Talking With John Marks About His Ability to Adapt And Succeed In The Changing Music Format Scene

<v Speaker 1>Standing by.
<v Speaker 2>You're just talking with Thompson Square. It's a podcast. Who
<v Speaker 2>you were sitting up there on your mama's hoop talking
<v Speaker 2>about everything, you know, the moon, this middle hode, It's
<v Speaker 2>up you op if you all I could think about
<v Speaker 2>was my next move over. You was so show so
<v Speaker 2>is out. Maybe that's why it was so high to
<v Speaker 2>believe when you smiled and said to me, you gonna
<v Speaker 2>kiss me on night. Hey, what's up everybody? Hey, this
<v Speaker 2>is talking with Thompson Square. Brand new episode, brand new year,
<v Speaker 2>and uh I'm your host, Keifer Thompson. I am playing
<v Speaker 2>this song because it is very significant in the guest
<v Speaker 2>that I have today. It's a guest, but it's also
<v Speaker 2>a good friend. And this guy has been in country
<v Speaker 2>music seems like forever. He's been a staple and mentor.
<v Speaker 2>I mean he's helped so many artists along the way.
<v Speaker 2>He's helped us along the way. But without any further ado,
<v Speaker 2>I'd like to welcome to the program our friend and
<v Speaker 2>Wow country music. He's a staple, he's an icon, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and mister John Mars.
<v Speaker 1>Is that my brother? Hey, life is good. I can't
<v Speaker 1>complain and excuse me while I'll make a wardrobe change.
<v Speaker 1>I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Make Thompson Square grade again, man, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 3>I'm willing to do my part.
<v Speaker 2>Brother.
<v Speaker 3>I love it for you and Shanna. You just say it.
<v Speaker 2>I love it, man, I love it.
<v Speaker 3>Out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm glad you still have him. Glad it's not
<v Speaker 2>in the bargain been in a good way or something.
<v Speaker 1>I would never discard that one.
<v Speaker 3>That's thank you man.
<v Speaker 2>Well, for everybody who doesn't know, John marx Is has
<v Speaker 2>been our country music forever and uh, you know, we
<v Speaker 2>have a lot of history together. We probably go back
<v Speaker 2>what at least ten years at least.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I was familiar with her music before you
<v Speaker 1>got signed to your record label and had heard some
<v Speaker 1>tracks before that that you had released, and certainly when
<v Speaker 1>that song came out, that's when we first got connected
<v Speaker 1>in a true way. And it's I'm honored and pleased
<v Speaker 1>to say we've been friends ever since, and I'm proudly
<v Speaker 1>call your friends, both.
<v Speaker 2>Of them, absolutely so. So John and I and Shauna.
<v Speaker 2>John started when Shawn and I started in twenty ten.
<v Speaker 2>We do what it's called a radio tour, So you
<v Speaker 2>go out and you're promote your single at the time,
<v Speaker 2>kiss Me or not. We had just begun. Actually it
<v Speaker 2>was a song called That's Fight. It didn't really last
<v Speaker 2>that long. Uh, we switched to are You Gonnakiss Mirocs.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody thought that that was the better song. Turns out
<v Speaker 2>they were right. Uh, but we go back forever man.
<v Speaker 2>And and uh, you know it was San Diego, San Diego,
<v Speaker 2>that's San Diego. And you were our first stop along
<v Speaker 2>the first radio tour that we ever did.
<v Speaker 3>That's right.
<v Speaker 1>We were at somebody's house. I can't remember whose it was,
<v Speaker 1>and uh we were we were just having some fun,
<v Speaker 1>drinking some wine with some of some of your music.
<v Speaker 3>It was it was really I still remember that night.
<v Speaker 3>It was.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it was so cool man, because we were we
<v Speaker 2>were so nervous, and we know, we didn't know what
<v Speaker 2>to expect. This is our first radio tour. The didn't
<v Speaker 2>even know what a radio tour existed. And uh so
<v Speaker 2>here we are, you know, trying to to put on
<v Speaker 2>our best, you know, foot forward and and look good
<v Speaker 2>and sound good and everything else. And uh and man,
<v Speaker 2>you know that song took off and and uh you know,
<v Speaker 2>as as we elevated our career throughout that whole time,
<v Speaker 2>you did the same thing man, and and uh, but
<v Speaker 2>I don't think that I ever knew kind of how
<v Speaker 2>you because you've been You've been a huge part of
<v Speaker 2>FM radio, You've been a huge part of XM radio,
<v Speaker 2>You've been a huge part of Spotify, and then now
<v Speaker 2>you're doing this new thing and we want to talk
<v Speaker 2>about that later. But man, how did you how did
<v Speaker 2>you get into the radio in the first place?
<v Speaker 1>You know, music was always Yeah, I don't come from
<v Speaker 1>a musical family. I don't, you know, it's like it's
<v Speaker 1>we didn't sing on the porch on Sundays. You know.
<v Speaker 1>It was just one of those things where music really
<v Speaker 1>caught my attention early in life. And I've always loved
<v Speaker 1>it from the minute that I can remember. And you
<v Speaker 1>know it, I tried to manifest it in a lot
<v Speaker 1>of different areas, trying to play an instrument or sing
<v Speaker 1>a song, join a local band, and I just knew
<v Speaker 1>early on that that was not.
<v Speaker 3>Going to be my future.
<v Speaker 2>Just the talent, You're not that guy.
<v Speaker 1>I did not have the work ethic, I did not know,
<v Speaker 1>so I just knew that was not it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>And you know, as I you know, listened to the
<v Speaker 1>little transistor radio for those of you know, the audience
<v Speaker 1>that don't remember that thing under the old pillow. That
<v Speaker 1>was my kind of introduction to hey, maybe I can
<v Speaker 1>do this, And so I more or less pursued and
<v Speaker 1>dedicated myself to going into music through radio, and I
<v Speaker 1>actually have been employed at it since I was sixteen
<v Speaker 1>years old. I found a job at my local radio
<v Speaker 1>station in my hometown at sixteen and have been blessed
<v Speaker 1>to be able to do some form of music my
<v Speaker 1>entire life since then, and it's it's a great blessing.
<v Speaker 1>And my final radio job was KASWIN in San Diego,
<v Speaker 1>where we met, and I left in twenty ten to
<v Speaker 1>be able to go to Sirius XM and work at
<v Speaker 1>satellite radio and headed up their country division twenty ten
<v Speaker 1>to twenty fifteen, and then to Spotify in twenty fifteen
<v Speaker 1>until April of this year. So it's been a fun traverse.
<v Speaker 1>I've gotten to learn all about the different geographies of
<v Speaker 1>the United States and the music differences, you know. Sirius
<v Speaker 1>XM helped me understand, you know, programming music to America
<v Speaker 1>and Canada as a whole, and Spotify helped me understand
<v Speaker 1>the global implications of music. And it's just been a
<v Speaker 1>fun traverse over over the years, and every day I
<v Speaker 1>continue to learn.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>So when you were listening to that transistor radio, like, so,
<v Speaker 2>what are some of the things that you like that
<v Speaker 2>you really got the music that you really got off on,
<v Speaker 2>like when you started out, you.
<v Speaker 1>Know, the.
<v Speaker 3>First song that infected my brain.
<v Speaker 4>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It's like I've always was was at music. I know
<v Speaker 1>it exactly. I can see it exactly how it happened yesterday.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how old I was. I was in
<v Speaker 1>the gymnasium at the y m c A uh, and
<v Speaker 1>on the jukebox this thump and drum came up, and
<v Speaker 1>then the guitar and it was Roy Orbison, Pretty Woman.
<v Speaker 1>And after that I said, man, you know, I've got
<v Speaker 1>to do it. I got to do some form of
<v Speaker 1>music and and uh and it's just ever since. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I grew up with it in Middletown, Ohio,
<v Speaker 1>which is a you know, smallish town right in between
<v Speaker 1>Cincinnati and Dayton and perch between Cleveland, Detroit, Memphis, Nashville. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And there were so many musical influences north and south,
<v Speaker 1>up and down the highway that was able to experience
<v Speaker 1>Motown and stacks and you know the music coming out
<v Speaker 1>of Detroit.
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<v Speaker 1>Froyd and Cleveland and even Cincinnati I had its share
<v Speaker 1>of artists coming through and breaking through those areas, and
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, it was you know, it was just a
<v Speaker 1>lot of musical influences that really captured my attention during
<v Speaker 1>that time. And I just loved all of it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I would. I was working part time at gas station,
<v Speaker 1>so I just blow my entire paycheck on records, singles,
<v Speaker 1>forty fives and albums, and it was just an infection
<v Speaker 1>that I have yet to get rid of, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and I love every second of it.
<v Speaker 2>No, I tell you, you talk about spending your whole
<v Speaker 2>paycheck on music, and I just I sound old, man,
<v Speaker 2>I sound old when I say this, but I'm grateful
<v Speaker 2>to grow up at the very tail end of that.
<v Speaker 2>I remember going to a place called Stick It in
<v Speaker 2>your Ear and Drop on Missouri and it was albums
<v Speaker 2>and cassettes and CDs had just come on the scene,
<v Speaker 2>and uh, man, I would go in there and literally
<v Speaker 2>spend every penny I had, and I would buy albums
<v Speaker 2>based upon artwork. I would buy albums. You know, people
<v Speaker 2>will talk about it. They'd be playing records in the
<v Speaker 2>shop and I'd be like, what is this? And you
<v Speaker 2>get to talking to tifferent people and you had ten
<v Speaker 2>to fifteen people and go, hey, man, have you heard
<v Speaker 2>this thing from led Zeppelin? Mayb you heard this thing
<v Speaker 2>from Haggard or whatever?
