[00:00:00] James: Welcome to episode 191 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 I have a very special guest, Joe Aabye of my band NRVS, the guitarist songwriter, and guy who started everything with Rustin. How's it going today, man?

[00:00:19] Joe: It's going great, man.

[00:00:20] Joe: Thanks for

[00:00:20] James: having me.

[00:00:21] James: Glad to hear and it's a pleasure to have you here. This is kind of spur of the moment, just at rehearsal the other night. I was like, Hey, I don't think I have a co-host Wednesday. You wanna be on the show? And here you are.

[00:00:29] James: So

[00:00:29] James: we're that all

[00:00:30] Joe: out?

[00:00:30] Joe: I've been excited to get on for a while. I've been a fan of the podcast for for a hot minute now, so

[00:00:34] James: Sick. Thank you. I always like hearing that

[00:00:37] James: cuz It's

[00:00:37] James: weird, like putting a podcast out there, it's kinda like putting out music. Yeah. Except that when you have fans of the podcast, people aren't going, oh my God, I love this so much. Like a

[00:00:46] James: few people say, Hey, this is a great tip.

[00:00:48] James: Thank you. Really like this episode. But it's not like music where people are expressing the emotional connection they have to it. It's like

[00:00:55] James: more low key. So it's always nice to hear somebody that actually

[00:00:58] Joe: listen. Yeah, Of

[00:00:59] Joe: course man. [00:01:00] Absolutely.

[00:01:00] James: Anyway, this week man, we're here to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart, which is the fact that you can

[00:01:06] James: be DIY and hire a producer.

[00:01:07] James: Absolutely. And in fact, you

[00:01:09] James: should.

[00:01:09] James: before we jump in, I want to jump into the distinction between an engineer and a producer. Because

[00:01:15] Joe: As

[00:01:15] James: an engineer who dabbles in producing, I've had artists who want zero input and they just want me to show up and hit record. And I've had artists who are totally fine with me saying, Hey, you know, try this in Octa up, try doing a fifth here instead of whatever else you're doing. and listen to my input.

[00:01:31] James: Because when it comes to production for me, I'm very low key. I'm like, Hey, just try it and if you don't like it, we'll do it the way you had it. And it's always nice to work with the artists who are receptive to feedback like that and just accept ideas that aren't their own. And I've had other artists who you try to say something like, no, that's stupid.

[00:01:51] James: And I'm just like, dude, we're trying to make this better. You're not gonna know if it's stupid or not until you try it. And I can tell you the amount of times where I've said, Hey, try [00:02:00] this and you can vouch for this. And then after that I'm like, nah, I hate that. Don't do that. After all, that's like 50 50, I'll suggest something.

[00:02:06] James: And like half the time I'm like, that was a bad idea.

[00:02:08] Joe: take

[00:02:08] Joe: it

[00:02:08] Joe: back.

[00:02:09] Joe: But that's also just songwriting in general.

[00:02:10] James: and to be fair, when we're doing it in NRVS, it's more of a we're all in this together thing rather than, a third party saying that, but with NRVS. And I wasn't there because I wasn't in the band yet.

[00:02:20] James: You record with Gary Cone down in New Jersey at Sound

[00:02:23] Joe: Yeah man, Gary's the man, we love him.

[00:02:25] James: Yeah. And I mean, he even played bass on uh, the next three songs we're gonna

[00:02:29] Joe: release.

[00:02:29] Joe: Yeah. He also played bass on, I think it was three songs off of the EP that we released already. So off of Falling Knife. Yeah, he did three songs.

[00:02:38] James: Okay. I thought you did all five of those.

[00:02:39] Joe: he did solitude.

[00:02:41] Joe: He did

[00:02:41] James: Okay.

[00:02:42] James: That explains the fun bass slide in solitude.

[00:02:45] James: Yeah. I love that so

[00:02:46] Joe: much. Actually no way. He did two. I did. Yeah. I did Breathe Falling Knife and while we're young, so he did. Yeah. Two. Two of the five songs of Falling Knife for Gary. Gary,

[00:02:55] James: love

[00:02:56] James: your Work.

[00:02:56] James: I hate you for the bass lines in

[00:02:58] James: home.

[00:02:59] James: I still can't get [00:03:00] those. Right. we're playing a show tonight. If you wanna see me mess up those baselines, come to the next nerve show in your area because I will mess up home. It's guaranteed I have not played it right once. All the other songs totally chill. More complex songs like J Bat.

[00:03:13] James: Yeah. Which is now called Matches. Yeah, I can play that.

[00:03:16] Joe: Yeah. Matches a cool song.

[00:03:17] James: I love the baselines in that.

[00:03:18] James: Gary, I love you for that one. But whatever you did in home,

[00:03:21] James: just it's

[00:03:22] James: the timing

[00:03:22] James: man. It's the timing

[00:03:23] James: anyway. And we're not here to rant about the songs that I can or cannot play. Right. We're here to talk about producing. So Joe, why don't you take us away here.

[00:03:31] Joe: Yeah. So, you know, I actually really appreciate that you immediately started this by differentiating, an engineer versus a producer, because just having Pro Tools or Logic or FL Studio or Ableton, whatever you have doesn't automatically make you a producer.

[00:03:46] Joe: Yeah. Right. But you also don't have to have a degree from music school to be a producer.

[00:03:51] James: Right. Exactly. I also want to toss in there, making beats doesn't make you a producer. True. It

[00:03:56] James: makes beat, you're a

[00:03:56] James: beat maker.

[00:03:57] James: Exactly. That's [00:04:00] very different. you have to know how to get performances outta

[00:04:02] James: people. Get the best you can out of them.

[00:04:05] James: Matt tells

[00:04:05] James: this story on the podcast of Bert McCracken from the used. They were throwing pots and pans at him to

[00:04:10] James: make him angry. Yeah. So he would scream harder. Yep. that's what a producer

[00:04:15] James: does.

[00:04:15] James: Yeah. And I mean, not necessarily pots and pans, but you're getting the best performance out of them.

[00:04:19] Joe: No, absolutely. moments like that, right?

[00:04:22] Joe: Where you're trying to get the best performance on a particular track, but I think the environment that you cultivate with the artist is also super important.

[00:04:29] James: Yeah, absolutely. Rustin,

[00:04:31] James: our other guitarist has told me some horror stories of producers he worked with back in the day.

[00:04:34] James: That was just miserable.

[00:04:36] James: So you have to find the right producer, which, speaking of that, Joe, you also wanted to talk about d i Y and

[00:04:42] James: production.

[00:04:43] Joe: Yeah. So I think that there's this misnomer with the DIY culture, and I've, you know, I was in a DIY punk band for six years and it was great. It was a blast and we had a lot of fun. There were some things where I look back and I'm like, man, I wish I had paid somebody to do this because, you know, it just would've saved [00:05:00] time and, and our energy.

[00:05:01] Joe: And I think that a lot of times it is worth it to just pay someone for something, because at the end of the day, you as the artist are trying to give the fans your absolute best. Yeah. And sometimes you need someone you need help. Like, we can't all do this by ourselves.

[00:05:16] James: Yeah, I agree. And especially if you think about it this way,

[00:05:18] James: if you pay somebody to do

[00:05:20] James: it faster, like you were saying, it would save time. That gives you more time to work on writing new songs or booking shows or whatever it is that you don't have enough time for

[00:05:29] James: air quotes for those who aren't watching on YouTube.

[00:05:32] James: Because in reality, any band

[00:05:34] James: who doesn't have enough time, There's something

[00:05:37] James: that they

[00:05:37] James: can cut down on by paying somebody else. And that's a big part

[00:05:41] James: of what NRVS does. Like you and Rustin are incredibly

[00:05:43] James: busy. Aaron is busy,

[00:05:44] James: like half the time

[00:05:46] James: he's always working,

[00:05:47] James: but like there's times when he's just like, I will not even be online for the next week and a half because I'm so busy

[00:05:51] James: right now. Yeah. planning major events across the country

[00:05:54] James: that's an insane job and props to him for that. And then for me, like right now, June, [00:06:00] July is the craziest time

[00:06:01] James: of summer cuz I'm like doing baseball games,

[00:06:03] James: doing my regular work with Bandhive and other clients and also trying to enjoy summer and go flying all the time.

[00:06:09] James: Right? So we're all really busy, but we find time to make it work and we're not afraid to go and say, Hey, let's hire somebody

[00:06:16] James: else to do this. But we also are have a, a good division of labor

[00:06:20] James: within the band. I think

[00:06:21] James: you and Rustin are the primary songwriters and Aaron and I are just

[00:06:24] James: kind of chilling.

[00:06:25] James: Like I'll do a lot of the project management kind of stuff. Aaron is the ideas

[00:06:30] James: guy who's been in an active band for like six years no, eight years Sub Sam has been around for eight years now and they have done like 150 plus shows, so they're crazy busy.

[00:06:42] Joe: he's got the, the road experience for sure.

