From A Rap Career To A $500m Production Company – With Grammy Nominated Badass John Reuben

[00:00:00] Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the six figure home studio podcast. I'm your lonely co-host Chris Graham. Brian Hood is in Thailand with his lovely wife. Gallivanting around the world having lots of fun. And I'm hanging out here in Westerville, Ohio with one of my homeboys, one of my best buds, mr John Ruben, who is going to tell us his story is insane.

[00:00:42] So I'm gonna just really briefly tell you why you should listen to this episode because John has a lot of nuggets of wisdom for us to process here. John, at one point. Well, 1520 years ago was like, Hey, I'm going to make Christian rap songs. And in the whole world was like, yeah, you're the best Christian rapper ever.

[00:01:02] And you sold a humongous amount of records. And then at some point you started producing artists that also went well. And then at one point you moved out to LA two I run a company called maker with your brother and maker's essentially like a label for YouTube. ERs.

[00:01:21] John: [00:01:21] Well, maker was a multichannel network. There was more to that then, you know, I guess what that term always. Can mean different things depending on who you ask. But really what it, I think at, at its core, what was fascinating about that was it was a digital studio back when nobody was talking like that.

[00:01:41] So  the end of the arts into the two thousands and tens you know, even before. Know I saved before maker. There was a whole community and culture around content creators and it was extremely exciting because this new platform called YouTube enabled people to be able to create something, put it out there into the world and get it out to people without necessarily having to have someone say, yes, you can put that out.

[00:02:09] You know, they just a empowered, a whole, a bunch of independent, really creative, uh, Thompson creators, you know, to, to be able to do what they do. And so. Yeah, I was a part of that kind of that whole culture and community when it was first taking shape. And so that's, you can call it that. But I really, what was fascinating about it was the digital studio component and the collaborative, the nature in which a bunch of different creators were coming together in a time when nobody had done anything like that cause it just hadn't been possible before.

[00:02:41] Chris: [00:02:41] And there's a couple things I think are really interesting about that story. One is that you were working with a ton of artists. You were getting a ridiculous amount of exposure, like the viral thing was happening with YouTube. Videos were going viral, and I would imagine, I want to hear way more about this.

[00:02:57] You would work on a project with people, you would be managing people, you know, the whole nine yards, and then you guys would publish it, and then the views and the comments instantaneously. You'd have a feedback loop instantly, which is so interesting to me because. You put out a record and then like you just kind of wait to hear back about what people thought about it with this, you guys had an incident feedback loop and what makes us so interesting guys?

[00:03:22] you had to navigate being gritty to build this company and you'd navigate a ridiculous amount of stress because let's kind of skip to the end of the story and we'll come back to this. What eventually happened with maker

[00:03:34] John: [00:03:34] Well, the company sold, sorry. I guess that's a

[00:03:37] Chris: [00:03:37] it's sold for you. Wanna tell us that number.

[00:03:40] John: [00:03:40] right? You can look it up. Let's say you had, you could, you could, you could get the actual number.

[00:03:46] Chris: [00:03:46] $500 million, I guess you guys are like, Oh, that's why Chris brought him on. He's going to know a lot of stuff that we don't know. So my thing here is, we were talking about this just a moment ago. I got stress in my life. You know, I got projects I'm working on that I struggle with and figure I have to navigate.

[00:04:03] Like I'm taking this too seriously. Oh, this thing is freaking me out, or I'm stressed about it. It's encouraging for me to like. Pause sometimes and be like, well, it's not as complicated as what John had to do.

[00:04:15] John: [00:04:15] I see. I don't, I don't, you know, I, I'm not sure that that's true. I can't verify that for you because I think anytime you're trying to set up shop and build something, I mean, I can tell you some of the, the hardest things I've had to do are being putting out this record. I just put out a new record, which isn't nearly as interesting as everything else you probably want to talk

[00:04:35] Chris: [00:04:35] but you know what? We're going to promote the heck out of it on this podcast though. So.

