[00:00:00] James: Welcome to episode 168 of the Bandhive Podcast. It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart. This week I have a very special co-host who's here, thankfully, most of the time, because I like it when I'm not sitting here alone by myself, Matthew Ho of Alive in Barcelona.

[00:00:22] James: How are you doing today, Matt?

[00:00:23] Matt: James, I'm doing fantastic. It is a very snowy day here in Colorado. they were predicting between five and I think 16 inches of snow.

[00:00:31] James: That's a big range

[00:00:32] Matt: yeah. Well, Colorado weatherman is like the one job that you can be wrong all the time and still keep your job. the most accurate weatherman in Colorado history was right, I think it was 49% of the time, and he won an.

[00:00:46] Matt: Which means that you could literally flip a coin and be right more than him statistically. So it's pretty terrible.

[00:00:51] James: If it's that bad, why don't people just predict the opposite of what the science is telling them? if you're that

[00:00:57] James: inaccurate, just look at it and say [00:01:00] it's gonna be the opposite, and you literally have better odds.

[00:01:02] Matt: it reminds me of uh, what's the movie mean Girls, where the one girl is like, she talks about that her boobs let her predict the weather, you know? And so she's like, in the end, she's like standing outside and it's raining.

[00:01:15] Matt: She's like, and. 30% chance it's raining right now. that is exactly how I view Colorado weatherman. It's like, oh, yep. It might be snowy, but it also might be 70 degrees. Take your pick

[00:01:29] James: Oh yeah, it's similar in Vermont. It's just very gray today and it's actually, I see things dripping off the deck outside because it's like 35 degrees here, so we're probably gonna have a nice layer of ice tomorrow morning because it's gonna melt today and freeze overnight, so that's wonderful. So actually I almost went flying on Sunday.

[00:01:48] James: It was a beautiful day. Absolutely gorgeous. I'm like, oh, I should go flying and I'm all ready. I'm getting my stuff together to hop in the car. And I was like, Hey, you know, I checked the weather. Let me just make sure I check the notums before I drive up there. [00:02:00] Which, that's the system that went down last week.

[00:02:02] James: you're listening visit, it's like a month and a half ago, but the system that caused the national stoppage, that was the notems and I pulled it up. I'm like, oh, the runway. Is a 1 1 1, which means every third of the runway was at a one on a scale from zero being the worst to seven being the best for breaking action. And then the note with it was a hundred percent ice. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going flying today. I wanna be able to stop when I land

[00:02:26] Matt: it's the little things

[00:02:28] James: yeah, exactly. Exactly. I can take off, I can fly, but can I stop when I land?

[00:02:34] Matt: when you come in for a landing, do you come in nose first or do you come in tail first? With whatever you fly.

[00:02:40] James: So you don't want to land on the nose wheel. Typically though there is a little bit of nose down attitude at least a nose level attitude before we initiate the round out and flare, which is when you pull up and try to basically use the wings to slow yourself down without climbing, because there's a point where you can Tip the nose of the [00:03:00] plane up and you won't climb because you don't have the speed to

[00:03:03] James: climb.

[00:03:03] Matt: or the updraft.

[00:03:05] James: not necessarily an updraft, but yeah, you're pulling back further and further, which increases the angle of attack. And ideally you're like a foot off the ground and eventually then you just stall the plane.

[00:03:15] James: But because you're a foot off the ground, you're just like squeak and you've landed.

[00:03:19] James: most of my landings aren't that good,

[00:03:22] Matt: I've heard from multiple pilots that the most nerve-wracking part is, is landing,

[00:03:25] James: it,

[00:03:26] James: definitely can be, if there's a crosswind or something, especially if it's a calm day or the wind's right down the runway. It's nice and We'll get to the episode topic in a second, but one of my all time highlights was the day before my check ride, I was just up there practicing and I just stayed in the pattern the whole time doing landings.

