Cannon Moore: Embracing Autism through the Universal Language of Music

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast, hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City USA from Nashville, Tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some
will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real
life people who will inspire and show that you are not.
Alone in this world.
Hopefully you'll gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding
for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome
to Why Not Me the World? Joining us today is
a young producer and musician coming to us from Florida.
Canon Moore is our guest today. Thanks for joining us, Canon,
Oh no, probably okay, So I told everybody that I
have a young producer and a musician. So just how
young are you now? I am currently twenty one? Twenty one? Yeah,
twenty one seems like yesterday, great age. So what age
was it when you was first diagnosed as autistic?
So I had my diagnosis and whenever I turned about
almost five, so for quite a while I've already known.
So yeah, it's been pretty much a while.
So when you was diagnosed, was there any markers or
things that your parents were seeing that made them realize
that they needed to have to get with a doctor
and get a diagnosis.
Yeah, so basically they told me that, you know, I
had delays and learning, you know, just like the usual
stuff you'll see common with with also inspection disorder. For
the most part, it was just like delays and learning
and delays and walking talking, just all that.
Okay, So once you was diagnosed and you started adapting
and learning as you was growing older, how did that
affect your day to day life with different people you
might come in contact with.
Yeah, so I wasn't wanted to make a lot of friends.
I would always try, but everyone else would just like
not like me as much, and they would just kind
of just zone off and just the kind of ignore
me and just like ghost me the rest of the way.
But I would always explain things in certain ways that
I thought was nice when I actually wasn't, So no
one ever explained that to me.
So I was just really bad with social situations.
But after I found out about that, then I you know,
started to kind of go off and try to six
what I can do so I can actually start having
friends or like start explaining things better so people understand
me better.
Sure, so you're getting close to let's say twelve thirteen
years old, you're getting close to high school. Did you
start branching out more socializing and when you did, how
did that affect your high school years.
I never actually attended high school after sixth grade.
I got homeschool the rest of the way.
I couldn't really like handle school very well, so I
kind of just wanted to do my own thing.
So that's about really it for that.
I didn't get really any social I wasn't social really
at all, to be honest, Like, through like the high
school middle school years, I was mostly just with my
family that whole time.
Okay, so no social life. You're living at home, you're
learning your homeschoo cooling, you're growing. What else can you
tell me about your life at that time.
Yeah, So when all this was going on, we were
living at a lake house. It was located in Indiana.
It was it was a pretty decent house. It was
pretty big, it was really nice. It was a good
environment to be around. But it was just Honestly, if
I were to go back there, I totally would like
it was probably I've made the greatest memories there too.
It wasn't just all bad.
Well that's good, because you never want to take and
just look at all the bad. You want to look
at some good. So now I believe you're living in Orlando.
Is that correct?
Yeah, I'm in Orlando now.
So what prompted the move from where you were to Orlando?
Yeah, so at the lake House, my mom decided to
move our cell so she sold and then we moved
to actually, we moved to Waterloo in Indiana, and we
stayed there for about a year. She's kind of like
fix it up houses and then resell them. So after that,
I decided to you know, that I need to do
something to actually carry on my career in music. So
I enrolled myself into college and I did everything I
could to possibly figure out how to get down to Orlando.
So by the time I got down to Orlando, was
absolutely no money. I had no money, no anything, just
an apartment and that's basically really it. I kind of
stepped on the floor. I was still trying to go
to my classes. And then that's when actually one of
my best friends came along.
Oh that's great. It's always good to have a friend
you can count on. So what age was it that
you decided, You know, I think I want to do music,
and that's going to be my life.
Ever since I was little, I loved music, but I
didn't realize that I really enjoyed it until I was
about like ten and I got into this music called
a EDM. It wasn't pretty known at my age, but
now it's really known. But whenever I played it, you know,
my family, they would just make fun of me, saying
that you know, it's not good. It's they'd just be like, yeah,
this is like yeah, like no one's going to listen
to this, like like you're trying to make a fool
out of yourself.
Basically, I get.
That sometimes family will have no filter and tell you
whatever they first think, because that's what family does sometimes.
But that doesn't mean they're not behind you or support you.
It just means that sometimes I just don't get it
and you have to follow through on your own.
I enjoyed it so much, like I would play it
over and over and over again. I would play I
would play a song over two hundred and fifty times
a day, like the same song, Like that's how much
I loved it. It made me feel so happy, like
and I wanted to give that towards other people.
So that's why I started to get really into music.
That's great, needless to say. I love music. So music
can do so many things. It can create memories, it
can back memories, it can just do so much. So
I'm really glad that you found that because music can
can change the world. So tell me a little bit
about your music. What you do, what you play, and
how you go about doing what you do in bringing
your music to the places that you want for people
to hear you.
Yeah, so I do everything over laptop. I use they
call it a dog daw. It's basically like a music programming.
