's like, yeah, you have bands. That's like buried in Verona. It's like, okay, that makes sense. You know, oh, bring me the horizon or whatever. And then you have like your Jimmy eat world, you know, cage, the elephant. It could risk the owl.

Matt: You're like, oh, these are all totally different. And then you have bands. It's like, oh, I wrestled a bear once. You know, I set my friends on fire. Like you can literally name your band to anything as long as your music has just a hint of originality and you own it.

Steff: Yeah. It's totally that thing. I think that we didn't really think about until we actually came to. Like come up with names. It's like the names that you actually liked, like all their names that you actually like, or do you only like them because you liked the band and I think it's so hard to then when you come back to it and be like, actually, no, I do like this name.

Steff: It's it's so like you'll, you're so swayed on eat by

Jamie: Yeah. the

Jamie: music.

Jamie: if the music was, if you thought the music was crap What'd you think that by name was still cool

Matt: Right. That's a great

Jamie: vice versa, like, It's, it's very interesting. I think.

James: Yeah. And then of course, there's the other thing, too, that with so many bands out there, some people pick a name and then they find out, you know, XYZ band and Tasmania had the name five years ago. Oh, Nope. Maybe we can't use that now because they have. And, you know, before the internet, it was like, whatever, there's no conflict, you know, if, if you're in the UK or the us, and it's like some band in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't even know about it now.

James: It's like, oh

Matt: 2

Matt: blink 180 2. They originally started off as blink, which ironically was a folk band from the UK. Or like, I want to say like three old dudes. And they were like, and basically they tried to Sue him. And so they added 180 2 to the end, which is the number of times that Al Pachino says the F word in the movie Scarface,

James: That's amazing.

Matt: Yeah.

Alex:

Alex: I honestly never knew that that's so cool.

Matt: Band names come from everywhere. Let's sometimes you just have to be like, well, dude, do we love this? Do we like it? Is it good enough? Should we not overthink this? Cool. Let's go back to writing music. Yeah.

James: yeah,

Jamie: for sure. Yeah.

James: Oh man. That's amazing. Well, I think this is a great discussion on how, how the name came about and what people should look for. If they're trying to name their band, like some of the pitfalls that they should avoid. But we have an even bigger topic today, which is the three of you are all music teachers as is Jordan.

James: Who's done on my call today. So you're, self-employed music teachers and you're in a band. And obviously that has some giant pros because you can take time off, you can hit the road, all that kind of stuff. But it also shows that you all three have the entrepreneur mindset, being self-employed that also means you all have to be self-reliant both for the band and for your teaching businesses, how has running your own business as a music teacher for each of you affected how you run the band,

Jamie: I should go first on this one. I mean, um, yeah, literally uh, well, I mean, I know, I know. Well, I know for you, like a specific example is that you've kind of met, actually met the clients from gigs. Yeah. And it's something that's so simple, but kind

Jamie: of like,

Jamie: I dunno sometimes overlooked is that like, if someone sees you play and they actually really like what you're doing and like you as an individual, like, cause you can, I can go to a gig and see.

Jamie: They see a drummer, like just absolutely rinse through this gig and sound great. And

Jamie: there's

Jamie: actually very few people that actually think, you know, what, like I'm actually going to try and get in touch with that specific individual and be like, kind of have some lessons. and it kind of works out, you know, you make a a business relationship with that person.

Jamie: And then even further down the line, like, you don't know where that could lead. Like it's at the end of the day, you, you just forcing yourself to meet someone. But it's not necessarily contrived. It's not like if you go to a gig and you're looking for some gigs and you go like, oh, Hey man, I really

Jamie: loved

Jamie: your set.

Jamie: Have you got any gigs that I can like kind of play play on if you need a debt need adept, like um, I'm good.

Jamie: You know what I mean? And it's a bit more natural just

Jamie: to like,

Jamie: kind of drop yourself in their world. Without them, knowing that your end goal is can you, can you get some stuff or whatever?

James: Yeah. So being more focused on the relationship, then the.

Jamie: yeah, yeah,

Jamie: for

Jamie: sure.

James: Yeah. staffer, Alex, what do you.

Steff: I mean, so for me, I was I was in the well in the bond previous boom, before I started teaching. And so I guess it's kinda like, I kind of made a decision based on like Jamie's been teaching the longest out of all of us. And obviously kind of seeing how flexible and like kind of all the pro is like, obviously there's co there's definitely cons as well, but seeing all the pro is, I was kind of just like, you know what, this is, this is what I need to do.

Steff: Like in order to kind of make this work around. And I think initially I kind of put it off for a long time because I think especially with, with voice teaching, there is a lot that goes into it. In comparison to other instruments, like there's a lot of kind of science and anatomy, and it's almost a bit like you're a kind of physio for someone's voice, almost like someone's coming in, like I've got this problem or I've got this kind of injury and like, I need to kind of be kind of find for this gig or whatever.

Steff: So there's kind of a lot more that goes into it. And I was kind of very aware of how much, I didn't know. So I, I put it off for a long time. But then I kinda got to the point where I was like, you know, what if I don't start learning, I guess I'll never, never know. So I might as well just kind of throw myself in the deep end with it.

Steff: And yeah, so, I think from that point of view, like kind of building up by. He shouldn't business. It's kind of a, obviously like a slow and steady thing, especially, um, cause it's kind of like building up clients and yeah, I grew up gradually kind of getting to the point where it's, it's kind of stable enough for that to be like your only your only income.

Steff: And I was super, super lucky with pretty much all of the work or let's say like 80% of the work that I do at the moment is, has come from kind of other people's recommendations or other people who I know of, obviously in, in the industry already who could like who got in touch with me and that they thought I might be interested.