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 2>It's it was such a community just in the record shop,
<v Speaker 2>and it's such a It's really I know that people
<v Speaker 2>now coming up, you know, especially kids now coming up,
<v Speaker 2>it's like they just will never be able to experience
<v Speaker 2>it because that part of that part of our business
<v Speaker 2>is never coming back. I mean, There's gonna be a
<v Speaker 2>few little things here and there for the most part. Man,
<v Speaker 2>it's just dead and it's so freaking sad, it really is.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the the album artwork was the chief not
<v Speaker 1>a chief element, but a primary element of many of
<v Speaker 1>the things that I bought and still probably have on
<v Speaker 1>vinyl today out and some storage in it somewhere, and
<v Speaker 1>I had a lot of them framed and they're back
<v Speaker 1>in another state that I'm hoping to retrieve.
<v Speaker 3>One of these days.
<v Speaker 1>And it was I mean, I would, I would hang
<v Speaker 1>them on my wall and because they were so cool
<v Speaker 1>and the music sometimes the music matched the artwork. Sometimes
<v Speaker 1>it didn't, but that's okay. But that is a lost
<v Speaker 1>form and the liner notes that just aren't as readily
<v Speaker 1>available to come back as it is now. I mean
<v Speaker 1>on the streaming platform. To see this little image like that,
<v Speaker 1>what the hell will they look like? I can't tell
<v Speaker 1>it well. And it's like, you know, I remember, I'm
<v Speaker 1>a metalhead. I love blues gospel jat I listened to
<v Speaker 1>Frank Sinatra just about every day at some point in
<v Speaker 1>my day, usually drive into school just to make Cooper mad.
<v Speaker 2>But it's you. I remember those Iron Maiden album artwork
<v Speaker 2>and it always scared me. But I was like, I
<v Speaker 2>put their posters up and stuff in my room and
<v Speaker 2>I didn't lie. I didn't. I wasn't really an Iron
<v Speaker 2>Maiden guy, but I loved their artwork because it was
<v Speaker 2>so freaky and it was dark, and I was like,
<v Speaker 2>oh my mom and dad will hate this. I want
<v Speaker 2>to put this up in my room, you know. But
<v Speaker 2>it's it's weird, you know. What I hate now on
<v Speaker 2>the artwork is like every like our label included all
<v Speaker 2>the artwork now is like this really clean just picture pictures,
<v Speaker 2>you know, just front end shot of you. Now you
<v Speaker 2>gotta smile, you gotta smile. And I'm like, man, you know,
<v Speaker 2>there's a few artists that do some really cool Zach
<v Speaker 2>Brown does some really cool stuff with his artwork, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it's not just about his face, and and there's some
<v Speaker 2>other artists too that really get out there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and I wish that we could get back to that.
<v Speaker 2>And I just have a I mean, then you guys
<v Speaker 2>know what we look like. I mean, I know branding
<v Speaker 2>is part of it, but it's just like, I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>come on, man, let's let's get cool with it. You know.
<v Speaker 2>But so you started out, when you started out with
<v Speaker 2>your in radio at sixteen what at what point did
<v Speaker 2>you start becoming a DJ at sixteen?
<v Speaker 1>I mean sixteen formerly on the air well at the
<v Speaker 1>small town radio station.
<v Speaker 3>Uh, it was a little bit of everything.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know, they would block program music and preachers,
<v Speaker 1>you know, so so depending on the preachers and the
<v Speaker 1>time of day and the day of the week, you know,
<v Speaker 1>it would be we'd call it the God squad where
<v Speaker 1>the preachers had come on and you'd play some gospel
<v Speaker 1>music and then at night you play some Top forty
<v Speaker 1>music and you know, bluegrass music. And and I even,
<v Speaker 1>you know, dabbled in because the radio station did some
<v Speaker 1>black gospel music back in the day. And and I
<v Speaker 1>loved it because it was it was, and you don't
<v Speaker 1>have anything like it today. The streaming services have a
<v Speaker 1>wide and deep variety of music, but radio stations were
<v Speaker 1>programmed very narrowly today. And I loved it because each
<v Speaker 1>piece of the day was dedicated to some form of music.
<v Speaker 1>And I was able to be exposed to it on
<v Speaker 1>the radio, all of this Southern gospel and you know,
<v Speaker 1>all of it, and and it's kind of carried me
<v Speaker 1>through my life, you know, because you know, I didn't
<v Speaker 1>just have this one element of taste. I mean, rock
<v Speaker 1>was always the hip, you know thing in my age category,
<v Speaker 1>you know, but I loved country back in the day,
<v Speaker 1>you know, even though a lot of my friends hated it,
<v Speaker 1>and bluegrass was unspoken of in my age category. But
<v Speaker 1>I just loved all of that music and came to
<v Speaker 1>love it by being forced to play it, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And and the nice thing of it was was back
<v Speaker 1>in the day, that time of day and the year
<v Speaker 1>and era, whatever you want to call it, you could
<v Speaker 1>play whatever you wanted. And there was even a lot
<v Speaker 1>of times, especially in the Top forty times, when I
<v Speaker 1>h be on the air at night, I just bring
<v Speaker 1>them in my own box of records and play.
<v Speaker 2>The man, those are the days, right, those were the days. Yea.
<v Speaker 2>I can tell you, you know, it's it's it's so weird.
<v Speaker 2>But even with like I noticed, like you know, if
<v Speaker 2>you even looking back in the eighties and listen to like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, countdowns or whatever, like the Top forty countdown
<v Speaker 2>from from seventy eight or or eighty five or whatever else,
<v Speaker 2>you would have like led Zeppelin, then you would have
<v Speaker 2>the Thompson Twins or you would I mean, it was
<v Speaker 2>all it was such a variety of music, and you
<v Speaker 2>had DJs? Did you have it? I just wanted to
<v Speaker 2>did you have a DJ name?
<v Speaker 3>Actually, well, my DJ name is John Marx.
<v Speaker 1>If you want to know the truth, I'll tell I'll
<v Speaker 1>tell you a secret that that is not my legal name.
<v Speaker 1>I've been on many people.
<v Speaker 2>Our whole relationship has been based upon a lie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's like, uh, and it's my my legal name,
<v Speaker 1>I will say, is Mark Sebastian. That is. But I
<v Speaker 1>will tell you there are about five people left in
<v Speaker 1>the world beyond my bill collectors, that know me as
<v Speaker 1>Mark Sebastians.
<v Speaker 2>This podcast.
<v Speaker 3>Mark it is.
<v Speaker 1>It's like the and and a lot of people are
<v Speaker 1>surprised to know that you know and Uh. And I
<v Speaker 1>had to take the name uh a name because when
<v Speaker 1>I got hired into Cincinnati, Ohio at w s A, I,
<v Speaker 1>uh there was a at the time, a controversial DJ
<v Speaker 1>by the name of Mark Sebastian.
<v Speaker 3>Uh is are these beeps bothering you? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I was trying to figure out that it was me
<v Speaker 2>or you.
<v Speaker 3>No, it's me. Uh let me.
<v Speaker 1>And I've been trying to ignore. But just every once
<v Speaker 1>in a while, these darn strings get crazy and it
<v Speaker 1>comes through on my computer too. I don't know how
<v Speaker 1>to stop that one.
<v Speaker 2>Uh So it's all good man, thank thank you.
<v Speaker 3>Sorry, that makes it real. So there's there was this.
<v Speaker 1>Cutting edge DJ. I guess the best of it wasn't
<v Speaker 1>anywhere in the neighborhood of Howard Stern or any of
<v Speaker 1>the things that we know of today. His on air
<v Speaker 1>name was Mark Sebastian. And and I was coming in
<v Speaker 1>with my name, Mark Sebastian, my legal name, and union
<v Speaker 1>rules at the time said you could not take a
<v Speaker 1>name that was taken in the market, so I had
<v Speaker 1>to choose one.
<v Speaker 2>You're popular, man, this is this is your deal. You
<v Speaker 2>do that popular, You're freaking computer blowing up.
<v Speaker 1>But so I had to take a different name. Uh
<v Speaker 1>And I had no idea what it was. And there
<v Speaker 1>was a columnist who was in and I was just
<v Speaker 1>a lowly weekend announcer, you know. I wasn't anybody big
<v Speaker 1>or important, but just the name contrast was something that
<v Speaker 1>somebody found it was worth a column. And uh so
<v Speaker 1>what's your name, you know? I said, I don't know. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I've had my ear name. I said, I don't know. Well,
<v Speaker 1>what's your dad's name? And I said John what's your
<v Speaker 1>first name?
<v Speaker 3>Mark? So why not John? Mark?
<v Speaker 1>And I said, that's two first names. You know, I
<v Speaker 1>had no thanks and uh, and I just turned it,
<v Speaker 1>took it to John Marx. And that is the story
<v Speaker 1>of how I got my name. And it's been with
<v Speaker 1>me ever since after college.
<v Speaker 2>And does anyone call you in your family Mark Sebastian?
<v Speaker 1>Uh, my sister and my nuclear family do uh. And
<v Speaker 1>relatives when I see him uh. And and the bill
<v Speaker 1>payers that send the envelopes still or email me uh.
<v Speaker 1>But the world at large, to the world at large,
<v Speaker 1>I'm John and Uh and I'm I won't say reconciled,
<v Speaker 1>but that's just what I'm used to. It's kind of
<v Speaker 1>odd to hear my legal name out loud from time
<v Speaker 1>to time. You know, it's Uh, you love me?
<v Speaker 2>Why is miss Colley is?
<v Speaker 1>Is?
<v Speaker 2>Is she a Sebastian or Marx?
<v Speaker 1>Uh? She is a Mark, She's a John person. So okay,
<v Speaker 1>she calls me John. She's known me all her life
<v Speaker 1>as John and uh. And so that's her last name
<v Speaker 1>is Sebastian.
<v Speaker 3>My my legal last name is Sebastian.
<v Speaker 2>But your wife's name is Sebastian.
<v Speaker 1>No, No, she kept her name She's okay. Her name
<v Speaker 1>Colleen Leela's son.