[00:04:38] John: [00:04:38] the truth of the matter is putting that out on your own by yourself. Without a team to support that is, you know, without a lot of collaboration. Cause it's just this small independent project and there's not, you know, there's no resources to really put towards it. That's been every bit, I mean, that's a very hard, difficult process.

[00:04:56] So to be building a podcast. Yeah. So I mean it's really, it's all kind of relative to where you're at. And I think it's all kind of, I mean. I was a part of a bigger team. I mean, that's the thing, like with maker, I was one of many who were actively working to build this company, and I had a cool little role, you know, carved out that I was able to do.

[00:05:17] And it was really fun and exciting. And to be a part of just being a part of that whole scene at the forefront of it is one of those things where I feel like I'll be able to look back. You know, I can start to look back now, but even 10 years from now I'll be able to look back and be like, Oh yeah, that was.

[00:05:31] Kind of the origins of this whole movement. We now know the democratization of content world. The world was going with, you know, socialized videos, socialized content, and however you want to call it. But so it was really exciting and there was a team of people to support that. And you know, when you're kind of in the middle of it, your head's down and you're just working nonstop.

[00:05:50] And it was really kind of thrilling. It was kind of a really, it was a whirlwind. So I think your stress right now is like, is your podcast is you. So the pressure is on you. And I think I probably felt a similar comparison would be me being an artist. And being like, if I put this out, okay, it's doing well, but how long will it do well?

[00:06:12] How do I keep it doing well? You know, I build, people were really interested in that song, but are they interested in, you know, any, anything else I have to say? And so I think building a music career might be more similar to you building your brand, your podcast, and that in that regard. But if it makes you feel better, yeah.

[00:06:29] Your life isn't nearly as stressful as mine.

[00:06:33]

[00:06:33] No pressure. But the truth of the matter is, is the pressure's on you, man. You've got a mildly successful podcast right now and you want to keep building it and you're feeling the weight of how do I keep people interested? And you have to sit there and think about it nonstop.

[00:06:49] And I'm just glad I'm not doing that right now. I'm just putting out a little rap records. And if people like it, cool, if they don't.

[00:06:55] Chris: [00:06:55] That's awesome,

[00:06:56] John: [00:06:56] I mean, I'm bummed. I mean, I want them to like it, but you actually have something that's kind of got some momentum behind it and you want to keep that and that dude. I mean, that's.

[00:07:03] What every, I mean, people feel the weight of this all the time, you know, and, and media and entertainment and whether you're an artist or you're creating a podcast, or do you have a, you know, if you're a creator putting up a show online, you know, and you, how do you keep people engaged and how do you keep the content flowing and you know, then you can start to really psych yourself out.

[00:07:23] Why did somebody like that? What did I do? How can I repeat that? But if I repeat that, then I can never recreate that moment.

[00:07:30] Chris: [00:07:30] It's a strange thing, man. I'm kind of a nerd in that. One of my favorite things is presidential biographies, so I've read

[00:07:37] John: [00:07:37] I said, yeah, like I knew that I didn't know that.

[00:07:40] Chris: [00:07:40] well, that's fun fact. I love presidential biographies. They're fascinating. A biography is great because you can read a whole book, but usually really, really long. But it's like you get the whole picture of someone's life.

[00:07:50] It's like, Oh, from, you know, their ancestors on up to their death. So a biography is usually sad is the hero dies at the end, like every time. But it's fun for me to read these books because it's like, Ooh, man. Abraham Lincoln sure had it rougher than I do. Like, Oh man, his let's so much stress, and it's encouraging me to be like, calm down, Chris.

[00:08:11] There's, you're taking this too seriously. And I look back at like every stage of my life and I'm, you know, like, Oh. Oh, when I first got married, just like, Aw man, this is intense. This is kind of stressful. And then we had a kid, I was like, Oh, that was easy. This is stressful. And we had another kid like, Oh my gosh, that was so easy.

