[00:00:00] James: Welcome to episode 173 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 on the show we have another three-peat, a very special guest in the form of Todd Barriage YouTuber extraordinaire, and front man of Theatria.

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

[00:00:24] Todd: Man, I am doing so good today. How are you doing?

[00:00:26] James: I'm stoked to hear that and I am doing great as well. It is a beautiful, snowy last day of February and by the time this episode comes out on March 21st. Todd, you're an AFI fan. I'm an AFI fan I should say we are reformed AFI fans, but that's not gonna stop me from, by the time this airs having been in California to see them placing the sorrow in full, which is an album that you covered the whole thing.

[00:00:54] Todd: I'm So stoked that you get to see that.

[00:00:56] James: I wish you would be able to join us. first of all, I would love to meet you, but I would [00:01:00] also want to share that experience with you,

[00:01:01] Todd: I had a dream. I went, actually last night

[00:01:03] James: no way. How

[00:01:05] James: was it?

[00:01:05] Todd: It was pretty good.

[00:01:06] James: were the screams and Death of Seasons Passable.

[00:01:09] Todd: Yeah. The whole thing was good. sing the sorrow like I covered it. Right. So the whole album exists in my brain, every single layer of it. So like, I would've just dreamt the album audio.

[00:01:18] James: That's fair. and to be honest, I'm gonna get scalped by the AFI fans for this, but I would not be upset if they backtracked the screams for that show.

[00:01:28] Todd: I wouldn't be upset if they offered to fly me out to do the screams.

[00:01:31] James: I mean, that would be sick.

[00:01:33] James: I, I, mean, you could always send them a dm,

[00:01:37] Todd: Oh, I mean, I could, Yeah, Jayden Hunter are, very, very kind and patient and with their time with me,

[00:01:45] James: that would be amazing. you could have them fly Katie out for the poem. I hope they play that.

[00:01:50] Todd: she read the poem.

[00:01:51] Todd: I forgot about that till you said that just now. She read the little boy part.

[00:01:54] James: Gibson's voice is deep now.

[00:01:56] Todd: right. He's not a little boy

[00:01:57] Todd: anymore, but he was, he was. He was like [00:02:00] nine at the time. No, he would've been like three. I'm really bad at time. He's 27 now. He would've been seven. It was the

[00:02:06] Todd: easiest math in the world we ever had to do.

[00:02:09] James: he probably would've been like six because they recorded it

[00:02:11] James: before. 5, 6, 7, something like that. I'm really hoping I get to meet Butch Vig. That would be

[00:02:17] James: fantastic. Anyway, we're sidetracking here again. Cause the first thing I had written down on this outline was to remind people about the episodes that you did in the past.

[00:02:26] James: Cuz like I said, you're a three repeat, which you're only the second one ever, and you are the first repeat guest on the show. So your first episode was number 81 from self-producing artist to full-time producer, Todd Bar of Theatr. And then the second one was number 1 0 2, which that was only like 20 weeks apart.

[00:02:43] James: That wasn't even six months. And now it's been a year and a half since we had you on

[00:02:46] James: the show.

[00:02:46] Todd: This has been a big gap.

[00:02:47] James: I know we gotta not do that. And you'll be the first quad Pete on the show.

[00:02:51] Todd: I'm holding you to that

[00:02:52] James: Please do. Please do. So yeah, number 1 0 2 was releasing a song every week, Todd Bar of Theria. And you can find those [00:03:00] [email protected] slash 81 and Bandhive.rocks/ 1 0 2.

[00:03:05] James: So that first episode, We were talking about how you were earning a full-time living as a producer who was working with clients, and then a few months later, that second episode, we were talking about how you were releasing a song every single week on YouTube because you had shifted and now you're back a third time and you're not doing studio work at all.

[00:03:24] Todd: So I have a rule. It's, I'll do two records a year

[00:03:26] Todd: only for close friends and only if their songs absolutely slap.

[00:03:29] Todd:

[00:03:29] Todd: cuz like I have this skillset and I want to use it for myself cause I'm a very selfish person.

[00:03:34] Todd: But there's certain cases, so in this case it's the band pneumonia. the guitarist and main songwriter of Pneumonia Breath was the guitarist and main songwriter of the band lung list with whom I did uh, three records back in my full-time producing days. So he came to me and he was like, man, I know you don't do this anymore, but like, I've got these songs no one else will do it.

[00:03:54] James: They're not gonna make it. sound the way it needs to sound.

[00:03:56] Todd: exactly. Like, no one's gonna do the job. Right. And I was like, okay. and so [00:04:00] my condition for this record was if we cover an EP of songs for Metallica saying Anger together, I will do this. Record

[00:04:08] James: So that's how that came about.

[00:04:10] Todd: because it's something we, we joked about for years and years and years.

[00:04:13] Todd: And then it, it was around the time, the last episode of, this podcast came out. I had just put out, frantic, but it's pretty good.

[00:04:20] Todd: That was like, let's see how this does and if it does well, we'll do an ep. And it did pretty well for my channel at the time. So it just took us a year and a half to come back around and actually record the other three songs we wanted to do.

[00:04:32] James: Still that's fantastic. And I, I gotta say also you did that, was it Megadeath cover? No, slayer raining blood. the comments on that were so funny, like all the old boomers like being like, this is metal.

[00:04:43] James: It's like, it's not supposed to be

[00:04:45] Todd: Most of that was Master of Puppets.

[00:04:47] Todd: When I, did Master of Puppets, but it's pot punk, that one I had like a bunch of death threats, a bunch of boomers, a bunch of just terrible people. I had people like on Instagram be like, Hey, is this your address? And then they would actually like post my real [00:05:00] address, to which I would reply, yes.

[00:05:02] Todd: Would you like to get lunch next time you're in town?

[00:05:04] James: that's a good response. I mean, first of all, it's super creepy that they spent that much

[00:05:07] James: time trying to find your info.

[00:05:09] Todd: Yeah, if they're posting my address, they're not asking to confirm. They're asking cuz they know when they're trying to intimidate me. Right.

[00:05:16] Todd: cool, you know my address. So let's get sushi

[00:05:18] James: they're probably not even in Canada.

[00:05:20] Todd: No, they were from like Germany.

[00:05:21] James: The Germans are so paranoid, and I say this as a German, the Germans are so paranoid as a whole about privacy and super strict about like, you take a picture in public and like somebody's face is in it, you have to blur their face out.

[00:05:34] Todd: so to him this was like the darkest threat he could muster

[00:05:37] Todd: was, here's your home address. And it's like, I'm in Canada. Like we don't lock our doors half the time,

[00:05:42] Todd: like

[00:05:44] James: I mean, there used to be phone books we're old, sorry folks, but phone

[00:05:48] James: books used to have addresses in them. for anyone who's like five plus years younger than us, they

[00:05:54] James: probably have never opened a phone book.