[00:06:44] James: Yeah. Not to mention, you know,

[00:06:46] James: experience touring with James Taylor and big D and the kids table and bands like that. like

[00:06:50] James: that's huge. really

[00:06:52] James: Joe, we're not trying to make you

[00:06:53] James: feel left out, but three of the people in the band have done Warped Tour at least

[00:06:56] James: once. Right. So like,

[00:06:57] Joe: well, cause I was like 12, so

[00:06:59] James: Yeah. You're the baby of [00:07:00] the band. Hey, wait, you're 27. Yeah. So when Warped Tour ended, you were

[00:07:04] James: 22. You have no excuse.

[00:07:06] Joe: oh,

[00:07:06] James: I went to my first warp tour at 17. Oh wow. So you had a whole five years

[00:07:10] James: you could have gone.

[00:07:10] Joe: I didn't know the, I didn't know the talent buyer so

[00:07:13] Joe: well,

[00:07:13] James: but you could have gone

[00:07:14] James: and attended. Come on. Yeah. My first warp tour when I was 17, I did not play. I actually never played. I was

[00:07:20] James: always like crew. I did go for press, I guess technically, so I was working at

[00:07:24] James: 17. I should say, I got in free and a friend of mine took pictures for

[00:07:30] James: a radio station and that was about it.

[00:07:32] James: I'm sorry, Kevin

[00:07:33] James: Lyman for the lackluster coverage. But it was totally fun and I would do it again.

[00:07:37] James: Anyway, Diy.

[00:07:38] James: Yeah. You're saying that Ethos is do it

[00:07:41] James: all yourself. And as Aaron likes to say on the podcast and has

[00:07:44] James: many times we look at it as decide it yourself so you can decide on who produces it. You can decide on who's gonna design

[00:07:52] James: the album art. You can

[00:07:53] James: decide on who's gonna design the poster for your show. I've made a couple show posters. They're not great. So I

[00:07:59] James: would much rather [00:08:00] hire

[00:08:00] James: somebody and I have, when there's a budget, I hire somebody to make

[00:08:03] James: show posters and I'm sure NRVS will do that for like tour assets and stuff when the time comes.

[00:08:07] Joe: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean a lot of the stuff that, even, even with our graphic design, like I, I paid for a graphic designer to do our logo, Cuz that's like a number one thing. It's like you don't want a logo isn inconsistent

[00:08:18] James: Yeah.

[00:08:19] Joe: you're just gonna be all over the place at that point. Yeah,

[00:08:21] Joe: definitely.

[00:08:22] Joe: But with other stuff, I mean, I've been able to do some adjunct graphic design stuff in, Canva. Oh yeah. Because it's

[00:08:28] James: amazing.

[00:08:28] James: It's The

[00:08:29] James: NRVS

[00:08:29] James: merch menu. This is Canva. It's

[00:08:31] James: literally a template.

[00:08:32] James: And I just replaced the food with merch items.

[00:08:35] Joe: Yeah. You don't have like, I can't even draw a stick. And you can use Canva to make something that, like our t-shirt

[00:08:40] James: on. Oh, the dragonfly.

[00:08:41] James: Yeah. That was Canva. Yeah. What?

[00:08:43] Joe: that's thick. It's all right.

[00:08:45] James: I wish the merch bin weren't all packed up.

[00:08:46] James: Or I would go grab one to show off right now and say uh, here, you can buy [email protected]. Ding

[00:08:52] Joe: ding.

[00:08:53] James: ding. We're not sponsored

[00:08:54] James: by NRVS, but we are NRVS, so

[00:08:56] Joe: by not sponsored by anybody. Please give me something that I have to disclose.

[00:08:59] James: Yeah, [00:09:00] the po actually, I should say, shout out to a sound space in Rutland, Vermont for sponsoring us

[00:09:05] James: for the month of July on the Bandhive

[00:09:07] James: podcast. And this episode drops on July 25th. So thank you, George. Thank you, Josh. Appreciate you guys. You're amazing.

[00:09:12] James: They'll be on the pre-roll, so don't skip the pre-roll.

[00:09:14] James: You heard it already

[00:09:15] James: if you're at this point, but if you skipped it, go back and listen anyway. When we're talking about making music, it's the debate

[00:09:21] James: of is it still d i y If you do everything you can to make

[00:09:25] James: your music better.

[00:09:26] James: And I would say yes,

[00:09:27] Joe: I think so. I like the decide it yourself. Yeah. Mindset. Right, because you're still making, you're not, you're not on a label.

[00:09:34] Joe: there's nobody who's saying you can't put this out.

[00:09:37] James: Yeah. You don't have management. and one thing I, I should say about

[00:09:40] James: management is

[00:09:41] Joe: management in

[00:09:42] James: a good, healthy management relationship, management comes to you with ideas and they do

[00:09:46] James: things for you, But it is

[00:09:48] James: still your decision in the end. If

[00:09:50] James: management is telling you, no, you can't do that,

[00:09:52] James: or Yes, you have

[00:09:54] James: to do this, that's not a healthy

[00:09:55] James: management relationship. Now sometimes there'll be stuff where it's like, [00:10:00] Hey, you committed to this. So yeah, you have to do it, but at that point, it's not a decision.

[00:10:05] James: It's a, Hey, you decided this

[00:10:06] James: months ago and backing out now would be a really bad idea. So you have to do this versus them saying, Hey, you have this opportunity. You're doing it without consulting you. are ways to still be DIY and have management,

[00:10:19] James: but once you

[00:10:20] James: go beyond that point and you have a label, I think that's where it kind of drops off

[00:10:25] James: depending on

[00:10:25] James: the label.

[00:10:26] James: Like if it's a distro deal, basically that's not really being signed to a label that's like you have a distro deal, which is

[00:10:32] James: really beneficial

[00:10:33] James: in many cases,

[00:10:34] James: but you're not

[00:10:35] James: signed to a label. They're not telling you, Hey, this is your brand. We're gonna put you on tour with these bands, all that kind of stuff.

[00:10:40] Joe: And I think with DIY too, some people view it as an all or nothing thing,

[00:10:44] James: as Oh yeah. Which is ridiculous.

[00:10:46] Joe: it's really a spectrum. It's like, how DIY are you?

[00:10:48] James: Yeah, exactly. And you know,

[00:10:50] James: I love to reference Enter Shakar on this show, and this is

[00:10:53] James: not at all the song is about as far as I know. I think it's about religion. But they have a song called The One True Color, [00:11:00] where it's talking about how like one kid was

[00:11:01] James: taught red and one kid was taught blue, and that was the one true color that

[00:11:06] James: their parents taught them and they were

[00:11:08] James: taught to ignore the spectrum.

[00:11:09] James: fits in exactly with what you're saying. Like somebody's taught DIY is red and somebody else is taught DIY is blue. It's like, no, it whatever DII means to you. I don't think anyone

[00:11:18] James: should go out there and say we're gonna do everything ourselves. Because I have honestly almost never heard a good self recording.

[00:11:24] James: I don't even record NRVS and I wouldn't want

[00:11:26] Joe: should, yeah, I wouldn't

[00:11:27] James: that's not me. first of all, just because Gary is so good at what he does, especially

[00:11:31] James: the, new three songs got mixed by a really cool dude named James Paul Weisner, and he worked with Paramore and Under Oath and a bunch of amazing bands, and they sound so sick.

[00:11:40] James: I'm really stoked.

[00:11:41] James: But also just when you're

[00:11:43] James: producing within your own band, setting aside the fact that I don't have as

[00:11:47] James: much experience as Gary or James, you're

[00:11:49] James: lacking that

[00:11:50] James: third party outside

[00:11:51] James: perspective. And that's what

[00:11:53] James: a producer is so

[00:11:54] James: beneficial for. And I

[00:11:56] James: will say it publicly, the latest AFI record

[00:11:59] James: [00:12:00] bodies,

[00:12:00] James: I hate it because the production is objectively bad.

[00:12:03] James: It's not even a taste thing. It's like it's not mono compatible. A lot of the guitar work is just not

[00:12:08] James: great because they didn't say, Hey, get a bunch of different takes

[00:12:12] James: so we can make this stereo.

[00:12:13] James: They faked it. And guess what? It was self-produced by their guitarist, their bassist Hunter is an

[00:12:18] James: actual producer.

[00:12:19] James: I don't know why they didn't have him produce it. to me that's just mind boggling. If you're

[00:12:22] James: gonna have the band

[00:12:23] James: produce it, have the producer and the band produce it, not the guy who writes the music.

[00:12:26] James: Anyway, that all aside, it

[00:12:28] James: shows that even at the top levels sometimes you need that third

[00:12:32] James: party producer.

[00:12:33] James: Now, one exception,

[00:12:35] James: going back to Ender

[00:12:35] James: Shakar, their latest two albums have been

[00:12:38] James: self-produced by the singer and they're phenomenal. Like they just, their latest album was number one in the uk.

[00:12:42] James: That's amazing. The issue is they still have the spark,

[00:12:46] James: They have the

[00:12:47] James: energy for that and other bands don't.

[00:12:51] James: Shakar still has the passion for

[00:12:52] James: it and you can tell in everything that they do. So we're getting kind of off topic here from

[00:12:55] James: D I Y,

[00:12:56] James: but.