[00:03:44] James: I was like, I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna do short field landings and I'm gonna do soft field landings, which are basically just for particular airports. And there was a military helicopter at the airport that day and on one of my landing. . I did such a short stop on the landing that on the [00:04:00] radio the helicopter pu was like, are you sure you're not a helicopter?

[00:04:03] James: Because that was a great landing. Like, and I'm just like, thanks cuz it was like literally like within 200 feet I had stopped and I was off the runway.

[00:04:11] James: was fun.

[00:04:12] Matt: Sounds terrifying to me. But you know,

[00:04:15] James: a lot of people say that and then they go up with me, and they're like, oh, that wasn't so bad. I, I did go up with one friend and on the third landing he admitted he closed his eyes for the first two

[00:04:25] Matt: Sometimes you gotta say a little prayer, right?

[00:04:29] Matt: I once met a stunt pilot while I was on a commercial airliner.

[00:04:32] James: Oh, no.

[00:04:33] Matt: Yeah, and we sat next to each other the whole time and we ended up having like a delayed flight together. So we, we had a bunch of chatting, but he, told me how like he was like late forties, early fifties or something like that, when he decided that he always wanted to be a stunt pilot and never, did it.

[00:04:47] Matt: And so he was a limo driver and he ended up bringing somebody who was a stunt pilot and the guy encouraged him to do it, so he went out and did it. And he, you know, he is like, took him a couple years and he eventually got his like stunt pilot's license. And he was just showing [00:05:00] me some of the videos.

[00:05:00] Matt: He's like, man, this is the craziest feeling ever. He's like, in a stunt plane, they come in nose first for landing.

[00:05:06] Matt: but I just remember watching this video of him coming and landing, and it just looks like he's just nose diving straight at the runway, and you're just like, oh, how do you learn how to do this?

[00:05:15] Matt: That's amazing.

[00:05:16] James: the difference between a tail dragger, and I swear we're gonna get to the episode, a tail dragger has the two main gear in the front, and then either a small wheel or a skid in the back. So you can either do a two point landing on the wheels where you're basically level, or you can do a three point landing where you're tipped back, with a tricycle.

[00:05:34] James: Which tail? Drager is also called conventional cause that's what came out originally. Tricycle gear is what I fly. that's like any airliner is also essentially tricycle gear. And with those you wanna land on the main gear, which are in the middle of the plane, typically somewhere around the center of gravity.

[00:05:49] James: And so you wanna land on those and then bring the nose wheel down. If you land on the nose wheel, things will go wrong. Like you will break things, potentially including yourself, so you don't [00:06:00] wanna. Thankfully I've never done that. I have accidentally had a three point landing in tricycle year, which is not great, but also not nearly as bad as a nose wheel landing. Anyway, now that we've totally destroyed any form of a relationship we have with our listeners by sidetracking, for the first like seven minutes of the episode, we're gonna do an episode talking about staying in touch with your friends and family and maintaining quality relationships.

[00:06:27] James: And while you know this is very relevant to bands, you might not be thinking about that yet, but we'll talk about it. Matt, take it.

[00:06:33] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So uh, you know, people are, the greatest asset in all of history. You know, everything that we do as people, I mean the, the creation of society, you know, the, the act of literally civilization, you can sum up all of civilization as the conservation of energy and the best way for human beings to conserve energy is to work.

[00:06:54] Matt: there's a fantastic exercise that a famous basketball coach did where he took the [00:07:00] best player on a team and said, I want you to take this basketball and dribble all the way down the court, and I want you to score. And then he took four other people and he put them on the court, one at the baseline, wanted the free throw line, wanted half court, and wanted the other free throw line.

[00:07:13] Matt: And he said, I want you guys to pass the ball to each other. And then I want the last guy to shoot. Now I want you to see if any one of you guys. Can make it all the way down the court and score before the four people and nobody could, it didn't matter who was the fastest, who was the best, or you know, who was the apex, who was the team captain, any of that. What mattered was the four people that worked together were always able to achieve the goal better. And of course this was a really fun exercise too, because as the coach recalled, each and every individual team member wanted to go at it.