[00:08:27] Now this is, Oh, let me have a third kid. And like, well, your story with maker is in that sort of same realm of like, yeah, but John,

[00:08:37]

[00:08:37] it was intense. And so I want to start at the beginning of your story, but like outside looking in. Intensity with makers. I remember I mastered or record for maker years ago, I think it was Tessa Violet's record a super great record.

[00:08:49] It did pretty well, like it charted, and I remember. Somebody at maker's sent me a contract after the fact and I was like reading through the contract and it was like an awkward moment in our relationship cause I had to be like, John, I can't sign this because it says, if I die in the middle of mastering this record that my family will be responsible for mastering this record.

[00:09:11] I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.

[00:09:13] John: [00:09:13] I, I don't it, I don't recall.

[00:09:16] Chris: [00:09:16] no, it wasn't you. It was somebody. It was somebody else on the team. But it was definitely this picture for me of like, Oh dang. Well, they've got some, some things that are happening over there like this is, this is very intense. So I don't mean that as like a, that's obviously not a slight on you.

[00:09:30] It's just like my picture looking in of like, Oh, this is how the big boys play.

[00:09:34] John: [00:09:34] Are you saying that Alison doesn't know how to master records.

[00:09:37] Chris: [00:09:37] Not yet. We're working on it.

[00:09:40] John: [00:09:40] I mean, you could scale your business if you have all your wife could just master records.

[00:09:44] Chris: [00:09:44] well, my children hypothetically have better frequency response in their ears than I

[00:09:49] John: [00:09:49] know what's funny is I can actually see you trying to train your kids to master albums and your whole family locked into this sort of like you just kind of in a perpetual state of like, we've got

[00:10:01] Chris: [00:10:01] mastering.com we don't mess with old

[00:10:04] John: [00:10:04] super efficient. Masseur I keep a portion of it and another portion of it goes to their college fund.

[00:10:08] It's a great system, being very logical.

[00:10:12] Chris: [00:10:12] can hear up to like 25,000 Hertz. Okay. There. They know what they're doing. There's so much better, but. It's actually kind of funny. My kids are more sensitive than I am in a lot of ways. Like they pass judgment on a song. They're so picky. They like almost no music, but they love like a very small assortment of artists.

[00:10:31] It's amazing. Like I'll show them a project I worked on and there'll be like, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down and it's, it's a blast. So it's like, if I get a record that my kids like that's, that's the most fun thing. But let's kind of start at the beginning. Like, let's tell your whole story and let's work up.

[00:10:47] To make her and what your life looks like now. And so, yeah, it starts at the beginning. How did you get into music? Man?

[00:10:53] John: [00:10:53] I kind of always was in my head, and I remember as a little kid, I would write poems. I say a little kid, but like I think it was like third grade. I had a poem published  children's magazine. I was like an educational magazine called Kaboodle. My teacher submitted a poem, maybe it was fifth grade, third grade, fifth grade.

[00:11:12] I just remember getting a poem published in elementary, I think it was called, something like choices and decisions. So like a 10 year old writing a poem called choices and decisions about life's heavy choices and decisions. Right. So. I mean, I, I grew up with, I would say religious home. I don't think my parents would probably want to describe it as a religious home, but.

[00:11:35] So I was also aware of heavy things. So there was like always like heavy conversation, so I don't know, whatever it was, I still was already prone towards do you know, pondering life's big questions. And so I wrote this poem called choices and decisions got published in this magazine. Then that was kind of the first time I remember thinking, Oh, this is a nice little outlet.

[00:11:57] I can write like this. So. I would write a lot, and I started getting into hip hop. I don't know if it kind of took shape in that, but that was the time I remember it all coming together. I write poetry. Yeah. I was like sixth grade. I was starting to get into hip hop. I was fascinated. Bye. You know, the scenes that were popping up and you know, stuff that was coming out of New York and the hip hop, this is the late eighties, early nineties.

[00:12:19] And I just got really into the, the music and the culture and all that sort of stuff. And so I started being like, Hey, this is a, I would kind of start writing wraps and I'd wrap 'em over like a, you know, instrumentals, or if there was, um, I remember sometimes, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, thinking, we're trying to remember.