[00:12:57] James: What I'm

[00:12:57] James: trying to get at is if you're gonna self-produce, you [00:13:00] better know what you're doing

[00:13:01] James: and have the passion for it. In general, DIY bands, most of them don't know what they're doing when it comes to recording, unless, you know, maybe you run a recording studio yourself, in which case,

[00:13:09] James: hey, give it a shot.

[00:13:10] James: But I think that

[00:13:11] James: outside view is still incredibly important.

[00:13:14] Joe: it's funny you bring up, you know, at Shakar last two records being self-produced, the first one wasn't.

[00:13:18] Joe: Right.

[00:13:19] Joe: Right,

[00:13:19] Joe: right. So, like, starting

[00:13:21] James: out,

[00:13:21] Joe: I think that producer is essential. Really? Yeah.

[00:13:24] James: Yeah. Because

[00:13:25] Joe: you know what's, you know, essential to you with the music that you're writing and what you wanna say and the message that you wanna put out there.

[00:13:32] Joe: But having that third party objective, like, Gary was that person for us. He heard everything before anything was released, you know, like a year before. And he was able to say, okay, I like this part. I don't like this, change this. And we were like, okay, this is great. Because the first time Russ and I even sat down in a room together was in a studio.

[00:13:50] Joe: no

[00:13:51] Joe: way.

[00:13:51] Joe: Yeah. So

[00:13:51] James: we

[00:13:52] James: That's so cool.

[00:13:52] Joe: we never, we had talked a lot, and we had been sending each other stuff because all our songwriting is done remotely. Yeah, yeah. I just am sitting [00:14:00] behind Logic and I send it back and forth to you guys. which works because we're all, you know, all over the place and so busy and we have our thing that works for us.

[00:14:07] Joe: But at the end of the day, I also know that I can bring that stuff to our producer and say, Hey, what do you think about what we were able to come up with?

[00:14:15] Joe: And if he likes it, he's gonna say, okay, yeah. Leave this. that's why it's also super important to go to somebody that you trust.

[00:14:22] Joe: I made a TikTok post on our I was about to say, I made a TikTok on our Instagram. That's how, see, like I, I know

[00:14:27] Joe: that I'm technically, I, I know. I th I think I just like missed the mark on Gen Z by like a little bit, because I was like late 96

[00:14:36] James: Well 95 is kind of the cutoff.

[00:14:38] Joe: it? oh, technically I'm a zoomer

[00:14:40] Joe: then. Yeah. Wow.

[00:14:42] James: I

[00:14:42] James: know people

[00:14:43] James: in 95 who like, kind of are borderline, like they identify with both. Yeah. So

[00:14:47] Joe: man. lost generation.

[00:14:49] James: We don't

[00:14:51] James: hate Gen Z. he,

[00:14:52] James: is Gen Z.

[00:14:53] James: I'm a millennial. Barely. I'm 93, so millennial.

[00:14:55] Joe: There

[00:14:56] Joe: you go.

[00:14:56] Joe: I do. Cause I don't,

[00:14:57] James: do you remember nine 11?

[00:14:59] Joe: I do, I remember

[00:14:59] Joe: [00:15:00] nine 11 and I don't own a vape, so

[00:15:02] Joe: like,

[00:15:02] Joe: ironically,

[00:15:03] James: most of the people who vape that I know are uh, millennials, so

[00:15:06] Joe: oh, well yeah.

[00:15:07] James: yeah. Here we're, yeah.

[00:15:07] James: Anyway, this, this is also Joe's the one non-straight edge member

[00:15:11] Joe: the pan. Yeah. So

[00:15:12] Joe: it's

[00:15:13] James: there have been memes, there have been reels and

[00:15:16] Joe: TikTok. And if you follow us on Instagram and TikTok, you'll see

[00:15:18] James: Yeah, it's

[00:15:19] James: N RVs dot

[00:15:20] James: official. Oh yeah. When I shouted out the uh,

[00:15:22] James: the merch store, I should mention NRVS is N RVs. So it's shop dot n RVs official.com.

[00:15:27] Joe: that's shop nvs official.com

[00:15:29] James: that's radio voice. I was in radio for like five years.

[00:15:31] James: How, why do you have the radio voice? And I don't, that's not fair.

[00:15:34] Joe: Puberty, man.

[00:15:35] James: I'm

[00:15:37] Joe: I'm 30

[00:15:39] Joe: But yeah. Anyway, or what were we saying? Oh, yeah, I think I made a TikTok about this. It was you know, using the producer that you, that you trust, Like I, I have a lot of trust in Gary because I know what he's done. both personally with his own music and the music that he's produced and it's killer.

[00:15:54] Joe: It sounds amazing. So I'm like, if I like the stuff that you're putting out and I bring [00:16:00] you my songs and you say, Hey, change this part, I'm gonna trust what

[00:16:04] Joe: you say.

[00:16:05] James: Yeah. Didn't he have you rewrite or write from the

[00:16:08] James: scratch a bunch of songs in the

[00:16:10] Joe: scratch? He didn't have us do that. I did that actually because I had a bunch of demos that he hadn't heard yet.

[00:16:17] Joe: We got to the studio and I sat down and I was like, Rustin, I hate these

[00:16:21] James: songs.

[00:16:21] Joe: And he was like, okay. So we just stayed up all night and, and rewrote stuff. And then cuz I was like, you know, I don't want to show him something that, that I don't think is good. Which brings me to another point actually, is even if you have a producer, they're not gonna magically make a commercial song for you.

[00:16:37] Joe: Yeah. You have to bring them the best possible thing that you can and then that'll elevate up from that point. can't just show up with a pile of dog and expect that it's gonna be the greatest song in the world if you bring it to a producer.

[00:16:48] Joe: You've gotta have something

[00:16:49] Joe: solid.

[00:16:50] Joe: Yeah.

[00:16:50] Joe: Which is why I

[00:16:51] Joe: did that.

[00:16:52] James: Yeah.

[00:16:52] James: So no diarrhea.

[00:16:53] Joe: exactly.

[00:16:55] James: Well,

[00:16:55] James: and here's the thing with that, I think

[00:16:57] James: you need

[00:16:57] James: to make it the best at

[00:16:58] James: every single [00:17:00] phase because

[00:17:01] James: I think it's a military thing is like the weakest link in the chain.

[00:17:04] James: Yeah.

[00:17:04] James: Is what breaks. So if your songwriting is terrible, nothing after that is gonna be

[00:17:08] Joe: good.

[00:17:09] Joe: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:09] James: Maybe you have great songwriting and a great producer,

[00:17:11] James: but you send it to a terrible mix engineer, it's not gonna be

[00:17:14] James: good at that point. it's gonna be ruined. Maybe your mastering

[00:17:16] James: engineer is terrible.

[00:17:17] James: It's gonna be ruined. Even if the mix, the production, and the writing were all great. Every single phase of the process

[00:17:23] James: has to be exquisite.

[00:17:25] James: And that includes your marketing

[00:17:26] James: after the mastering process is done. Like your

[00:17:29] James: full release marketing is so

[00:17:31] Joe: important.

[00:17:31] Joe: We should talk about that in a separate thing too. Yeah. Cuz that's a

[00:17:34] James: That's

[00:17:34] James: a

[00:17:34] James: whole, like the bands are just like, new song drop today. And that's it. Like radio silence until they announce a

[00:17:40] Joe: show

[00:17:41] Joe: three months

[00:17:41] Joe: later. Lincoln Bio. Yeah.

[00:17:42] James: like it's so bad. And to an extent we kind of did that with the ep,

[00:17:47] Joe: but

[00:17:48] Joe: at the same

[00:17:48] Joe: time we knew

[00:17:48] James: we had dropped all five songs

[00:17:50] James: and we already had three new songs on the way.

[00:17:52] James: So it's kinda like, Hey, here's the full collection so you can listen to 'em in order rather than streaming singles on Spotify. Exactly. they were already out

[00:17:59] James: [00:18:00] and it was

[00:18:00] James: unfortunately

[00:18:01] James: an afterthought.

[00:18:02] Joe: we also had those songs recorded and we knew that we had better stuff coming, so we were like, oh, you know what? Like, yeah, these are good.

[00:18:09] Joe: Like they're, they're fine dude. I like the

[00:18:11] James: song. Why wasn't that the name of the

[00:18:13] Joe: ep? What Better stuff

[00:18:14] Joe: coming?

[00:18:15] Joe: Better? No Big Things Coming dude. Big

[00:18:17] Joe: Things

[00:18:18] Joe: Coming.

[00:18:18] Joe: Oh yeah. NRVS. Big things coming. Yeah.

[00:18:20] James: that. That's actually a song title

[00:18:22] Joe: there.

[00:18:23] Joe: Big Things coming. Yeah, man, we should do

[00:18:24] James: that.

[00:18:25] Joe: It be good.

[00:18:25] Joe: Shout

[00:18:26] James: not Blink one of the two though. We promise.

[00:18:28] Joe: out every local band in the entire

[00:18:30] Joe: universe.

[00:18:30] James: yeah, the big things coming post with two likes on it after

[00:18:33] Joe: after week.

