Behind the Country Music: No Regrets with Spencer Crandall

 You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast.
 I'm Ryan Alford, your host.
 We say if it's radical, we cover it.
 You know what?
 I'm beginning to know this artist pretty well behind the scenes.
 I'm happy to have him on today.
 He's independent country music all star.
 I'll call him an independent all star because there's either independent music is getting
 bigger and things like that, but he's an all star.
 You'll know his music when you play it.
 Spencer Krandel.
 Welcome to the show.
 What's up, David?
 Thanks for having me, man.
 Hey, my pleasure.
 I'm trying to get all the country people I can get.
 I'm like, the show's gotten big enough to where I can like have my like crossovers and
 things like that.
 I'm looking forward to talking crossover, but I love having country music artists and talking
 to their journeys.
 So it's been great.
 Absolutely.
 At least behind the scenes, seeing your story and listening to more of your songs that
 I'd already heard.
 It was like one of those words, names sounds familiar, it's real familiar.
 Oh, there's a song made, I knew that song.
 I was like on the playlist of Ryan's Summer Faves.
 It was on the playlist, like already.
 Good to have you, brother.
 How's Nash Vegas Street?
 Yeah.
 It's good.
 It's Nash Vegas.
 We're here for whatever, 12 hours to get back in from Maui, so I'm in my weird time zone
 era where I'm like, I have no idea what time it is in my head.
 It feels like 5am.
 Yeah.
 It also feels like 5pm.
 So we're here.
 We're doing the dang thing back in town for 72 hours and then we'll back on the road.
 I know.
 I always wondered like with artists, like the time zone thing and just to travel, you got
 to just be built for it.
 The need of your are built for it, you're going to have to get some scars and just use
 to it, right?
 Yeah, there's like a callus in your mind that just builds up where it's, I was on a flight
 last night and I weirdly, maybe like a psychopath, I was like, this is my home.
 This is where I belong.
 I'm always on a plane, so it's real, man.
 I feel like half of the airports in the United States are going to be like, oh, dude,
 there's this great chick flare.
 There's a jump in, right around the corner, like I know airports really too well.
 I can sleep anywhere now, which is a superpower.
 I can just take a 10 minute power nap on the floor of any terminal that ever existed.
 So again, these are like superpowers yet also probably my red flags at this point.
 Dude, I used, I flew like 200 legs.
 I used to fly, I lived in Manhattan and worked in advertising and flew like every week.
 And you kind of get used to it, but you never do.
 But I say, what, if you weren't a good napper, you're in trouble.
 Like you have to learn to nap.
 You're going to hurt me.
 You've got to fall asleep at any place, like in the chair, wherever it is.
 But Spencer, man, let's do some background, got from Denver somehow got into country music.
 I guess Denver's kind of, I don't know, the country down to the west a bit, but people
 in Denver will eat you alive if you don't say their country because they are sneaky country
 in Colorado.
 Denver specifically, it's like any city, right?
 You have city folk and then you have you go, I was in a cool place and this really informs
 a lot of my music because I lived in a stubborn, called Hounds Ranch, Colorado.
 And 30 minutes to downtown and then 30 minutes this way is like where we would go camping,
 like devil's head, which is like the middle of nowhere looking up from miles and just mountains
 and pine trees.
 So it's really cool dichotomy of I can be downtown in a hustle and bustle and I can
 go absolutely nowhere, grew up camping, fishing, hiking, snowboarding, every single weekend.
 So that's just kind of cool, it was a Colorado kid and then I moved to Nashville and there's
 no hiking and there's no outdoors.
 So that's why I'm frequently in Denver.
 But yeah, I came to it, honestly, my parents are a fanatical country music fans.
 So like Kenny Chesney, George Straighten, Chennai Twain and Garth, it was just on in the
 car, it was on when we were camping, it was on during everything.
 So I remember there's a point in middle school where some of my friends started to play
 like rap and I was like, I felt like I was raised in a cult.
 I was like, what is this magical music that you play and then my older brother was the
 opposite of me where he was like, whatever mom and dad do, I'll do the opposite.
 So he went online, wire and crashed all our computers and started listening to rap
 and stuff.
 But it was always country music for me, I didn't know anything different.
 I love that.
 But like, how soon did you pick up the guitar?
 Was that an immediate thing or is that like later like 10 years?
 Yeah, it was a weird story.
 So I never really did music.
 I sang in the choir when I was a really little kid and then my voice changed so I got the
 squeaks.
 Yeah.
 And Puberty hit me like a ton of bricks around like 12, 13.
 So I just thought, okay, singing is off the table unless I want to have a viral YouTube
 video of me squeaking along to the National Anthem or something.
 I was out then around, I guess 18, they do this thing in my high school called the Senior
 Project.
 There's this big emphasis on, you have to have a learning stretch.
 You got to try something brand new and I was the football captain and wrestling captain.
 So I felt like it was cool to try something in musical world that I was obsessed with
 music is just as a fan.
 I think that's where my love of music really just comes from.
 I went to concerts as a fan for 20 years before I ever played a concert.
 And so for my senior project, I learned to play the guitar and write a song.
 I thought that was a cool way to stretch myself and I fell in love with it.
 But then I went to go play college football and I never thought about it again.
 I was like, oh, what a fun thing to do for my project.