[00:05:54] Todd: there's gonna be exceptions, but if you're born later than 96, you've [00:06:00] never cracked a phone book open. There's

[00:06:01] Todd: no reason to.

[00:06:02] James: I would say maybe 98.

[00:06:03] Todd: somewhere in that region, like, but like the internet was prevalent by 2001. So by the time you were old enough to access information and need someone's phone number, the internet was right there.

[00:06:12] James: True. Maybe my parents were just weird cuz I always had to look stuff up. , want to like call the hobby shop and see if they have the new baseball cards. Like go look up their number. This is the name of the store, call

[00:06:23] James: 'em, So there's like little seven year old James calling up the baseball card store being like, do you have tops Chrome 1996 and, and now like a lot of people in our generation, and we're so off topic here, but a lot of people in our generation are terrified of the phone.

[00:06:37] James: I'm just like, it's a phone. Pick it

[00:06:38] James: up.

[00:06:39] Todd: I'm terrified of it. I hate the phone.

[00:06:40] James: see And

[00:06:41] James: that's the thing, like I grew up using it.

[00:06:43] Todd: I don't like

[00:06:44] Todd: the parts of the phone. that aren't the phone. Like, I don't like getting texts. I don't like getting emails. I don't like people trying to contact me

[00:06:50] James: That's fair. I like video chats though. I like video chats with

[00:06:53] James: you. this is,

[00:06:54] Todd: I like chatting with you, but like, needed the week lead up to this.

[00:06:59] James: Right, the [00:07:00] mental

[00:07:00] Todd: Yeah. Whenever someone's like, yo, man, are you good to chat? It's like, oh how's Tuesday

[00:07:05] James: Right. Tuesday, three weeks from now,

[00:07:07] Todd: there's three people on this planet that I will actually just like, yeah, okay.

[00:07:12] Todd: And jump on camera with,

[00:07:13] Todd: none of them are, even my family,

[00:07:14] James: I think this is actually a good tie into what we're gonna talk about because you did that pivot. You're only doing two albums a year now, a lot of that was because you found that, at least from my understanding, you enjoy creating content.

[00:07:26] James: YouTube covers more than working in the studio with clients who. Might not always be the nicest, cuz you've had some, past clients

[00:07:34] James: who I understand were not great.

[00:07:36] Todd: even, with like the most angelic clients, I would rather be making YouTube covers and just to hone in on the word cover specifically. Every now and then people would be like, man, like, why don't you write your own music? And it's like, I mean, I do, but I don't enjoy it as much as the covers.

[00:07:50] Todd:

[00:07:50] Todd: I truly feel I am expressing myself more thoroughly when I am E mollifying break stuff by limp bi.

[00:07:59] Todd: than [00:08:00] when I am just writing a diary and putting it out to the world. because like memes are so ingrained in, our culture, I grew up, I didn't have a lot of friends. Like had friends, but I didn't have a lot of friends.

[00:08:09] Todd: I didn't go to parties, all that stuff. So like, I grew up on the internet in like the days of four chan and stuff like that, where it's just like, it's just meme city nothing is sacred. Just make something funny. so like, my sense of humor and the way I identify with media and art is very much I like to take something and make it into something else.

[00:08:30] Todd: And that to me is like the most wholesome part of creation because even when you're writing a song from scratch, cool, there's seven notes in a key. You're ripping someone off, you just aren't admitting it yet.

[00:08:41] Todd: So at least with a cover, it's honest.

[00:08:43] James: Yeah. I like that line of thinking. And you know, obviously if artists wanna do that's fine. Like,

[00:08:49] Todd: Of course I'd have nothing to cover.

[00:08:51] James: right? that too. And your band Theatr, like your original stuff is some of my favorite music of all

[00:08:56] James: time.

[00:08:56] Todd: you. I appreciate that

[00:08:57] James: for me it's a tie, like some of your covers, I'm [00:09:00] just like, this is the best thing ever.

[00:09:01] James: And then other ones, I'm like, no, listen to Theia, When he did some back nickel

[00:09:06] James: some, or whatever that was.

[00:09:07] Todd: song, but it's how you remind me.

[00:09:09] James: exactly. I love that somebody did that on TikTok the other day and like,

[00:09:13] James: it, didn't sound great. I was like, oh, my friend Todd did this, and somebody else commented and was like, oh yeah.

[00:09:18] James: And like it was way better. And I was like, I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah.

[00:09:22] Todd: That's so good

[00:09:24] James: I know

[00:09:25] Todd: Well cuz that's the thing like TikTok and I don't use TikTok. I have posted on it.

[00:09:30] Todd: I will periodically post on it, but I don't use it. I don't have the app on my phone. I'll download it for a week at a time until I realize I still hate it and then I'll delete it.

[00:09:38] Todd: But like TikTok, you make the most mid crap. You take a great idea, you make the most mid version of it, millions of views and it's like sweet, you're getting the millions of views. But like, I wanna make stuff I'm proud of. Like this is my life's work. I don't want my life's work, to be decided by how much an algorithm [00:10:00] enjoyed my stuff.

[00:10:01] Todd: I want to just make the best stuff I can. And so that's why like, you get comments like that where yeah, like some guy did this already and it's way better cuz like, I made sure it was really good.

[00:10:12] Todd: If it's not really good, I won't release it.

[00:10:15] James: if I recall, that was like one of the first things you released. I think it was like the first two months you were doing covers.

[00:10:19] Todd:

[00:10:19] Todd: That was early,

[00:10:20] James: So anyway, all that aside, when you were on episode 1 0 2, we talked about the grind that you were doing of releasing a song every

[00:10:27] James: single week. And we were totally pushing this like, yeah, you gotta get on the grind. And

[00:10:32] James: we're both a year and a half smarter and older now, and I think we both now would say, you know what? It's okay to take a step back. And I wanna say, some people might look at that as giving up, and that's not how I would look at it.

[00:10:43] James: Ated is all, I think that's finding a healthy balance. So for artists who are in that grind mentality, what would you say to them to help them find a healthy balance in their life? Between work, family, friends,

[00:10:57] Todd: The algorithm does not care [00:11:00] about you. It doesn't remember you. You can give it a song a week or however, whatever the release frequency is, but you can give it what you're supposed to give it for a year straight. The second you miss a day, you go to come back and they've shoved you right back to the bottom.

[00:11:15] Todd: learning that through YouTube myself, just kind of made me realize like, well, why am I doing this thing weekly? Cuz it started to see if I could,

[00:11:25] Todd: and then I proved that I could. So now that I've proved that I can put out a song a week, why would I continue? my reason really was to see if I.