<v Speaker 2>She didn't want either. Yeah, yeah, you're lucky. She even
<v Speaker 2>took you, man, lucky about that one took me. One
<v Speaker 2>thing I loved about Radio Man when w r k
<v Speaker 2>r P R w k r P came out. You
<v Speaker 2>had this great personality and Johnny Fever and all these guys.
<v Speaker 2>And when I hear about when I hear the word
<v Speaker 2>radio DJ, I always go to Wolfman Jack, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and and these personalities that we used to have. He
<v Speaker 2>was a little bit before my time, but I remember
<v Speaker 2>hearing about him and hearing some of the stuff, you know,
<v Speaker 2>repeats and stuff. The days of those DJs are just
<v Speaker 2>are kind of gone as well. Why do you think
<v Speaker 2>that is? Because it seemed like in that time period,
<v Speaker 2>DJ's had the power to play a whatever the heck
<v Speaker 2>they wanted and be to actually break artists, and they
<v Speaker 2>were they were personalities. I mean, you would, I mean
<v Speaker 2>they would go out in public and they were walking
<v Speaker 2>red carpets and they were personalities. Then we have personalities now,
<v Speaker 2>but it seems like it's a little bit muted by
<v Speaker 2>the corporate blanket, you know, it is, the freedom's not there.
<v Speaker 2>What do you why do you think when did their
<v Speaker 2>DJ die?
<v Speaker 1>You know, it's uh, you know it started dying when
<v Speaker 1>it when it became more corporatized and formulaized. I think
<v Speaker 1>you have a Wolfman Jack and uh, it's like cousin
<v Speaker 1>Brucey And I'm just trying to think back, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I just don't have any at the top of my
<v Speaker 1>mind others. But I mean that's what formulated my interest
<v Speaker 1>in radio. And on the local DJSUH in my hometown
<v Speaker 1>Cincinnati and Dayton that Uh, Steve Kirk and Jim Scott
<v Speaker 1>and Dicky Shannon and there were so many that that
<v Speaker 1>influenced me, Bud Stag and uh. And they influenced me
<v Speaker 1>because they were so spontaneous and would throw people on
<v Speaker 1>the air and play whatever they wanted.
<v Speaker 4>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And and the the large ones too, like Wolfman Jack
<v Speaker 1>and others who were who really influenced me beyond the
<v Speaker 1>music to I wanted to be on the air, That's
<v Speaker 1>what I wanted to do and uh, and that that
<v Speaker 1>kind of made me want to be able to do
<v Speaker 1>that and uh, and you know about you know, I'd
<v Speaker 1>say it's it started going away, you know, back in
<v Speaker 1>the in the in the early nineties, late eighties, I
<v Speaker 1>think is when it really kind of cascaded and crashed
<v Speaker 1>in because you know, that's when the clear channels of
<v Speaker 1>the world started buying up the multiple properties and toning
<v Speaker 1>down the DJs and and corporately choosing the music and
<v Speaker 1>and all of that kind of came to a bit
<v Speaker 1>of a whole time. I just extrapolate, just thinking back
<v Speaker 1>around that time, why did they do that? Well, I
<v Speaker 1>think for ratings and revenue, I mean, why why do
<v Speaker 1>they why do they do anything? You know, it's simply
<v Speaker 1>for that.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you get hear between the lines
<v Speaker 2>or see between the lines. But John's are a big fan,
<v Speaker 2>uh and of corporate radio, I think right now, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I know, let me retract that.
<v Speaker 1>Hey, it's it's I will say, I'm I I really
<v Speaker 1>don't consume the product. I will say that, huh. And
<v Speaker 1>why because it's dull, boring and predictable, and and the
<v Speaker 1>ratings methodology for radio has really you know, in addition
<v Speaker 1>to corporate uh interest, the ratings methodology has forced radio
<v Speaker 1>stations because to to go to cat more catalog and
<v Speaker 1>familiar music because it punishes new music.
<v Speaker 3>And so between those two you're kind of forced into.
<v Speaker 1>This box that's boring and and you know, bland uh
<v Speaker 1>and and no wonder people are vacating and going to
<v Speaker 1>other areas of interest for music and other things. And
<v Speaker 1>it's kind of like, yeah, it's just a cause and
<v Speaker 1>effect as far as I'm concerned. It's not if I'm a.
<v Speaker 2>Fan or not, right, it just it's just weird. Man.
<v Speaker 2>It happens in all in so many industries where you
<v Speaker 2>have this wonderful thing that's working, yes, and then this
<v Speaker 2>big corporation comes in, and I would assume that they
<v Speaker 2>it's like a marriage. I mean, you look at this,
<v Speaker 2>it's like dating. I guess you look at this beautiful
<v Speaker 2>woman and go, hey, man, she's beautiful. I want to
<v Speaker 2>go over there and talk to her. See if I
<v Speaker 2>hook up, and and uh, you know, start dating or
<v Speaker 2>marry or whatever else. And then you get into the
<v Speaker 2>relationship and then you try to change the whole thing.
<v Speaker 2>But what initially brought you to the table was these
<v Speaker 2>great DJs playing music and these people. It seems like
<v Speaker 2>these corporate people, these corporate heads or whatever else they
<v Speaker 2>were around when that stuff was going on. They have
<v Speaker 2>to have liked it. They loved it. You know, they
<v Speaker 2>listened to it. That was that, that was their outlet,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and it's like to take that and then
<v Speaker 2>just completely destroy it. It just seems counterproductive. And I
<v Speaker 2>don't know, man, I just I'm not a purest when
<v Speaker 2>it comes to like a lot of things. But and
<v Speaker 2>obviously I love it when someone's playing my song twenty
<v Speaker 2>times a day, I love that. But when they're not,
<v Speaker 2>you don't like that, you know, because you want new
<v Speaker 2>music and everything else. And the Spotify is of the
<v Speaker 2>world and Pandora and everything, and they've you know, they've
<v Speaker 2>expanded that. But I could even see how the spotifys
<v Speaker 2>and stuff of the world are now. It's playlisted. So
<v Speaker 2>you can't just turn on a playlist like you did
<v Speaker 2>it back in the day in the seventies and listen
<v Speaker 2>to you know, they play a Haggard song and a
<v Speaker 2>Robert Plant song or it just it doesn't happen, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I mean that, And that's that's how I grew
<v Speaker 1>up too. I mean, you had Tammy when that and
<v Speaker 1>Frank Sinatra, the Roger Miller, I mean, all in one
<v Speaker 1>on one radio station, in one list. And that's how
<v Speaker 1>I grew up listening to radio, you know, and and
<v Speaker 1>to me, Tammy whenet was just as pop is the Beatles,
<v Speaker 1>you know, in that moment, because they were all on
<v Speaker 1>the same radio station, the same thing, presented the same way.
<v Speaker 1>And now it's just all gotten, you know, smashed together
<v Speaker 1>and sliced and diced to death. That you know, it's
<v Speaker 1>so narrow and so really nondescript. I think people just say, okay,
<v Speaker 1>I can you know, I can listen for fifteen minutes
<v Speaker 1>and got it, you know, broadload commercials and a song
<v Speaker 1>or two and you kind of look at as you know,
<v Speaker 1>the music we play is the thing we do between commercials.
<v Speaker 1>Now it's not a feature orientation of a lot of
<v Speaker 1>audio products, unfortunately.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's like the vessel just to sell soap. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>in between what you're doing, you know. And it's it's
<v Speaker 2>a little sad, but no, you know you can't. I
<v Speaker 2>have to embrace it because that's the reality that I
<v Speaker 2>live in, you know. So you're in Sandy.
<v Speaker 1>It's free too, So I you know, I kind of
<v Speaker 1>love it and you know, mourn it at the same time.
<v Speaker 1>Uh and uh, And you know, I think that it
<v Speaker 1>just came down to money too, because when when corporate
<v Speaker 1>interests were buying up radio properties. Over time, it just
<v Speaker 1>became a dollars and cents move too on on big
<v Speaker 1>name personalities and local markets and how much you had
<v Speaker 1>to pay them to retain their services. Uh. And it
<v Speaker 1>just got to a point where we'll just move that
<v Speaker 1>expense item out the door. Uh. And that was kind
<v Speaker 1>of what began it, I think. I mean, somebody from
<v Speaker 1>the industry could probably dispute it or argue with it
<v Speaker 1>or not, but I think that's because I saw it
<v Speaker 1>happening in a lot of places I was during that time.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's just like, you know, they look at someone like, say,
<v Speaker 2>the same wolfman's making a million bucks a year. Hey,
<v Speaker 2>these people are to listen to radio anyway. They weren't music.
<v Speaker 2>They're going to listen to radio anyway. So we can
<v Speaker 2>take that million bucks and we can hire someone for
<v Speaker 2>thirty grand exactly, and we can tell then you know,
<v Speaker 2>it's just the bottom line. It's just corporate bottom line.
<v Speaker 2>It's a it's I guess it's the way of the world.
<v Speaker 2>But it is kind of sad.
<v Speaker 1>It is sad, and but it's it is that reality. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know, driving profit, you know, is is what makes
<v Speaker 1>America great, I guess. But yeah, it's it's it's sad
<v Speaker 1>to have lost it. We can agree on that. It's
<v Speaker 1>because that's what you know, and you have an entire
<v Speaker 1>generation of people now, you know, who don't even know
<v Speaker 1>what FM radio is. You know, they have never heard
<v Speaker 1>of it or will never consume it no matter what, right,
<v Speaker 1>And it's a loss for all people, the certainly the
<v Speaker 1>corporate interests at radio and for the artists because that
<v Speaker 1>audience is shrinking. And so you know, it's it's a
<v Speaker 1>it's not good for anyone, but that's just kind of the.
<v Speaker 3>Reality of it.
<v Speaker 1>And and that's why the other services are starting to
<v Speaker 1>see some really exponential growth right now.
<v Speaker 2>So San Diego was your last radio gig, So why
<v Speaker 2>did you Why did you actually leave?
<v Speaker 3>Because of one of mine?