[00:07:43] Matt: They wanted to see if, you know, they could beat the four guys. the lesson there was that there was strength in. The strength in numbers is really what it just allowed for an incredible metric of success. So basically what I'm getting at is people working cooperatively are always going to [00:08:00] achieve greater heights and farther distances than people working alone.

[00:08:04] Matt: working together to accomplish things is one of the most amazing feelings that you can have, and it really, really stimulates a true form of joy. I'm such an extrovert that I really believe that all forms of joy stem from people. even the people who, don't like to be around people. their joy still stems from people, and it stems from their knowledge of knowing that joy does not come from those people for them.

[00:08:25] Matt: So, for normal people, it might be friendship. You know, for a business owner it might be making that sale or landing that contract, getting a raise. You know, for a father it might be, having a child or, or, you know, seeing the manifestation of a lesson you're trying to teach them.

[00:08:41] Matt: Come to fruit. For a musician, it might be booking a kick ass show. all of these things are small victories that bring us forms of joy. They are parts of feedback loops that give us the information that we need to continue, and they're really what kind of incentivize us. like, if the flower never blooms, The gardener will never [00:09:00] return.

[00:09:00] Matt: if all you have is thorns and all you have is brush, and all you have is difficulty trying to remove this stuff, and you never have that joy, well you're never gonna get anywhere, period. It's just you're gonna turn your wheels and eventually you're gonna get so sick and tired of doing something that you quit.

[00:09:16] Matt: So for today, what we're really talking about is. How to manifest joy, you know, throughout your relationships in such a manner that. , all parties involved succeed. So the music business is, more about who you know than it is about what you know, what, what you know will get you into the door.

[00:09:34] Matt: but who you know, will get you to the right floor, so to speak. if I've never played music, nobody's ever gonna take me seriously, however, If I play music and my roommate roommate is Rick Rubin, I'm going to be in a much better position than somebody who is not in such a close proximity with Rick Rubin.

[00:09:51] Matt: So, you know, your connections really are what gonna make everything happen. And to be entirely honest, if you don't maintain quality connections, you are gonna lose out on more [00:10:00] oppor, you know, opportunity knocks once not twice and three times. They don't continuously give you everything. you have to.

[00:10:05] Matt: Your moment, you have to, uh, carpe diem, you know, seize the day. And you have to utilize the connections that you make in your everyday life. So, James, take it away.

[00:10:15] James: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, making those connections is so important. And then not just making the connections, cuz I've seen so many people say, oh, I'm networking, and they meet somebody and they never talk to them again. That's not networking, that's meeting people. What you want to do instead is meet people and form a quality connection with them that turns into a relationship.

[00:10:35] James: You want to be long-term friends with these people and you never know who you might be talking to for example, last month I worked a show with local bands and after the show I was talking to one of the guitarists, and it turns out that back in the early two he was touring with huge New England metal.

[00:10:55] James: bands that are household names. If you're in the metal world or maybe even outside the metal [00:11:00] world. he was doing tech work for them. He was doing security work, all kinds of stuff. But he still knows those people, I'm sure. Now that's not saying I'm gonna be like, Hey bro, introduce me. I want to go on tour.

[00:11:10] James: That's not what I'm gonna do. But that's a good person to know. And if I ever need to get in touch with one of those bands, I can be like, Hey. I remember what you said. You worked with these guys. I'm doing a benefit show. Do you think you could put me in touch with their booking agent? I don't know who their agent is, but could you ask them who to get in touch with?

[00:11:25] James: That's the kind of thing we're talking about here. It's not about going out and immediately saying, what can you do? For me? It's about just being a good person and keeping in mind that the people you're talking to, even though they might seem like nobodys in the scene, they probably know. people and those are people that you might want to know.

[00:11:44] James: So I'm not saying befriend people just because they might be able to benefit you, but treat everyone as if their relationship would have some value. if people are jerks, skip, ignore, no thanks, but always be open and always be respectful because you never [00:12:00] wanna burn bridges.