[00:11:34] Todd: I proved it. I'm done. We're good. So what's the ultimate goal? It's to make the best stuff and to connect with people in a way that positively impacts their life. And if you're so focused on grinding out content, you're not taking the time to reply to comments. You're not making little bonus, extra stuff for your Patreon supporters.

[00:11:57] Todd: You're not actually involved in your own [00:12:00] discord community. there's so much that you lose. not even getting into how much family, how much life stuff, but just in terms of building your own community and honing your brand and your craft and whatever else goes into trying to be a, a musician or a content creator or whatever else, you miss out on the most important sh*t when all you do is crank out content because the algorithm demands it.

[00:12:24] Todd: the people watching your stuff care. So put your energy into them. Don't put your energy into appeasing this cold, uncaring, ever-changing opaque algorithm. It's never gonna love you, man.

[00:12:39] James: I love what you're saying there, and especially something that we harp on on the podcast all the time, is building a genuine connection with your fans. And that's exactly what you're saying there. The algorithm doesn't care, but the people will. And I think that's a great example because, When you have those people that have that connection to your music, the people who are gonna share it with their friends, they're gonna subscribe.

[00:12:58] James: They're probably gonna turn on [00:13:00] notifications, and so when there's a new Todd video, even if the algorithm doesn't push it, they're gonna get that little notification

[00:13:06] James: badge, they're gonna get the email or whatever. They're gonna watch it, and then

[00:13:09] James: they're gonna share it if they dig it

[00:13:10] Todd: if I take a.

[00:13:12] Todd: often my first video back from the break does better. Even though I'm at an algorithmic disadvantage, cuz like I'm in my Discord community, I'm letting people know like, hey, like this thing's going on in my life. I can't do this right now. But like, I just want you to know like this is a thing I'm working on.

[00:13:28] Todd: I'm excited to do it. I just wanna make sure I'm in the right head space when I commit to doing it. they're, they're in on it. cuz in a big way, like this isn't like a facade, like my, specifically my Discord community. and this seems like maybe an unhealthy parasocial thing, but I don't really care.

[00:13:42] Todd: Cause I've always primarily had internet friends, so I don't see how it's any different. But they're part of my support system. . I'm not trying to make it seem like it, and I know that there are some creators that try to make it seem like it. You can kinda see it when it's not genuine.

[00:13:56] Todd: You can kind of, you can smell it, but it's like, no, like we are doing [00:14:00] this. This is the thing we are doing. Like when I'm streaming on Twitch, I'm taking their ideas. It's not just, Hey, watch me so that I can get Twitch numbers. It's like,

[00:14:09] Todd: Hey, do you guys want to hang out? And like, we can make a song. it's very genuine.

[00:14:13] Todd: And so when it comes time, that I finally, you know, I come back for my break and I release a thing. This isn't just Todd's back with a new video. This is for everyone. It's like, this is a thing we've been making and we all get to finally watch it together. And what that does on the backend, like for the algorithm, I, this is my theory.

[00:14:31] Todd: I don't care enough about the algorithm to know, but what I think happens is the algorithm just sees this huge spike. of all the people that were involved and all the people that helped me, and all the people that, you know, I talked to when they had a bad day, or I talked to them when I had a bad day, whatever it is, we have this little event we get to have together

[00:14:49] Todd: and we all show up for it.

[00:14:50] Todd: The algorithm sees that we all show up and it goes, oh sh*t people are really paying attention to this. And then the algorithm will shove it out. And so that's what happened with raining Blood, but it's [00:15:00] super emo that was a video that came out a little later than it was supposed to. it's like my, like sixth best performing video of all time in raw Numbers.

[00:15:09] Todd: It's my like fourth most recent video. it could be in 97th place it could be that low, it could be 97th out of my past like a hundred videos, but it's like sixth and, and it came out like a month and a half ago.

[00:15:23] Todd: And it's just cuz people were excited and they showed up

[00:15:25] Todd: and I was excited you're making stuff for people and I think people lose sight of that,

[00:15:29] James: I agree and, and I think especially for a lot of local artists, they make music That they get frustrated because they don't just naturally have fans flocking to them.

[00:15:39] James: the key point here that I wanna make is you make music that people enjoy listening to. there's an audience for everyone, but maybe if you're doing like noise crust punk or something, your audience is

[00:15:50] James: gonna be like five people.

[00:15:52] James: Whereas if you're doing music that a lot of people can connect to let's just take like a straight punk band, like off with their heads.

[00:15:58] James: I saw them the other night, they [00:16:00] headlined as a duo, guitars and drums, only a, uh, 94 cap in Winooski, Vermont and sold the show out

[00:16:06] James: it was phenomenal. And there's like people singing along.

[00:16:09] James: I've never seen a band that good play the Monkey House in Winooski. Like usually it's like local bands or like very small touring.

[00:16:17] Todd: Yeah. It's a 94 cup venue,

[00:16:18] James: Yeah. And I've seen amazing bands. They're like, keep flying, played there and it was great, but there's like 35 people, but then off with their heads, who is huge and they've been around for like 15 years.

[00:16:27] James: They come through and you see the connection that those songs have with their audience

[00:16:32] James: do I say this without disrespecting anyone. They're not great songs. I love those songs, but they're punk songs. they're not super complex. They're pretty basic, they're just fun and a lot of people really connect to them.

[00:16:44] Todd: That's the most important thing. from a technical level, they're not fantastic compositions, but they are great songs because they are connecting with people.

[00:16:53] James: I like the way you reframed that.

[00:16:54] Todd: I was just clarifying for you, I, I knew what you were saying, but words are hard

[00:16:58] James: I'm gonna get [00:17:00] canceled at some point for saying something like that. People have tried already for like uh, what was it? I said something about like, oh, it was promoters.

[00:17:07] James: Whereas like, the promoters aren't there to promote the show cause they're not, they, They're there to front the money for everything

[00:17:13] James: involving the show. the distinction is like, yeah, they're still supposed to market it, but some artists expect that a promoter relieves them of all duties.

[00:17:21] James: Like they don't even have to post on their own social media about the show. It's like, no, you have your fans, it's your responsibility to tell your fans that all aside seeing that is like, okay, you don't have to be a technical genius at songwriting to get people to connect with your music.

[00:17:36] James: But you know what? You do have to write genuine music that people can connect with. And if you're writing crust, noise punk instrumental, you're gonna have like five fans. And that's gonna be it because it's not gonna spread because most people will not connect with that. And if you recognize it, that's fine.

[00:17:51] James: But on the other hand, if you have something where you can really connect like off with their heads or like what you're doing, Todd, then you build a community around that.[00:18:00] And that is how you level up without signing to a record label, in my opinion. having that community, that support system, I think you said that is so incredibly valuable because you can't replace that That is literally your lifeline. And guess what? It's always better to have something like that than a day job because if you have a day job and the business goes under, guess what? You had one source of income that's gone.