[00:12:39] You know what they say, Chris? They say, I've heard this, that a memory is just a memory of your last memory.

[00:12:45] Chris: [00:12:45] Oh

[00:12:46] John: [00:12:46] And so that's why sometimes it's like, when do we ever really remember anything accurately anyway, so I, I'm always like, I'm always funneling through like, wait, what? Huh? How did this happen? Where did I get involved in music?

[00:13:01] Either way, I got into hip hop because I remember, I remember being at a church camp. And being like 12 or 13 and being sort of like everybody was freestyling and me kind of thinking like, well no one will take me serious. I do it, but I want to do it. So I kinda did it jokingly. And then the moment everyone was like, this dude is pretty good.

[00:13:20] Then something clicked in my brain, like now I'm going to do it for real. So like, Oh, it's almost like, am I in my brain? Halfway through my joking verse around a bunch of other teenagers in a circle, I was like, ah, now I'm going to get serious. And I started to like it. It became like a real thing for me.

[00:13:34] Like I actually solidified in my brain like, I can do this. And so, you know, one thing led to another. I started doing some local things and we would, you know, but it would be over like other people's instrumentals. And then around that time, like two things were happening. My mom. Was getting into a Christian death metal and took over a Christian death metal label.

[00:13:53] That's a whole other story.

[00:13:54] Chris: [00:13:54] label is that?

[00:13:54] John: [00:13:54] She didn't take it over, but she helped with a label, we'll call it, I think it was row productions.

[00:13:59] Chris: [00:13:59] Okay. There's a lot of Christian metal guys that listen to this podcast for some reason. It's like a huge amount of them.

[00:14:05] John: [00:14:05] Well, so my mom was way into Christian death metal. It's one of those things where I casually mentioned my mom running a Christian death metal label. That's a, in of itself, a whole interesting story, but like, you know. But my mom was way involved in the scene and she loved, you know, like really, really like even my metal friends were like, your mom's into some stuff that's just like way more intense than we care to listen to.

[00:14:27] Like she was like way into it. So she was very encouraging of me to do like, you know, music. And she knew I liked doing hip hop and so yeah. She hooked me up with the producer in Akron and I did some things. I don't, I don't remember if it actually ever got released. Somewhere along the line, I eventually just ended up taking out a bunch of money for a gear.

[00:14:46] She helped me get a loan for some gear. I started working full time busing tables and paying off these loans, and I booked a show and we had no music and had a bunch of gear and I said, I have about a month and a half to make bunch of beats and figure out how to use all this gear. That's not like I'm a gearhead.

[00:15:03] You know what I mean? Like it's like I'm not necessarily hardwired like that. I just wanted to perform, make music, and build a culture around what I wanted to build a culture around. And I had a group of guys that were like. We were all kind of like likeminded guys who loved hip hop, wanted to do something, and so we put together a show when I was like, I think it was like 15 or 16 I must've been 16 at a club, and.

[00:15:26] I'm sure these tracks, if I were to go back and listen to them now, it would've been like really funny to listen to. I don't know. I'm not gonna say they were bad, but this was, I had, I had an NPC 3000 and so everything we did was on floppy disks. So like you had like eight seconds or something like that to sample.

[00:15:43] And so I was just figuring out how to do it. I'd go to half price books, buy a bunch of records to loop tink around on keyboards. I mean, I didn't, I never knew how to play anything. I just kind of figure it out. How to do something. And you know, and I knew we wanted to perform and I didn't know who else, who may beats.

[00:15:59] And so this was on me to do. So it wasn't like today when everybody is making beats, you know, like, so it was just a different time. And so we did that, um, start performing, decided to make an EDP. At the time my mom had a distribution deal for her metal, for some of the metal labels. I think she was working on working with.