<v Speaker 2>They cover bottom line is pretty badass when they give
<v Speaker 2>it to you. You know what, I love this traditional radio,
<v Speaker 2>but I know sounds.
<v Speaker 1>Pretty good, you know. I kind of look at it
<v Speaker 1>like I was operating one step ahead of the law,
<v Speaker 1>you know, for such a long time. And I was
<v Speaker 1>very lucky, uh to uh to be able to uh
<v Speaker 1>work in personality driven radio. I was able to work
<v Speaker 1>in in uh, in markets and radio station conditions where
<v Speaker 1>I could make my own programming choices and music and
<v Speaker 1>who to hire and who to put where. Uh. And
<v Speaker 1>and I just saw that end coming. It was like
<v Speaker 1>the light at the end of the tunnel, you know,
<v Speaker 1>is the freight train. And so my contract ended uh
<v Speaker 1>in San Diego. And we had just resolved that we
<v Speaker 1>were that was going to be it me and my
<v Speaker 1>wife Colleen, you know, that we're done with radio.
<v Speaker 3>I was just done with it. It was boring, predictable,
<v Speaker 3>and and was not going to get better.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 3>And that was just me.
<v Speaker 1>So it's just a personal opinion, my own, you know,
<v Speaker 1>looking at conditions and where things were and going uh
<v Speaker 1>and deciding, well, you know, I've had fun. It was
<v Speaker 1>a good run.
<v Speaker 3>And uh.
<v Speaker 1>That was nice and UH and a chance meeting uh
<v Speaker 1>at a country radio seminar, which is a convention in Nashville,
<v Speaker 1>Tennessee for for radio country radio industry people. I met
<v Speaker 1>an on air personality on Serious XM UH and we
<v Speaker 1>were chatting it up and she told me about a
<v Speaker 1>job opportunity there. UH, And I said, eight, you know,
<v Speaker 1>that's nice, and it's like and the thing of it was,
<v Speaker 1>it's like the the the programming opportunities at FM radio
<v Speaker 1>was so limited and small, and you couldn't play a
<v Speaker 1>wider variety of music like I like to play. And
<v Speaker 1>and it turns out that the job included not only
<v Speaker 1>just the top forty country music, but you know, a
<v Speaker 1>wide variety of country music, from southern gospel to to
<v Speaker 1>Elvis to bluegrass, to all the things that I'd grown
<v Speaker 1>up with.
<v Speaker 3>And that was very enticing to me.
<v Speaker 1>And and and so I made the proper queries, and
<v Speaker 1>throughout the process I was able to be lucky enough
<v Speaker 1>to be hired into that position.
<v Speaker 3>And I was there for five years. And I think
<v Speaker 3>that what I think what helped me through that was.
<v Speaker 1>Was my experience, however fleeting it was with all of
<v Speaker 1>those other music forms that came under that umbrella, in
<v Speaker 1>the serious ex some family.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>So you run a huge radio station in San Diego,
<v Speaker 2>and then it's gotta man, You've got to have like
<v Speaker 2>some serious nuts to just leave what you know, you know.
<v Speaker 2>I think for a lot of people, a lot of
<v Speaker 2>people stay in job forever, man, because they just they
<v Speaker 2>know that it's like know the devil, you know, stay
<v Speaker 2>with the dell, you know, and and to be able
<v Speaker 2>to do that. Man, it's it's commendable because I know
<v Speaker 2>it's very difficult. It's just like us asking out of
<v Speaker 2>a record deal.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>That's we spent our whole life trying to get one,
<v Speaker 2>and then we were trying like hell to get out
<v Speaker 2>of one, you know. And so it's a it's a
<v Speaker 2>but it is, man, if you if it's one of
<v Speaker 2>those things where if it's not fun anymore, you have
<v Speaker 2>to look at it and go, man, I just you know,
<v Speaker 2>there's got to be something else out there. Luckily for you,
<v Speaker 2>you slid right into this other thing in XM. And uh,
<v Speaker 2>that's amazing. Then that so now you're running you know,
<v Speaker 2>there's there's there was three four big dogs, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and now you're running this huge thing in XM and
<v Speaker 2>do this for five years years? How did how did
<v Speaker 2>that change?
<v Speaker 3>Uh?
<v Speaker 2>How did how did you take that from where you
<v Speaker 2>got it to where it ended up?
<v Speaker 3>You know?
<v Speaker 1>The uh and local radio you know, and I loved
<v Speaker 1>it because you you you found the local market taste
<v Speaker 1>and you programmed to that, you know, as as best
<v Speaker 1>as you could, uh and uh and appeal to the
<v Speaker 1>local marketplace with you know, lifestyle and uh uh and
<v Speaker 1>back in San Diego it was like back during the Wars,
<v Speaker 1>it was heavily military oriented. So we do a lot
<v Speaker 1>of UH coverage on on that and and touching base
<v Speaker 1>with the community and and going to serious exem you know.
<v Speaker 1>That was a great lesson UH and taught me so
<v Speaker 1>much in instead of being you know, this small and
<v Speaker 1>appealing to a micro market, you know, which was great,
<v Speaker 1>UH is is now you're you're working to appeal to
<v Speaker 1>all of the United States and Canada too, because you know,
<v Speaker 1>the satellite broadcasting was was country wide and also Canada wide,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, the programming UH schemes needed to be
<v Speaker 1>UH taking taken a little bit differently, a lot differently.
<v Speaker 1>Uh and and so that was really part of the
<v Speaker 1>fun of learning that piece of the puzzle is how
<v Speaker 1>to program to a larger population base UH together as
<v Speaker 1>opposed to a local market community.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And that's one thing I really loved about listening
<v Speaker 2>to XM because if we're driving across country or whatever else, man,
<v Speaker 2>if I started a song, I hated that when we
<v Speaker 2>were driving. When I drive back to Oklahoma and I
<v Speaker 2>have a jam or and I get it, you know,
<v Speaker 2>a little bit outside the radius and then I have
<v Speaker 2>to go to you know, I don't know whatever. In
<v Speaker 2>some areas it's like all you can get is gospel
<v Speaker 2>or or you know, some places in the South, like
<v Speaker 2>every station is like preaching, or you know, that's still
<v Speaker 2>a huge thing in the South, you know, which is
<v Speaker 2>really cool that's still going on. So you're an exam
<v Speaker 2>And what I want to do is is obviously educate
<v Speaker 2>this audience on on who you are, but like especially
<v Speaker 2>like artists, you know, and hopefully they'll learn something today
<v Speaker 2>because I want to get into some some other things
<v Speaker 2>specifically about the music business, uh, for legacy acts acts
<v Speaker 2>like ourselves, uh, and then for new artists as well.
<v Speaker 2>But before we jump to that, I see, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Spotify starts and the whole music industry is just like
<v Speaker 2>this is this is the knife that's going to kill everything. Uh.
<v Speaker 2>And you know if it started, you know, the knife
<v Speaker 2>started with m P three's you know, the German engineer
<v Speaker 2>they developed at MP three. You know, some say they
<v Speaker 2>killed the music business. That's a valid point.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 2>Some say killed the retail business and music. It's a
<v Speaker 2>pretty valid point. But it also created something that it's
<v Speaker 2>a whole lot bigger than it ever dreamed about being.
<v Speaker 2>And what's funny to me now it's like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>even not from then. You know, now it's like it's
<v Speaker 2>not it's all everything's on your phone and everything. It's
<v Speaker 2>even less, you know, but we're still using that format
<v Speaker 2>to consume and play and music. And it's it's always
<v Speaker 2>it was always silly to me to we go into
<v Speaker 2>a ten million dollar studio, we spend one hundred thousand
<v Speaker 2>dollars on a record, and then we squash it down.
<v Speaker 2>I have all these brilliant things that we all these
<v Speaker 2>great ideas we had, and we squash it down so
<v Speaker 2>tight into this NB three you can't hear half of
<v Speaker 2>what the nuances of what you created. But that's just
<v Speaker 2>kind of way it is. But how do you make
<v Speaker 2>the jump from XM and go, hey, here's an even
<v Speaker 2>bigger fish And then here you go from a a
<v Speaker 2>big deal in San Diego, now you're a big deal
<v Speaker 2>at XM. It's like you're the most interesting man in
<v Speaker 2>the world, and you should be drinking so you should
<v Speaker 2>be on those commercials. And now you're now you're the guy.
<v Speaker 2>You're the guy at Spotify. I mean, how the hell
<v Speaker 2>does one person do that well?
<v Speaker 1>You know it's it's and and I will say this
<v Speaker 1>is coming into Sirius XM. Back in that day, they
<v Speaker 1>had just gone through a very painful merger. Uh, and
<v Speaker 1>their stock was below a dollar and they weren't in
<v Speaker 1>great shape financially or otherwise.
<v Speaker 3>Uh and uh and it's it's easy to forget that
<v Speaker 3>piece of it.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. And when I came in, you know, it's like
<v Speaker 1>and that opportunity came just by chance, by a chance meeting.
<v Speaker 1>And we were packing our boxes literally to head back
<v Speaker 1>to Utah to uh uh to go to my wife's
<v Speaker 1>hometown and hang for a little while. And uh, that
<v Speaker 1>job opportunity came on us, and I said, well, what
<v Speaker 1>the hell, what do we got to lose? You know,
<v Speaker 1>we got you know, we're we're headed to Utah. You know,
<v Speaker 1>we don't have a paycheck, not that we were too
<v Speaker 1>worried about it at the time. And let's just go
<v Speaker 1>and see what this has to offer, you know, or
<v Speaker 1>what I remember that and if it if it works out, great,
<v Speaker 1>if in six months or a year, you know, we're out.