Software. So I use able to Live eleven now.
So I used to use fl That's how I first
started getting into it was FO Studios that's what they
call it, or Fruity Lips a side name. I got
none of that, and then I wanted to take a
step up from that because FO Studio is pretty good,
like a lot of people use it, but it's not
the most advanced software out there. So I swifted to
able ten and I started to make That's why I
started to kind of swing off and like Genres, so
I used I would start with dovestep House, Future House, pop,
ridam basically all that.
Okay, that's great, So tell me your influences. Who is
it that you listen to that inspired you? And you said,
you know, if I can do music, put it out there.
This is kind of the way I would want to go.
Yeah.
So I didn't have the big like I didn't have
the biggest inspirations.
There was this a label. It was a small label
at the time. He is Billy. The founder of this
label is Billy Woodford.
He created NCS basically is like no copyright sounds and
then he signed really famous artists that turned out to
be really famous over time. So like Alan Walker used
to make like music for NCS. Now, I a lot
of people saw this music as intro music, like you know,
music that you put on YouTube for like listening to
on the side.
But that's not how I saw it.
That music I listened to every day straight, like non
stop because it was just it made me feel something.
So like NCS and all the NCS artists Alan Walker, Electrolyte, Tobu,
Gemosaf can name a bunch, like all of them were
my inspirations and that's what I wanted to do.
Well, that's great because it is a situation that when
someone listens to what you're doing, you're hoping that what
you're doing will inspire them and help them through whatever
they may be going through. So I command you for that,
And what I just say is do what you like
to do, because if you like it, there's going to
be other people that will like it. You create your
own pocket of people that follow you, and then you
just never know when you might be the one that's
inspiring someone to do something that they didn't believe they
could do.
Oh yeah, And that's what I'm excited for because if
I know, you know that I'm helping people because music,
you know, it saved my life for myself. I've been
through in and out of a lot of behavioral health
hospitals and because the family issues all that, and every
single time, music has got me through everything I needed
to get through. So me doing that for other people,
it really it would mean the world to me, to be.
Honest, that's awesome and I really hope that you can.
So what do you do on a daily basis now?
Because you're autistic and you still have to take and
deal with that. So what's your day to day look
like so that you can still keep moving forward to
achieve the goals that you want to achieve for yourself.
Yeah.
So I have a lot of coping mechanisms. The biggest
one is just self talk to keep my confidence up.
That's a really big one for me, believing that you
can do anything because you really can. You can do
literally anything you want as long as you keep going
for it, and as long as you don't give up,
it's just a matter of time before it actually happens.
So that's why I've always told myself. I do use
some other things like headphones sometimes because or like earplugs.
Let's see what else. I have a.
Support group kind of My friends are a huge part
of that, so they love the same music I do.
So as like, I used to have the wrong support
group and they would always like.
You know, down what I actually wanted to do.
So I'd say, if you have like a bad support group,
definitely do not listen to whatever they say.
Absolutely, you've got to have people that are in your
corner all the time, but still be realistic about it.
So your circle of friends that you have now that
support you, can you give me a little bit of
information about them. Are they autistic as well or some
are some aren't. What's your support group looked like.
Yeah. So when I went down to Orlando.
It's kind of funny because my friends actually hated me
at first, like I was.
I met them. I met one in class.
We did a class and we did uh like we
had to do like a project for like a music
video or like making a song or something, and everyone
else was just kind of like really like I don't
know what we should do. So I kind of was
like the heads up, kind of like the leader. So
I was like, all right, well, let's just do this then,
and everyone agreed, and so then I said, all right,
let's you guys want to do this, because no one
was giving me ideas, so I just kept throwing in
ideas and everyone was going for them. So later on
they said I was so annoying because I didn't take
any of their ideas.
I'm like, wait, what, you guys have never even gave
me ideas?
So I was, but my friends after that he I
actually went homeless. It was actually really horrible because my
roommates at the time when I moved down to Orlando,
they hated me like so bad, like they're was so
rude to me.
It was so awful. I was like, all right, you
know what, I'm out of here. I can't deal with
this anymore.
So I moved in with That's when I met my
other friend for like, so I went on full sale housing.
That's why I found my best friend. His name is Kim,
and I was going to move in with him. We
set in an apartment room, but I couldn't afford it
because no one would hire me. So I applied for
like ten jobs, like literally ten jobs, and still no
one was hiring me. And within a month, so I
was like, well, if this ain't going to work out.
So Cam had to actually not talk to me anymore
because how bad he felt for me. So he actually
pulled up one day out of nowhere and I was like, hey,
if you ever want to talk, like I really am
not mad at you at all, we should hang out again.
So soon enough you did and we started to actually
talk and get along and then we became literally the
best as friends.
And they have there.