[00:12:00] James: And I've told this story on the podcast multiple times. There was a band I worked with back in 2014 they yelled at the venue supervisor and got banned from the venue. Now, the venue supervisor used to tour manage for arena and amphitheater level acts. You never know who you're gonna talk to, and this is why you gotta be careful because if I had said something stupid to that guitarist, for example, in the big picture, doesn't matter. What if, then a few years later, I end up working a bigger show with one of those bands and he's there and he says to those guys, oh, hey, you know, I've worked with him. He's a total jerk. That's not good. That's not good at all. if that happens, maybe they'll say, Hey, we want a different engineer for this show.

[00:12:42] James: Maybe they'll not say anything, but what if I had done a great job with that show and they would've offered me a. but then because he said that guy's a jerk, they might think, oh yeah, he's really good, but we're still not gonna hire him cuz he's a jerk. That's not the kind of image you ever want to portray.

[00:12:58] James: You always want to put [00:13:00] your best foot forward, keeping in mind that there's lots of people in that room and you don't know their life stories at all. This happened with John Ryan from Keep Flying. We had him back on episode, I believe it was 1 56. Great guy. Great. I. I met him and I thought, okay, he's a guy in a band.

[00:13:16] James: That's great. Turns out he was on Warp Tour, he was on the TV show, warp Roadies. He was tour managing for big level acts in the scene before. He said, I'm gonna take a step back and focus on my own music. Now. I could have been like, oh, whatever, dude. Like, nice to meet you. Or just with another local band guy, which to be fair, keep Flying is not a local band.

[00:13:34] James: They're a national touring band. But I could have had that attitude. Instead, I was just open. Oh, like you make music, let's chat. And after the fact, I found out all this cool stuff he's done and because I was open to just being friends without any motive behind it, aside from Hey, this guy seems cool, I wanna chat with him. That led to, now I know John, and he's come on the podcast to share his knowledge. That's huge. I super appreciate that he took the time out of his day [00:14:00] to do that because he's a busy guy now. I'm working on hopefully bringing them back to Vermont sometime in the future cuz they were that good live.

[00:14:07] James: So it's, working for him too. They're gonna get a show out of it probably if it all works out. that's just how this industry works. The people you know are the people you like to work. because if you know they're good people, it's that much easier to say, yeah, let's bring them back, rather than these strangers who we never know, like their music's good, but what if they're jerks?

[00:14:25] Matt: there's two types of successful people in the music industry. There are the people who are extreme and then there are the people who are extremely humble. Now, the people who are extreme assholes have a much, much, much shorter career than the people who are extremely humble.

[00:14:39] Matt: Even growing up, I used to play bass on stage at my church, and I still remember when we got a new guitarist week after week, we would all chat and we would talk. And I still remember him coming up to me. I, I must have been like 15 or 16, and him saying, oh, I love the way you play bass.

[00:14:55] Matt: You know, I, I just really like what you add. And I was like, oh, thank you so much, you know, made me [00:15:00] feel good. And, you know, few months go by and a few more months go by. Come to find out, this guy passively mentions when he was jamming with Stevie Ray Vaughn. And I was like, what? Okay. And he passively continues to mention some of his other friends who include the Eagles and listening to some of, the people that he had played with.

[00:15:22] Matt: It was like, name Drop Central, you know? Meanwhile, I come to find out he had actually played with the Eagles for a time and turned down a spot to be there touring. Because he was still touring with his brother and his best friend in their band. come to find out after that he's in the Nebraska Music Hall of Fame and he was inducted on the same day as the bassist for the Eagles, who is one of his best friends.

[00:15:41] Matt: None of this ever came out of his mouth. This was all stuff that was like passively mentioned by like other people who knew about him. Now, meanwhile, me, 15, 16 year old Matt is just like, wow, this is so crazy. I meet guys who, who have never done anything close to what this guy did in his touring career, and they're the most cocky, idiots [00:16:00] on the planet, But then you meet people that are just like way, way, way above that level. And it's like, oh my gosh, you guys are so humble. . you're so down to earth, and it's always these humble, down to earth people that have these incredibly long careers. go out on Warp Tour, go spend a couple days in bus land, go talk to some musicians, the ones that think that they're all that.