[00:18:26] James: But you know what? You have 300, 400 people on Patreon who are following you, giving you three to $5 a month or whatever. Okay. Maybe one of them loses their job. That sucks for them. You lost $5 a month

[00:18:38] James: and hopefully that person will still be in your community and still interact so you can help support them through whatever tough time

[00:18:45] James: it is, you know, if they're still interested.

[00:18:46] Todd: people have messaged me in the past, just to let me know, like, Hey, like, life sucks. I have to cancel, I'm sorry. And it's like, why are you apologizing? life sucks. Like, do not throw your money at me. if you can and [00:19:00] like, don't feel ashamed, you should not have to apologize cuz you can't give me money.

[00:19:05] Todd: gonna do this whether you're paying me or not.

[00:19:07] James: And they're still gonna get to see it on YouTube. Maybe they'll see it a week or two later, but they're gonna.

[00:19:11] Todd: Yeah. Especially cuz like, I'm so bad at hitting my deadlines. It's not often. You're getting early on my Patreon. like I still try, I make an effort. Like if I find an old demo or if I get halfway through a song and I can't finish it, I still like release it so that like someone has it and it's the Patreon supporters that have it, but like I don't have a lot of perks.

[00:19:31] Todd: you're just along for this ride with me helping me make sure I'm not homeless. if you're on my Patreon , like that's there's ways to be good at Patreon specifically, give them this song a week early, give them the video a day early, stuff like that.

[00:19:44] Todd: those are great ideas for people who have their lives together. . But that stuff doesn't work for me. So like, as far as I'm concerned regarding that, it's like, then all I can do is just build a genuine community and hope to God that at some point enough people [00:20:00] will believe in what we're doing enough.

[00:20:02] Todd: And to understand the, like, inevitability of capitalism enough to just want to keep the party going. And that's why I, I refer to it as keeping the party going.

[00:20:11] Todd: I try not to refer to it as supporting me that is what it does, but it's like, it's, it's really, it's keeping the party going for everyone.

[00:20:18] James: right, exactly. if you have to go back to like a retail job at Long and McQuaid or something, which is basically the, Canadian Guitar Center for

[00:20:26] James: folks who don't know, you're gonna hate it. You're not gonna have the mental bandwidth to keep doing

[00:20:32] James: covers

[00:20:32] Todd: If, I can't do it full-time, can't do it. it's not like a bratty way. I'm not like folding my arms like, huh, if I can't do it full-time, why would I do it at all? It's like, no, if I can't give it all my attention, there's not enough of me left to do it.

[00:20:47] James: I totally understand. That makes total sense. And I wanna highlight on something here that you said a second ago is your Patreons don't get that many perks.

[00:20:55] James: And so for all the artists who say, well, what would we do with a Patreon? We can't do [00:21:00] that. we don't have anything extra to give.

[00:21:02] James: Try it. if you're a band that plays live a lot, give them some live footage. It doesn't have to be great. Set up a GoPro and do

[00:21:08] James: like a drum cam and be like, here's a drum cam of one song

[00:21:11] James: from our

[00:21:11] James: show the other night.

[00:21:12] Todd: Just a little something.

[00:21:13] Todd: Do a do a q and A once in a while.

[00:21:15] James: yeah, and the people who will want to support you will do it anyway, even if they're just zero perks.

[00:21:20] James: You could just set it up and be like, Hey, this is donations. you're not going to get anything extra. Or you know, you could say, you're not gonna get anything most of the time, but when we drop an album, you're gonna get a free download of it. for people who still use downloads.

[00:21:34] Todd: That's my like top tier, Patreon perks, you will get mixing videos.

[00:21:39] Todd: They will not be regular,

[00:21:41] Todd: but when, you get them, they're gonna be so in depth. You're gonna need to set aside your afternoon

[00:21:48] Todd: just like every like four months. Yeah.

[00:21:50] Todd: Here's a 90 minute video.

[00:21:51] James: that's the kind of stuff you could sell that as a course

[00:21:53] Todd: I could And I

[00:21:54] Todd: despise that, that exists. cuz like I watch a lot of YouTube, [00:22:00] right? And it's like, you know, I'll watch, you know, I watched a video last night, I forget the guy, but he's like explaining the Nashville tuning and the first minute of his video is just like, yeah, subscribe to my, guitar course and you'll learn.

[00:22:15] Todd: And it's like, bro, that could just be your YouTube video. and this guy makes excellent content. Now I'll name drop him just because I, I wanna take a minute to praise him directly. But Jordan Valerio of hardcore music studio on YouTube is right now making the best bar.

[00:22:31] Todd: None, no bullshit. best mixing tip videos on the internet. Jordan Valeria Hardcore music studio. The best mixing advice. If you're listening to this and you're like, I wish Todd made more mixing videos. Just go watch Jordan's stuff. It's on YouTube . But I remember I had a conversation with him, this was years back, and he was doing the thing where he'd like half show you something and then pimp out his course. this was a very long time ago, but [00:23:00] I, I remember it vividly. I sent him an email and I expressed my disappointment with him. . I was like, this is bullshit, dude. if, if your tips are actually that good, you'll make money on YouTube. You don't need to fleece people for money.

[00:23:11] Todd: gullible people who think that your course is gonna actually make them good when really hard work is gonna make them good dick move. And so he emailed me. He was very courteous. He was just like, man, I'm like really disappointed that you feel that way. But like, that's given me a lot to think about.

[00:23:25] Todd: And then all these years later, maybe he still does have a mixing course, but maybe he's reformulated how that course works because he's not pulling his punches with his mix tip videos anymore. I watched them not to too my own horn. I'm really good at mixing. And I still watch his videos and I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good idea.

[00:23:42] Todd: That's a great tip. And so like I go to do another song and I'm like, I'm gonna try that. And inevitably it sounds good cause he is giving the real tips. , like, cuz there are some secrets and they're not secret cuz there's some cabal of mixed engineers hoarding them. It's just common [00:24:00] sense being applied, right?

[00:24:01] Todd: It's like, yo, if something needs to be brighter, you know what my secret tip is? High shelf boost, brother. Like, . just circling back to the whole, like, you you could have a course thing, you don't have to, there are avenues to do it or things like I don't know if Creative Live is still around, all those like courses plus you subscribe to a thing and your course is on that thing.

[00:24:22] Todd: I think those are great it's like Netflix for learning stuff. people, I do vocal warmups on YouTube. I watch their videos they'll be like, all right, here's the scales, here's the blah. And if you wanna get more invested in your singing and really up your game, The real advice is sing every day.

[00:24:40] Todd: But what they say is, if you wanna up your game, join my course. Link is in the description. It's like f*ckin $249 for 18 half hour long videos that like, it's not one-on-one we're in this information apocalypse, where everyone is just fleecing their audiences for the most amount of money possible under this [00:25:00] guise of selling courses.