<v Speaker 1>We knew where we were going in the first place,
<v Speaker 1>so it's no big deal either way. It's win win
<v Speaker 1>and so that's kind of where it was back in
<v Speaker 1>that moment. And uh, and I will say the you know,
<v Speaker 1>the whoever the financial people were at the time, were
<v Speaker 1>able to turn that around in a in a really
<v Speaker 1>great way with Howard Stern and product improvements. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>and back then, you know, the the the channels were
<v Speaker 1>really poorly programmed. You know, the music was terrible. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And and I think the you know, product improvements that
<v Speaker 1>were made over time really helped to bolster it. In
<v Speaker 1>addition to you know, program enhancements with sports editions and
<v Speaker 1>Howard Stern and all those other things. And that really
<v Speaker 1>brought more listeners and more profile to that to those
<v Speaker 1>platforms over time and increased the opportunities to give you know,
<v Speaker 1>great exposure to artists. Uh. And when when I went
<v Speaker 1>to Spotify, it was more or less the same thing,
<v Speaker 1>you know, they were. It wasn't what it is today. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>It was actually the record companies really were not fans.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's a kind way of people of the uh.
<v Speaker 1>And uh certainly, yeah, the songwriters had something to say
<v Speaker 1>about it.
<v Speaker 3>Uh And uh still due to some respects.
<v Speaker 1>But I think that back even then, uh, it was
<v Speaker 1>it was really tough to uh to gain some ground
<v Speaker 1>because the record companies didn't like it because they weren't
<v Speaker 1>making any money from it, and they were pissed because
<v Speaker 1>all the revenue was draining.
<v Speaker 3>Away from them.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. And and so there was just this, you know,
<v Speaker 1>a couple of year, two or three year period, a
<v Speaker 1>couple of years where you know, they were uh sucking
<v Speaker 1>air profit wise, losing money. Spotify was gaining audience, and
<v Speaker 1>they were saying, well, they're we're not getting paid by
<v Speaker 1>you guys worth anything. And then you give it a
<v Speaker 1>couple of years and their subscriber growth goes and now
<v Speaker 1>the record companies are on them like a cheap suit. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And so it's uh now that and now, were it
<v Speaker 1>not for streaming, you know, Spotify in particular, but all
<v Speaker 1>the streaming services, the record companies would be in the dumpsters.
<v Speaker 1>Uh and uh and now they're they're there, lions choice
<v Speaker 1>and lions share of the revenue UH is going to
<v Speaker 1>the record labels. Uh with streaming, and you know there's
<v Speaker 1>a lot to be discussed about that and and other matters. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>how many hours do we have?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't want to keep you on all week.
<v Speaker 3>And and so and and now all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 3>you know, over the course of one year. This is
<v Speaker 3>no kidding.
<v Speaker 1>I had a record executive call me and say, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I used to hate used to hate Spotify. And it
<v Speaker 1>was at the end of the year and we were
<v Speaker 1>just sitting down shooting the ship. Uh and and he said,
<v Speaker 1>but here's what happened. You know, we were seventy eight
<v Speaker 1>percent off of our revenue for the year. We got
<v Speaker 1>our Spotify check and it made us profitable. And that
<v Speaker 1>was a turning point right there. And all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 1>the record labels fell in love a streaming and that's
<v Speaker 1>kind of where that went. And in addition to that,
<v Speaker 1>the subscribers grew and and and you know, we were
<v Speaker 1>put in charge of bolstering the genres. You know, part
<v Speaker 1>of my job is to bolster the genre in Nashville
<v Speaker 1>and represent the genre in Nashville, which we did not
<v Speaker 1>an easy job at the at the time because of
<v Speaker 1>what we've described. But also as time went on, and
<v Speaker 1>you know, subscriber rates grew, revenue grew for the labels,
<v Speaker 1>everything was got a little bit more peaceful as time
<v Speaker 1>went on.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's interesting too, because once sewn I got out
<v Speaker 2>of our record deal and started our own label and
<v Speaker 2>released the master Piece record. You know, I don't think
<v Speaker 2>we ever saw a penny from streaming as an artist
<v Speaker 2>or really even a songwriter. And I mean that's obviously
<v Speaker 2>a whole I mean, I need to have you back
<v Speaker 2>on that course, man, I tell you what, because it
<v Speaker 2>really is. I mean, the artists seriously gets screwed. The
<v Speaker 2>songwriter is not.
<v Speaker 1>Even existent, right, And that is absolutely right.
<v Speaker 2>And I never understood, well, I understand that because I
<v Speaker 2>know what artists are artists or idiots. Songwriters are really idiots.
<v Speaker 2>We're all stupid because we do all this creation and
<v Speaker 2>we just give it away. We say, we give it away.
<v Speaker 2>We'll get a publishing deal, you know, and you can
<v Speaker 2>make twenty thirty thousand dollars a year if you're lucky
<v Speaker 2>as a big songwriter doing that, and you give away
<v Speaker 2>all your publishing. And then so then Sony or whoever
<v Speaker 2>one of the big ones, or any label really cut
<v Speaker 2>the master on it. Well, they own a master recording rights,
<v Speaker 2>and then they put it on streaming, and then you
<v Speaker 2>get a million streams, you make five thousand bucks. Well,
<v Speaker 2>the five thousand bucks goes to the label, and then
<v Speaker 2>guess what, you get. I mean, it's it's insane to me.
<v Speaker 2>It's like it's it's like if you're a painter and
<v Speaker 2>you just you paint all these great paintings and then
<v Speaker 2>you just give them away.
<v Speaker 1>Just for.
<v Speaker 2>Exposure and we hear, kid, we I hear people do
<v Speaker 2>that now. Like, man, it's really great. You know I
<v Speaker 2>got you know, I got on this Spotify. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I got on the Spotify playlist. You know, thank you
<v Speaker 2>for you know, the ten thousand streams whatever. This is
<v Speaker 2>monumental for me. I'm going, what yeah, you know, I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>do you own the do you own the music? I
<v Speaker 2>had a there was a couple of uh uh Warren,
<v Speaker 2>the Warren brothers were they're really good friends of mine
<v Speaker 2>and everyone loved they're the greatest guys. But they wrote
<v Speaker 2>a song with this guy who was independent and he
<v Speaker 2>put it out. They did a demo for a few
<v Speaker 2>hundred bucks, put it out on Spotify. It blows up
<v Speaker 2>ten million. This guy makes like six figure. It makes
<v Speaker 2>like one hundred thousand dollars in the song. And they
<v Speaker 2>didn't see any of it. Yeah, and I'm going, how
<v Speaker 2>is that right? How did the rates? I don't want
<v Speaker 2>to get it that, but like just the rates of
<v Speaker 2>songwriting and all that stuff. It's just it's it's so skewed, man.
<v Speaker 2>It's just it's so crazy.
<v Speaker 3>It's an insidious system.
<v Speaker 2>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And it's just and over time, but it's always been
<v Speaker 1>that way, right, I mean the artists always end up
<v Speaker 1>getting you know, screwed, and.
<v Speaker 2>It's just a dawn of time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and it's uh and it continues today. Uh And
<v Speaker 1>and you know the there are there are fixes that
<v Speaker 1>need to be made. I think we can agree on
<v Speaker 1>that for sure. And the songwriting category and the artist category.
<v Speaker 2>So much improvement, man. I mean these people, I throw
<v Speaker 2>myself into that mix you as a writer and a
<v Speaker 2>producer and artist. It's like we create everything and the
<v Speaker 2>people who get make all the money create nothing and
<v Speaker 2>can't create anything.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 2>They don't know how to write a song, they don't
<v Speaker 2>know how to sing or produced, they don't have they're
<v Speaker 2>not inspired. But you know, and it's just like these
<v Speaker 2>online shows you know over over COVID, who know the
<v Speaker 2>stage here at the house, and we were doing these
<v Speaker 2>online shows and we would get these offers to do
<v Speaker 2>online shows. I'm like, is that a serious offer? I'm
<v Speaker 2>not doing a show I can't do a show for that.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, it's like, well, you know what, We'll
<v Speaker 2>do a show. We'll do a show like, oh man,
<v Speaker 2>you have the potential to make literally a million dollars
<v Speaker 2>in one night. You know, global, it's a global thing.
<v Speaker 2>I'm like, okay, so well, how much your tickets wherever
<v Speaker 2>we're going to do these tickets for five bucks or
<v Speaker 2>ten bucks or whatever it is, and they sell one
<v Speaker 2>hundred tickets or whatever it is, And is the potential there, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the potential is for me to go, hey, guys, I
<v Speaker 2>spend ten let's just say, I have to spend ten
<v Speaker 2>thousand dollars on Facebook and I reach all the streaming
<v Speaker 2>and I reached my three four to six million people
<v Speaker 2>that I have that that follow us in all the platforms,
<v Speaker 2>and you go, hey, I got this show. It's going
<v Speaker 2>to be today at noon, blah blah blah. Tickets are
<v Speaker 2>a dollar.
<v Speaker 3>Cool.
<v Speaker 2>So we get here and globally, you know, you have
<v Speaker 2>let's say you have two you should be able to
<v Speaker 2>get two million people to either view that show live
<v Speaker 2>or in retro like after the fact. And it just
<v Speaker 2>doesn't translate because artists are stupid artists. They'll go on Facebook,
<v Speaker 2>to go on Instagram, and they'll go on TikTok or
<v Speaker 2>whatever and it'll do these shows for free and hope
<v Speaker 2>for tips. And I'm going, guys, we're worth more than this, right,
<v Speaker 2>you know, but they just won't do it.
<v Speaker 1>Well. I think that it depends on your your digital platform,
<v Speaker 1>and and and and that's kind of the you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's an opportunity uh and uh, you know, for for
<v Speaker 1>a lot of artists, uh in in streaming, because you
<v Speaker 1>have an opportunity to build and create your own audience,
<v Speaker 1>of your own tribes. Uh. It's it's not without some
<v Speaker 1>doing uh As. I work with artists in that area.