Steff: And I think a lot of the time with teaching you kind of underestimate or just the music business, femoral radius, it, I know they say it's a bit of a cliche, but it is all about who, you know, because that's at least from, from my point of view, that is where I've got the majority of my work from. But yeah, so it was kind of a.

Jamie: long,

Steff: A bit of a build. And obviously pandemic last year was an interesting, an interesting twist on, on on things. But yeah, in terms of kind of, I wouldn't change any, any of it, like you said, because there's, there's the flexibility of, of being self-employed and, kind of being in control of everything I'm such a control freak.

Steff: So I just like being able to like organize my entire timetable and everything and have everything organized exactly how I want it. Which yeah, kind of works, works really well for me. And obviously for the bond stuff as well.

James: Alex, I'd love for you to answer that as well. But I have a follow-up question for Steff, which is something that is already on our list here, but it's a perfect segue. you mentioned the flexibility and being able to make your own schedule since you all four, do that. How do you coordinate events for the band, whether it's playing a gig or going into the studio or just having, you know, a band meeting what kind of system do you have in place to make sure that everyone's on the same page and once you all commit to a time.

James: It doesn't accidentally get double-booked by something else that, you know, with four people who are all independently employed, that makes me think there's gotta be a good system in place there.

Jamie: I think,

Jamie: I mean,

Jamie: for me, we actually don't, I wouldn't say we have a specific

Jamie: plan, which may be dangerous. It might

Jamie: be dangerous. It might be worth having something in place,

Jamie: but I do think it depends massively on how much you're actually committed to the.

Jamie: And I feel like we're all pretty committed.

Jamie: So all that stuff seems to just work

Jamie: itself out.

Jamie: I know isn't a very helpful

Jamie: answer,

Jamie: I suppose, but

Jamie: I mean,

Jamie: I mean,

Jamie: I think

Jamie: just how much you're actually committed to it is like, if it, I mean, I feel like everyone has time. They just need to be like, okay, hang on. Like do actually have

Jamie: time. Like, yeah, like I say, most people do have time.

Jamie: They just can't be bothered to make the time, or it's too hard to make the time. Like it's especially even when you are, self-employed massive, massive benefit is you can reschedule or you can cancel a lesson and reimburse or you can move it. And everything's flexible because you're your own boss.

Jamie: So

Jamie: I

Jamie: suppose,

Jamie: like

Jamie: if you're employed by someone else that that's immediately at a disadvantage because you're like, well, I have to rely on the ma you know, I'm at the mercy of this other guy.

Jamie: Yeah.

Jamie: if he, or she can cover

Jamie: the shift

Jamie: yeah.

Jamie: Oh,

Jamie: well that we can't do that gig

Jamie: then,

Jamie: which you know, not to sound cliche, but you never know what that gig might actually do for your career.

Jamie: So every gigs kind of just as important as the other one,

James: Yeah, absolutely.

Steff: especially in comparison to like when we've previously been employed and having to try and work around gigs, like I think I can speak for all of us when I can say like it's so much easier now. I think also, like I do kind of know everyone's schedules roughly. So I do have a rough idea of like, what is probably going to work for you?

Steff: The good thing is for the most part, anyway, we all kind of controlled or at least slightly by the school timetables just cause we, at least myself and Jamie work predominantly in schools, like high schools. So there's generally always something happening, kind of around like term times dental, obviously how it works over in America, but for England, it's quite like.

Steff: That terms. I mean, I have like half term, like week break and then obviously you've got some holidays, which is like the whole like six weeks. So yeah. I think like Jamie says, we don't really have a specific plan, but I think generally we just kind of I have a rough idea of people's schedules and we, we try and make it work as best we can.

Steff: And when there's something that's really important that maybe means that we need to kind of move something around or reschedule then. Yeah. I guess that's kind of what we'd have to do, but at least we have the ability to do.

James: Yeah, I, and you know, I think that's, you both make great points, but Jamie, to go back to what you said about, you know, it, it's not a good answer. I think it is a good answer because it shows the commitment. Like I have seen bands who say, oh, we have a shared Google calendar and all that. And then it's like, okay, that's great.

James: You know, you have a system in place and that works for a lot of people, but that's still relies on the commitment. And so for the four of you having that commitment seems to be a better system than saying, oh, well, we'll put every single thing we're doing in this shared Google calendar, because you just know like, Hey, if it's important, we're going to be there.

James: And that ties into what you were saying as well as staff about, you know, shifting things around, if you need to. you know, I think that would go for any band. Like if you have one member who is not making that commitment, having a shared Google calendar, probably isn't going to change that because they probably won't put their information into the calendar in the first place.

James: And they'll say, oh yeah, we booked this gig. But I, I forgot, you know, I'm going to my third cousin's wedding. Like I can't do

James: it.

Jamie: not only

Jamie: that, but like if after a while you start realizing that, you know, there's these things getting put in the calendar and you're like, is this, is this more important than, than that?

Jamie: Like, to me, you would, you would start questioning like, well, where

Jamie: are the priorities?

Jamie: Like,

Jamie: you

Jamie: know so if someone let's say books in something,

Jamie: I don't know, like, oh,

Jamie: I've got, I've got a dentist appointment on this day.

Jamie: So I don't

Jamie: book any digs,

Jamie: gigs

Jamie: on

Jamie: this

Jamie: day.