[00:18:34] Joe: I'm one

[00:18:34] James: of those

[00:18:35] Joe: likes

[00:18:35] James: Okay,

[00:18:35] James: that's fine. posted

[00:18:36] Joe: it

[00:18:36] Joe: and then I switched my Instagram over and liked it on my personal

[00:18:39] James: profile.

[00:18:40] James: For real though. You've been killing it on Instagram lately with, I appreciate

[00:18:42] James: the, uh, TikTok, but I saw like we have over 5,000 views on one

[00:18:46] James: that's

[00:18:46] James: Yeah.

[00:18:47] James: For a band with like 300

[00:18:48] Joe: followers.

[00:18:48] Joe: Yeah. We, we cracked seven and a half K on one the other day and I was, I was pretty happy about that. Yeah. The algorithm is, can be kind or it can be

[00:18:57] James: It's fickle.

[00:18:58] Joe: and or TikTok will just throttle [00:19:00] you at 200 if they don't like it immediately.

[00:19:01] James: Oh speaking of somebody who has videos with a hundred K and 600 K, but most of my stuff is like 250 to

[00:19:08] James: 350 views. It's just if

[00:19:10] James: TikTok doesn't think it's gonna catch on,

[00:19:12] James: that's it. Yeah.

[00:19:13] James: Like if it doesn't catch on immediately, you're done. It's.

[00:19:15] Joe: It's all over now.

[00:19:16] James: Is that a Shrek

[00:19:16] James: joke? Yeah, it was Leland.

[00:19:19] James: My editor went to a Shrek

[00:19:21] Joe: girl. That's

[00:19:22] James: incredible.

[00:19:22] James: Recently he sent a video. It looked pretty sick.

[00:19:24] Joe: oh, I wonder if they have 'em in New

[00:19:25] James: York,

[00:19:26] James: Oh, it's New York. I'm sure this was in

[00:19:27] Joe: in Oregon.

[00:19:28] James: So

[00:19:28] James: like if they have it out there, they have it in New York. There's, no way that

[00:19:31] Joe: they don't

[00:19:31] Joe: have

[00:19:31] Joe: it, I feel like that would be a Brooklyn thing. It sounds kind of Brooklyn.

[00:19:34] Joe: Yeah. You know,

[00:19:35] James: It's

[00:19:35] Joe: it's gotta be at a brewery though, to be a Brooklyn thing,

[00:19:37] James: An empty warehouse

[00:19:38] Joe: or, yeah. Oh. Have you ever been to knockdown

[00:19:40] James: in Queens?

[00:19:41] Joe: It's an old door factory for like knockdown doors that's like, it's like a thing. And they like, you know, shut down production and now it's a venue and it's a sick venue. It's actually got really cool sound for being just this gaping warehouse.

[00:19:56] Joe: But I saw Frank Turner and the Bronx there.

[00:19:59] James: I love both [00:20:00] those bands. My one question is, do they have the doors open the venue?

[00:20:02] Joe: Yeah.

[00:20:03] Joe: Yeah. No, they did. Yeah, they had, yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:06] James: That

[00:20:06] James: was totally

[00:20:07] Joe: a jerk.

[00:20:07] Joe: Oh wait, I thought you meant, you meant theban the doors. Yeah. I thought you meant the knockdown doors. to the opening to the

[00:20:13] James: venue.

[00:20:14] James: No, no. I mean, like, did the band open it? I was like, I thought they were dead

[00:20:17] Joe: now. No, they are definitely dead by, I think, are they dead?

[00:20:20] James: at least some of them, the important ones. They're not like the Rolling Stones

[00:20:23] Joe: Or

[00:20:24] Joe: You can't kill Keith Richards.

[00:20:25] James: he's gonna be like

[00:20:26] James: 110 and still touring. He's gonna be Yoda on

[00:20:28] James: tour.

[00:20:28] James: He's a cockroach.

[00:20:29] James: Oh no.

[00:20:30] Joe: I love rolling stones, but he's a cockroach. You can't kill

[00:20:32] Joe: him. Yeah. So

[00:20:33] James: to get back to

[00:20:33] James: the topic

[00:20:34] James: though. yeah.

[00:20:34] James: You have on our list here these days, songs

[00:20:37] James: blow up on TikTok before an artist

[00:20:38] James: even

[00:20:38] Joe: up. We're

[00:20:39] James: getting there. We're trying,

[00:20:40] Joe: we're working on it. It's harder, I think in the, smaller niche cuz like a lot of the songs that do blow up on TikTok and like, if somebody heard you say that, especially in the DIY scene, they'd be like, Ugh, okay. Yeah, whatever.

[00:20:52] Joe: I'm not using TikTok. I

[00:20:53] James: I hate

[00:20:53] James: you.

[00:20:53] James: Yeah, I

[00:20:53] James: was gonna say, we, we first have to convince the

[00:20:56] James: DIY artists that TikTok is a thing you should be on. Because they won't even post

[00:20:59] James: a [00:21:00] show flyer on Instagram until, like the day before the show.

[00:21:02] Joe: ouch.

[00:21:03] James: No, I'm

[00:21:04] Joe: not

[00:21:04] Joe: talking about

[00:21:04] Joe: you.

[00:21:04] Joe: I know. I'm, just kidding.

[00:21:05] James: I've worked too many shows

[00:21:07] James: with DIY punk

[00:21:08] James: bands who think it's cool to not promote shows.

[00:21:10] James: They're like, oh, we're just gonna show up in like the day before they post the

[00:21:12] James: flyer

[00:21:13] Joe: once.

[00:21:13] James: guys, you've known about this for a month and a half. Post it on your Instagram. You posted other stuff. Why didn't you post

[00:21:19] Joe: one?

[00:21:19] James: Yeah. Like that. Honestly, that's just rude cuz then the venue sees that you're not gonna promote and they're like,

[00:21:25] James: oh, well no one's gonna show up.

[00:21:26] James: And maybe people do and

[00:21:27] Joe: they don't. Right.

[00:21:28] James: But you need to promote that because the venue's not gonna have you back if you're not at least

[00:21:32] James: putting in the bare minimum.

[00:21:33] Joe: Yeah. They're not just being nice to you by letting you play like they're hoping that you, you know, make them money. That's the point of the

[00:21:39] Joe: show.

[00:21:39] James: And

[00:21:40] James: it's so easy. Like

[00:21:41] James: I've heard horror stories of bands saying, yeah, we'll bring 30 people and then bring two.

[00:21:45] James: Yeah. And like that band is never coming back to that venue. But what's more is

[00:21:49] James: most people who book shows locally talk to each other. Like there was a band who we're

[00:21:53] James: not gonna name on the show, but literally they were just total jerks. And so they're not coming back to the [00:22:00] venue. I do sound for. And a

[00:22:01] James: friend of mine has booked them for

[00:22:03] James: like next week as of the time of this recording.

[00:22:06] James: Oh, no kidding.

[00:22:06] James: And so I sent her a heads up and she's like, oh, well I've worked ‘

[00:22:10] James: with em before. They're super friendly, but okay, thank you. And then a couple days ago, a friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook and was like, Hey, by the way, we played with this band at a different venue

[00:22:20] James: recently, and they were also

[00:22:22] James: jerks to the sound engineer there.

[00:22:24] James: So it's like, okay, now it's a pattern. And I sent that a screenshot with no names to my friend who was like, Hey, looks like it's a pattern. You might want to be cautious around

[00:22:32] James: these guys because there's no space for that in the scene. And

[00:22:36] James: I don't think they really promoted it either. I didn't look too closely.

[00:22:38] James: it was a different band

[00:22:39] James: that only posted one day before.

[00:22:41] James: But either way, like

[00:22:42] James: people

[00:22:43] James: in the scene

[00:22:43] James: talk, and if you start getting

[00:22:45] James: blacklisted from venues before anyone even knows you, no one's ever gonna find out about you because you've been banned from. Every show in the area

[00:22:53] James: before you even got your feet wet.

[00:22:54] James: That's just

[00:22:55] Joe: terrible.

[00:22:55] Joe: Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

[00:22:57] James: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:22:58] James: And it's so easy to just

[00:22:59] James: not be [00:23:00] a jerk.

[00:23:00] James: so

[00:23:00] Joe: easy, especially in smaller scenes too. Like, like you said, people talk, but also those people will support you if you're a cool person and you have good music. Yeah. Even if that's not necessarily their, bag, you know, they'll still

[00:23:13] James: come

[00:23:14] James: out.

[00:23:14] James: I mean, that's literally NRVS right now. Yeah. Like our number one

[00:23:17] James: fans are all just friends who

[00:23:19] James: like,

[00:23:20] James: we've roped and, most of them actually seem like our music, which is

[00:23:22] Joe: be nice.

[00:23:23] James: Yeah.

[00:23:24] James: But others are just along

[00:23:25] Joe: the

[00:23:25] Joe: ride.

[00:23:25] Joe: everybody's a potential fan, right? genre's dead. Yeah. Genre's dead. Sleep Token

[00:23:29] James: killed

[00:23:29] James: it.