[00:25:01] Todd: And it's like, f*ck man. The real advice is do your thing more

[00:25:05] James: absolutely. where I was going that point, That's a huge perk. Like you could have that as a course for

[00:25:11] James: two, $300, but

[00:25:12] James: your patrons get it for what, like $10 a month.

[00:25:15] Todd: yes. in my Discord server, there's an Ask Todd. Anyone can come and ask me any question and I will answer it as thoroughly as I. So

[00:25:24] Todd: it's like, if you wanna see specifically the mix file for my Jeffrey Bezos in 15 Styles video, right.

[00:25:32] Todd: Like, that exists, that's a thing for Patreon people. If you want to see like, really under the hood of my mixes, that's that. But if you have like, Hey, how did you get this sound? I'll just tell you it's been a philosophy ever since I was a producers. Like there should be no secrets.

[00:25:46] James: absolutely. so I had a course called RoadReady, and I'm changing that to a coaching program. This is totally off topic from the

[00:25:52] James: episode. We'll get back to it.

[00:25:54] James: the reason I did that is all the knowledge in that course is available on the podcast. Like it's out there for [00:26:00] free,

[00:26:00] Todd: you just condensed it and structured it.

[00:26:01] James: exactly. But what I realized is when I made it into a course, people would consume the content and not do anything. And that's not what I want. I want them to go do the thing. So the coaching program, it's literally like, go watch this video and then do it. And if you don't do it the next week, I'm gonna be like, why didn't you do this?

[00:26:20] James: did you have a crazy week? have a mental roadblock that something's intimidating? go do this, or if you have a reason to not do it, let's talk about it and let's figure out how you can get this done and what a reasonable deadline

[00:26:31] Todd: I love that. the way courses are being marketed, it's really just a way to like take the knowledge, distill it. You can point to it and say, Hey, I made this thing. It's full of valid information, but the purpose of it is to sell the course. But with coaching, you're helping people

[00:26:48] Todd: directly and that's what it should be about all along.

[00:26:51] Todd: And like those hands off courses inherently. aren't helping anyone because

[00:26:56] Todd: the kinds of people who are buying the courses are the [00:27:00] people who aren't putting into work in the first place.

[00:27:01] James: right. They're looking for shortcuts

[00:27:03] Todd: Exactly. you're only helping yourself by making a course and there's nothing like necessarily wrong with that.

[00:27:08] Todd: I'm not making like an ethical aspersion on it necessarily, but like, you're not helping anyone

[00:27:15] James: for some people maybe they think they are and they just haven't realized that their audience isn't

[00:27:19] James: into it. But for others it's just like, this is the easiest way to make money. I'm like, no, like if I do a coaching program, I'm not gonna earn that much more per sale and I'm gonna spend a lot more time.

[00:27:29] James: you know what, I'm okay with that because this is what I love doing. Like, I love sharing my knowledge. That's why we have 170 plus episodes of the podcast that like, not gonna lie, I spent about 80 bucks an episode, more now cuz of the social clips. Because I pay an editor to do this. I lose money on the podcast.

[00:27:47] James: But if I then make money on the coaching program, that helps offset that, I'm spending money to put this out here Because I want people to gain this knowledge.

[00:27:55] Todd: I'm not a podcast guy

[00:27:57] Todd: at all. The only podcast I listen to is this one.[00:28:00] [00:28:00] James: Thank you

[00:28:00] Todd:

[00:28:00] Todd: cuz this is the only genuine one. Like, you're not trying to sell anything ever. You're just trying to get ideas out to people.

[00:28:07] James: Yeah. That's the goal. and even at the end, like right now, I have, a promo at the start and one at the end, and I think one's for our Facebook group and another is for a free lead magnet. And you know what? Full disclosure, you sign up for that lead magnet. Yeah. You're gonna get an offer to join the coaching program, but guess what? You still got the free stuff too,

[00:28:24] Todd: and, and it's a coaching program. it's not some hands off video. that like could just be uploaded to YouTube. Like you're coaching, it's involved, you're

[00:28:32] Todd: asking questions, you're having real connections with people.

[00:28:35] James: Yeah, like the, the program has like a forum and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, we can stop harping about the, the program cuz we're here to talk about you Oh, getting so sidetracked with like, philosophy of sales. this is why we have to talk more often. Cause then when we sit down and do an actual

[00:28:50] James: podcast,

[00:28:50] James: we can focus. but so one of the next things I wanted to cover is you signed to a channel network. that's kind of like a record label for a [00:29:00] YouTuber, but can you

[00:29:00] James: talk about that process? Like how did that come about? Why did you do it? What's the benefit of it for you?

[00:29:05] James: All that kind of stuff.

[00:29:06] Todd: Okay, so I'm gonna be careful how I phrase this. there are people who are much more successful than I am who believe in me.

[00:29:14] Todd: And there are people within that group who also have connections. And so what happened was one of those people who I love dearly, I call him an angel constantly because he is so, if he's listening, he'll know I'm talking about him.

[00:29:31] Todd: literally, every time you communicate I say you angel. but

[00:29:35] Todd: he basically wore down his connection at this network. convinced them, Hey, this guy's got it, he's really good. He just hasn't made it yet. And I think one of the things holding him back is like, he's not making money cuz bands keep demonetizing his videos. I think he could do a lot better if he had more resources. And so after a week of this back and forth of them basically saying [00:30:00] like, look, he needs 12 times the monthly views he currently has. Before we would even give him a deal before we would even look at him. he is less than 10% of where we would need him.

[00:30:12] Todd: so this angel wore down his connection, who is now my content manager. this person who is, who is denying me is, is now my content manager. And they're lovely, absolutely wonderful person. Just like for very good reason. this is not a network that just signs anyone. They only work with people who are established to help them have to do less.

[00:30:33] Todd: And so we're running an experiment basically on what happens if you give a small channel, which is me, I'm nobody on YouTube. If you give a small channel the resources. of say the Anthony Vincents of the world, what happens? And it could hurt me because there's certain different navigational channels now, right?

[00:30:54] Todd: Like it could be a bad move. It could be a good move. So far it's been all good. so anyway, what happened is [00:31:00] he, my contact wore down, who is now my manager. She sent me a deal. I signed the deal. usually you need a sync license to use someone else's song with video accompaniment.

[00:31:10] Todd: Now you're in like television territory, right? So this network effectively bypasses that and they get me the licenses so that I can monetize my cover videos no matter what. And they've doubled. So far, I mean, I've only had one month worth of statements from them so far, cuz it lags six weeks cuz of just how, you know, how Spotify works.