Jamie: And then

Jamie: if a gig does get booked and then that person's like, yeah, but I've got a dentist appointment and

Jamie: it's

Jamie: like,

Jamie: well, it's only a dentist. It's

Jamie: a dentist. the point. And, you know, kind of just, yeah,

Jamie: just reschedule

Matt: You know, they're open

Matt: seven days a

Matt: week, right?

Jamie: yeah,

Jamie: exactly.

Jamie: I

Jamie: mean,

Jamie: maybe Dennis is another bad example,

Jamie: I suppose,

Jamie: but you kind of

Jamie: get my

Jamie: point it's

Jamie: it's like I say it, I think it does all come down like how, how committed you are to the project. And again, if, if you

Jamie: want to

Jamie: do

Jamie: it, you'll do it

James: Yeah.

Steff: And I think coming back to that as well, like wherever, all kind of in, in the careers that we are like terms of teaching, because obviously it's, it's a good career, but for the most part, like, because it actually is a great kind of supplement to the band as well.

Steff: So that was kind of as I mentioned for me, especially, it was, it was very much a decision that I made because I knew that that would have a positive influence on, on the band as well. Um, In terms of. Schedule, and then, but also just having more time as well to like focus on the band kind of project.

Matt: Well, it's awesome to the fact that you guys all have a job, essentially. Supports your other job, like, and not, not just financially, but in terms of actually the skillset that you're honing it is, you know, patients if, when you're teaching, you're generally dealing with smaller children, you know, that that's like a huge, huge, huge trial on you as an individual, which sometimes you also have to be an equal or greater amount of patient with like a band member or with a promoter or with a local band.

Matt: You know, the fact that you guys are cognitively engulfed in music because you are teaching theory to, you know, the next, the next generation. And so you kind of have to be, you know, like your head is constantly in the circle of fifths and your head is constantly, and, you know, the emotions that accompany certain keys and your head is constantly in scales, good practices, fundamentals.

Matt: And so these things that you kind of really develop, and then you constantly teach it's like that has to be in the forefront of your mind. Yeah. And then, so like, I, I think that's just awesome. You guys have found a way to build a modular life and both of your, you know, even when you're working on your band stuff, that makes you a better music teacher.

Matt: And when you're working on teaching, that makes you a better performer. And that right there to me, that's like perfect symbiosis. That's absolutely beautiful. I dunno, I get nerdy about this kind of stuff. And so that to me, I just like get all giddy. I'm like, oh, yay. People working hard, like hooray.

Jamie: Well, we definitely appreciate

Jamie: the sentiment because like I say, I mean, it's not, it's definitely not something you can do overnight. I mean, like you said, you can only imagine how long it takes. It takes. Like I can think back very vividly, to a time where me and Alex both worked at a at a Mexican fast food place.

Jamie: And we were up in burritos and, and I got the opportunity to

Jamie: to potentially go into teaching. And I was like, ah, you know, a bit nervous to, to make the jump

Jamie: because it's

Jamie: like

Jamie: a complacency is kind of a comfortable at times. And I think that's definitely how I felt at the time.

Jamie: I was like, it's really easy just to be like, oh, well this is just convenient. Like I work four or five days a week. I'm getting guaranteed a certain amount, like a

Jamie: month.

James: It's

James: the golden handcuffs.

Matt: That's right. complacency and contentedness are like cousins. You know that it's, you don't necessarily, you don't realize how closely related they are when you're like, oh, everything's fine. It's like, no, dude. Don't, don't settle for mediocrity. Become great. Do something fantastic. Change. Somebody's life build a system that, that has a legacy.

Matt: It's I know. I get, I see people nowadays and I'm like, dude, you have the capacity to like reinvent life as we know it. And instead you're just you're content. And, you know, to each their own, of course, but I, I definitely, you know, I believe that humans have the ability to choose to be extraordinary. And, and I don't think that it, you know, it certainly doesn't start with contentedness mediocrity or complacency.

Matt: It starts with you saying, how do I solve? How do I adapt to this out of this situation that I'm in? Like, I don't think any one of us could sit here and say like, oh, I don't think I'm supposed to be in the music industry. It's like, no, we're all troubadours. We're bards. We're minstrels. We're literally called to this passion for wanderlust where we have to be on the road.

Matt: Or like, if you sit too still in one spot for too long, you start to get depressed and feel this longing for, for journey, for adventure and for telling a story along the way. And so many people, I feel like lose that in the world of contentedness or where it's like, ah, you know, I've, I've got some money.

Matt: Like I've got some good friends, like we're able to go to concerts in the weekend. That's okay. It's like, no, you will never change the world, but I CA you know, like that guy who's out there busking seven hours a day on nothing, but like kebab sticks and an upside down drum, that guy will be great.

Matt: He will change somebody's life. And the amount of work and planning that you have to put into those things, in my opinion is one of the most admirable traits than a human being could have. Cause it's like, it's more important to say, Hey, stop and smell the roses then for you to be like, I'm totally content in this garden.

Matt: And I don't ever need to go anywhere else. It's like, yes, get to the garden,

Matt: plant the roses. It's like, smell the

Matt: roses, love the roses.

Alex: Yeah, that's a pretty good way of finding it to be

Alex: fine.

Jamie: Yeah, beautifully put. Yeah. I mean, it just not to go on a tangent either, but you know, it's not like we were ever, I mean, I can't remember a time where we were ever encouraged

Jamie: to be well from, from growing up in school anywhere at least you know,

Jamie: I was never,

Jamie: I never remember being encouraged

Jamie: to be,

Jamie: you know, it'd be great.