 And then when I got hurt in college, I got two shoulder surgeries, tore up my labrums,
 did all this crazy stuff, had a bunch of doctors like dude, stop hitting really big guys
 at fast speeds.
 You've got to cut that out of your life.
 And so I was bored and I was tired and I was burned out and I would just sat in my dorm
 room and I would learn covers and chords and just became obsessed.
 I started skipping class, not even on purpose.
 I would just look down at my clock and be like, oh my God, I've been here for seven hours
 and YouTube just learning random little things.
 And so I came by it been a weird way.
 I went to go play college football and ended up finding a guitar in my dorm room.
 And the rest is kind of history.
 I started hosting.
 I started playing these little tailgate parties at my college and just it felt like free
 drugs.
 Every time I did it, I was like, people do this for a living like, I want to do it.
 And here you are doing your real living.
 The adults that come from playing live, I grew up with a family of musicians actually.
 And it's funny when you talk about that journey and having the brother that did everything
 counter to parents, whatever I grew up with the dad that played in bands and not anything
 big, just local stuff.
 And but very talented musician and I never was into it because it wasn't like I was against
 it.
 I wasn't like, but I just couldn't quite get into what dad was into.
 And then it took me getting into college and learning to play and all that and got it.
 But it's funny how you never know how the journey comes together depending on what it
 is.
 It's crazy, right?
 It's crazy, right?
 Were you natural once you start?
 Sounds like you worked at it.
 Some people are just like, have that natural rhythm.
 I do think I have a natural ability for music like it would be a lie to say and I sat
 there and I had to grind it out and I think it came pretty naturally when I got on YouTube
 and stuff.
 But I don't think when you listen to my voice from the time I started singing till now,
 like I'll show it almost as like a party trick because people are like, what?
 That can't be you in like a good way.
 I think I was naive enough to think that I was better than I was or maybe there's some
 healthy delusion early on to be like, I'm good enough to at least just keep going because
 it really pulled me through and so I think there was some natural ability matched with
 some, I'm a mama's voice and maybe there's some like confidence that was given to me
 on some sort of level for my mom just thinking that I hung the moon or something.
 And then I think there's some, there's definitely some hard work.
 I think there's also a part of the story where, you know, when you're sitting down for
 seven hours playing the guitar, it's not every minute is like, actually see, you're hitting
 the wrong notes 17 times in a row.
 That's where most people dip out.
 And I think doing that with the internet, doing that with songwriting, doing that with touring,
 like there are parts of this journey where it feels like banging your head against a wall.
 But weirdly, the obstacle is the way or say that in Stoicism.
 It's like the way forward is just through the pain and through the hard work.
 So it's a weird mix and everybody's mix is different, but it got me to where I am.
 So I'm happy about the mix.
 I'm a big believer in confidence and I think you have to have it on some level to fuel
 people that become great, whether it's delusional or not, and there's fine light of confidence
 in arrogance.
 And I'm sure you were called both and not everyone that's ever been confident had a little
 bit of those.
 But I think it's necessary to push yourself to those further channels because if you
 lack confidence, it's just real hard to get there super hard to get there.
 And I think the hardest part is that it's really hard to start.
 Yeah.
 And I think that's where 99% of people dip out because here's a great example.
 I'm in college and I start showing up to parties and people ask me what I do.
 And I just start saying, I'm a country artist.
 And half of my friends are laughing in my face.
 And I just had this thing in my head.
 I'm like, I don't know why this example comes to mind.
 Like when you first start to wear like a different cut of jeans and people are like, what
 are you doing?
 That's so weird.
 And they're asking you where you got your jeans.
 Yep.
 That to me is kind of like career choices like when people like, how do I become a
 country artist?
 I'm like, ready?
 Say it with me.
 I'm a country artist.
 I want to be an author.
 I'm an author.
 I think Shawn Mendes said that, like really sustain please, if you want to be a songwriter
 or just say your songwriter, that's all it is.
 It's just you jump into it.
 And then even though you're not it, telling yourself that you are on a daily basis confirming
 that with your tribe and your community, confirming it with your actions and your head,
 that's where you build confidence.
 So even though I sucked and even though I had no business being like, I'm a country artist
 because when you think country artist, you're not Kenny Chesney.
 But even Kenny Chesney, one day sat down and looked in the mirror and was like, I'm a
 country artist.
 And it felt weird.
 It didn't fit like a glove.
 So it's that, are you confident or are you like saying that's your confident, which makes
 you confident?
 And I just went with fake it till you make it's definitely a weird thing to say.
 But at the same time, those first couple of months, you're faking it a little bit and
 that's okay.
 There's this kind of growing into it.
 And that takes confidence.
 That takes starting and sticking with it and having people laugh in your face and then
 five years later be like, Hey, dude, I see you playing at this venue.
 Can you let go for me tickets?
 And then you're like, you're laughing me for the calmness of a country artist.
 Get out of here.
 All right.
 So you do put them on the front row then.
 I can't do it.
 It makes me super happy because there's something about that just, I'll do what I can.
 And that's like being kind to others and if people want to do what they do, let them
 do what they do.
 Yeah.
 But you know what?
 It goes back to, if you want anyone else to believe it, you got to believe it first.
 So.
 Absolutely.