[00:23:30] Joe: No it was that. I know there's a lot of people that hate Sleep Token out there, but I love them so.

[00:23:33] James: I, I don't understand the hate, to

[00:23:35] Joe: understand. I don't understand it either. They're

[00:23:36] James: cool.

[00:23:36] James: Like I'm not a huge fan, but it just doesn't make

[00:23:39] James: sense. I feel like it's people hitting on Nickelback.

[00:23:41] James: They just did

[00:23:42] Joe: it

[00:23:42] Joe: cause it was probably, I don't know. It's all, it's all these like Facebook groups that I'm in. Yeah.

[00:23:46] James: But to kind of harness

[00:23:48] Joe: this

[00:23:48] Joe: back

[00:23:48] James: in

[00:23:49] James: Yeah. We're talking about you're going viral on social media, you're promoting on social media. It's gonna be a lot easier to promote if your stuff actually sounds good.

[00:23:56] James: Yep. If your stuff sounds terrible,

[00:23:57] James: people aren't gonna like it.

[00:23:58] James: And I've seen things go [00:24:00] viral

[00:24:00] James: and I just listen. I'm like, this sounds awful. But those are like the one hit wonders. They, they go viral because it's funny or relatable in some way and they try to

[00:24:09] James: recreate it and it just falls

[00:24:10] James: short.

[00:24:11] Joe: so

[00:24:11] Joe: bad.

[00:24:12] James: Yeah. But

[00:24:12] James: if you have something that's good and you go viral,

[00:24:15] Joe: and

[00:24:15] James: Then you follow it up with something else. That's

[00:24:17] James: good. Magnolia

[00:24:18] James: Park is an amazing example of this. Like everything they put out is so good. Now I'm not a huge fan, but I love what they do and I love that the energy that they exude is so good and

[00:24:28] James: so positive.

[00:24:29] James: I should say the reason I don't like it is it's

[00:24:31] James: just not really my jam. Like that style pop punk is not my thing, but I think

[00:24:35] James: it's really cool that they're breaking boundaries

[00:24:38] James: and becoming quite successful with it. Absolutely.

[00:24:41] James: all props to them for that.

[00:24:42] Joe: that. And I think that a hesitancy that a lot of people have with TikTok specifically is a lot of the songs that do blow up are like, they're kinda like bedroom poppy or they're like a little bit more folk or something I dunno if you ever heard the Fire Were a Fish song.

[00:24:56] James: I don't

[00:24:56] Joe: It's a great song. It's My girlfriend Shoved Me

[00:24:59] James: Pause. [00:25:00] Nice. I'm thinking of the coffee song

[00:25:02] James: by Beba Doobie. And it's like, come stay with me. I'll make you cup of coffee, da

[00:25:07] James: da da da da. Okay. It's like over ukulele. It's super low

[00:25:10] James: chill

[00:25:11] Joe: kind of, that kind of thing. Right. Or like lo-fi music.

[00:25:13] Joe: Right.

[00:25:13] James: and that like, launched her career and now she just toured with Paramore. She's like 20.

[00:25:19] Joe: Yeah.

[00:25:19] Joe: I don't know how many shows that they played before they

[00:25:22] James: toured

[00:25:22] James: with Paramore.

[00:25:23] James: Oh, A lot.

[00:25:23] James: They, they were touring the uk.

[00:25:25] James: They did the US multiple

[00:25:26] James: times. so like they were up and coming. Yeah,

[00:25:28] James: They were doing like head headlines and like thousand cap rooms and that kind of stuff, which is really good for them. She's from the uk.

[00:25:33] James: Okay. or

[00:25:34] James: summer in Asia, I think originally, but like lives in the uk. And the first

[00:25:38] James: I heard of her

[00:25:39] James: actually was we had on an episode. Almost two years ago, a year and a half ago, her tour manager on the show. Oh, no kidding. And I was like, oh, that's really cool. talking about touring

[00:25:47] James: for d i y bands and I hadn't heard of her. And all of a sudden, like a few months later, my friend posts like this music video. I'm like, oh, like this is really good.

[00:25:54] James: this is blowing up. Yeah. I'm like, wait, that's her, that's like the guy who was on [00:26:00] the show, which let me look up that episode for reference.

[00:26:03] James: That was episode number 1 0 7. 13 years on the road. Nothing

[00:26:08] James: is Impossible. Tour Manager Jack McCutchen. Where? McCutchen, I can't remember. I'm so sorry, Jack. I don't remember how to say your last name. but yeah, Jack's a super cool dude, runs an entirely green

[00:26:18] James: festival over in the uk.

[00:26:20] James: Oh. this is

[00:26:21] James: totally sidetracking. You know how

[00:26:22] James: Muse has said they're not gonna tour until they can be completely

[00:26:25] James: carbon neutral? Yeah. Their team hit up the company he works for and was like, you have a carbon neutral festival. Tell us how to do

[00:26:32] Joe: this

[00:26:32] Joe: forever.

[00:26:33] Joe: That's amazing.

[00:26:34] James: props to Jack. Great Guy,

[00:26:36] James: does some really amazing work.

[00:26:37] James: Episode 1 0 7, you can find [email protected] slash 1 0 7 and you'll hear that mention of Beba Dobie and a bunch of other cool artists that he's working with.

[00:26:46] James: So yeah, talking about artists blowing up and like now opening for Paramore.

[00:26:50] Joe: Yeah. So I think people misconstrue TikTok a little bit. And I mean, I've had my own share of frustrations with the platform. it'd be hard to find

[00:26:58] James: people that have that

[00:26:58] Joe: Yeah. But [00:27:00] it's not only bedroom pop that blows up on TikTok.

[00:27:02] Joe: Like there are niche markets on there. I've heard of Bad Omens now because of TikTok, who I, I don't really know their stuff that much, but they've been all in my face on my feed because I think, I think they tore it with Lorna.

[00:27:15] James: Probably, I think Lorna opened for them.

[00:27:17] Joe: Really?

[00:27:18] James: Okay.

[00:27:18] James: So

[00:27:18] James: dude,

[00:27:18] Joe: that, that was huge.

[00:27:19] Joe: That's how little I knew

[00:27:20] James: about

[00:27:20] James: this

[00:27:21] James: band

[00:27:21] James: I'm looking it up. Bad Omans, Lorna Shore

[00:27:23] Joe: Spirit

[00:27:24] James: box.

[00:27:24] James: Oh,

[00:27:25] James: Oh. Was Spirit Box

[00:27:26] Joe: Wait

[00:27:26] Joe: a second. That's a huge, this gotta be

[00:27:27] Joe: festival

[00:27:28] James: Um,

[00:27:29] Joe: some random person just tweeting

[00:27:30] James: yeah, I think it's just a tweet

[00:27:31] Joe: whatever that is is, I think the video I saw,

[00:27:34] James: think they definitely look

[00:27:34] James: like headliners in this picture. anyway, that's sidetracking. Yeah. Bad omans. They're

[00:27:38] James: huge.

[00:27:38] James: and the power of TikTok is amazing. And then especially with like

[00:27:41] James: older Emos or Elder Emos as we're called,

[00:27:44] James: everything's making a comeback and. I think a huge part of my chems, huge resurgence is social media and

[00:27:51] James: their breakup too.

[00:27:52] James: when they broke up, they were doing, large clubs. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:55] James: They came back, they're doing arenas.

[00:27:57] James: And I love to use the example that [00:28:00] afi,

[00:28:00] James: were doing

[00:28:01] James: large clubs at the same time. Now they're doing small to medium clubs,

[00:28:05] James: eh, I shouldn't say small,

[00:28:06] James: medium clubs, on the West coast they're still doing

[00:28:08] James: large clubs.

[00:28:08] James: But like when I first saw them

[00:28:10] James: here on the East coast, they were doing anything from like 1600 to four or 5,000 caps.

[00:28:15] Joe: I was gonna say I saw them open for Green Day on the 21st

[00:28:18] James: Century

[00:28:18] James: break. Oh, that was such a good show. Yeah. I saw the Mansfield data

[00:28:21] James: that in Massachusetts.

[00:28:22] James: Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah.

[00:28:23] James: Yeah, that was the year after I first saw them.

[00:28:25] James: And then now

[00:28:27] James: they're playing like a thousand cap rooms on the

[00:28:30] James: East coast, New York, maybe 2000,

[00:28:32] James: like Boston. They did um, Royale, which is a thousand

[00:28:35] James: cap. Yeah. First time I saw him in Boston was

[00:28:37] James: 2,500. How's the blues? I saw him at Roseland

[00:28:39] James: Ballroom in New York. R i p back in 2009. I think that was like 5,000 cap, maybe 4,000, but

[00:28:46] James: huge.

[00:28:46] James: Now they go to New

[00:28:47] James: York. They do like terminal five, which is probably like 16, 1700.

[00:28:51] Joe: pretty

[00:28:51] James: solids size. Yeah.

[00:28:52] James: It's like, it's a large club, but it's not a large club. Right.

[00:28:56] James: You know, they're not doing 5,000 anymore. You know, if they had gone [00:29:00] away, like my chem,

[00:29:00] James: maybe they'd be

[00:29:01] James: doing arenas now.