Jamie: Almost. It was almost, you were always encouraged to like, get your CV,

Jamie: like,

Jamie: you know,

Jamie: good. Get your CV looking good so that you can get a decent job and then you can like provide for

Jamie: a

Jamie: family and

Jamie: be comfortable.

Jamie: And it's

Jamie: like, well, there's no, like you said, there's no adventure in being comfortable.

Jamie: It's like, if you're comfortable, it's just like, everything's just the same. And as you said, like, I think as

Jamie: humans, I don't know about everyone, but certainly like me. I completely relate to the idea of like looking for adventure and like just not doing what everyone else is doing because, and that's the reason we all

Jamie: know.

Jamie: To a different place. We moved away from Newcastle. We went to uni somewhere else. We wanted to meet new people. Like-minded people who have the same ambitions and stuff. And, yeah, I was always every chance someone got to discourage us from going down the path of music. It was like, they took

Jamie: the chance

Jamie: and it was like,

Jamie: No, No, no, you sure you want to put your eggs in one

Jamie: basket and blah, blah, blah. All of this, the

Jamie: same rhetoric.

Jamie: And it's

Jamie: like,

Jamie: I

Jamie: was

Jamie: always

Jamie: like,

Jamie: well, I'm good

Jamie: at this though.

Jamie: Like,

Jamie: I'm

Jamie: good at this. And I even said,

Jamie: I, I

Jamie: can

Jamie: tell

Jamie: you

Jamie: this

Jamie: for

Jamie: a

Jamie: fact.

Jamie: I remember being in school at about yeah, 10 or 11, which, is just, just about to leave school. And they were like,

Jamie: careers advisors

Jamie: would come in.

Steff: age, like 14,

Jamie: Yeah. 14,

Jamie: 15

Jamie: and career advisors would come in and be like, okay, let's sit you down and be like, oh, so

Jamie: what do you

Jamie: want to

Jamie: do?

Jamie: What,

Jamie: what are you, what are your ambitions after school? And I was like, I wanna, I wanna like be in

Jamie: a band. And then and I literally, I remember saying I want to be in a band and

Jamie: I wanna teach,

Jamie: I want

Jamie: to

Jamie: teach.

Jamie: And they were like, yeah,

Jamie: it music's hard to, you know, hard, hard industry to get in. And

Jamie: I remember

Jamie: they said that to me, my music teacher was like, my music teacher at the time was actually so bright when I, when I think

Jamie: back where he's a teacher, I suppose, it would help

Jamie: if

Jamie: he was bright, but he was like, you know, the music industry is the only industry

Jamie: right

Jamie: now.

Jamie: That's actually

Jamie: grown. Everything else is capitulating and in shrinking and getting, you know, I don't know like automated

Jamie: almost. And he was like, music. Industry's the only thing that's like, you know, trajectory is upwards. Whether that be for the better, you know, for better or worse, but there's more pockets of the industry that are being invented

Jamie: every day.

Jamie: Um, And he was like, so just do it.

Jamie: And I

Jamie: was just like,

Jamie: I'm going to

Jamie: do

Jamie: it

Matt: that right there, I mean, that's Sage words. I mean, like the bottom line is this, your biggest roadblock in life is yourself. And so like, you know, we'd like to say, if you have a plan, then just do it. Don't, don't waste your time telling everybody about it because you're going to get a whole bunch of yeas, a whole bunch of nays, a whole bunch of mixed opinions.

Matt: It's like, if you just forgo that process of telling people. And you just go start project, do project finished project, and then you tell people, people are obviously, you know, and generally speaking, they're just a lot nicer about a finished product than they are. It's like, you tell somebody that you want to start a metal band and they're like, oh, metal.

Matt: Music's not that good. But if I were to come to you with a metal record and was like, Hey, I wrote this. They're like, holy cow, dude, you wrote this. This is incredible. And it's just, you know, and the difference is like, when you go and talk to people and get their opinions on things, you have their reservations and their roadblocks that they are then going to project onto you.

Matt: And it's like, well, have you thought about this? It's like, no, I haven't because that's not a roadblock for me. Like, I, it doesn't matter to me that I'm not going to be able to have a nine to five job trying to do this. I'd never wanted a nine to five job to begin with. I wanted to be able to live a modular life.

Matt: and lo and behold, as I got older, I started having kids. It was. This is the best thing ever, because my work-life is modular and my tour life is modular. And now, like you were saying, if we need to all have a specific time offer practice now, and the worst thing that happens in a day is you're like, oh, I gotta reschedule this.

Matt: Or I have to refund this I know when we were playing and we all had normal jobs, like you guys were saying, you know, you didn't have to really set a specific time for practice because it just kind of always fell into place. Like in my bands, we'd never had to set a practice time ever, never once because people have always just been like, yes, let's get together and play me.

Matt: Like the idea of getting off of work and going and playing music was just always at the forefront of our mind. And so, like, it's not a crazy hard thing to have to accomplish, but, you know, in theory, it's like if you have five people or four people, or however, you know, however many people are in your group, if you're all like-minded and you're all saying, this is our passion, and this is like what we're born to do.

Matt: it's pretty incredible. The things that you can accomplish with a bunch of positive minded people that are backing your art.

Alex: Definitely mine. Yeah. I, to be fair, I can, I can relate a lot to what you're saying as well, in regards to like the like shift work and things like that. I used to work full time. I'd have to balance doing the bond and half the balance teaching as well. So it was always kind of. Like which one do I choose almost.

Alex: And you know, it can get overwhelming as well because you know, you trying to kind of please everybody and do everything you can to kind of be in as many places at once. You know? So yeah. It's definitely, it, things are a lot easier than there were a few years ago. 100%.