 Maybe I may have an energy to talk about that all the time, like sometimes I can feel frustrated
 even in the songwriter room or whatever and a lot of times the things that I end up
 like messing up or the things that I'm not satisfied with, it's coming from me.
 Like I am this engine and my manager and my PR team and my publisher and agent and all
 these people.
 There are only multipliers of me, like if I'm giving zero, they can't 100 x zero is zero.
 So it has to like come from this core, which is me and that can be frustrating at times
 because you're like, I want, I wish there was like a stomp double where if this person
 could come in and play the show or write the song, but that ain't it, man, it's got to
 come from this one place and you got to exude the confidence because if I'm the captain
 of the ship and I'm like, we're going there.
 That's how people get behind you and blow more wind in your sales.
 You know what Spencer, you really opened something for me.
 I didn't ever think about this, but I'm not sure around for businesses and but every
 artist is truly an entrepreneur.
 And what you just described is like being the captain, it is and I don't know why I never
 thought about it that way.
 I think that's how it's done on the team and whether you're independent or not, you've
 got all these people like, no, but you're actually the big boss man and it's all behind
 you.
 And if you don't have the ideas, the energy, the drive and all of those things, then
 it kind of starts and stops with you.
 You can feel it.
 There are certain artists where they don't have a plan and people tell them what their
 plan is.
 Yeah.
 And it just never quite works the same when it's coming directly from the source.
 And so it's frickin' real man.
 I talked to a lot of people who are getting into this and they'll ask me about my journey
 and I frame it as there is the art and there is the commerce and they don't have to compete.
 They actually beautifully work in and out of each other.
 It's did become not only an artist in your head, but there's also a day in my mind where
 I'm a country artist and I'm a CEO and that's going to say I'm a douchey to people because
 there's this hustle culture and everyone has CEO in their bio, but the reality is if you
 have a business and you're making the executive decisions of that business day in and day out,
 you are paying people's electric bills.
 You are putting people in positions where their job is on the line.
 You got to think that way.
 And I think there's something really cool about flipping that switch specifically for
 artists and even more specifically for independent artists to go, there's nobody coming.
 There's no rescue mission to come scoop you up and put you on star mountain.
 You got to wake up in the morning and go, what are my finances?
 What is my schedule?
 What do I want to say as an artist?
 Nobody's going to come tell you that.
 So you have to wake up and flip that switch every morning and go like, all right, this
 is my baby.
 If I don't want it, no one else is going to want it more than me.
 So I got to like almost re up my contract with myself on a daily basis and be like, all right,
 I love this thing.
 I want to say this.
 I want to sound like this.
 I want to tell this story.
 I think it's what great CEOs do as well.
 Very insightful.
 A lot of impact there.
 And I want to go down the independent versus signed artists thing.
 But before we go there, I do want to enlighten people because you're a very insightful
 bright guy.
 It takes me.
 This is like episode 360 from I've interviewed a lot of people.
 You're very well spoken and very bright and you will do great, even if you, even if
 you didn't know right now, you'd be a CEO somewhere, you already got to figure it out
 those parts.
 But let's talk, I do want to talk.
 It hasn't been all roses.
 So what have been the biggest pain points of the journey thus far before we kind of go
 down that independent label route?
 You have funny because I think it's almost the same route because in so many ways I came
 to town.
 I thought the answer was, I'm going to sign this giant record deal.
 People are going to come scoop me up and take me up to star mountain and everybody looked
 me in my face and said, go home.
 You don't belong here.
 This isn't for you.
 We have enough of you.
 And I felt just ostracized in a lot of ways and so I don't recommend this, but I also,
 this is the superpower that me and my manager found is that when you get kicked off the island
 or like more if you get banished to the island and you have to learn how to survive, you learn
 how to do it for real.
 And there's a difference between I want a song right because it'd be nice to have a hit
 song versus I have to song right because I have to make this work for me.
 There's nobody to come get me.
 And that desperation was the hardest part, but also it's like such a driving factor and
 it's why I am.
 But it keeps me up at night and it definitely, there's been moments on a journey where it
 feels just very overwhelming to go, you're telling me I have to write the song, edit the
 song, produce the song, mix the song, master the song, market the song, put the song out,
 distribute the song, tour the song, play it at VIPs, do podcasts, do make the TikToks, edit
 the TikTok.
 There's so much to do and there's only 24 hours in a day.
 There's only so much bandwidth that my brain can handle before it feels like it's just
 overwhelmed.
 And I think last year, we referenced this in a bit of joking way, but in a serious way
 as well in my camp of let's not go back to September 2022 and everyone just goes correct,
 which is we all were just burnt to a crisp.
 We were so tired at that point it was six years straight of just 14, 15 hour days, no
 weekends off and I'm looking in the mirror going, I love this thing but it's eating me
 alive.
 My balance was so off and that's the problem with the hustle culture is you can be led
 to believe that you have such little time.
 There's no such thing as patience, you have to go today.
 And in fact, I just robbed myself of filling my well up as I went and then the injury
 that happened and I used injury kind of intentionally because for the last six months, I've been
 battling burnout almost like an injury like a bum knee of, dude, I can't even play the
 game.
 I want to play because I'm like scared.
 I'm scared to go out there and you see this in football guys who go and break their
 femur and then they go to be running back again is not the same.