[00:31:31] Todd: It's the same

[00:31:31] Todd: thing. It takes a while to process. it appears to have doubled my YouTube ad revenue,

[00:31:37] Todd: if I keep growing I could pay someone to edit my videos. That's a whole extra day a week. I could have that. I could focus on making stuff or I could pay someone to make my thumbnails and I haven't done that yet because I'm still figuring out what I'm doing.

[00:31:50] Todd: I'm, in a transformational phase right now with my content. But, the network essentially, anytime a label tries to say, Hey, that's our song,[00:32:00] the network gets in the way, they're my bodyguard. And they say, Hey, you. That's our guy. And we have the raw files proving he made it. So here's your cut, but off. And they also, if someone uses my music elsewhere on YouTube,

[00:32:13] Todd: I get money from that now, someone like took a drone, and just flew it around the forest to my emo cover of Back and Black by ac dc and that's just a video that's on the internet that I would've never seen otherwise.

[00:32:25] Todd: But then I got my statement and they like itemized every single thing. And it was like, wait, what the is this? So like I just copy and paste the title of the video cause they don't give me the links, they gimme the titles and how many views and how many pennies I got from it. I paste the title into the search bar and sure enough, it's a bunch of trees.

[00:32:41] Todd: I click it and there it, it's my cover playing. And so it's cool cuz then it gives me an opportunity to connect with people that maybe wouldn't have interacted with me directly, but clearly are a fan of what I'm doing. so I can just show up in the comment of their video and, and be like, thank you so much for using my you could have [00:33:00] used anything. there's billions of songs in the world and you chose for some reason to use, my cover of it Wasn't Me by Shaggy. there's this wrestling channel that's used three of my songs

[00:33:12] Todd: like local backyard wrestlers slamming each other to the ground, to Emo Girl.

[00:33:18] Todd: But the chorus is more than four words. But yeah, so that's what the network does. allow me to monetize my content, which thank God. Granted, like Patreon's still the lion share of my income. I do not make a lot of money on YouTube. full disclosure, I made like $370 last month from YouTube.

[00:33:35] Todd: That's not a lot of money. That's two days of work I work all month on my YouTube channel. I finally get paid for two of those days. but I'm getting it now

[00:33:43] Todd: where, you know, I would make half that before. they also monetize the videos. I wouldn't have known exist and what have no means to monetize.

[00:33:51] Todd: All I would be able to do as a network list YouTuber would be to claim the video and have it taken down.

[00:33:58] Todd: I never ever want [00:34:00] someone's video taken down because they used my song in the background.

[00:34:03] Todd: That's the grossest thing in the world to me.

[00:34:06] James: And then they're just not gonna use your stuff in the future.

[00:34:08] Todd: Yeah. Even pragmatically speaking,

[00:34:10] Todd: we get beyond my, bleeding heart fucking hippy ass musician self. It's bad business.

[00:34:15] James: there's a band that we both love who has done that to you? And guess what? You don't cover them anymore.

[00:34:21] Todd: the video of theirs that they blocked.

[00:34:23] Todd: I have a network now.

[00:34:25] James: Oh. And you can re-upload it.

[00:34:26] Todd: I might try it just to see,

[00:34:28] Todd: And then I would have sing the sorrow with all the B sides in one video. No one else has that on YouTube.

[00:34:35] Todd: if I do it, it will come out before this podcast comes out. But I'm gonna aim to do it, if I'm feeling up for it, around the anniversary

[00:34:43] Todd: while people are searching for those songs that album, that band, oh, here's.

[00:34:49] Todd: also a

[00:34:50] Todd: properly recorded version of Weaver's music. You're welcome.

[00:34:53] James: because it's not online anywhere.

[00:34:55] Todd: And that's why I need to cover Dream of Waking, by the way, remind me.

[00:34:57] James: Oh, I

[00:34:58] James: would love that

[00:34:59] James: so

[00:34:59] James: much.

[00:34:59] Todd: It's [00:35:00] not available anywhere. So I, I need to cover it so it's available somewhere.

[00:35:02] James: That compilation used to be on iTunes and I bought that one song, they changed it, and you had to buy the whole comp to get that last song You can get all the other songs, but not that one. And this

[00:35:11] James: was like 10 years ago.

[00:35:12] James: But

[00:35:13] James: I had already gotten that one song before they changed

[00:35:15] James: it

[00:35:15] Todd: music industry.

[00:35:16] James: I know, I know. They're like, oh this, this one band actually popped off.

[00:35:20] James: Let's make it impossible to get that

[00:35:21] James: song.

[00:35:21] Todd: this is the best selling song. Let's pay wallet.

[00:35:24] James: Yep. Exactly. So anyway, something that we've already kind of talked about was Patreon and Discord and how you use them. But I wanted to ask, what do you see as the most important aspect of each of those platforms to use those platforms successfully?

[00:35:39] Todd: discord. I think the most important thing you can do as like the creator or the artist or the whatever you wanna call yourself, be there and whatever kind of environment you would like to exist in, foster that.

[00:35:53] Todd: I like having a positive space where you can say, Almost [00:36:00] anything and no one's going to judge you. You can disagree without fighting. You can feel safe in knowing that you're not going to be discriminated against. You can describe your morning bowel movement. No one's gonna tell you that's gross.

[00:36:13] Todd: Shut up. A place you can come and say, Hey guys, my grandma died. And people genuinely are gonna be like, f*ck dude, I'm sorry. I've seen instances online of, I think it was like a clip of a dude on Twitch he asked how someone was doing and asked where they had been because they were a regular in the Twitch chat and hadn't been around for a while.

[00:36:36] Todd: And so he said, Hey, so and so, how are you? What's been going on? Where have you been? And so the person answered the question. Hey, I haven't been around a lot. My grandma died, or maybe it was my mom died, whatever it was, and the dude was like, Hey, you stop trauma dumping. Okay. and ripped apart this person, this is a positive space. This is a feel good zone, and you're bringing us [00:37:00] all down.

[00:37:00] James: Don't ask the question

[00:37:01] James: if you don't

[00:37:02] James: like the

[00:37:02] James: answer.

[00:37:03] Todd: he, made an apology video about it that was saying like, no, when someone asks how you're doing, they don't actually care. It's just a way to say hello. And it's like, have you met an autistic person?

[00:37:15] Todd: Because when you ask me how I'm doing, I'm gonna tell you exactly how I'm doing because I take everything literally. neuro divergence aside, why would you ask someone how they're doing?

[00:37:27] Todd: If you don't care how they're doing? Why would you ask them where they've been? if you don't want to hear where they've been.