<v Speaker 1>That's more or less what what I'm doing now. Uh
<v Speaker 1>And uh it's it's not an easy slog. And and
<v Speaker 1>when you look at country music, uh as in terms
<v Speaker 1>of impact uh in the global spectrum, uh, it's really
<v Speaker 1>minimal compared to hip hop Top forty Latin. And when
<v Speaker 1>you look at the global scale, and I think again,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's being happy with profitability. And you look at
<v Speaker 1>you know, the in the country music space. You know
<v Speaker 1>the chime I hear all the time as well. We
<v Speaker 1>don't have time or the expense to be able to
<v Speaker 1>chase that other fifteen or twenty percent of revenue now
<v Speaker 1>costs too much, and so they it's becomes a self
<v Speaker 1>limiting area for the artists because the country music spectrum
<v Speaker 1>is considered as a regional format, you know, in the
<v Speaker 1>worldwide scheme of things, where hip hop, Top forty even
<v Speaker 1>Latin is regarded as worldwide. And so the very things
<v Speaker 1>that people are doing to protect their revenue in the
<v Speaker 1>United States is limiting the growth potential worldwide for artists.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, that's that's been kind of a battle
<v Speaker 1>cry I've had, you know, since Spotify, to work to
<v Speaker 1>globalize the country spectrum more in whatever forms it takes,
<v Speaker 1>you know, across the world. And it's really difficult because
<v Speaker 1>you look at Hot Country, the big playlist, everybody on
<v Speaker 1>that Spotify it's like, and I'm pardon me while I'm
<v Speaker 1>looking away from the camera because i want to make
<v Speaker 1>sure my numbers are right. But Hot Country has six
<v Speaker 1>and a half million followers worldwide, Today's Top Hits thirty
<v Speaker 1>million followers worldwide. Wrap Cave are fourteen million followers worldwide.
<v Speaker 1>So when you look at that, those two i'll call
<v Speaker 1>them genres. But music approaches you know, dwarf country music,
<v Speaker 1>and it becomes limiting in terms of what you're talking
<v Speaker 1>about and trying to sell tickets and try to find
<v Speaker 1>a global audience, and it just creates some difficulties for
<v Speaker 1>everyone from legacy artists on down to people who are
<v Speaker 1>trying to start out.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think what what what's happening? And what's happened
<v Speaker 2>is we as artists now have to write and create
<v Speaker 2>the songs and give it away just to build use
<v Speaker 2>the music as a vessel and a tool to build
<v Speaker 2>our social media following for sponsorships or any any of
<v Speaker 2>these types of things. You know. So the music is
<v Speaker 2>it kind of it's kind of going back to teristraal
<v Speaker 2>radio where music is just a tool to sell something else,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and with your YouTube channels and getting your uh,
<v Speaker 2>your your numbers up or or you know. There's a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people making a lot of money on Patreon
<v Speaker 2>and uh and I've been They've been bugging me forever
<v Speaker 2>to start a Patreon page, and I was like, man,
<v Speaker 2>I just it just seems like asking for money and
<v Speaker 2>it just seems kind of weird, you know. But I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>you know what, there might be something to it in
<v Speaker 2>the way of like, let's say I probably write one
<v Speaker 2>hundred songs a year, maybe more, and these are one
<v Speaker 2>hundred songs that probably all my fans would want to hear,
<v Speaker 2>but they're never going to hear it because I can't,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I can't afford to go cut master's sides
<v Speaker 2>on all these things. But I can record them at
<v Speaker 2>my house. I can video that process at my house,
<v Speaker 2>and I can put them all up on Patreon and say, hey,
<v Speaker 2>for five bucks a month, you can listen to every
<v Speaker 2>song and then if we if we hit certain benchmarks,
<v Speaker 2>we'll make a video just for you guys on Patreon.
<v Speaker 2>And I think it'd be a cool thing. And I
<v Speaker 2>started looking at it and I was like, you know what,
<v Speaker 2>that might be a really cool thing. I think I
<v Speaker 2>would do that if Springsteen started a Patreon or some
<v Speaker 2>of these other people, you know, And I think that
<v Speaker 2>might be kind of a cool thing. And it's it's
<v Speaker 2>not as negatively looked at as I think it was
<v Speaker 2>in the in the very beginning. But you know, who knows,
<v Speaker 2>who knows what happens, but just we're just all trying
<v Speaker 2>to figure it out, especially you know artists. You know,
<v Speaker 2>maybe a little younger than me and older I think
<v Speaker 2>are having a more difficult time getting their head around
<v Speaker 2>what the hell to do to get your music out
<v Speaker 2>there and everything else. It's it's one thing to get
<v Speaker 2>your music out there, but you got to get on
<v Speaker 2>hot country. Well that's not easy anymore as the it's
<v Speaker 2>reserved for the major labels a lot a lot of times,
<v Speaker 2>and they're being kind of treated like the big country
<v Speaker 2>the reporting radio stations now where it's like exactly, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and once again, here we go again. It just happened
<v Speaker 2>a lot, a hell of a lot faster than it
<v Speaker 2>did in radio.
<v Speaker 3>Go ahead, No.
<v Speaker 2>I was just saying, yeah, I've heard for probably a
<v Speaker 2>decade now that radio is dying. Radio is dead. Radio
<v Speaker 2>is dying, and it still seems like it's the driving
<v Speaker 2>force for commercial country music. That it equates ticket sales
<v Speaker 2>and and everything else. And you know, there's still a
<v Speaker 2>charting system. And I hope the chart never dies because
<v Speaker 2>that's that was my dream when I was a kid,
<v Speaker 2>to get on the chart, have a number one. I
<v Speaker 2>know what it feels like to have number one. I
<v Speaker 2>know what it feels like to accept awards and all
<v Speaker 2>these things, and you know, without that element, it's going
<v Speaker 2>to be a different thing. And I know that Spotify
<v Speaker 2>and streams and all these things kind of those numbers
<v Speaker 2>are kind of extrapolated and put into the grand scheme
<v Speaker 2>of things in order to have your numbers and everything else,
<v Speaker 2>you know, But I hope that never goes away. Do
<v Speaker 2>you think that radio is ever going to die?
<v Speaker 1>Like?
<v Speaker 3>No, not at all.
<v Speaker 1>It just has to evolve to the you know, business climates,
<v Speaker 1>just like every business uh endeavor does. I mean you
<v Speaker 1>look at their their moving more to uh you know,
<v Speaker 1>nationalizing their playlist to be more competitive to uh to
<v Speaker 1>to even the same DJs all across the United States
<v Speaker 1>in the same times of day. Uh. And they're just
<v Speaker 1>adjusting to market climates and business and revenue climates. Is
<v Speaker 1>everybody needs to when when their market changes, advertising revenue
<v Speaker 1>and the like. Uh. And and you know Spotify is
<v Speaker 1>is and and the streaming I should say more the
<v Speaker 1>streaming services, not just Spotify, moving you know more toward
<v Speaker 1>a radio paradigm. And you know, even I can see
<v Speaker 1>it as I work across those platforms, and you know
<v Speaker 1>it's just and and I could say that they're making
<v Speaker 1>some appeals to listenership that and people are leaving that form,
<v Speaker 1>and why are they wanting to do that thing that
<v Speaker 1>is stale and people are leaving. That's a that's a
<v Speaker 1>question for the streaming business people to answer. I think
<v Speaker 1>some of it's a bid to gain a bit of
<v Speaker 1>an older audience, because streaming platforms are still more youthful
<v Speaker 1>in nature. But that's just me expressing an opinion, right, right.
<v Speaker 1>But I do tell the artists I'm working with, and
<v Speaker 1>and to your point was very simply this, it's getting
<v Speaker 1>back to those days where you know, back in the fifties, sixties,
<v Speaker 1>even seventies, you know, people were breaking out regionally and
<v Speaker 1>building their national constituencies. Were talking about Detroit and Cleveland
<v Speaker 1>and Memphis and you know, Nashville. All of these music
<v Speaker 1>forms were breaking out of these regions. Bob Seger broke
<v Speaker 1>out of Detroit, you know, and as a local uh
<v Speaker 1>and the James Gang, Joe Walsh broke out of Cleveland,
<v Speaker 1>and and there are many many others. Motown was a
<v Speaker 1>regional thing, as was Memphis and Stacks and and and
<v Speaker 1>that's kind of where I think I suggest people to
<v Speaker 1>start building is is taking your market strengths from where
<v Speaker 1>you have an audience already. And I'm working with some
<v Speaker 1>audience that are that have Louisiana uh uh strengths, and
<v Speaker 1>others have the South Carolina's a southeast as strengths. And
<v Speaker 1>and and we start building our constituencies based on where
<v Speaker 1>you strong and how can we use that to expand
<v Speaker 1>the geography and and and that's generally the approach this
<v Speaker 1>day these days for younger artists and even legacy artists
<v Speaker 1>who have a national audience. But how can you how
<v Speaker 1>can you translate to streaming numbers?
<v Speaker 2>It seems like just hearing you say that, like if
<v Speaker 2>you're big in Ohio, you know you've got Cleveland wrapped up.
<v Speaker 2>It seems like those regions have become applications. So now
<v Speaker 2>instead of having a you're big in Cleveland, I'm huge
<v Speaker 2>on TikTok or I'm huge on Instagram, And then you
<v Speaker 2>take those and those are your regions now, and then
<v Speaker 2>you know, do you have a record label. It's like
<v Speaker 2>Walker Hayes, you know, uh, great guy, great artist, very
<v Speaker 2>very original. You know I've heard you know, you know
<v Speaker 2>Shane McAnally say, you know, I didn't know what to
<v Speaker 2>do with you, but I know you're just too good
<v Speaker 2>to say to ignore, and then he puts this song
<v Speaker 2>out and it blows up on TikTok, and then the
<v Speaker 2>label puts it out on you know, and they chase
<v Speaker 2>the radio thing down. They chase everything else down. But
<v Speaker 2>it seems like, and I know that the label that
<v Speaker 2>we used to be at is like no longer going
<v Speaker 2>to radio first for some of their acts. It's like,
<v Speaker 2>if you build something good enough on your on the
<v Speaker 2>on the social media's and the DSP, then we'll take
<v Speaker 2>that to radio. And it's like I've talked to the
<v Speaker 2>artists and they're like, man, this really sucks. It's like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, it just puts all the work back on
<v Speaker 2>the artist, you know. But I don't know, you know,
<v Speaker 2>But now I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
<v Speaker 2>I think artists in a lot of ways are have
<v Speaker 2>become lazy in that way and very uneducated. I know,
<v Speaker 2>I was uneducated on how the business works, how my
<v Speaker 2>thing works. I mean, I'm doing you know, I'm doing
<v Speaker 2>this podcast today, and you know, just recording my own music,
<v Speaker 2>producing my own music and do all that sort of things.