 I feel like I'm over that hump now, but there was probably a few months at the beginning
 of the year where I was like, I don't even, I don't want to go right.
 I don't want to play shows.
 I'm just going to get sick.
 I'm just going to feel burnt out and that's really hard to overcome and that comes from,
 it's cool.
 When good things happen and you're the guy, it can feel awesome because everyone's,
 you did that.
 You're the man.
 No one could stop you.
 But when you're burning out and drowning alone, it can feel very isolating and it can
 feel very, just it's a lonely road.
 And I think that's nobody talks about that because there's not a lot of us on the lonely
 road.
 We're from the road few have traveled.
 Yeah.
 It's freaking real.
 All right.
 I'm going to ask you this.
 I think I've asked every country artist this that I've talked to or if I did not
 met him, how do you not party every fucking night?
 I like, it's a, I was saying I was like, you're doing a show and it's a party.
 It's everybody's party.
 They're at.
 You're throwing the party.
 You're throwing the party every night and I know that some people do and this is why
 the artists like completely burn out.
 They either make it and they give it a hump or they do it like, but how do you make it?
 What's the balance of that?
 Dude, for me, I don't do balance as well.
 It a lot of facets of my life.
 So I have to make tough decisions and one of the toughest decisions I made six years
 ago was just to give it up because I couldn't do it anymore.
 I was going so hard.
 I moved to Nashville and I for the first six months, all of a sudden I woke up and I'm
 like, going out five, six nights a week, like, my goal is to play football stadium, but
 I'm writing a song a week because I'm so hungover, I can barely move and I would do it
 in the name of connections or in the name of networking.
 The reality is I was doing it because I had this kind of addictive personality to be
 in the life of the party and going out and this job will already spit you up, chew you
 up, spit you out kind of thing.
 For me, I had to give up alcohol so I've been sober for six years but I don't understand.
 God bless the people who can do that every night because I already find so much struggle
 and just how hard it is doing this sober.
 I don't understand God bless these people who can get messed up and then wake up the next
 morning and sing again.
 I don't think it's hard.
 It's hard not to be able to do it, don't they?
 Don't a lot of the people in Nashville do it?
 You probably know many people do that.
 So many of my good friends and they don't have drinking problems, they're just having
 a good time but I do think it's a heavy factor in burnout and I think a lot of people that
 I've talked to have started to lean off a little bit because I think at the early levels
 you can get away with it, the higher up you get, man, it's no longer just for funsy.
 There's a mess of a weekend by getting too drunk and you get sick or you lose your voice.
 Some of these guys, you're giving up half a million dollars to a million dollars to go
 have a party.
 The sacrifice is real and I think for me I just felt like if I really wanted to live this
 dream of mine and I mapped it out starting at the end goal and working backwards, I couldn't
 get the math to work out where I was still drinking and partying.
 So for that and many other reasons, I hung up the cape a few years ago.
 Congratulations for seeing and sticking with that.
 That's not an easy thing to do, man.
 That's it.
 It's not easy and it's definitely not easy to do and three nights a week you're throwing
 the party and people hand you a shot on stage so it's a weird job.
 It's a weird way to make a living, specifically when you're throwing the party and you don't
 party.
 Has it gotten easier?
 It's got much easier.
 I think year one is really tough because it feels like you could say, oh, I took a break
 but now I'm back.
 Now I think I actually take a lot of pride in my sobriety so to give up my six year number
 just doesn't feel worth it anymore and I've had the benefit of watching countless nights
 now where it's, yeah, I went to bed early and I feel fantastic and I got to work out
 in and my voice feels good and then my buddies get up and they're not feeling the same way.
 So in a lot of ways, it's, you just are first where the pleasure is, right?
 You're reversed their pleasure.
 Instead of being 11 or 12 at night when they think they're having all the pleasure, you're
 up at eight and you've had a good breakfast, you feel good and you want to tack the world,
 right?
 Yeah, sometimes I feel like a spokesperson for sobriety because I've just seen the benefits
 of it.
 So I got to be careful because there's lots of people who can just drink for fun and
 have a great time.
 So if you're one of those people, keep doing it.
 If you're not one of those people and you're wondering if it's worth it, I would actually
 say it's pretty worth it, man.
 It's been pretty life-changing for me.
 I appreciate that transparency, man.
 I'd think that a lot of people can relate to that.
 So let's talk independent versus not independent.
 We got so much going on, man, but social media and all these other outlets now.
 But let me just, you're going to tell us because I want to hear your point of view on it.
 But do you want to remain independent?
 I think that question, it reminds me of a similar question which is, do you want to get
 married?
 Which I think the answer is obvious, yes.
 But I don't want to get married to get married.
 I don't want to get married because my friends are getting married.
 And I don't want to get married because I have a fear of not getting married.
 So let's translate that over to labels.
 I don't want to sign to sign.
 I don't want to sign because my friends are getting signed.
 And I don't want to sign because I'm fear never signing.
 So it really needs to be a good fit.
 I think a lot of the miscommunication between me and record labels has been thinking
 differently.
 Just about how business and life and these things work and I think people are getting
 a lot more creative.
 So I feel more hope than ever.
 I saw that I just signed a publishing deal, which is really exciting and Warner Chapo got
 creative with us.
 And they got realistic with us.