Matt: It's really nice to, when you actually get to look back at that and realize that, you know, it's, you never, it's like you think about when you tilled the soil, you think about when the flowers are grown, but like the process in the middle, you kind of miss, you know, and it's like, it's so nice to look back at who you were a few years ago.

Matt: And just to say like, wow, my life is better because I chose to take these steps that catered to my future. And that's something, I think that a lot of people just miss, because it's like, we make these little tiny gradual changes step by step. And they're not always apparent, but eventually you hit the spot where it's like, oh, I've finally built the whole Lego puzzle.

Matt: You know, it's like nothing fully snaps into grid until I get one of those final pieces. But at a certain point, it goes from being like this creation that you're working with. To being something that you've created and you're able to enjoy that I think is hard to do. And it's incredibly awesome when it happens.

James: Yeah, I agree. And on that note, you know, we, we started talking about the business side of things with how your outlooks on running the band as a business have changed since you started running your teaching businesses. you know, Alex, I said, I'd get back to you. I want to get back to you before we get to the finish line of this interview and, and give you the chance to talk about that, you know, the middle stage, what happened there and how has teaching and running your own business affected your business with.

Alex: So I think like going back to what you were saying before, in terms of it like being a slow burn and all that sort of stuff and kind of building everything gradually, it started off with.

Alex: you know, like I've assumed before just sort of trying to work teaching in when I wasn't actually work at a job sort of doing like nine till six, five days a week.

Alex: And all that sort of stuff. So Yeah.

Alex: it kind of, it seemed as if I was turning down. People just because, you know, I just couldn't do it. You know what I mean? So I'd get like, you know apparent ring and be like, oh, you know, can you teach Jimmy on a Tuesday at three in the afternoon? It's like, well, no, I can teach Jimmy at like half nine, if it might've that works.

Alex: You know what I mean? Like, and it was, it was difficult, you know? So it kind of, it got to a point with all of that stuff. And, you know, I was kind of like, well, I think I'm a bit fed up with this now. You know what I mean? So it was just trying to kind of just try to make everything work, you know? And only two years ago I decided to, to move back to new castle and that's kind of, for me, where it really started as a like Royal care.

Alex: I want this to be an actual, like, full-time sort of aspirational. And again, you know, it started off slow. I didn't really, I don't, you know, don't really know too many people up here anymore. Um, Being done south for six years and all that sort of stuff. So it was, it was difficult, you know, and just relying on word of mouth and advertising and all that sort of stuff,

Steff: Especially through three COVID as well.

Alex: through to, through to covered as well.

Alex: Yeah. So I literally, I, I moved back up to new castle in December, 2019. And literally just as things were starting to take off, like, you know, had people coming in, I managed to get a little premises as well. So people were coming in for lessons and all that sort of stuff, literally things that are like, yeah, this, this is good like ticking along nicely and buying pandemic. So yeah, that was, that was kind of hard to take. I'll be honest. And kind of having like the rug kind of pulled out from under you in a way, so And in between that and everything else, something in, and obviously I was writing and trying to get the collection of songs done. So, yeah, it was, it was quite a sort of weird time really looking back at it now it's kind of, it's quite refreshing that we actually managed to get through it and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I mean, fast forward to now, obviously things are opening back up again and, you know, gigs are happening and, you know, we've got some dates sort of in the pipeline as well.

Alex: So fingers crossed things will start to fall back into place like they did, you know, the pre pre pandemic.

James: Yeah, it's a, I think it's a Testament to your dedication that you moved right before the pandemic happened. And you know, here two years later, if he moved December, it's what, 22 months later close enough. That's two years. Right? That you're still doing it. You didn't say, oh, I'm going to go back to, you know, whatever other job you said.

James: No, I'm, I'm going to stick with it. And I think that's a dedication.

James: One. You know what you want to do, but also to the band. don't know how it was where you are, but here, like recording studios weren't allowed to run because it was, you know, you couldn't be with anyone from outside your household and even like for recordings today, they'd say I'm in the control booth.

James: They're never entering the same room as me. They stay in the live room. I stay in the control booth wasn't allowed. So if it was like that over where you are, I imagine for drum lessons, you have to be in the same room. They probably shut you down completely. I'm guessing, right?

Alex: Yeah. So thankfully I was able to um, sort of get my act together and figure out how to do online lessons as well. Obviously the only difference is if they were in person, you know, it would be sort of on a real, on a real kit and on an all part of some that up online, you're kind of, you're relying on what equipment they have to make it work, you know?

Alex: Cause you're doing it from two different households. But Yeah.

Alex: it was, it was difficult. It was really, really difficult. And I think, you know, you're, you're right in saying it's, it kind of took a lot of sort of perseverance and like, no, like I want to make this work like, cause it'd been in not being in that sort of.

Alex: Environment only two, three years prior as sort of the, kind of nine to five slog. You know, obviously not that I'm sort of hand on that. It, it is what it is, but it's so, so difficult to make everything else work around that, you know, and I, I know exactly what that's like, so I didn't want to just accept that.

Alex: That's what I have to do again. I just wanted to make it work as best as I could. And I'm still, I'm still not there yet. You know, it things aren't, you know, a hundred percent, but it's kind of, again, it's a, it's a slow burn, so just get to see how it

Alex: goes.

Alex: Really.

Matt: Easier today than it was on day one, huh?

Alex: Exactly. Yeah.

Jamie: Well, that's, that's one thing that that's quite funny to think about is that you do get used to things being good unusually quick. You know, it's, I mean, if, if it takes a long time to recover from uh, a big blow.