[00:29:03] James: I don't know for sure. But my chem went away and then came

[00:29:07] Joe: back

[00:29:07] Joe: stronger. Yeah.

[00:29:07] James: Yeah. AFI never went away and released several not so

[00:29:10] James: great records and

[00:29:12] James: you can tell. Yeah, and that's just my opinion as a surface level case

[00:29:16] Joe: study.

[00:29:16] James: But having seen into that, that band's

[00:29:19] James: community over so many years, I'm just like, I can tell why they're losing fans.

[00:29:22] James: I don't think they realize it. I don't think their management knows it,

[00:29:25] James: but I know why and it's kind of sad to see

[00:29:28] James: and

[00:29:28] James: it's not gonna

[00:29:28] James: change ever. Yeah. they're not gonna fix it.

[00:29:30] James: even if I went to them and said, this is your problem,

[00:29:33] James: they're not gonna fix it. Cause they don't care.

[00:29:34] James: Yeah.

[00:29:34] James: That's what it comes down to. Yeah.

[00:29:35] James: it is what it is. Here I am

[00:29:37] Joe: sidetracking again.

[00:29:38] Joe: No, it's all good. We're, we're talking about bands we love. It's hard

[00:29:41] James: to. I know.

[00:29:41] James: We're just nerding out, having a conversation know, returning to AFI and production.

[00:29:46] James: Yeah. Like 2003, Butch Vig, Joe McGrath, Jerry Finn sing the sorrow.

[00:29:51] James: That's amazing. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:52] Joe: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:53] James: Get yourself like a half a million dollars and do that if you can. I mean, Joe McGrath retired from recording, so you can't really do that, but you can still [00:30:00] get Oh, and Jerry Finn's dead. Dammit.

[00:30:02] James: I'm so sorry. You can still get Butch Vgg if you live

[00:30:06] Joe: in

[00:30:06] Joe: LA

[00:30:06] Joe: and I have a

[00:30:07] James: because he's mostly, mostly retired.

[00:30:09] James: Like the only records he's done in the last few years are. Two Silverstone

[00:30:12] James: pickups records, which are both amazing. I love them. And

[00:30:15] James: Garbage Records,

[00:30:16] James: which

[00:30:16] Joe: say he did something

[00:30:17] James: The garbage. Yeah.

[00:30:18] James: Like, that's

[00:30:18] James: it.

[00:30:19] James: And like Silverstone pickups are literally his neighbors. they live in the same neighborhood.

[00:30:23] James: They're probably like, Hey, you live down the street. Can we come over? Like, yeah, we'll pay you a buttload of

[00:30:27] Joe: money.

[00:30:27] Joe: Could you imagine living next to Bush Pig

[00:30:29] James: I want to, when I went to the big

[00:30:31] James: sing, the Soro show in March, I was hoping he would be there and I would be like, it's Butch Vgg. Hi.

[00:30:35] James: just wave

[00:30:35] James: at him. Just

[00:30:36] Joe: shake

[00:30:36] Joe: his

[00:30:36] Joe: hand. Hey,

[00:30:37] Joe: thank you.

[00:30:38] James: Goodbye.

[00:30:38] James: I have nothing of importance to say to you. I just want

[00:30:41] Joe: say

[00:30:41] Joe: hi. Yeah,

[00:30:41] Joe: exactly. I, I can't afford you to produce my band. It's fine.

[00:30:45] James: Yeah.

[00:30:45] James:

[00:30:45] James: that would be like the one guy we

[00:30:46] James: give up on Gary for.

[00:30:47] Joe: oh yeah. I don't even think Gary would be mad if I was like, Gary, we're gonna have Butch Vig

[00:30:51] James: do

[00:30:51] James: this

[00:30:51] James: one.

[00:30:52] James: Yeah,

[00:30:52] James: Like,

[00:30:52] James: I get

[00:30:53] James: it.

[00:30:53] James: yeah. See ya.

[00:30:54] Joe: back to, you know, producers and, and people that are coming

[00:30:57] James: up

[00:30:57] Joe: in

[00:30:57] Joe: the

[00:30:57] Joe: scene like, Gary is, has been [00:31:00] amazing and I mean, he's been in the hardcore scene in Long Island forever. I mean, he was, he's in crime

[00:31:04] Joe: and stereo

[00:31:05] Joe: It's sick. And then there's other people who are like, like on the other opposite coast, like somebody I follow is uh, Zach Tuuk.

[00:31:11] Joe: He's a producer who's done a lot of gazy rock stuff, like Shoegaze Rock, which like, like the teenage wrist. And then Heaven word is a new band from the old singer, a teenage wrist that is just put, put out a new record. But, and I think Super bloom in New York City who I, I love those guys.

[00:31:25] Joe: They just did a record with him too, so he's just like been consistently pumping stuff out as well. Yeah. obviously there's other legends like Will Yip and stuff that are still on the East

[00:31:33] James: Coast

[00:31:33] James: Gil Norton looking at pure

[00:31:35] James: love up there. Yeah. You have to go to

[00:31:36] James: England to record with him though, I think.

[00:31:38] James: Yeah. So,

[00:31:38] Joe: But I guess that, that being said is like, these producers are coming from scenes, it's not like, oh, I'm gonna be a producer.

[00:31:46] Joe: if some people do go to college for production,

[00:31:48] James: right? Yeah. It's the new guard is very much diy. Yeah. At its core, at least in our genre. Yeah.

[00:31:54] James: speaking of Gary and the other guys you mentioned, Butch Vig, Gil Norton, like they are musicians, but [00:32:00] they are producers first.

[00:32:01] James: Yeah. Whereas people like Gary are musicians first, and then they just half an ear and became producers.

[00:32:07] Joe: having the ear is really just like a huge part of it. Yeah.

[00:32:10] Joe: And you're also gonna become a better songwriter working with those people too, because they are musicians first, right?

[00:32:16] Joe: yeah.

[00:32:17] Joe: you'll understand why they're making the decisions that they're making about your

[00:32:20] Joe: music.

[00:32:21] Joe: And you are, I guess, I mean, you're making the decisions. We're keeping this

[00:32:25] Joe: d i y right? But the suggestions, I should say, not

[00:32:28] Joe: decisions. The

[00:32:29] Joe: idea is that they're, they're suggesting about your music are coming from a place of, I have been playing music that you like for a long time and you chose to work with me, so this is what I would recommend.

[00:32:39] Joe: Yeah. And it's gonna make you a better

[00:32:41] James: songwriter.

[00:32:42] James: Yeah. And I think the other thing is you

[00:32:44] James: want a producer who's a good songwriter.

[00:32:46] James: you can

[00:32:47] James: go hire a producer

[00:32:48] James: who's a drummer and maybe they'll get amazing drum sounds, but are they gonna tell you, Hey, change this up here in this section. Like cut the bridge out

[00:32:55] James: and it's gonna be a stronger song. They may or may not know that,

[00:32:57] James: and it's a

[00:32:59] James: really [00:33:00] difficult

[00:33:00] James: spot because everyone has skills that are stronger in some areas rather than others.

[00:33:05] James: So you kind of have to weigh the

[00:33:06] James: balance of what, as a band is our weak point,

[00:33:09] James: and find a producer that matches that, but is the opposite. So our, our weak point is that producer's strong point. Yeah. That's really important too. so for me as a producer, I'm not a

[00:33:19] James: songwriter at all. But I like

[00:33:22] Joe: ear candy

[00:33:22] James: and I can be like, Hey, this sounds good.

[00:33:24] James: Add a little discordance there. No, maybe not. Like, you know, make this resolve.

[00:33:28] James: That kind of stuff. That's what I'm good at. So if somebody brings a great song to me,

[00:33:31] James: I can like, cool, do this, do this, do this done. You have a killer song. But if somebody's not a great songwriter

[00:33:37] James: and they bring it to me, I'm just like,

[00:33:38] Joe: they,

[00:33:38] James: don't know.

[00:33:39] James: Like, what do you want me to do with this? It's a bad song. don't record It is my advice.

[00:33:43] Joe: Right. No, exactly. And I mean, I know for me personally, like I, my biggest weakness probably was, vocal production. I've recorded songs where I've sung before NRVS.

[00:33:53] Joe: Right.

[00:33:53] James: But

[00:33:53] Joe: I didn't think about melody in the same way

[00:33:56] James: I do

[00:33:56] James: now,

[00:33:57] Joe: which is like, number one [00:34:00] paramount is, is vocal melody. It's like the biggest thing. And so I, cuz I've been a guitarist for how long Right. Of my whole life, So like, I didn't really focus on songwriting for a long time. Cause I kind of fell into that path of like, oh, I'm gonna learn how to play shred guitar.

[00:34:13] Joe: This sounds sick. I love this. And it's like, yeah, I love how it sounds. I think it's dope, but like it's 2023. Nobody wants to hear shred guitar anymore unless you're playing

[00:34:22] Joe: Prague.

[00:34:22] James: This is

[00:34:23] Joe: Prague. I'm not trying to on anybody. I, I love Prague music, but like that's a very small niche

[00:34:29] Joe: as

[00:34:29] Joe: well.