<v Speaker 2>When you have someone doing everything for you, and then
<v Speaker 2>when we found ourselves, it's it's you just get kind
<v Speaker 2>of get lazy and you don't know what's going on
<v Speaker 2>around you, and it's and you become ignorant. And that's
<v Speaker 2>really a bad place for an artist to be because
<v Speaker 2>you can let a lot of things slide, you know.
<v Speaker 2>And I found out, you know, a guy that owns
<v Speaker 2>the label that we went to after our last label
<v Speaker 2>was stealing literally stealing money from me from an album
<v Speaker 2>that I owned. Wow, was stealing streams, you know, like
<v Speaker 2>twenty five grand worth. You know. It's just like a
<v Speaker 2>you know, so, But I have a really great admin
<v Speaker 2>girl now and she hunts down every penny. She knows
<v Speaker 2>where every penny's going. So I'm like, Okay, I have
<v Speaker 2>all these pieces in place, and it's made me a
<v Speaker 2>better artist going into this new deal that we're getting
<v Speaker 2>ready to go into, which I think when I'm told now, man,
<v Speaker 2>we cut some great music and I think the lead
<v Speaker 2>single is just amazing, and late February early March next year,
<v Speaker 2>we'll have a new single out, new deal and very
<v Speaker 2>very excited. We didn't think that we ever wanted to
<v Speaker 2>do it again, but but here we are. Just when
<v Speaker 2>I thought they were I was out, they pulled me
<v Speaker 2>back in.
<v Speaker 3>You know, so you know, and what you're saying is
<v Speaker 3>so true.
<v Speaker 2>Is the.
<v Speaker 3>Even with the younger artists who you'd think would be.
<v Speaker 1>You know, more savvy about streaming and about you know,
<v Speaker 1>the digital marketplace. It's really interesting, you know, about the
<v Speaker 1>lack of education in those areas, which helps my business
<v Speaker 1>prospects a little bit, you know. And and also uh
<v Speaker 1>that that that element that you described about you know,
<v Speaker 1>having a number one on the charts and wanting a
<v Speaker 1>number one on the charts and I want to go
<v Speaker 1>to radio and I need to be on the radio
<v Speaker 1>is a culturally ingrained thing from you know, from kids
<v Speaker 1>all the way up UH to UH to the legacy artists.
<v Speaker 3>And beyond uh.
<v Speaker 1>And and it's it's like, well, radio is not out
<v Speaker 1>of reach, it's just the steps to get there are
<v Speaker 1>different than it used to be.
<v Speaker 2>Uh God, there are some steps.
<v Speaker 3>There are still steps because there were.
<v Speaker 2>No steps before streaming services, either.
<v Speaker 3>You on a radio or where you weren't.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, if you ate you eating probably because you
<v Speaker 2>you it's a big eight if that's the case.
<v Speaker 1>And at least now you know there are steps you
<v Speaker 1>can take or even ways that you can formulate, uh
<v Speaker 1>to make your music, living making music, you know, if
<v Speaker 1>you get creative about it, and and and you're right,
<v Speaker 1>if you do your own sets of work instead of
<v Speaker 1>waiting for the labels or someone else to do it
<v Speaker 1>for you. And that's the other element that people are
<v Speaker 1>just used to is other people doing that. And and
<v Speaker 1>now today it's it's really the best opportunity in the world,
<v Speaker 1>I think for anybody who wants to make music, because anybody,
<v Speaker 1>no matter how good or not good you are, or
<v Speaker 1>whatever it is, you can find an audience in the
<v Speaker 1>world now for your music.
<v Speaker 2>And to use your social media to drive that. Like
<v Speaker 2>it's all ancestral. So you have to be you have
<v Speaker 2>to be We have to be better artists, We have
<v Speaker 2>to be smarter artists.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>One thing when I was in college, I was at
<v Speaker 2>a fraternity as I was, and one thing I took
<v Speaker 2>away from that is they just they drove into our hit.
<v Speaker 2>They drove into our heads over and over and over
<v Speaker 2>again about learning all the preambles and all the things
<v Speaker 2>of your fraternity, know your shit, know your ship. And
<v Speaker 2>so that's one thing that I took away from that
<v Speaker 2>that I've tried to apply to my life across the board.
<v Speaker 2>It's like I need to know what I'm doing and
<v Speaker 2>how it gets there and everything else in order to
<v Speaker 2>otherwise you're just giving it all away probably, But anyway,
<v Speaker 2>I want I want to I want to know you
<v Speaker 2>with radio with me next m And now you're the
<v Speaker 2>guy at Spotify, and now you leave. Something that's wrong
<v Speaker 2>with you. Man, you're ready for president next I think
<v Speaker 2>you might have a shot. By the way.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, you know, it's Uh, that's probably the saddest
<v Speaker 1>truth of all, isn't it.
<v Speaker 2>I think he got a shop, but I know I
<v Speaker 2>damn sure to vote for you. You know, it's not
<v Speaker 2>good there today.
<v Speaker 1>But you know it's I'll just say it was time
<v Speaker 1>to leave. H It was you know, mutual in nature.
<v Speaker 1>And we're still friends at Spotify, and I love the
<v Speaker 1>people that I used to work with, and and you know,
<v Speaker 1>a lot of the you know, some of the things
<v Speaker 1>that we've covered, you know, are kind of part and
<v Speaker 1>part uh, conditions of why both of us felt we
<v Speaker 1>we needed to get a change of scenery. And and
<v Speaker 1>it's not bad at all, you know. And uh, I
<v Speaker 1>still work with my friends at Spotify on artists and
<v Speaker 1>and things that I'm doing, and so Uh. But after
<v Speaker 1>after five six years, however long it was, and and
<v Speaker 1>where it started, you know, when I came in was
<v Speaker 1>you know, Spotify needed some credibility uh in in the
<v Speaker 1>music area. Uh and some representation in the country music space. Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And as as the subscribership grew, as all of these
<v Speaker 1>other things grew, uh, the methodologies of curation uh were
<v Speaker 1>evolving and and and that's uh, you know, that's good
<v Speaker 1>for them, you know, as they they're changing the way
<v Speaker 1>they need to do things. They're adapting due to their growth.
<v Speaker 1>And not only that, the the the amount of releases
<v Speaker 1>that are that come out every week it's impossible to maintain.
<v Speaker 1>And so they're they're changing their curation methods to be
<v Speaker 1>able to address that. Uh. And you know I won't
<v Speaker 1>entirely disagree with their thought behind it. You know, we
<v Speaker 1>could debate the merits all day long, uh, but but
<v Speaker 1>I won't argue the need for that thought uh.
<v Speaker 3>And uh.
<v Speaker 1>And so everything was peaceful and friendly and and it
<v Speaker 1>was an impetus to help me go out on my own.
<v Speaker 1>I've never been an entrepreneur even a business person all
<v Speaker 1>your life making music uh and uh and this is
<v Speaker 1>a brand new experience. For me.
<v Speaker 4>Uh.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm able to work in elements and facets of
<v Speaker 1>music that I want to work in which I really
<v Speaker 1>love and enjoy and so and I'm working without constraints, uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know. And uh and with Spotify and Serious Exam
<v Speaker 1>and and radio. If I fell in love with an artist,
<v Speaker 1>I could only do so much due to the rules
<v Speaker 1>of engagement and all of those platforms. And rightfully so
<v Speaker 1>those rules exist. So I'm not saying that that's a
<v Speaker 1>bad thing. All I'm saying now is, you know, I can.
<v Speaker 1>I can work with anyone I want to and in
<v Speaker 1>any form I care to and uh and it's all
<v Speaker 1>takes different matters depending on the artists or the entity
<v Speaker 1>I'm working with. So I'm really enjoying my time doing it.
<v Speaker 1>And uh uh I started, I left Spotify in April,
<v Speaker 1>you know, formed my company.
<v Speaker 2>H And I'm just not hearing about it experience.
<v Speaker 3>I'm sorry.
<v Speaker 2>It just recently the last couple of weeks I've just
<v Speaker 2>heard hearing about I want to talk about that. I
<v Speaker 2>do want to thank you real quick. And I know
<v Speaker 2>I speak for a lot of artists too, though, but uh,
<v Speaker 2>you stuck your head out, you stuck your neck out.
<v Speaker 2>A lot for certain artists that weren't being played on
<v Speaker 2>the radio, and you put them on playlist. That made
<v Speaker 2>a difference and actually made their careers. You made You
<v Speaker 2>had people who didn't have anything get record deals and
<v Speaker 2>didn't have any streams, and you took a chance on him.
<v Speaker 2>And and you were the you were the weird guy
<v Speaker 2>that was like, hey, this song doesn't sound like traditional
<v Speaker 2>country music, or it's got that it sounds rappy, or
<v Speaker 2>it sounds whatever, and you played it, you know, and
<v Speaker 2>it's that was I thought. You thought that was so bad.