Jamie: You know, you lose all your students, all your students are

Jamie: like,

Jamie: you know,

Jamie: the pandemic now the online lessons are a bit weird, you know, he, or she can't quite get into them.

Jamie: So we're just going to take a

Jamie: break

Jamie: for awhile. And

Jamie: then after

Jamie: two

Jamie: years, it's like, who wants to restock guitar lessons after two years? Like the need to be really dedicated to do that. So, you know,

Jamie: that's

Jamie: a

Jamie: big

Jamie: hit

Steff: Yeah. And that's kind of always, I guess the, definitely one of the negatives too, right. Because it's very much not like you said, like nine till five as much as the kind of slate in it, like it does obviously have its perks in the sense that you've got that kind of set income and you know exactly how much you're gonna get.

Steff: Whereas, kind of from, from, from a teaching point of view is very up and down and, and kind of. Some students might stop lessons. Those, you might start lessons that you've kind of just got to go with the flow a bit, I suppose, and kind of be okay with that. And kind of have a bit of a kind of support network almost itself so that if everything does go down the pond, like you'll still be okay.

Steff: yeah, it is hard in that sense. Yeah. And I think also which I think I mentioned in the email that I sent over to you before during this, like it's kind of that balance, isn't it of like, first of all, the, the build when you're first kind of build and stuff, but then also if things do get quite busy, it's kind of sometimes hard to 10 down work because then you're like, well, what if next month, all of these students stopped doing lessons and what if this happens?

Steff: What if this happens? It's kind of the, kind of the security I suppose, of, of being employed is,

Jamie: It's funny

Jamie: man, because as something that I've never really had an issue with uh, weirdly enough, like I'm not very money driven. It's, it's obviously really nice. But

Jamie: I don't

Jamie: know, like I'm not actually too bothered. And to be honest, if I can, if I can pay the bills and then keep and keep debt collectors at bear, and you've, you've still got enough to do what you want to do then that to me is kind of enough to, you know, as long as you've got the, the drive to do what you want to do, then that's all that matters really.

Jamie: I mean, there's plenty of people who have more money than, you know, some they know what to do with, and they've got

Jamie: no,

Jamie: they've got no drive

Jamie: that don't

Jamie: know

Jamie: what

Jamie: to

Jamie: do with it.

Jamie: It's

Jamie: the

Jamie: cliche of

Jamie: like, well,

Jamie: you've got all this money and you've only got the weekend to spend it. It's like, well,

Jamie: what

Jamie: on

Jamie: earth

Jamie: is the point?

Jamie: Not

Jamie: like I

Jamie: would mature. That'd be like living week to week paycheck paid

Jamie: paycheck to paycheck and,

Matt: God, I just want my money to look

Matt: at it.

Jamie: yeah.

Jamie: Yeah.

Alex: Like

Jamie: be comfortable. Let you sit

Matt: All right. It's the Warren Warren Buffett's syndrome where it's just like you just like to watch your money go up. And all you do is sit inside your penthouse, watching your money go up. So congratulations. You're already

Matt: dead.

James: Uh,

Alex: the

James: yeah, buy a jet ski and use it twice a year. You know, something like that.

Matt: people that are like, I'm going to buy a jet ski to loan it out. It's like, yeah, you've missed the point. Like you don't live a very enjoyable life. Do you like.

James: Yeah. Well, so something you mentioned Steff a couple of minutes ago well, actually all of you mentioned this teaching online when you're teaching online, that involves technology, whether you're using zoom or. Or whatever app you end up using to communicate with people. But ultimately when it comes to running any business, there are also other apps that ended up being involved, whether that's, you know, using Google sheets or some kind of scheduling tool for your students.

James: So they can book a lesson and pay, you know, right. Then when they're booking it or just you know, bookkeeping, you probably all have to track your your income for the business and all that kind of stuff. What kind of apps do you all use that you think are relevant in the band world as well?

Steff: Um,

Alex: Yeah,

James: That's a good one.

Alex: probably zoom.

Steff: Yeah.

Steff: See my civil as you teach on, I teach online with, but in terms of kind of the organization side of things the, an app that I really, really like is to do this,

James: I love that after.

Steff: so good. I used to literally have like what I need to do to do like on my phone notes. And it'd be like, then if you're like, oh, I need to do this next week.

Steff: I'll just put next week I do this. And now it's like with Xirrus you can basically like, if I'm like, okay, for the band stuff, I need to like send an email this guy, but I'll do that next by I'll do that tomorrow. I can schedule it for tomorrow or say like in a month's time, I need to like upload this or like set this live.

Steff: Or whatever, like, so it's kind of in all aspects really for my teaching, but also for for the band stuff. Um, I just love having, like, being able to almost like schedule my, to do stuff.

Steff: But

Steff: yeah, I think in terms of other things, I think I'm prey. I actually do the majority of my teaching in person now, which is great.

Steff: I know a lot of people love teaching online, but I get a bit like books and remove like that's, you know, staring at a screen all day. I much prefer being in person. So um, that makes things, I guess, a little bit different, but yeah, in terms of when I am teaching online, it's mainly just on zoom. don't know if there's anything else really.

Matt: if you can stay organized all with two simple apps, that to me is the most organized that you can get. There are so many tools out there that allow you to do a bunch of different things. So if you can run your entire business off of one or two applications, that right there is like, I mean, ideally that's what a lot of businesses do.

Matt: They hire a developer to build an app so that people can do all of one particular thing in one particular place. So like the fact that there's tools out there that allow you guys to do that, it's absolutely incredible.