I don't think they're you know, autistic or but I
do think they have disabilities like I think my friend
my friend struggles with ADHD for sure, and you know,
anxiety disorder depression issues at times, and he really does struggle.
So my other friend, on the other hand, he has
his kind of own issues. I'm not he's kind of
like that, like the mystery out of a sucker kind.
Of Okay, I get that. So I think you're a
pretty bright guy overall. So how do you think dealing
with your autism over the last ten years or so
has helped you move forward in what you want to do? Musically?
Autism honestly, it kind of like I feel like it
makes me not like it makes me not smart in
certain areas like socializing, but it makes me extremely smart
in what I want to do, like music. So like
I could get on a doll ableton and I could
just or I could get on like pro tools, like
a really advanced software and just scroll down and play
with it, like I been playing with it for years,
and it's like it's all just common sense for me,
like all that is. But with you know, socializing, that's
something I have to really like put effort into because
it's like really hard for me. So like I think
autism is just really a mystery for a lot of people.
Yeah, that's well said. My main thing that I wanted
to have my listeners. Here is your approach on it
and how you deal with it on a daily basis.
The biggest thing that we have to do is get
people who aren't autistic a better understanding on how to
deal with it. Now, I'm just so glad that it's
working out well for you.
Yes, I am glad to.
Yeah, me too. So what's your aspirations? Where do you
see yourself musically a year from now, five years from now,
what do you think you're going to be doing and
how you're going to be reaching your goals you set
for yourself.
Yeah?
So I would call myself a dreamer, like I do
nothing but have big goals, Like that's who I am. Like,
I see myself within a year djaying huge festivals and
getting paid thousands of dollars every month. That's what I
see within one year for me, and I've been working
super hard to make that come true. You know, you
got to put in the effort. My biggest reason to
live is I love to make people happy. Like that's honestly,
I think would be my biggest reason to live is
making myself and others happy.
That's awesome, because number one, you have to be happy
for what you're doing, and then if you're making others
happy with what you're doing, that's just a big bonus.
So now that we've covered what you want to do
and everything, are you still in school at the moment?
Yeah?
So I go to college still. I got to full
Still University in Orlando. I switched to online because I'm
planning on moving to Colorado pretty soon. So that's gonna
happen in probably two months to three months hopefully to
get everything going. I'm going to try to get connections
down there. That's the reason why I'm going down there
is to figure out, you know, new connections new because
Colorado is called is the base capital for EDM, so
it'd be I find really good connections in there. So
I'm just like currently traveling trying to get as much
things as possible, because really what connections is what matters
if you're trying to get into the music industry, because
one person could say, oh wow, this song's awesome and
they can make it a hit song if they're already famous,
like Ali takes one person.
That's absolutely correct. So what part of Colorado are you
looking at?
Moving to?
So Denver is out of my budget, so I'm trying
to go for Fort Collins and Denver is out of
control currently, so Fort Collins is very like chill, there's
a lot of kind of peace. Community is like a
college community down for Collins. And well most music actually
from EIGHTM come from Fort Collins, so especially like Red Rocks,
I believe is only like thirty minutes from Fort Collins.
So that would be crazy to live there, and I
would love to live there.
That sounds like a good plan. I've heard that that's
a really nice area to be and it sounds to
me like you've done your due diligence and homework on that.
So that's great.
Yes, thank you.
So you went through these years learning what you know now,
figuring out what you had to learn so that you
could take and do what you wanted to do. What
was your process in thinking of your future, knowing that
there's all these obstacles that you've gone through, more obstacles
that will come, and you have to let people know
that just because you're autistic doesn't mean that you can't
go for this, do this and make this your life
one that is doing what you want to do.
Yeah, So, just like I said, self talk is one
of my greatest coping skills. But also I have a
huge imagination and just seeing myself like and just seeing
where I want to be in my head and imagining it.
That what truly makes me happy. Just seeing like me
up on stage, just you know, like everyone cheering for me.
There's over five hundred thousand people in front of me,
even the people that you hated me in the first
place and told me that I would never get here,
Like just seeing them scream at me because how much
they want to, you know, get a signature from me.
That's what I That's what really keeps me going. That's great.
You know, the best way to get back at someone
is just to have some success. Oh yes, well, I
think what you're doing is really good. I think that
you've got a lot of great plans and and the
music business is a tough business. So I can commend
you for what you're doing. And I think that overall,
with everything you've gone through and what you're going through
in your plans, I think you should be really proud
of yourself.
Oh I am really proud of myself, especially like thinking
looking back of all the things I went through and
know I am still you know, keep going it's honestly,
I'm so proud of myself.
Well that's good because part of going out in the
world is having that self confidence that you can do it,
having that little bit of ego that you know that.
You can do it.
But don't let the ego override your self confidence so
that it makes you look bad. And then the biggest
thing is do not let anyone say or do anything
that stops you from accomplishing what you set out to do.