[00:37:34] Todd: So I, you know, I see instances of that on the internet, and I, I'm just grateful that I'm able to provide the opposite of that

[00:37:41] Todd:

[00:37:41] Todd: to people. in the beginning phases of the discord, I considered it like an island of misfit toys. like none of us belong anywhere. I get comments on my videos all the time that tell me like, I don't look punk enough. like, oh man, the song's really good, but your aesthetics all wrong. And it's like,

[00:37:54] Todd: a who cares? B, you want to talk about what is punk? How about [00:38:00] not fitting the mold idiot but then with Patreon, I think just like setting realistic expectations on the outset, my descriptions of what the tiers are, I feel like I'm relatively faithful to them.

[00:38:13] Todd: it's not, you'll get the instrumental tracks, it's instrumental tracks upon request it's always very, like, if you ask for this, I will give it to you, but I'm not gonna sit here for three days a week and just toil over making all this extra stuff that two people want.

[00:38:26] Todd: Cuz a, a lot of my Patreon people are there not even for the YouTube videos. Like, it genuinely seems like, and I could be speaking out a turn and, but it seems like they're there for me,

[00:38:36] Todd: when I'm not doing well, they're like, bro, don't even worry about it. We're here for you. The content can wait every time. I've never posted something like, guys, I'm gonna be a bit like, when my dad passed last year, guys, I'm gonna bug her off for a bit. my dad's not, well I don't. Think about anything else I want to be there for and with him, nobody was like, Hmm, no videos.

[00:38:55] Todd: I'm out. and it's a two-way street thing too, right? Like in my [00:39:00] dms I have very deep personal conversations on Patreon with people that they could have with me probably on any other platform. But with Patreon, I'm not overwhelmed. I will see your message on Patreon might take me a few days to get to it cause I'm an airhead, but I'm gonna see it where if you message me on Instagram, if you're not the fourth most recent people to message me on Instagram, I don't see it.

[00:39:26] Todd: I'm not waiting into that. That's not happening. I don't have time to go through the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages I get there. And that sounds like I'm bragging. I feel like a dick when I say that. But it, it's just the way Instagram is structured when someone shares my song that's in my inbox now,

[00:39:41] James: Yeah. That update is so bad.

[00:39:43] Todd: I can't use dms. So like my Instagram bio is literally just, I'm really bad at dms

[00:39:51] James: That's totally fair. it's too bad that Instagram has added templates for responses, but they haven't let you automate them yet and the day

[00:39:59] James: they do [00:40:00] that, that will be fantastic.

[00:40:01] James: like, that could be an option somebody tags you in a video or a post do you want this as a DM or do you want this as a comment?

[00:40:07] James: Because right now it's both and that's ridiculous.

[00:40:09] Todd: And maybe that is a setting somewhere and I just can't be bothered to

[00:40:12] Todd: dig through their fucking eight panels to find the right place where it would be, because nothing makes sense on their back end.

[00:40:19] James: It's not one that I've found.

[00:40:21] Todd: It's not user friendly. but to double back to making Patreon work, the people that are on your Patreon are the people that care most about you, and it goes a long way to reciprocate that.

[00:40:31] Todd: and I'm not very good at that. You know, like I have those messages and the dms and stuff, but in terms of like making extra content, one fun thing that we did was Scott once, which is a hot one's parody, where my, we call him my manager because he manages me as a person. he's not like my business associate manager.

[00:40:49] Todd: Like he manages Todd. He makes sure that Todd is in a good head space. He makes sure that Todd is on the right track when he is work shopping ideas like

[00:40:57] Todd: Scott is my [00:41:00] manager. I went to his place and, and we filmed a hot ones parody called Scott Ones using questions, submitted by the Patreon.

[00:41:08] Todd: so that was like a fun thing to do. It's like, I get to answer your questions also you get to watch me suffer.

[00:41:13] James: absolutely. of this will be linked in the show [email protected] slash 1 73. So if you wanna see all the cool coverage that Todd has mentioned, those are there. If you wanna see Todd Sufferer in Scott, ones that will be there. Everything will be linked,

[00:41:26] Todd: The Scott ones is, is Patreon exclusive? but

[00:41:29] James: got it. Well, the Patreon will be linked, so go sign up for the Patreon. that's easy. Which is patreon.com/todd bar.

[00:41:34] Todd: Help, me make minimum wage.

[00:41:37] James: let me pull up your, your Patreon here. I was looking at it a second. You, you are earning, 4 25 per month.

[00:41:44] Todd: That's

[00:41:45] Todd: us.

[00:41:46] James: that's us.

[00:41:46] James: Okay. Okay. the minimum

[00:41:48] James: wage in Canada?

[00:41:49] Todd: $15 an hour Canadian, so that would

[00:41:51] Todd: be like 1150 us.

[00:41:53] James: I've just converted that. Four 15. It's 5 78 Canadian as of right now.

[00:41:57] James: that covers 38 hours, [00:42:00] 38.5 hours Per month.

[00:42:01] Todd: that's 25% of the way to

[00:42:02] Todd: minimum wage. I, I feel like it's so funny when I don't, like I signed to the network so this guy would be my actual like, business side

[00:42:08] Todd: manager telling me like, man, you're gonna start raking in the money.

[00:42:11] Todd: And I get my first paycheck and it's like less than my Paton. It's like, I am halfway to minimum wage. Let's go

[00:42:18] James: Uh, wait. Whoa. We're there. Bonjovi. That's who it

[00:42:22] James: is. Yeah.

[00:42:23] James: Living on a prayer.

[00:42:23] James:

[00:42:23] James: literally you,

[00:42:24] Todd: are we ever cuz like right now it's like I make just enough money to be able to keep.

[00:42:29] Todd: like, I'm not fucking balling. Like I buy these like cool shirts so

[00:42:32] Todd: that my video thumbnails look cool. These are bargain bin, like $4 t-shirts at some like random shop, the next town

[00:42:38] Todd: over that.

[00:42:39] Todd: They just have cool stuff for cheap

[00:42:41] James: this is off topic from the episode, but finding deals first of all, I don't know how you feel about credit cards or how credit cards in Canada work, but credit cards churning. Dude, I get like four new cards a year. I pay them off in full, so I'm not paying interest, but I get all those signup bonuses and that's like thousands of dollars of [00:43:00] value.

[00:43:00] James: Like I'm working on um, international hotels group right now It's 175,000 points. That's gonna be like four free nights in a hotel.

[00:43:06] Todd: Amazing. That's like 800 bucks

[00:43:08] James: I'm putting my regular spending on that card for the

[00:43:11] James: next two and a half months

[00:43:13] Todd: and then just paying it.

[00:43:14] James: Exactly.

[00:43:14] James: I'm not spending any extra.

[00:43:16] Todd: We don't have that here.

[00:43:16] Todd: I've, looked into it It's brilliant. we have nowhere near the perks you guys have

[00:43:21] Todd: on credit cards.