Steff: Yeah, this, I mean, there's so much as well. And at the moment in the way of like scheduling stuff and like, I, I do use like the apple calendar as well, but, yeah, I would say generally, mainly just kind of to do app and then I've got like an Excel spreadsheet, but like side of things,

Jamie: I

Jamie: Guess the only other thing to mention would probably be like that. I mean, I, I mean, it's, it's

Jamie: fair to say

Jamie: that Steff kind of

Jamie: is more the person who runs the nitty gritty

Jamie: part

Jamie: of

Jamie: the band. Um, I mean obviously when we're she's the organizer um, because she's good at it, I suppose. So I suppose

Jamie: the smartest thing

Jamie: is to delegate

Jamie: and be like, look, you're good at

Steff: I'm also the window that I've really liked admin. So I'm just the kind of weirdo that's like, I love sending emails and like taking stuff off

Steff: my phone.

Steff: I

Matt: every band needs, somebody like,

Matt: that.

Jamie: Yeah.

Alex:

Alex: No.

Jamie: But abandoned isn't necessarily the hardest thing to run either, I suppose, is again, coming back to the, the idea that if you're all on the same page, there's not much to organize, except for again, maybe you get into three, a manager and just keeping, keeping everyone on the same page there.

Jamie: I mean, we use uh, an app called slack

Jamie: for

Jamie: that which is how we kind

Jamie: of

Jamie: keep

Jamie: in touch with James. And it's just best that you'd like messenger,

Jamie: to be honest, let's say it's just like a thread. That's a constant, you know,

Jamie: chat.

James: I got to ask them to follow up on that. Did you choose slack or did James choose slack? And, and for those wondering, yes, I am James. They're talking about their manager, James.

Steff: Sorry.

Alex: Yeah, sorry.

James: Yeah, I just realized, I was like, I don't want people to think I'm talking about myself and the third person. Uh, I don't have that much of an ego. Uh, But yeah. So did, did you all choose slack or was that something that James, your manager brought

James: in?

Steff: June.

Jamie: that

James: Okay.

Alex: that

Alex: was his choice.

James: Yeah, because that's another great app

Steff: I

Steff: did actually just think of another app, actually just throw it in which I

Steff: use primarily for each end, but also for just general note, keeping is one note. I don't know if you guys have used it, but it is literally the best thing ever actually on to do with one note and I'll, I'll, I'll delete everything else.

Steff: Basically it's just like a notebook, but on like let me see in the cloud. So, um, I keep all of my lesson plans and kind of notes in that. yeah. So, sorry, just to interject,

James: Yeah, no, that's great.

James: I think that's something that a lot of bands need. And for so many bands, being able to note down the details of whatever it is, you know, an internal process like, Hey, we're going to put out a new merchant design. Here's the checklist for, you know, tell the designer what we want.

James: Get the design made, send it off to the printer, approve the, uh, the proof of the printer sins, get them in, ship them out for pre-orders. That all adds up. So having a list in one note or whatever app is a great thing, and there's so many repeatable processes that a band can have that just, you know, the more documentation there is the better.

Alex: I think, I think there's one, it it's definitely. helped us with uh, sort of like having to run all of our own stuff as well. Like whenever we've needed, not that obviously myself and Jamie and Jordan do too much admin on the bond side of things, but like it has, if we ever needed. I'm pretty sure that, you know, we could at least give it a go to some respect, you know what I mean?

Alex: But, you know, it's, it's kinda, it has helped in that respect. So, you know, but I think Steff Steff enjoys it more than any of us, so,

James: I think what I'm hearing there is Steff, if you just make a, a checklist that explains it in the most basic step-by-step instructions, you can delegate this all to the rest of your band and just watch them do

Steff: I could, I could do that. But then as I said, I'm just too much of a

Steff: control freak,

Matt: That's right.

Jamie: yeah, exactly.

Jamie: If you want it

Jamie: if you

Jamie: want it

Jamie: done

Jamie: right.

Jamie: Do it

Jamie: yourself.

Jamie: that is, literally

Steff: that's my Mo oh yeah. Yeah.

Alex: Can you just extend that

Alex: Xcel column by like a centimeter.

James: Yeah.

Jamie: Which is fine.

Jamie: We, you know, we, we are actually, you know, well, at least me, I am a hundred percent grateful that there's someone in the bind that enjoys doing that and enjoy

Jamie: a joys.

Jamie: You know, we'll use the word enjoy loosely because there's only so

Jamie: much

Jamie: he can enjoy admin, I suppose. But at

Jamie: least

Jamie: having someone

Jamie: who's

Jamie: good

Jamie: at

Jamie: it

Jamie: is like, yeah, it's because

Jamie: I

Jamie: just

Jamie: have too many, I'm much

Jamie: more

Jamie: of

Jamie: a,

Jamie: like, I've got a fairly good memory.

Jamie: I feel like. So I think I

Jamie: would

Jamie: work

Jamie: quite well

Jamie: just on verbal

Jamie: agreements,

Jamie: but

Jamie: that

Jamie: doesn't really,

Jamie: that doesn't really fly these days.

Jamie: Like everything's, you know, has to be written down, you know, everyone

Jamie: has to be

Jamie: held

Jamie: accountable.

Jamie: So,

Jamie: yeah.

James: Yeah. It's for me, I double booked myself once and after I was like, Nope, if it's not on my calendar, doesn't exist. that that's been my policy for a few years now, but so first of all, thank you for sharing the systems that you use, the tools, all that kind of stuff to our listeners.

James: If you want to check any of these out, you know, to do just one note, slack, anything else that's mentioned uh, including the fact and fiction will be linked in our show [email protected] slash 1 0 1. You can go check that out. We'll have the full list of all the links to giant walkers, bio and social media profiles, all that kind of stuff.