[00:16:18] Matt: It's like, oh, we're headlining main stage. It's like, yeah, that's cool and all, but your career is gonna last eight years. Meanwhile, it's like newfound glory is still out there. Every single one of those guys, every time I've talked to him, he's always been super, super nice, They've just been normal people and consequently they played Orbit Tour for, you know, 15 years.

[00:16:35] Matt: it's really incredible to kind of see the dynamic between the people who think that they're everything and the people who are just happy to be there. Who you know, is always going to be propelled by the amount of humility that you have going into the scenario.

[00:16:50] Matt: So if you are a blessing to be around, then people are going to be blessed by you being around . they want you to be over there. You know, it's, it's just that simple. when [00:17:00] you have a party, you want the life of the party to be first person to show up. And so if you can be the light of the music industry, if you can be the light of your brand Jimmy Fallon became like the biggest late night talk show host ever because he only focused on positivity. And any time negative stigma came into his, program at all, he would do everything that he could to dispel it and spin it in a positive way. And that consequently led him to becoming like the largest late night talk show host ever, despite other people having like decades of experience on him.

[00:17:31] Matt: inversely, there's David Letterman and Jay Leno who were two late night talk show hosts. Now, David Letterman worked for Jay Leno and worked his tail off in order to get to where he was. And then when the opportunity arose for him to become the late night talk show host, people said, oh, you know, he looks funny.

[00:17:48] Matt: He's got curly hair and glasses. We want somebody else. and consequently David Letterman, who had sacrificed, you know, like a, a very, very long period of time to further the brand felt [00:18:00] cheated. And so he left and he ended up starting his own late night talk show host where he was sensational for years and years and years.

[00:18:07] Matt: you can see the contrast of, when people are treated well, they're going to achieve things. You and them and other people never thought possible. you really can elevate people to a capacity beyond your wildest dreams.

[00:18:21] Matt: And it all stems from, building quality relationships and actually caring about people and being invested in them and building people up and finding their strengths and, and, and propelling them and saying, you know, , yeah, maybe you're bad at this, but you're great at this, this, this, this, and this.

[00:18:35] Matt: So instead of focusing on this one area that you're bad at, we're gonna focus on these 10 areas that you're good at. Oh, we're gonna push you to levels that you never thought imaginable. in the end, you're gonna end up not only like being just better in every way, shape and form, but you're also just gonna have so much richer, more fulfilling relationships and bonds that you've formed with these people along the way.

[00:18:54] Matt: And even after a music career, you're gonna look back and you're going to. Good, real [00:19:00] lifelong friends, which to me is infinitely more important than, than a business that lasts in a lifetime. I would rather have a legacy that lasts a lifetime. The funeral test, you know, how many people show up at your funeral?

[00:19:11] Matt: I will tell you how good of a person you were based off how many people show up at your funeral. I will not tell you how good of a person you are based off, your bottom. dollar Even bad people can sell things, but bad people cannot make good friends. And that's just a very, very simple truth the longer that you give a nefarious person a microphone, eventually they slip up.

[00:19:29] Matt: And so, bad actors kind of always get caught. The good actors are the ones that, they live rich fulfilling lives. more than having a successful business, more than having great music. more about being better. Being a better human a rising tide raises all ships.

[00:19:44] Matt: And if you are just a better cog in the music industry, then you are naturally going to bring up the average. need to bring up the average. We all need to bring up the average. competition makes things great it's really what helps all of us succeed.

[00:19:57] Matt: And when people make better music, when they make better art, if [00:20:00] you make better art, James, that makes my art. better de facto because I either have to play at your level of the game or I'm gonna fall by the wayside. Either way, the bad stuff gets trimmed. And so the best thing for me to do is to develop an incredible relationship with James and say, how can I build James up?