<v Speaker 2>Asked to be able to do that, and and it
<v Speaker 2>really made a difference for a whole lot of artists.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, the time that we were independent. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>I took you over to Nathan Chapman's house. I asked
<v Speaker 2>you and calling over there and we had some wine
<v Speaker 2>and we listened to the Masterpiece record and you playlisted
<v Speaker 2>that you know, and and because of that love like this. Uh,
<v Speaker 2>it's probably the fourth most stream fifth most stream song
<v Speaker 2>you know, in our in our top catalog or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>But I had radio stations man that that played uh,
<v Speaker 2>that played some of those songs at a high frequency
<v Speaker 2>and pissed a lot of people off because they were
<v Speaker 2>getting it for free, you know, or we were getting
<v Speaker 2>it for free. But thank you for that, man, because
<v Speaker 2>that that was a that was a big deal. And
<v Speaker 2>I really want people to walk away from this being
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more educated than what they were before.
<v Speaker 2>But I did hear recently that you did start this
<v Speaker 2>new company. And is it with Jimmy Allen? Is that
<v Speaker 2>is that the what's what's the relationship with Jimmy?
<v Speaker 1>Uh?
<v Speaker 3>That is I'll say a part of my my company.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. The the thing with Jimmy Allen uh is jab
<v Speaker 1>Management and and we're behind uh a new duo called
<v Speaker 1>uh you know, Neon Union uh and uh and that
<v Speaker 1>is is a piece of of my company and their
<v Speaker 1>company and we're just working together to develop this this
<v Speaker 1>this artist basically management.
<v Speaker 3>You want.
<v Speaker 2>So what's the name of what's the name of your company? H?
<v Speaker 1>My name of my company is John Marks Worldwide.
<v Speaker 2>It's very you're going to say Sebastian.
<v Speaker 1>And uh and and I won't put in the shameless
<v Speaker 1>plug for my website John Mark's dot me uh and
<v Speaker 1>uh and it kind of tells what what I'm involved with.
<v Speaker 1>But that's a piece of it. I work with artists individually.
<v Speaker 1>I work with entities with their artists. It could be
<v Speaker 1>publishing management, uh, you know, distribution companies, uh, publisher whoever,
<v Speaker 1>whoever has an interest in artist development, you know, is
<v Speaker 1>where I want to be and care to be. And
<v Speaker 1>I have you know, business relationships now with people in
<v Speaker 1>all of those secretaries and uh. And I really love
<v Speaker 1>it because each artist is a is a different case
<v Speaker 1>scenario uh and uh.
<v Speaker 3>And you know it's fun, you.
<v Speaker 1>Know, plotting uh, plotting strategies and and putting puzzle pieces
<v Speaker 1>together to try and you know, help artists find or
<v Speaker 1>grow their audience, grow their touring, grow their streaming, you know,
<v Speaker 1>get them to a place where radio will make notice
<v Speaker 1>of them and and so you know, unfortunately it's not
<v Speaker 1>an easy process. But but those are the things I'm
<v Speaker 1>doing every day now and I just love it.
<v Speaker 2>That's awesome, man. And do you think what's the future
<v Speaker 2>is this? It seems like you're a five year cycle guy,
<v Speaker 2>you know what I mean, It's like it's very five years.
<v Speaker 2>I'm out, you know, Uh is just something that you
<v Speaker 2>do you think of it that way? Yeah, yeah, you
<v Speaker 2>were saying five years, five years. I was like, well,
<v Speaker 2>this guy's gonna stop after five years? Is this something
<v Speaker 2>that you think that you want to take beyond that
<v Speaker 2>five years and like be the kind of the last
<v Speaker 2>rodeo for you? And did you want to do this
<v Speaker 2>until until you just don't want to do music anymore?
<v Speaker 3>And yeah, I'll keep doing what I want to do.
<v Speaker 1>And all of those different phases and and the I'll
<v Speaker 1>just say either the universal forces or the human forces
<v Speaker 1>in combination. You know, it was each one was kind
<v Speaker 1>of a natural end and a natural beginning. It wasn't
<v Speaker 1>like I got fired and I had to look for
<v Speaker 1>a job or whatever.
<v Speaker 3>It's like radio.
<v Speaker 1>I wanted it to end, and we were going to
<v Speaker 1>end it, and I didn't really care if I had
<v Speaker 1>another job right away. And the Serious XM thing happened.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I left Serious XM uh and uh of
<v Speaker 1>my own volition and and wish to uh take a break,
<v Speaker 1>and Spotify came along, uh and was able to join
<v Speaker 1>into that, which was a cool venture. And I just
<v Speaker 1>and and you know, at the end, at the end
<v Speaker 1>of all that, it's like in broad general terms, Uh,
<v Speaker 1>my love and enjoyment of it was on the way
<v Speaker 1>uh and and it's uh and it just kind of
<v Speaker 1>came to a natural end, and I think it'll be
<v Speaker 1>the same with this or whatever else I find, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and I just love with in this that just the
<v Speaker 1>world is much larger and much more broad.
<v Speaker 3>My learnings are every day. Really, I'm learning even more.
<v Speaker 1>Uh. I'd never come across to myself or to people
<v Speaker 1>that I know everything in the music business. But you know,
<v Speaker 1>and the more I do this, the more I know
<v Speaker 1>I don't know and uh, and the more I'm learning
<v Speaker 1>and uh and and that for me is what challenges me.
<v Speaker 1>You know. If I start feeling like I'm hitting the
<v Speaker 1>top and whatever I'm doing, I just need to move
<v Speaker 1>on to something else.
<v Speaker 2>Man, I know exactly how you feel. I'm terrible at
<v Speaker 2>reaching goals.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 2>I'll reach a goal and I go into this depression
<v Speaker 2>every time we've won an award. I mean, we won
<v Speaker 2>our first a c M and I was like, this
<v Speaker 2>is amazing. And then I was in the corner of
<v Speaker 2>the bar and everyone was celebrating. I was there smoking
<v Speaker 2>a cigar and just like, what's wrong with you?
<v Speaker 1>Now?
<v Speaker 2>What do I do? Now?
<v Speaker 1>You know?
<v Speaker 2>So I definitely uh, and I kind of feel that
<v Speaker 2>way in my life right now. It's just like it's
<v Speaker 2>things are too things are too good, things are too easy.
<v Speaker 2>You got to shake this up. Something's going on you now.
<v Speaker 2>So hopefully this new deal and everything else will shake
<v Speaker 2>that up for me. But man, I've thoroughly enjoyed talking
<v Speaker 2>to you today as as a as A as A.
<v Speaker 2>It's a different format and just two guys sitting down
<v Speaker 2>and talking. I mean, I've learned some stuff today about you.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, the resume that you have is incredible.
<v Speaker 2>I can't imagine anybody not wanting to to work with
<v Speaker 2>you as far as in your consulting firm because because wow,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, there's not going to be anybody else that
<v Speaker 2>I can even think of that's going to have the
<v Speaker 2>kind of deal or the beard that you have. You know,
<v Speaker 2>the beard. Really I hope you really need to make merch, man,
<v Speaker 2>you really need to make merch with the outline with
<v Speaker 2>your beard, because that's that's if you guys are.
<v Speaker 3>Hang on a second, hell okay, hit pause, I'll be
<v Speaker 3>right back.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Oh gosh, all right, so uh so.
<v Speaker 3>We'll we'll I'll take it from it.
<v Speaker 2>You ought to do merch, okay, okay, So man, with
<v Speaker 2>that beard, you really should have your own merch that's
<v Speaker 2>for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Well, uh funny you should mention that, Keifer right here
<v Speaker 3>it is.
<v Speaker 2>Look at that. There's the outline too, that's the gem.
<v Speaker 2>I gotta get me one of them. I gotta get
<v Speaker 2>and no, it's.
<v Speaker 1>Like a tour on the way, you know, and I haven't.
<v Speaker 1>I don't sell it, you know. It's like actually a
<v Speaker 1>friend of mine, a colleague of mine, sent me a
<v Speaker 1>box of these things just for fun, because that's my
<v Speaker 1>logo on the website. And he sent me some hats,
<v Speaker 1>so I said, I just quite frankly, I haven't quite
<v Speaker 1>figured out what to do with them now, just to
<v Speaker 1>send a couple to you.
<v Speaker 3>How's that?
<v Speaker 1>I love that?
<v Speaker 2>I love that, And then I will I will be
<v Speaker 2>wearing Yes, thank you very much. Has Miss Colling ever
<v Speaker 2>seen your face?
<v Speaker 3>She has not.
<v Speaker 1>Actually, I've always had I've always had facial hair as
<v Speaker 1>long as I can remember. I was like, I kind
<v Speaker 1>of I kind of get curious about it myself. I
<v Speaker 1>probably scare myself if I saw my face.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I didn't do that to us.
<v Speaker 5>Brother.
<v Speaker 2>I can't thank you enough for doing our podcast, and
<v Speaker 2>it's great to see you. I'm glad you're doing well.
<v Speaker 2>I'm glad you're doing exactly what you want to do
<v Speaker 2>and you're happy and you and you and your wife
<v Speaker 2>are just the just two of the most beautiful people
<v Speaker 2>that we know, and we deeply care about you.
<v Speaker 1>And back to you. I love you and Shauna and
<v Speaker 1>UH and I can't wait to hear what you're working
<v Speaker 1>on music wise, and I know when you're ready send
<v Speaker 1>it over.
<v Speaker 4>To me and I'll send it to you when we
<v Speaker 4>get done with this. I'm sorry, I'll send it to
<v Speaker 4>you when I get done with this. Okay, right on,
<v Speaker 4>brother man. I will talk to you soon. And Keifer
<v Speaker 4>is great talking with you, and back to you. I
<v Speaker 4>just love shooting the breeze about music. I never get
<v Speaker 4>tired of talking music. That's thank you, you got it. Brother, Well,
<v Speaker 4>good luck, God bless man.
<v Speaker 3>Back to you much love, I'll see you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay.
<v Speaker 1>That was.
<v Speaker 2>Mister John Marx. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I
<v Speaker 2>hope you. I hope you learned something. If you're an
<v Speaker 2>artist out there, I hope you learned something and I
<v Speaker 2>think you should check it out. UH John Marks Worldwide.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you guys so much for UH for listening, and
<v Speaker 2>we will We'll see you next time,