 And they started talking about making music and writing songs in 2028 instead of 20
 2000.
 That's the difference.
 Nowadays artists have so much to do and they have so much agency and autonomy.
 So to give all that up, it has to just make sense.
 And it has to be with people who the ideology is aligned perfectly.
 And I think we've come close.
 I think we've talked to some awesome people.
 But it's like dating.
 Like I've gotten some great dates.
 I've even had some long-term relationships that are really nice.
 But I've never felt that I got to get hitched and I got to get hitched tomorrow.
 What does it open up like in today's world?
 What does, I know what it meant 15 years ago or 10 years ago, maybe even 7 years ago.
 But what does signing open up for Spencer Crandel that you don't already have that you're
 back in call?
 That's a great question.
 I feel like in country music specifically, there are a few key factors.
 One would be just pure capital, right?
 We can't ignore the fact that if I want a million dollars, I have to wait till I have
 a million dollars.
 Yeah.
 I'm a record label.
 I can take on a million dollar loan against myself, which is a whole other conversation.
 At any moment.
 And so I can go do things today that I couldn't do because I have that up for a capital.
 So that's important.
 They operate as a bank and that's the game that they play that's how they make money.
 And it actually does benefit a lot of artists because they can go record the album now.
 They can hop on the tour bus now instead of waiting or just not being able to do it in
 general.
 I always say this and I meet it in a loving way, but there's like a game of thrones aspect
 to labels.
 There's these five humans, honestly, if sounds conspiracy theory, but it's not.
 It's like there's really next 10 people and there's trading favors back and forth.
 So it's like we will give you the Morgan Wall in tour.
 If you give us the insert other cool artists tour because there's just this kind of trading
 and ability to leverage favors against each other and I don't have that.
 So when you look at a lot of these people on these really cool tours and they're crushing
 it, they don't have, and this is not even like to talk shit.
 It's just there's like a reality in the numbers here.
 I have better numbers than a lot of these people on these tours or all these artists to watch
 lists.
 You watch like 2023 hottest August and I'm going through and I'm going, my monthly listeners
 are all of these people combined, yet we can't get on the list.
 Oh, let's go down the list of people, Sony, Universal, Big Loud, Sony, Big Machines,
 some, like they're all signed.
 Of course, I just missed out on those opportunities and those opportunities, weirdly I think there's
 some beauty in industry facing, fan facing and letting those cups pour in and out of each
 other.
 So when you get on the Billboard, you take that to your people and say, look what we did
 that this is our thing and they blow it up and they stream the music more and then you
 take that to the industry and they go, look, this is our thing, like what we're doing and
 they cup pours back and forth.
 So I missed out on a lot of those opportunities and they put you in the best rooms in the world
 or something to say about like the best rights, the best producer is the best, everything.
 I can't get in some of those rooms.
 So there's just more locked doors and I would say time.
 I think labels can buy you some time and let you skip some steps in some ways that maybe
 aren't real but they help you get there where Jeff is my manager and Jeff and I a lot of
 times we just go, cool, we'll do the same thing in a year and we just have to be okay with
 that opportunity cost.
 Fascinating.
 That's, I've asked that a few times but the bank analogy is it really crystallized for
 me.
 I don't know why no one has quietly framed it that way but that makes a ton of sense.
 I can get out on tour, there's a lot of things and I'll throw in your whole entire life savings
 and every person out into it, put so much risk.
 You can use other people's money to kind of get out there.
 Right, now what you're giving up is what you get back from that.
 So if you want to borrow a million dollars and go cool for sure, now you make six pennies
 on every dollar because we need to make our money back.
 The crazy part about what we do is I make freaking 93 pennies on every dollar and so when
 something really blows up and it's happening organically, what I can do is actually, I think
 there's a lot of benefit to speed.
 Some of the cons of labels are like all of a sudden you have 17 cooks in the kitchen and
 you want to just get one album or approved and it's two cooks say no.
 The whole thing gets scrapped, now you wait in seven months for an album or and the song
 is already dead on TikTok.
 What are we doing?
 So that's the old guard that's people who don't understand how the internet works, how
 really the world works today.
 So you got to find this kind of hopefully the goal is to find somebody who understands
 what we do, what I'm good at and they go, look, you do what you do, we'll do what we do
 really well.
 We can give you more money.
 I can open political doors, but I'm not going to stop you from being able to play the
 game like you need to play the game.
 Yeah.
 That's really interesting.
 What's your favorite song you've done?
 Interesting question, but you haven't had that one.
 I feel like I don't have children, but I've heard that songs are like children and that
 you love them the same yet differently.
 I've had a few songs that really change things for me, which is incredible and I think that's
 it's been a really crazy journey to go from the guy learning to play the guitar in my
 dorm room to having people show up and sing the songs and stuff.
 I have a song called My Person and that song is really special to me.
 It's the one that led the way for so long, opened all the block doors that I couldn't
 get through.
 I have a song called Made that for me just really says something cool and sounds the most
 like me because I think there's so many love songs in the world, but to have a song that
 talks about how hard work or love takes hard work, excuse me, I think it's really special
 and I think I'm really proud to be a part of that message.
 And the fact that it did so well with like a subversive messaging like that is really cool
 to me.
 How does that happen?
 I was like, Made, that's all on my playlist and that's my favorite song of yours.