[00:20:18] Matt: Because if I build James up, James is already building me up. You know? This is the entire mentality behind the world of value, and this is actually what separates, like millionaires from billionaires. You want to be a billion. You have to understand the concept of how can I bring value into their lives?

[00:20:36] Matt: how can I reach out to them? you see somebody carrying something heavy, you can sit there and say like, oh, I'm not the roadie. I don't have to, I I don't have to deal with that. Or you can just grab an end and help. And when things come back around, it's like, maybe you're years down the road and you just say, oh my gosh, this.

[00:20:51] Matt: guy Helps me out in X, Y, or Z way, and you don't know how that's gonna manifest later on in life. you never know who's watching. So it's best to just succeed [00:21:00] together.

[00:21:00] James: 100%. And what you're saying there reminds me of a vivid memory of mine. We were in New Orleans Warp Tour 2016 at Mardi Gras World and it was a very interesting venue cuz like there was an indoor section and catering was like in an indoor jungle. And then, . There was basically like a giant gym, which had one stage on it, and then there were other stages outside and like they were on a wharf, right on the coast or on the Bay or Bayou or whatever it's called down there. And I'm walking around, doors are about to open and theirs Kevin Lyman pushing Porta-potties because the local security wasn't. helping There were a couple of them there, but there was like 10 security, or maybe six, I don't know. And like Kevin and two of them were pushing Porta-potties and I don't know why. It was just the two of them, maybe the other said, oh, we're security.

[00:21:47] James: That's not our job. I don't care what it was. Kevin Lyman, the guy who founded and runs Warped Tour, was doing what it takes to get the show open on time.

[00:21:57] James: That is leadership he didn't get on his radio and [00:22:00] say, Hey, so and so come over here, move these Porta-potties He said, this is gonna take me five minutes.

[00:22:04] James: I can do this right now. I'm gonna help. Because otherwise, if he calls somebody over, maybe it's gonna take them 10 minutes to get there. Warped tour is huge.

[00:22:11] James: don't know where they are, so just jumping in and being ready to help, that is leadership. Another example of what you're saying about a rising tide raises all ships.

[00:22:20] James: My friend Vincent opened a music venue, which I love. It's a really cool space, 49 cap, amazing sound system because he's an audio guy. It's actually adjacent to his recording studio and he bought the rest of the building. So now he had this space and said, I'm gonna start doing shows. Well, we need to get better shows in there.

[00:22:36] James: And I'm not a a show promoter, I don't enjoy promoting shows. It's fun to do once in a while, but that's why I'm booking shows again because I want to help him out. that's it. I could book shows anywhere, but I wanna help him build up his venue. So I'm like, Hey, I'll help out.

[00:22:50] James: I'll reach out to the people I know and see if they wanna play a show at your venue. I'll take the work off your plate. I'll get things started. All you have to do is promote the show on your end, [00:23:00] put it in your ticketing system and that kind of, That's it. I'll give you all the details. You say, yes, that date is open, and we go and do it again.

[00:23:08] James: I don't particularly enjoy that, but I do enjoy good live music and I do wanna see his venue succeed. So I say, Hey, I'll help out. Why not? Because ultimately, in the long run, that's great for me. I get to meet more people, I get to see more live music, I get to mix more live shows because I'm also the sound guy there.

[00:23:24] James: It's a win-win. I win Vincent wins and the bands playing their win.

[00:23:29] Matt: You guys also develop a stronger relationship too. one of the best parts is that you outside of work develop a stronger, richer, more fulfilling relationship with him. those are the intangibles. that's one thing that I think so many people tend to overlook that in the business world, yes, business is good, but there's more to it than just business.

[00:23:49] James: a hundred percent. And you know, that's the thing, like he and I met because of business, but then we realized he's German. I'm German and he's lived here for 10 years. . so we had that in [00:24:00] common. Then we just started talking and we became friends. He's been over to my place for dinner a bunch of times.