James: I want to bring this back around to the fact and fiction the song that you all released a few weeks ago This is your first single that you've put out. What do you feel goes into a successful single release?

Jamie: a boatload

Jamie: of

Jamie: planning.

Steff: Um, I mean, I would still say that the most important thing is that the quality of the music? Yes. It should still be the most important thing. I think sometimes with all of these kinds of, to know, like lots of planning and stuff, kind of, you kind of do all of this and then you kind of look back at the track and you're like, oh, the audio quality. Isn't very good. Like it hasn't been recorded very well or like the song is actually not very good. So like primarily the most important thing I suppose is, still a music. Although obviously that is kind of personal preference sale. So I guess if you believe in it, then Bennet's is it's good.

Steff: But yeah, but Bannon I guess and just giving yourself more time than you think you'll need, say.

James: Ooh. I like that.

James: I I've seen so many artists say, oh yeah, we recorded this. It's coming out next week. It's like, you recorded it this week and it's coming out next week.

Matt: what about your six months of planning for your release? And what about your video? What about your promo materials? What

Steff: Yeah,

Matt: album? Art? Single art,

Steff: absolutely. And there's always delays as well.

Matt: Yeah, of course. Yeah. You're relying on a whole bunch of other people. So that's one thing a lot of people tend to forget about is that when you push your deadline really, really close that doesn't allow for other professionals to basically kind of have a little bit, a little bit of wiggle room in their deadlines.

Steff: Yeah, absolutely. I think also if you if you kind of don't give yourself enough time, then you end up compromising the end products, whether you think you're going to, or not like there's going to be something that's gonna cause delays or something will go wrong, like guaranteed. And then you end up just going, oh, it's find out date out date.

Steff: I'll do. And it needs to be out now. It needs to, this needs to happen. And it's like, well, if you'd had more time, would it be different? And if it would. You should have given yourself more time, but yeah, as I say, that's not something that we've, that's not something that we've always done, so it's totally hindsight.

Steff: But yeah, I would just say, give yourself more time.

Matt: Amen.

Alex: I was just saying, you know, there's no, there's absolutely nothing wrong with sitting on material for long living. You know, you need to, it kind of gives you much more of a clearer sort of insight.

James: Yeah, absolutely. And I think both of those tie into. Going back to do stuff like planning out the release, as much as the song matters in the production matters. Just being able to put it into do us, like this is coming out in three months, here's every single step of the process along the way. And having that on there to take those off, like gets a sense of accomplishment aside from the fact that it's already, you're doing something.

James: It's also just the satisfaction of saying, yep, this is done. Like next step. Let's go down the list. as we start to wrap this interview up I have one last big question for you, which is, is there anything else about the band or your teaching businesses that you'd like to tell the audience about? You know, if you have websites for the teaching business, feel free to toss those out there or social media profiles, any of that stuff.

James: And we'll put them in the show notes at Bandhive dot rock slash one-on-one for the listeners to find, and if they want lessons, they can read you.

Steff: sure. So, um, well I teach fan kind of full, full levels. Um, pretty much all ages. So from like 10 onwards, and it's all kind of contemporary styles um, with an emphasis on uh, kind of rock music specifically, but I do other styles, so like musical theater, pop and metal as well. And so my.

Steff: Website address is Def, which is S T E double F Google's tuition, Dakota. Um, And that's got more info on that and you can also be through that website as well. How about you Alex?

Alex: Yeah. So if anyone who's listening would like drum lessons or sort of any sort of advice related to drum in or insight on sort of, you know, Korean drum parts or all of that sort of good stuff that goes with it. Um, it'd be up on either Instagram that Alex spectrums or a website, which is Alex spectrums.co.uk, or you can even send me an email.

Alex: If you'd like that contact uh, Alex spectrums.co.uk

James: All right. Perfect.

Jamie: I don't actually have

Jamie: a website

Jamie: which is, I know BU

Jamie: should probably

Jamie: have

Jamie: a

Jamie: website,

Jamie: so the, my personal email is Jamie underscore Southern as in Southern

Jamie: fried.

Jamie: At,

Jamie: at,

Jamie: at

Jamie: hotmail.co.uk,

Jamie: the Jamie [email protected].

Matt: perfect.

James: Oh, love it. All right. So all of those links or emails or social media profiles, all of that will be in the show [email protected] slash 1 0 1. That's 1 0 1, not the letter O um, for those who are uh, enough to use the Hotmail email.

Alex: yeah,

Jamie: Yeah, I know. Sorry.

James: this is my email. All one

James: word.

Matt: James is dating

Matt: all of us right now.

James: I'm probably one of the oldest people on Tik TOK. Um, But there's a, there's a trend of elder emos is what we are now known as,

James: so

Steff: On.

Matt: We might be all

James: in your mid twenties, early

Matt: cut our wrists.

Jamie: Uh,

James: Oh wait, make

James: it

James: dark, matte way to

James: make

James: it

James: dark Uh,

James: Steff Jamie, Alex, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, I'm looking forward to hearing what's next for giant Walker in the meantime. Anybody, please, if you want to take a, listen to the fact and fiction it's out now you can find it everywhere.

James: You know, Spotify, apple music, YouTube,

Steff: Yeah. So, um,

Steff: maybe now this is good time, as well as say um, a band, a website is don't walk. I don't could EK and all of the links on there as well.

James: Alright.

James: Perfect. thank you so much again, and I hope you all have an amazing

James: day.

Alex: Thanks for having us, man.