Yeah, I.
You know, and even like my ego teams seems to
be like a little out of control. But I always
you know, like recommend talking to a like a little friend,
like a therapist, because you know, it's helped me through
so much as well. And I think anyone could bet
a bit from a therapist as even you know, even
if you don't think you don't need it.
Like my mom, you know, she.
Thought she didn't need a therapist, but I said, you know,
it's always good to have like a little side friends,
side buddy, just telling you know, just looking up for you.
You know.
So she did, and you know she says, you know,
it improved her mid so much and improved mine. So
it's it would be really good to have.
That's good solid advice because anyone anywhere sometimes just needs
a little help. And some people think that, oh, I
don't need to see a psychiatrist because they say I'm
not crazy. Yeah, well, if that psychiatrist helped you get
through whatever issue you're going through, then when you finish up,
you realize that you need that deep breath, and things
on the other side sometimes will look just a little
bit better.
It's been a struggle, but I'm proud of myself. I'm
really just.
Glad to hear the things that you've been through, the
struggles that you've been through, and you've been able to
keep a put one foot in front of the other
and keep moving forward, and you haven't let anybody get
in your head and stop you. And because it's so easy,
you know, to let somebody you know, kind of you know,
with all the people that would say you can't do this,
it's it's easy for to start
believing that and then and then give up. And you
haven't done that. That's that's pretty awesome.
Oh, yes, and life.
And you know, I thought about this and I've realized
that emotions is a big reason of why people want
to live, you know, and.
If people don't have emotions, you know, what would life be.
It would be kind of pointless.
So like emotions, and you have to realize that happiness
and just feeling amazing every single day, that's honestly what
really matters. And taking or caring for other people and
making them feel amazing too, because I'll make you feel amazing,
and that's really like the true reason anyone should want
to live.
Absolutely. Are you sure you're only twenty one with that
kind of thought process, it sounds like you're about fifty one.
No, yeah, I am twenty one. I actually just turned
twenty one a few months ago in March March twenty ninth.
Well that's a real positive way to look at things,
and I think that's just outstanding.
Oh yeah, I totally agree with that because I do
not see a lot of people my age being very positive.
But yeah, I literally.
Run off positivity like that's my whole self conscious. That's
just positivity.
That's great. I really appreciate what you're doing because you're
not allowing autism to change your goals. You're setting goals,
you're working towards them. And let me tell you, success
is varied on. Everyone has their different views of success,
but what really comes down to is if you're happy
with what you're doing and you're seeing progress and you're
creating a body of work that everybody likes, that's successful.
So you've just got to take and keep working on
that no matter whether it takes a year or five years.
You've got the age going for you and you can
build this thing and do it.
Oh yes, I think that you know that you're really
just being happy or feeling like happiness yourself. And you know,
even if you're like in a you know, living in
a trailer or something, if you're happy, then that that's
probably more successful than someone working or really being famist
and being depressed their whole life. So I think that
just going forth and being happy for what you want
to do, that's like, that's truly being successful.
Absolutely, And I think you've got a great mindset. Now.
Of course it takes time to get in a better place,
but you're only twenty one, so you've gone through a
lot of things in your life and you've got a
great mindset. Is there anything that you look back and say,
you know, I wish I'd done this, or I wish I
could change this.
Yeah.
So what I really wish, and I thought my whole
life that I wish I could change about myself was
I wish I would show them how much I love
them actually, instead of just feeling it in the inside
and not showing them, you know, because I always felt
weird if I like said, you know, I love you
to my mom or something. But I really want to,
you know, show my mom that I love her. It's
just I couldn't because I kind of feel awkward about it.
I think that's because of my autism. So I really
wish I could really show people how much that, you know,
that what they mean to me, and that they like
really deserve more than what getting.
That's an awesome statement, and I truly hope that the
people listening will say, you know, what he said, I
need to do more of. So this podcast is about understanding,
and I think you've done a great job at showing
how autism has affected your life and how you've overcome
some obstacles and done some great things. So anything else
that you'd like to leave us with.
Oh yeah, A big one is just be yourself, because
being yourself, like you don't want to cut off some
things about you to fit into a friend group you
don't belong in, because you're just gonna end up hurting
yourself in the long run. Just be yourself and you'll
find your true friends. And believe me, I sure have
after I've been after I was myself for a very
long time, never found my friend group, and after I
just started being myself, I my friend group just pops
right in front of me. And yeah, that's that's. You know,
being yourself is a true key to being truly happy.
It absolutely is. And I've just enjoyed our conversation so
much today.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
It's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out
of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone they
would like to tell us their story, send them to
tonymantor dot com. Contact then they can give us their
information so one day they may be a guest on
our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere
about why not me? The world, the conversations we're having,
and the inspiration our guests gives to everyone everywhere That
You are not alone in this world.