 Up until I will say what I didn't do is going to be a smash with Cooper Allen.
 We're already going to go down that road, brother.
 I want to hear the whole thing.
 You got to send it to me like after the thing.
 I'm totally done.
 Absolutely done.
 I was going to stop waiting.
 I'm like, I'm going to have the least little inside something here.
 It comes out in two days, I think.
 Yeah.
 We'll talk more about that in a second, but I do think change is big.
 But back to the independent thing, something like like made comes out and it gets on serious,
 it's on serious, is it hard to break into this like how to independent artists get on
 serious?
 Dude, welcome to the Game of Thrones.
 We had a buddy over there.
 His name is JR and JR changed a lot of stuff for me because he just believed in me as
 an independent artist and so he stuck his neck out with the song on XM to test it and
 it did.
 What it did, it went number one on the highway and that's where it's crazy because without
 a label, I'm getting played to whatever series audiences, like 30 million people or whatever.
 Yeah.
 That's game changer.
 For that song to sit on the hot country playlist on Spotify, that's the biggest country
 playlist in the world.
 It doesn't get bigger than that.
 Did the labels get mad when an independent artist is sitting there?
 I know they do.
 Absolutely.
 That's because they've spent two million dollars on somebody and they can't crack them
 on one of the small playlists and this is why some of the label stuff doesn't work because
 a lot of it is just trying to conflate a career versus laying bricks, like real bricks,
 fan, stream, tickets, that's shit that nobody can take away from you.
 I'm really proud that we've done that and then you watch people who are this inflated
 version of what you're trying to be, not get the things, yeah, that people get pretty
 angry, pretty quickly and that's the difference.
 I can't sit on hot country for two years like some of my friends do because the labels
 start to throw a fit and they find a way to get their people on those lists because
 it's trading favors.
 They're like, yo, we'll get to this if you get us this and it's not, I'm not saying
 that in the mad way.
 I'm also not saying I wouldn't do the same thing.
 Yeah.
 It's just the reality of the business.
 I'm not jaded.
 I'm not callous.
 I don't have my middle fingers up.
 I'm always going to be independent like the machine works.
 It's just when you're on the outside of the machine, you get, you get steamrolled by
 it pretty quickly.
 So there's an easy way for people in this town to start to not like you because you're
 taking things from them and that's real.
 I talked to Michael Habby from a thousand horses.
 I just kept him in Carolina for good friends and he talked about the pressures of making
 the next hit and I'm sure you can relate to that.
 It's back to what you talked about the art versus the commerce.
 You've got, you have the talent, you had a right and you have what comes natural and
 all these things, but then the balance of, okay, what's hot and fresh right now?
 What's going to move the needle?
 What's going to pop off?
 Talk about that pressure.
 Man, it's so real and it's so hard to, we live in this like TikTok world, this TikTok
 era and I've benefited from it almost more than anybody.
 You watch my career and pre TikTok and pre the internet where it is today.
 I had some success, but nothing close to what I have now and I think I've been able
 to strategize these apps and market myself well.
 And now when you go to make something, it's hard in the back of your head to not think
 about that while you're making something.
 And Rick Rubin, who's like a frickin musical genius and he's produced everything from
 Jay-Z to like the Beastie Boys, right?
 He talks about making a thing in a vacuum and really taking the commerce out of it and
 trying to impress yourself.
 I always say that the rule is I listening to it in the car.
 When I get in the car, am I listening to this song like it's one of my favorite songs?
 Do I get the kind of addictive feeling that I got just as a fan of music when somebody
 put out a song and you get in the car and you're like, oh, I got to hear that.
 It is that part of my brain.
 That's what I'm trying to do.
 I'm trying to really make stuff that me and my friends and my co-readers and my manager
 when at 7 p.m., you clocked out of music and you're on your way home from dinner.
 They just want to listen to it one more time.
 And once you do that, then the hope is, okay, then it's also marketable because you have
 this incredible thing.
 But to do it in a vacuum, to like really not focus on, is this going to go viral?
 Is this going to do whatever it's, and especially when you're writing something about life or
 something about a breakup, those things aren't as marketable on paper.
 But if it's from the heart and you feel it and you connect with it, the hope is there's
 millions, potentially billions of other people who have gone through the same thing.
 And the gift of music is giving someone language for something they didn't even know they
 needed to say, right?
 Oh my gosh, I felt that way, but I didn't even know that I felt that way.
 So to capture that in a bottle without the pressures of, is this going to be my next
 maid?
 Is this going to be my next my person?
 Is this going to change my life?
 Is this going to pay for my car?
 Nope.
 Take that off the table.
 Be a fan of music.
 What do I actually want to listen to in my car?
 Why is this different than Luke Holmes?
 Why is this different than Justin Timber?
 Like, like, how do I take all the things I love, like, use Alchemy to boil them down
 and then take Frank and sign them back together with this thing that I'm freaking out about?
 It's hard to do, especially in a world where everyone's asking you, how's your TikTok?
 How's your Spotify strings?
 To make something incredible out of times, I have to, it takes time.
 And people, in today's day and age are going like, hey, we want more, right now, this
 second, we want it yesterday, wins the pre-save link, wins the next album.
 I put up 220 song albums in two years, I guess over the course of three or four years.
 And I got to the end of that and I was like, dude, I have nothing else to say.