[00:24:04] James: I've been to his house a bunch of times. I've been to his studio many more times. now he has a new girlfriend as of a few months ago, she seems perfectly nice, but I've only met her at shows. And so I recently found out that about 15 minutes from me, there's an escape room. Now I'm like, oh, I wanna check that out.

[00:24:16] James: I've never done an escape room. So who did I hit up? I said, Hey, Vincent, do you and your girlfriend have interest in doing this with me? Like, I wanna check. and that way I can get to know her better because I want to know who's in his life, but also just get to hang out with him. Again, this is in a way adding value because I'm reaching out saying, Hey, let's do something that's not work oh, and I've gone to Boston with shows multiple times with him.

[00:24:39] James: I saw AFI in Boston and Aner Chiari in Boston with him. I'm finding ways to do these extracurricular activities outside of. So we can tighten that relationship like you said.

[00:24:48] Matt: if anybody wants proof of this type of thing happening, you're listening to a podcast right now that is directly correlated with James and I treating each other with respect. On Warped Tour, we didn't know each other. [00:25:00] We live in different parts of the United States. We don't listen to all of the same music.

[00:25:04] Matt: We don't have all of the same beliefs. But you know what we did have for each other, mutual respect. We were in the same place at the same time, dealing with some of the same hurdles. And so instead of competing with each other, we chose to build each other up. And consequently, here we are years later now.

[00:25:20] Matt: Now, every episode of this podcast that comes out benefits my life. It benefits my band. Every single show that I play when I talk to somebody about the podcast that I do benefits James. It benefits his life. It benefits the other artists that we work with. It benefits the other promotion companies. It benefits the apps that we use and that we tell you guys to use.

[00:25:38] Matt: You don't realize this giant network of things that you build each and every day. You don't understand that like the tools that you annex into your business, even when you just subtly talk about them, even just by becoming better and building each other up. All of us together we all benefit and so like keeping in touch. I mean, it is, it is just like a simple, simple thing. It's like [00:26:00] so many people, get caught up in the business life and they think, you know, you have to leave everything behind. You have to focus a hundred percent of your energy and attention on this business, and it's all about the bottom dollar and blah, blah, blah.

[00:26:09] Matt: This, and to an extent there is a lot of wisdom in that, in business it actually is all about the bottom dollar. if you're not making enough money, then your business isn't gonna succeed, but the. how The how you make that dollar changes. And when you build up people inside of your community, when you bring people in and say like, you know what?

[00:26:26] Matt: Let's all get on this boat together and you accomplish things like, victory by itself is exciting, but. victory when you're doing it with somebody else is exhilarating. Not only do you have that same high of victory, but you also have somebody to stop and smell that rose with. And that is, like we said at the beginning, where the joy comes from.

[00:26:47] Matt: The joy comes from the people. this is why businesses make awards. If you've ever worked for a Walmart and one employee of the month, it makes you feel. now, somebody just contacted a trophy store and had that made up and gave it to you. That's all that happened, [00:27:00] you know, and you can do that inside of your own business too.

[00:27:02] Matt: nobody, when you run your own business, is going to make you a placard that says, congratulations, 1 million streams. But maybe somebody in your band who realizes that that's an accomplishment and it wants everybody in the band to stop and smell the roses and stop and realize the heights that they've, climbed to the achievements that they've made.

[00:27:19] Matt: It's like, Hey, you know what? This is impressive and we should be proud. And when you do that, it's all contingent upon the people

[00:27:26] James: exactly. highlighting the little things or even the big things. That's what it's all about now. Maintaining long-term relationships. If you're like me, you're not a natural extrovert, so it can be difficult to keep up with people. Now, Matt, I know you're on the opposite end of the spectrum. You love talking to people, you're all about it.