[00:16:17] I can't remember all the parameters around that. You can interview her if you'd like. Uh, she'll tell you all about her metal days, and then I decided to kind of put out, we were going to maybe put more stuff out through that distribution deal. Something happened that never happened. So I just put on an independent EAP.

[00:16:32] One thing led to another. Go to your records and handful of their labels who are interested, depending on how long, when did you want me to be? But I, we took a, I got a deal and around 99 or 2000. Did a couple of showcases and goatee offer me a deal. I liked goatee, took the deal, and, and then, uh, thus began my Christian rap journey.

[00:16:55] Chris: [00:16:55] We'll walk us through that. So I think. You kind of had two things going on here. So I imagine you were working with producers at first, don't want to studios, and then eventually,

[00:17:03] John: [00:17:03] How about the Christian, the Christian rap journey?

[00:17:05] Chris: [00:17:05] Christian rap journey. So, yeah. Walk us through this. So you were, you were, I assume,

[00:17:08] John: [00:17:08] I got signed and then, uh, they hooked me up with a guy named Todd Collins who was, you did a lot of projects that I actually really liked. Some of the old grid stuff. I don't know if anybody knows any of these artists, but I think he had worked on DC tox Jesus freak album and stuff.

[00:17:24] I mean, this is all Christian. I don't know what your audience is, but

[00:17:26] Chris: [00:17:26] We're kind of, we're a mixed bag.

[00:17:28] John: [00:17:28] to the wonderful world of Christian rock.

[00:17:30] Chris: [00:17:30] Yeah. Well, let's talk about you getting produced by Tom Collins.

[00:17:34] John: [00:17:34] Todd

[00:17:35] Chris: [00:17:35] Todd, Jack

[00:17:36] John: [00:17:36] isn't the Tom calling, that's a drink. Right.

[00:17:38] Chris: [00:17:38] It is a drink, a Tom Collins cocktail.

[00:17:41] John: [00:17:41] All right.

[00:17:41] Chris: [00:17:41] So you're a sip and Tom Collins working with Todd Collins.

[00:17:44] John: [00:17:44] Separate tab. Cause we're protocols and a, he's a really good producer and aye. Super proud of the work that we did together. And that happened probably we did two records together through the course of like three year period. I think it was like 2000 2002.

[00:18:00] Probably about the time when you were walking in the church and they were like, John did this. I got to say this too. Cause I think I, you hear so many bad stories about labels and all this sort of, I had a gray label. Like my label was awesome.

[00:18:12] Chris: [00:18:12] That's amazing.

[00:18:12] John: [00:18:12] I mean, they just cared about their artists. And I mean there were things that, you know, obviously you wish your career would have taken a different turn of it, but I can't complain about the character  just the way they treated me.

[00:18:24] It was like awesome. So I had a really cool label and they saw that I, it was very hands on with my music. I was steering things in a different direction, you know, come my third record. And so yeah, they let me produce it. So basically, yeah, that's what I did. I took the budget and I built a studio. And a funny thing about it is I don't know anything about gear at all.

[00:18:45] Half the time I'd be like, what gear do I have?  which I said is a really funny conversation because these are all gearheads here when we're talking to, but I didn't, you know, apparently I was like, Oh, I have Neve preamps. Apparently those are pretty nice because all the gearheads are like, those are sweet, you know what I mean?

[00:18:58] Chris: [00:18:58] and let me, let me tell you something. I didn't mention this before we did the interview. This is no big deal. Feel free to say brand names as much as you want. But our podcast is kind of weird. Mostly audio engineers that listen, but we have a gear slut alert. We don't talk about gear at all, which is really weird in our industry.

[00:19:14] So like when this goes out, you'll hear like a room.

[00:19:18] John: [00:19:18] You're not allowed to mention gear

[00:19:20] Chris: [00:19:20] You can, but you'll get a gear sled alert.

[00:19:21] John: [00:19:21] because you're just like, we don't want to hear about gear.