 I got to go live some life, I got to go talk to people and fall in love and do all
 the same stuff.
 We're feelings.
 We're creating great music, so it's tough to do it without the pressures of the world.
 You know, how slippery is the slope for you in today's world?
 You have the sound with your voice and that we talked about this pre- episode and you
 brought up the big JT, which is what I thought of when I listened to a couple of your songs
 that crossed over a little bit.
 I was like, this guy's, yeah.
 This guy could, you could 100% be a pop artist that never hit Nashville.
 You have that voice, you have that sound.
 But is it a slippery slope of holding true to the country artist and wanting to be a
 part of that community versus the crossover or is it, I know it's open and welcome now
 because you have so many people going back and forth, but do you have to be careful
 with that or would you be fine if your label and your opportunity just somehow went back
 with that direction?
 It's funny because I've just never, when I think of country versus pop, this is usually
 how I delineate between the two.
 Pop music is the soundtrack to the movie and country music is the script.
 So pop music is, there's a really happy moment going on.
 It's not getting in the way of that moment.
 It's supporting that moment or emphasizing that moment or sadness or whatever, insert
 emotion here.
 And country music is the script where it's like, you hear the clacking of the boots up
 the gravel driveway.
 He's wearing a red shirt against his old Silverado.
 It's real life and it's real stories about real people and that's what's been so addicting
 to me.
 And I think most of my songs, especially the biggest ones, I can whip out an acoustic
 guitar and tell you that story just for the guitar.
 You can take away the eight away, you can take away the background vocals, you can take
 away any of the non-traditional stuff.
 The reality is, it's a guy spilling his heart out in a song using image driven lyrics, taking
 on a journey, a story A to B.
 And I think that's what country music is.
 It's about real people in the real world.
 So much a rap and hip hop and pop is more fetishism and this day dreaming of life like
 what it could be or like that soundtrack versus the story.
 And I think country music wins when stories are really good.
 And so that's what I want to do.
 I want to tell incredible stories with my music.
 I want to honor country music.
 I don't want to be the guy who like calls himself a country artist and it's laughable.
 At the same time, I don't want to do what Luke Cums is doing because Luke Cums does
 that really well.
 I don't want to be a Diet Coke Morgan Wallain.
 I want to be just me.
 And somewhere along the last couple of years, I noticed that my fans don't give a shit
 about genre.
 They just want great music.
 They want country music to be respected and they want authenticity.
 If I continue to do all those things, I think I'm going to be okay.
 I know in my heart that like country music is where I belong and country music is the
 most impactful in my opinion because of the storytelling.
 So that's what I want to keep doing.
 You talked about the song I have coming out a few weeks like to me, although we use
 some elements that aren't traditionally found in a country song, that is exactly what
 country music is about.
 Is telling your story, telling your truth in a way that people can identify with.
 So I used to give it a ton of thought.
 I think the conversation becomes more and more convoluted, it gets a little boring
 as you get into.
 Is this instrument country?
 Is this like album art?
 In my humble opinion, and I'm just a guy sitting next to his peloton, who gives a shit
 anymore?
 We all listen, we grew up with lime wire, we grew up with these iPods where you go Justin
 Bieber to ludicrous to Alan Jackson to Eminem to Shenai Twin.
 We all were infected with multi-genre love of music.
 And so I think it's important for award shows, I think it's important for the iTunes charts,
 but other than that.
 Yeah, people don't care.
 I don't know those people care.
 Well, I don't care.
 And it's more about people are starved for authenticity.
 And so if my authentic voice is country music meets this kind of funky or soulful pop thing,
 then it will work because it's authentic.
 And if it's not, it will also not work because it's not authentic.
 And so those are the North stars I continue to chase.
 It's not about genre, it's not about awards, it's not about stream, it's not about making
 something I just really want to listen to in my car.
 It's something that I think hopefully helps people, whether that's helped them have
 the best out of their life and party, whether that's getting through a breakup, whether
 that's to make them wake up and realize they have one life, whatever.
 That's the gift music has given me and that's the gift that I want to give people through
 my music.
 What's on your playlist, Spencer?
 I said, who do you, the who's on the regular Spencer Crandle playlist?
 I'm trying to think right now.
 Who I'm listening to.
 I'm listening to a lot of ban Camino.
 Okay.
 So good.
 I'm listening to the new version of Speak Now by Taylor Swift.
 Taylor's version.
 Shout out to the Swift.
 Hopefully things work out for her little.
 Yeah, she's struggling.
 Really hope that she finds some life in that tunnel.
 Poor girl.
 Yeah.
 Let's see.
 I'm back on my John Belly and kick.
 He's awesome.
 Speaking of that, John Belly just produced the new Jonas Brothers album.
 And the Jonas Brothers album is fire.
 It is one of the best pop albums I've heard in many years.
 Jelly Roll.
 Jelly Roll is killing it, man.
 He's just so cool to watch.
 Like, another guy, talk about genre.
 What genre is Jelly Roll?
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Three kid knows.
 Jelly Roll doesn't know.
 And that's why it's working.
 Exactly.
 You know, what genre is hardy?
 Yeah.
 It sounds sick.
 He has metal drums and screams in his songs.
 When he did that STP Stone to Bull Pinellas cover, I was like, that's perfect.