[00:34:30] Joe: And I mean, you've gotta be like a toast and a bossi

[00:34:33] Joe: to be a legendary good

[00:34:35] Joe: guitar in that scene.

[00:34:36] James: Yeah. It you have to be a true virtuoso.

[00:34:38] James: Yeah. Like if you're not a

[00:34:40] James: well then you're

[00:34:40] James: just gonna be a crappy local

[00:34:41] Joe: band.

[00:34:42] Joe: Right?

[00:34:42] James: There's too many of those. Yeah. I also like Prague, but there's too many bands who

[00:34:47] James: think they're Prague

[00:34:47] James: and really they're just sloppy noodles.

[00:34:49] Joe: sloppy noodles. That's actually not a bad name for a Prague band, I'm not

[00:34:54] Joe: gonna lie.

[00:34:54] James: noodles, they

[00:34:55] James: come out and uh, they have like

[00:34:56] James: ramen

[00:34:57] James: wigs.

[00:34:57] James: Yeah.

[00:34:58] Joe: Yeah. we opened for Thank You [00:35:00] Scientist at Higher

[00:35:00] Joe: Ground, and their guitarist, his name is escaping me right now.

[00:35:03] Joe: He's nicest guy and he is just crazy.

[00:35:07] Joe: He's so good.

[00:35:08] Joe: But

[00:35:09] Joe: damn, I wish I could play like that.

[00:35:12] James: yep.

[00:35:13] Joe: but I kind of switched off of trying to do chops a couple years ago and I was like, you know what?

[00:35:19] Joe: Let me just focus on being a songwriter.

[00:35:21] Joe: And I'm glad that I've done that because like, I haven't, I mean, I haven't lost my ability to play fast stuff. Like I'll still learn like interval songs just to keep my chops up. Yeah. But because Aaron Marshall's just a menace. I love that guy. He's also super nice.

[00:35:34] Joe: But personally with songwriting, it's just been like, let me focus on that because I knew when I came to our first real producer It, it was a weakness of mine. Cause I'm

[00:35:45] Joe: like, oh, you know, I write every song the same

[00:35:47] Joe: way

[00:35:48] James: I'm

[00:35:48] James: in this box.

[00:35:49] James: Well, and here's the other thing I think is

[00:35:51] James: when

[00:35:51] James: you're just

[00:35:52] James: trying to write as like a complex part as you can, it's not serving the song or the band as a whole when you write the song.

[00:35:59] James: Yeah. And [00:36:00] then

[00:36:00] James: decide, Hey, I'm gonna throw a blazing solo in here that serves the song and the band

[00:36:04] James: more. Yeah. Like when you're starting with the song

[00:36:07] James: and then coming in with the fancy stuff that you're a candy. Exactly. Versus saying, Hey, this is a really

[00:36:13] James: cool lead part,

[00:36:14] James: let's write a song

[00:36:15] Joe: it.

[00:36:15] Joe: this, this is not eighties

[00:36:17] James: anymore.

[00:36:17] James: Yeah.

[00:36:17] James: exactly. Yeah.

[00:36:19] James: Which man, that makes me think Andre McCarroll would be somebody really fun to work with.

[00:36:22] James: Oh yeah. Just like

[00:36:23] James: for songwriting collaboration, maybe.

[00:36:25] James: Yeah, he's the, the, guitarist

[00:36:27] James: of 8 0 84. Legendary, like Vermont, new England, hard rock band. And, also has a studio up in St. Albans.

[00:36:35] James: Oh, nice.

[00:36:36] James: Not saying we should go record with him, but maybe, hey, if we ever want songwriting partners

[00:36:40] Joe: I'm always down to collaborate, you know? Yeah, yeah. Because there's things you can

[00:36:44] James: learn from

[00:36:44] James: everybody. Right.

[00:36:45] James: Exactly.

[00:36:46] Joe: And that's the other reason to go with the producer that you trust is Yeah. You know, coming back to this main topic of, go work with somebody that you tr and you're gonna learn so much from somebody who, who's made music that you're a fan of, right?

[00:36:57] Joe: Like, that's a

[00:36:58] James: a real

[00:36:58] James: thing

[00:36:58] James: you can

[00:36:58] James: do.

[00:36:59] James: And I [00:37:00] think the, the issue of trust is really important too, because if you don't trust them, you're gonna have so much more, not anxiety, but you're gonna be against anything they suggest if you don't trust them. But if you trust them, you're just gonna say, cool, let's do it.

[00:37:11] James: Let's give

[00:37:11] James: it a shot. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:12] James: And I specifically remember there was a time where I was working with the band. We were doing two full songs in a day signature Sound Studios down in San Diego. And it was actually Infinite Signal. We had them on episode. I think it's 19 of the podcast. Scrolling way back to 2020.

[00:37:26] James: Yep.

[00:37:26] James: Number

[00:37:27] James: 19, how to make your band stand out using Tactics. The major

[00:37:29] James: labels have mastered with Infinite Signal. You can find that at Bandhive

[00:37:33] James: Rocks slash

[00:37:33] James: 19. That's the number 19. And it was just so

[00:37:36] James: refreshing cause we're in this beautiful room the used have recorded there.

[00:37:39] James: Um, Kill, switch, engage. There's Side Product. Was there Revolution recorded there? newfound Glory

[00:37:44] James: Blink. that's the name I was

[00:37:46] James: trying to

[00:37:46] James: think

[00:37:46] Joe: Oh yeah. It's that tiny band from,

[00:37:48] James: San Diego. Right. Tons of amazing bands recorded there. And we are in this room. I have the room for

[00:37:54] James: a day. I'm just like, Yo, this is

[00:37:56] James: sick. Yeah.

[00:37:56] James: And we were crunched for time. We were like,

[00:37:59] James: Hey, we're gonna do [00:38:00] eight to eight. It ended up being eight to midnight.

[00:38:01] James: Yeah, that sounds right.

[00:38:02] James: but it was

[00:38:03] James: just so much fun.

[00:38:04] James: And

[00:38:04] James: we're going through, I'm like, cool, you have this guitar

[00:38:07] James: part. Can you try this? Like, it'll take two minutes.

[00:38:09] James: They tried it and I'm like,

[00:38:10] James: we love it.

[00:38:11] James: Let's do it. there are other production elements. They ended up not being the final versions of the song. They did an EP

[00:38:16] James: with another producer. Mm-hmm. but they liked the versions we had done so much and, and

[00:38:20] James: they redid it because they wanted

[00:38:22] James: the whole EP to be cohesive.

[00:38:23] Joe: for sure.

[00:38:24] James: But they still released

[00:38:25] James: the two versions we had done because they liked it so much.

[00:38:27] James: And I'm really glad

[00:38:28] James: that they did because

[00:38:29] James: hearing the differences night and day, the EP is a little punkier, a little drier. Whereas the version I did was like, literally there's a part where it's almost chew gazy.

[00:38:39] James: Yeah. So you can hear my influences

[00:38:41] James: as a producer. Whereas listening to the same

[00:38:43] James: track with the other producer, it's Punkier.

[00:38:45] James: They have huge gang vocals, which

[00:38:47] James: I would've loved, but we

[00:38:48] James: literally only had like the three piece band and me and an intern

[00:38:51] Joe: in two days.

[00:38:52] James: One day.

[00:38:53] James: one

[00:38:53] James: day.

[00:38:54] James: Whereas they brought in like 10 or 15

[00:38:56] James: people to do gang vocals.

[00:38:58] James: I would've loved to do that. But just [00:39:00] hearing the differences where, you know, neither one

[00:39:02] James: is bad or good, they're just different.

[00:39:05] James: But the

[00:39:05] James: fact that your choice of

[00:39:07] James: producer can matter

[00:39:08] Joe: ing so much.

[00:39:09] James: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:09] James: I

[00:39:09] James: just was like, yo, this sounds

[00:39:11] James: sick. It sounds big. It sounds like we're in a cave. I love it. And

[00:39:14] James: it didn't sound like bad cave. It

[00:39:16] James: sounded like

[00:39:16] James: we're just in a huge room and this is amazing. Like you're surrounded by the sound and

[00:39:21] James: the other producer didn't go for that and that's fine.

[00:39:23] James: But

[00:39:23] James: there were certain things I'm like, oh, he heard that in my version and did it again. I love that. Yeah. I've done um, Mrs. Sdo now known as Bernard, up, I did a live session with them and this was a song

[00:39:34] James: that they haven't even recorded in the

[00:39:35] James: studio yet. Right. And there's this one section

[00:39:37] James: where I put this really cool, like delay on the vocals.

[00:39:41] James: And

[00:39:41] James: then when they dropped the record, I listened to the songs that's

[00:39:45] James: my

[00:39:45] James: delay. their producer or the band said to their producer that We love this. Can you do this? I'm like, that's so sick. They literally heard what I did and used it. I was

[00:39:54] James: nerding out

[00:39:55] James: when

[00:39:55] James: I heard

[00:39:55] James: that. Yeah.