[00:27:45] James: for me, when I wanna stay in touch with people, I actually have an app that reminds me to reach out to people. Now, my closest friends, I hit 'em up no matter what. Matt, you're in there. My friend mi over in Germany. I chat with him twice a week as well, on a video chat. And my closest [00:28:00] circle of friends, they're all in the app, but I don't need the app to remember that they exist or to remember to reach out to them.

[00:28:06] James: But there's a lot of people that I want to be in touch with. and I need that gentle reminder like, you know, maybe I'm not hitting them up weekly. Maybe it's like, Hey, you know, every month or two, that's what this app is for. That's not to say I don't have Matt and all my other close friends in here because they are, it's just most of the time I go in and I'm like, oh yeah, I talked to them yesterday.

[00:28:27] James: Let me check that off, like I talked to them and then it automatically resets a reminder for whatever duration I set to reach out to them. But those people who are in like the two week to the three month or more, mark, it's so handy to have that reminder pop up. It's a push notification on my phone that says, Hey, you haven't talked to this person since this time.

[00:28:47] James: And I just double check and I look at my messages to them, I'm like, oh, I haven't let me reach out to them. And then I mark it is done. And it reminds me in whatever interval, You can do days, weeks, months, whatever you want, even years I think. But I haven't set any that long [00:29:00] because if you're talking to somebody every year or less, that's not enough for a solid relationship.

[00:29:05] James: But I set that all in here and it makes it so much easier to actually stay in touch with people. So that app is called Garden Stay in Touch. It's available on iOS only. Sorry, Android folks, but it's. Essentially it's a CRM for friends, that's customer relationship management, or in this case, I guess it's F RM Friend, relationship management free app. Just go to the app store. It's called Garden. Stay in touch, download it and try it out. it hasn't been updated in a few years, and I'll be totally honest and say it's not perfect. there are some bugs I've noticed. birthdays get screwed up if you tap that you've talked to a person, it actually adjusts the birthday by one day, so it drifts.

[00:29:44] James: don't put in the birthdays. don't trust that. aside from that, it has been a great app for me and I've been using it for like three years. I. Now there are alternatives, so if you want an app that does more, just look up friend CRM or CRM for friends, and you'll find lists. Most of the [00:30:00] ones I've found are not free.

[00:30:02] James: Some of them are like 10 or $20 a month, and maybe that's worth it. Maybe it's not. That's up to you. But I'm totally okay with what Garden offers and for free, I don't mind the one little bug I found as long as that app still. , which eventually it's gonna stop working because iOS is gonna update and it'll say it's no longer compatible unless they do push an update for that.

[00:30:23] James: But you know what? I don't care. I'm gonna keep using this app until that happens, and then I'll find something else, some other way to do it. But for now, I'm all in on this app and it's honestly been super beneficial because I'm staying in touch with the people that, for the most part, I wouldn't be able to, if I didn't have this app reminding me to, Hey, reach out to this. that does it for this episode of the Bandhive Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening.

[00:30:48] James: I really appreciate it.

[00:30:49] James: I hope that in this episode you learned how you can grow and maintain relationships with your friends because realistically in the music business, Yeah, you know, you might have colleagues, you can call them that, but [00:31:00] essentially you want everyone that you work with to also be a friend.

[00:31:03] James: You want to know them, you want to like them, and you want to trust them because if you have that, you will be presented with more opportunities for growth, more opportunities to play cool shows, or do cool things, and ultimately you'll have a longer lasting career. It's really important to have all of these things in place and just staying in touch with people to show that you are interested.

[00:31:24] James: And not just hitting them up when they can do something for you or when you need something from them is so incredibly important. So go out there, check out Garden, stay in touch, or whatever app you feel like using. But again, I recommend Garden just because it's free. Go check those out and stay in touch with your friends.

[00:31:41] James: Put the people you meet in there when you play a show, and that way you can remember to hit them up on a regular basis. Thanks again for listening. We'll be back next Tuesday at 6:00 AM Eastern Time with another brand new episode of the Bandhive Podcast. Until then, I hope you have a great week. Stay safe, and of course, as always, keep rock.[00:32:00]