 That's him.
 Like, he was more STP than they were.
 I don't know.
 Yeah.
 Half these guys in country music are like scene kids, like emo kids that grew up.
 Their dad would listen to country and their friends would be in MOSFETs.
 And then also, they make this thing that's authentic to them.
 And I think that's really cool.
 And the stuff that I end up loving is usually what if this and this had a baby?
 What if this was this but flipped upside down?
 Like, I love stuff like that.
 Well Keith Urban's always on my playlist, Canny Chesney's always on the playlist.
 I'm trying to think of other people right now.
 I would say Jonas Brothers and Jelly Roll.
 A lot of that.
 Yeah.
 I know.
 What brought you and Cooper Allen together?
 I think it's just the shared, weird experience of being independent artists.
 I think the song is just a reality of, if you don't have a good song, there's no reason
 to do a collab.
 It takes too much work.
 It takes too much like planning.
 So we got really lucky that Coup just loved the song.
 And when we sent it to him, he was like, yup, I'm in because it's something we both
 want to say.
 But I'm really proud of that song, dude.
 It's one of those, I hope on my deathbed, people continue to find that song.
 I think I'll be really proud of that one.
 Yeah.
 What I didn't do.
 That's what it's called.
 What I didn't do.
 Yeah.
 So the hook is just, I rather regret what I did than what I didn't do.
 That whole first verse was literally just me speaking into my iPhone.
 I literally just said, sometimes I catch myself living like I'll never die.
 And then I said something else and I didn't have a rhyme, but it was like, then I'm going
 to be down here forever and then I get to just live again.
 And that's just not real.
 Like you get, as far as I know, we get one shot.
 And you, I did the math on the sale of it.
 It was like spooky.
 I have, if I only live till a B, I only have some thousand more days left in my life.
 And it's, that's not like we, in our heads, it's like we have millions, we just have millions
 and more coffees and a thousand Christmases.
 No, you get 80.
 If you're lucky, if you're above average, you're getting 80 summers, you're getting 80
 Christmases.
 Why do we all act like it's just not going to be over so fast?
 My existential crisis led to writing a song that is more about like Drake said, Yolo.
 I think that's my version of this is like, I would rather go and try everything.
 I would rather kiss the girl and stay up late and go on the vacation and tell people
 I love them because your deathbed is sooner than later.
 And I think to have no regrets in that moment, or at least if your regrets are I tried
 or I failed, I think I can live with those.
 So that's what the song's about and Cooper just, I think feels the same way.
 And we have this kind of trauma bond about being an artist in 2023.
 Nothing would be more fitting though, would be two independent artists and that just blowing
 it up.
 And I think it's got the sound to do it, man.
 I was listening to it.
 And I've had it's like these 20-second teasers, but not had the whole thing, but I'm like,
 that's a hit.
 It sounds like a hit to me.
 It smells like it.
 It looks like a hit.
 It sounds like a hit.
 Yeah.
 Is it?
 Yeah, I think it is.
 The rack has, and Ryan Oliver is going to blow it up too.
 Let's go.
 I appreciate you.
 It sounds like you have a good ear from music if you have all these guys on, so I'm honored
 to be in the lineage.
 Oh, yeah.
 Oh, I had immediately to the playlist.
 So you're going to have to set it to me.
 Yeah.
 Where to come out?
 It's like July.
 Yeah.
 July 14th.
 I don't know what today is.
 No, no.
 That's this week.
 It's a bunch.
 It's today July 10th.
 Yeah.
 So I know we're recording on the 10th.
 So if you're listening, it may or may not be the week of the year that you're hearing
 it.
 It'll already be out.
 But you're in the future.
 And it's July 14th already.
 You can go string didn't do with Cooper out of right now.
 Yeah.
 That's right.
 It'll already be a hit by that.
 Well, we're going to we're going to will it to win.
 Hey, you got to believe it.
 Yeah, before they'll believe it.
 We're going to invite into the number one party.
 Hey, see, I want to be there.
 Exactly.
 Sorry.
 Write that down.
 Grace put it on that.
 Number one party Ryan Oliver is invited in Nashville.
 Absolutely.
 VIP.
 Yeah.
 Exactly.
 We're going to everybody keep up with all things.
 Spencer Krandel.
 Just at Spencer Krandel and all the things you said for Twitter, I'm at Spencer Boo because
 I made it when I was 14, but other than that, at Spencer Krandel.
 And yeah, say what's up?
 I'd love for anybody that hears this podcast, like just shoot me DMs.
 Say what's up?
 Awesome, man.
 I really appreciate your authenticity, your openness, so we have a lot of guests that come
 on.
 Yeah.
 A little bit of a wall up.
 And I haven't felt that way at all.
 Spencer says been really great.
 Yeah, dude.
 Thank you.
 Yeah, man.
 Hey, guys.
 You know, to keep up with us, the radcast.com.
 Search for didn't do.
 You'll find all the highlight clips from today's episode with Spencer Krandel.
 The soon to be number one hit from the independent artist with Cooper Allen.
 You know, find me at Ryan Alfred.
 I'm blowing up old TikTok too, just like Spencer.
 We'll see you next time.
 Radcast.
 To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on
 social media at our Instagram account v.rad.cast or at Ryan Alfred.
 Stay radical.