[00:39:56] James: Point being,

[00:39:57] James: producers

[00:39:57] James: will bring

[00:39:58] James: ideas to you and you have to be open to [00:40:00] them.

[00:40:00] James: And if you go to somebody who's just gonna push buttons, they're gonna set up the mics and hit record. That's an engineer. And it used to be that, you know, you have an engineer

[00:40:08] James: working with a producer, so the

[00:40:09] James: producer says to the engineer,

[00:40:11] James: this is what I want, and the engineer makes it happen. These days, it's

[00:40:14] James: combined into one role.

[00:40:15] James: So you

[00:40:15] James: wanna find

[00:40:16] James: somebody who is a producer, not just

[00:40:18] James: an engineer, because if they're just an engineer,

[00:40:21] James: whatever you have is gonna be what you get. assuming they're a

[00:40:23] James: good

[00:40:23] James: engineer,

[00:40:24] James: Yeah.

[00:40:24] James: But if you have a producer, whatever you have is gonna get at least 10 to 15% better, if not like 50% to

[00:40:30] James: a hundred percent better. It really depends on

[00:40:33] James: what your input is. Like you were saying,

[00:40:35] James: Joe, it has to be good from the start. You can't just go in and with a bad song and expect a producer to make it

[00:40:40] James: great. Mm-hmm.

[00:40:40] James: But if you have a great song, that producer can make it fantastic.

[00:40:43] Joe: Absolutely. And like you said

[00:40:44] Joe: too,

[00:40:45] Joe: you

[00:40:45] Joe: know,

[00:40:45] Joe: just

[00:40:45] Joe: with social media and people making,

[00:40:48] Joe: very quick decisions on whether or not they like a song, why not try to make it sound I'm not saying the writing or anything of it that's very personal, but I'm just saying sonically make it sound up to the level of [00:41:00] everything else that you are listening to.

[00:41:02] Joe: Also put your music on Spotify. Yeah, please

[00:41:05] James: do

[00:41:05] James: that.

[00:41:06] James: Like I love band camp. Yeah, I do. but the only people who

[00:41:09] James: use band camp are music fans. If you want to reach the masses

[00:41:13] James: is called Spotify.

[00:41:14] James: Exactly.

[00:41:15] James: And

[00:41:16] James: honestly, you probably earn less from Bandcamp than you do from Spotify if your stuff's any

[00:41:20] Joe: there's less people using it.

[00:41:22] James: Yeah, exactly. maybe you'll sell two copies

[00:41:24] James: and then a bunch of people stream it for free until it says, Hey, you can't stream anymore.

[00:41:27] James: And they come back the next day.

[00:41:28] James: Yeah, maybe. Or they say,

[00:41:29] James: screw that.

[00:41:30] James: I

[00:41:30] Joe: don't

[00:41:30] Joe: care

[00:41:31] Joe: that

[00:41:31] Joe: much.

[00:41:31] James: Right. Spotify, they toss it on a playlist.

[00:41:33] James: Boom. They'll play it. Now here's the thing, going back to

[00:41:36] James: social media, I want to give a shout out to, gonna name one of them. I'm not gonna name the

[00:41:39] James: other. There's one

[00:41:40] James: artist

[00:41:41] James: who, I like his vibe.

[00:41:43] James: I like what he does. He

[00:41:44] James: posts on TikTok

[00:41:45] James: a lot. The recording's not that great. He's not getting traction. His video content is fine, but the recording of the

[00:41:51] James: music is not great on the other hand. And to be fair, different genres. Yeah. Natalie Carr does an amazing job on TikTok is growing of [00:42:00] following

[00:42:00] James: very quickly,

[00:42:01] James: in my opinion.

[00:42:02] James: Her music

[00:42:03] James: is professionally produced and sounds so much better and the content

[00:42:05] James: she's making is not that much different from what the other guy's

[00:42:09] James: doing.

[00:42:10] James: yeah,

[00:42:10] James: But it's

[00:42:11] James: a night and day difference. Now

[00:42:12] James: I'm sure some people will say, well, Natalie's a girl, so that makes it different. Maybe it does, but either way,

[00:42:19] James: good music, good content

[00:42:21] James: working,

[00:42:22] James: good music with bad recording, but good content

[00:42:25] James: not working.

[00:42:26] Joe: So

[00:42:26] Joe: absolutely

[00:42:27] James: make it

[00:42:27] Joe: good.

[00:42:28] Joe: just to be clear, you know, we're talking specifically right now about getting people

[00:42:31] Joe: in

[00:42:31] Joe: the door, you have to have something that sounds really good to get them in the door, but it's up to you to turn somebody who's a listener into a fan.

[00:42:39] James: Yeah.

[00:42:40] James: Cuz there is a difference. Like

[00:42:41] James: a listener

[00:42:42] James: will say casually like, oh yeah, I've heard of them.

[00:42:44] James: Cool. A fan will

[00:42:46] James: buy your merch. They'll show up to your shows, they will interact with you on social media.

[00:42:49] Joe: Talk about you to their friends. Yes, exactly. Which is how I found, find a lot of my bands.

[00:42:54] Joe: Oh yeah,

[00:42:54] James: that's, I tell all my friends when I found a new band.

[00:42:56] James: Yeah.

[00:42:57] James: I mean, how many times have I mentioned ender

[00:42:59] Joe: Aria

[00:42:59] Joe: in the

[00:42:59] Joe: podcast?[00:43:00] [00:43:00] James: I've told thousands of people about them by now via the podcast.

[00:43:04] James: You're

[00:43:04] Joe: welcome.

[00:43:05] James: Masses

[00:43:06] Joe: who doesn't want to be the person to find a new band and like tell everybody about it?

[00:43:09] James: Like it's

[00:43:10] James: so

[00:43:10] James: exciting.

[00:43:10] James: It is. And especially there

[00:43:12] James: are times when I find

[00:43:13] James: a new band and I feel bad cause I don't wanna share 'em because it's really good, but their

[00:43:18] James: production's terrible.

[00:43:19] James: Yeah.

[00:43:20] James: Because honestly for me as a producer,

[00:43:22] James: if the production's not

[00:43:22] James: good, I can't

[00:43:23] Joe: listen

[00:43:23] James: it. And there have been bands where I'm like, this is an amazing

[00:43:26] James: song I'm not gonna share with anyone because the production's so bad and I feel bad about that. But if I'm not gonna regularly listen to

[00:43:32] James: it, as amazing as it is, I'm not gonna make my friends sit through that.

[00:43:35] Joe: Yeah. especially

[00:43:36] Joe: if they're, you know, engineers and musicians as well,

[00:43:39] Joe: they're

[00:43:40] James: gonna know,

[00:43:40] James: Yeah. Which is like 90% of my circle.

[00:43:42] James: So,

[00:43:42] Joe: Yeah.

[00:43:43] Joe: But

[00:43:44] Joe: it's still all on you to make that fan connection. And that, I think is like a

[00:43:49] Joe: big part of the d i y ethos too. It's like, being present and being out there and talking to people and being like a good human.

[00:43:56] Joe: it's not necessarily under the definition of what DIY is, but I think,[00:44:00] being in the culture myself at one point, it's like,

[00:44:02] Joe: I dunno if I could technically consider myself still in the culture, even though we do a lot of this stuff ourselves.

[00:44:06] James: I

[00:44:07] James: mean, we

[00:44:07] James: basically

[00:44:07] James: do everything ourselves except the

[00:44:09] Joe: recording

[00:44:09] Joe: Yeah. Which I, I think people would probably call me out for that, but it's fine.

[00:44:12] James: Well, but we still are a

[00:44:14] James: d

[00:44:14] James: y

[00:44:14] James: band.

[00:44:14] James: Yeah. That's the fact.

[00:44:15] James: somebody were to say we're not

[00:44:17] James: d y I'd say, okay, we don't pull our pedals out of a tackle box or an ammo box or a tote bag.

[00:44:22] James: But you know what?

[00:44:23] James: Our music's objectively better. I'm sorry.

[00:44:25] James: And it's not often that I say something like that, but there's

[00:44:28] James: cases

[00:44:29] James: if you

[00:44:29] Joe: know,

[00:44:30] Joe: you

[00:44:30] Joe: know,

[00:44:30] Joe: you can be a d i y band and still have that presence on the stage where you walk in and you're people see you and they're like, oh, this person knows what they're doing.

[00:44:39] Joe: Yeah,

[00:44:39] Joe: exactly.

[00:44:40] Joe: And who doesn't want to do that? And have that presence of like, this is what I'm passionate about and I spend a significant amount of my life doing this, investing my own money that I make at my job in

[00:44:50] Joe: this.

[00:44:51] Joe: Why would you not want that to be the best it could

[00:44:54] James: possibly

[00:44:55] James: be?

[00:44:55] James: Right? If you're spending money, spend it on things that make

[00:44:58] James: sense? Yeah. Don't

[00:44:59] James: buy that [00:45:00] $5,000

[00:45:00] James: guitar, right? Buy a

[00:45:01] James: $2,000 guitar and spend $3,000 on a producer.

[00:45:05] James: Mic drop.

[00:45:05] James: Yeah.

[00:45:06] James: Cool.