[00:43:23] James: that's a shame. Like of the last four times I've flown to Germany, I paid for two of them,

[00:43:27] James: and the other two times

[00:43:28] James: I paid like $150 in taxes and fees. And

[00:43:30] James: that was it. we're talking like $800 tickets. I pay 150 bucks. it's not for everyone. you have to be responsible with your

[00:43:37] James: money and you also have to carefully manage, because I now have like 11 credit cards.

[00:43:43] James: Like I close a lot of

[00:43:44] James: them, but I still have

[00:43:45] James: 11 that are open. I use y a, which is like 80 bucks a year to just budget everything. But

[00:43:49] James: anyway, that's totally aside from the point. That's one thing you can do.

[00:43:53] James: but also things like I just got an email from Amazon being like, Hey, you haven't used your Amazon business account in a while. [00:44:00] Here's 40% off your next purchase on any item sold by Amazon. guess what? I needed a new printer. And I was like, I'm not gonna buy a printer.

[00:44:08] James: I don't like need it yet. Like the

[00:44:10] James: old one still kind of works if I jiggle the page is just

[00:44:12] James: right.

[00:44:13] Todd: pay for half a one

[00:44:14] James: Right. Exactly.

[00:44:15] James: here's the other funny thing. I put it in my cart and it was like 76 bucks and I just got an email. It's like, price drop. This item is now 66 bucks. I'm like, so you're saying I can get a new printer for $33?

[00:44:25] James: And then I added like extra cartridges, some bass strings and strap locks. I paid like 80 bucks for $150 worth of stuff. Basically

[00:44:33] James: finding those deals. , that is my life. So tell me where this store is please and let me know if they ship to the

[00:44:39] James: US

[00:44:40] Todd: Urban Planet.

[00:44:40] James: Hopefully we have something like that down here.

[00:44:42] James: Cause the shipping's probably gonna be ridiculous, but sick. Todd, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. I have one

[00:44:48] James: last question for

[00:44:49] James: you, which is what's your plan going forward like? What does 2023 and beyond look like for you?

[00:44:54] Todd: Here's my plan. This is gonna be controversial.

[00:44:56] James: it already.

[00:44:57] Todd: I'm gonna give a little backstory into it. When I started this YouTube,[00:45:00] . What I wanted to do was make faithful covers of my favorite albums, and then I did one. And then immediately after that, I figured out the sound for the other one and realized, that's boring.

[00:45:09] Todd: I don't want to do that anymore you watch my YouTube channel history, it was a, I sing the sorrow and then I did, uh, all starlin 180 2 and you can't tell me I didn't nail the toy patch Sound like that. Sounds like take off your pants and jacket. right away I was bored. And so I started doing pop punk because I have loved pop punk my whole life and never made it really. And so I made it for a year and a half and that was great. Now I am an emo kid at heart, always have been. Listen to Theatr. You can tell.

[00:45:35] James: I sent that to a friend like a week or two ago, and she's like, oh, this is really gothy. I'm like,

[00:45:39] James: okay. I, I could see that

[00:45:41] Todd: I wear enough black. So my plan. For 2023 and beyond is to take every sacred song from every subgenre niche, whatever. And I'm just gonna make it emo because I love emo so much and I'm gonna do other stuff too. I don't wanna [00:46:00] burn myself out. I've done timber by Pit Bull and Kesha, but it's emo, I've done Master of Puppets.

[00:46:05] Todd: on YouTube, it's called Paw Punk. But that's emo. ac d C back in black, but it's emo I've done slayer reigning blood, but it's emo. Next on the agenda is Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit, but it's emo. I'm just gonna keep going through and every song that has impacted me in a major way, in an emotional way, in a memorable way, in a meme way, I don't care.

[00:46:27] Todd: I'm just gonna make the world emo. and I'm gonna paint it in my little emo image , and it's gonna be wonderful. That's my plan is just to make emo covers and have as much fun as I possibly can, because it brings me the most joy and it appears to be the most successful thing on my channel as well, which is just the happiest coincidence in the world, that the thing that brings me the most joy is also the thing that does best.

[00:46:50] Todd: yeah, that's really it. Just be as emo as I can.

[00:46:53] James: That's fantastic. I am so stoked to see where this goes. Like

[00:46:56] Todd: Thank you,

[00:46:57] James: I love all those covers. I'm just like, yes. Give me [00:47:00] more. Give me all of the covers. . Well, Todd, man, thank you so much for coming back on the show a third time.

[00:47:07] Todd: Thank you so

[00:47:08] Todd: much for having me again.

[00:47:09] James: my pleasure. This has been such a great conversation and I, I think I just wanna sum this up and say like, the idea for this episode was to talk about your pivot and how. it doesn't need to be a grind. you have the network behind you, you have that momentum that's starting to build

[00:47:25] James: where you don't have to be in the grind.

[00:47:27] Todd: Yeah, I'm very grateful for that.

[00:47:28] James: artists do need to have a grind mentality, but it's not a forever thing. It's like, Hey,

[00:47:33] James: do this for a year.

[00:47:34] James: Build that momentum up and then take a step back.

[00:47:37] Todd: set aside a whole year of your life. Go as hard as you can. Hone your craft. Figure out what works, and that's what the grinding is as you're spitting out as much content as possible to figure out what actually fulfills you and gets the job done. Getting the job done.

[00:47:53] Todd: In my case, being views on the youtube.com website. that balance. and once you found it, just chill [00:48:00] out. Work at your own pace. Make the best stuff you can. That's really what matters. Make the best stuff you can and be grateful for the people who show up.

[00:48:08] Todd:

[00:48:08] Todd: I could be making garbage content.

[00:48:10] Todd: I would still be grateful for the people who show up

[00:48:13] Todd: without them, I'm nothing I'm just a dude in his mom's basement making bad covers.

[00:48:19] Todd: with the people, I'm a dude in his mom's basement making covers for you

[00:48:24] Todd: without the, for you. Like there's nothing.

[00:48:26] Todd: if you're listening to this right now and you're someone who watches my videos, thank you so much for doing that. if you've heard this and don't know who I am and are still listening to me speak right now. Please go watch my videos, but like, you don't have to, I'm not your boss, but you might have some fun, you might find something you like.

[00:48:41] James: Yeah. before we go real quick all these links are gonna [email protected] slash 1 73. But Todd, give us, uh, the links where people can find you online.

[00:48:49] Todd: everything is gonna be Todd Bar and Barage is spelled like marriage, so it's T O D d B A R R i A G E. So you've got [00:49:00] youtube.com/todd barage, you've got twitter.com/todd barage. I'm sure there are other ones out there. Those are the two I use. So follow me on Twitter, watch my YouTube videos, and you've got the full scope of Todd

[00:49:12] James: Sounds great. All right, Todd, thank you so much, man. I hope you have an amazing day and we'll

[00:49:16] James: talk.

[00:49:17] Todd: Thanks so much. Have a good one.