[00:19:23] Chris: [00:19:23] Well, that's the thing is like in our industry, a lot of guys fixate if like, Oh man, fooling, I heard this piece of gear, then it'll be

[00:19:29] John: [00:19:29] so then I, then I am great for your podcast because I just didn't care. I didn't, I didn't know I had a buddy who I had worked with in the past, so I should probably say I tracked my first EAP with was a guy named, uh, CR Pendleton.

[00:19:41] Chris: [00:19:41] Yeah. Who got mentioned on the podcast very recently.

[00:19:44] John: [00:19:44] So CR is an interesting guy, man. He's a really cool dude. And he kind of, me and you, I mean, I think we've talked about kind of the trajectory of your career with mastering the CR had kind of figured out a long time ago how to just produce a volume of indie bands and do it and do it well, and him provide a good piece of product.

[00:20:03] Chris: [00:20:03] Let me kind of cut in here. We've got a couple of episodes ago, I forget which number it was. We, Seth Mosley on the podcast, you know Seth? No way. Well, Seth is. Crushing it right

[00:20:13] John: [00:20:13] Oh, I know Seth. Yeah,

[00:20:14] Chris: [00:20:14] writing like number one hits all day long for Christian radio.

[00:20:18] John: [00:20:18] yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:19] Chris: [00:20:19] it. But yes, that was on, so CR got mentioned like a couple episodes ago.

[00:20:23] I probably need to reconnect with

[00:20:24] John: [00:20:24] No, no CR duty. He who's a very sharp guy, man. And as far as like understanding how to build our business around recording, I mean, obviously Seth worked with him, so he knew talent, but yeah, no. So CR. Ended up coming into my, and it was a house in a little house in a, we redid our basement and that's where I made my third record.

[00:20:46] We outgrew that. And then I just, when I got to the other place with the , the house and the digital house in the back that we put the studio in, and so we were just making music in the back. So for two albums it was CR and you know, he, some of my, probably, I would say my most successful stuff came out of me and him kinda tinkering in the back at that time.

[00:21:04] It's like I listened to those records and I'm like, some of it. I'm like, what? What was I thinking?

[00:21:08] Chris: [00:21:08] Yeah.

[00:21:10] John: [00:21:10] This is a style I should have never have attempted. And he like, and then some of it I absolutely love, but the point is, is we were experimenting and having fun, and that was a really fun too, working with him.

[00:21:20] Chris: [00:21:20] awesome. To the label funded the record. You bought gear CR came over and you

[00:21:25] John: [00:21:25] Yeah, we produced it together. So my production, like when I say I produce, I produce. Probably in a very traditional old school way where I'm like, really dig into the division of something or try to, it's just very hands on and how  no song selection, how we're going to navigate that.

[00:21:43] If I were to work with another artist, but I was never behind the boards,

[00:21:47] Chris: [00:21:47] See to me, that's a dream. If I were ever going to produce again, I would want to be the guy that didn't touch any gear,

[00:21:53] John: [00:21:53] but I feel like nowadays you've. The only producers are the guys who are doing it all. Yeah. Like so that's what I say. It was a very old school, but that's cause I was also an artist. I mean, and I was only part of the production that was going on. I was working with guys like CR and then that's when Seth, Seth Ernest, who I ended up doing three records with.

[00:22:11] But then Seth ended up coming and hanging out in the guest house and they didn't produce it in. Right. And then.

[00:22:16] Chris: [00:22:16] And it's at this point that I kind of entered the story here, and I remember I was sitting there and you guys had just gotten masters back from somebody and you're like, ah, these don't sound good. Gosh, this is like our third revision. What are we going to do? And I was like, um, I could maybe try to master these for you.

[00:22:31] And it was like, it was like kind of, you were like the first client I had after I stopped taking any other

[00:22:37] John: [00:22:37] hilarious, man. Oh, well, I remember that very clearly

[00:22:40] Chris: [00:22:40] was wild.

[00:22:41] John: [00:22:41] because the legendary story, how I can hear dither.

[00:22:43] Chris: [00:22:43] Yeah. So this is funny. I had done a masters for you guys and clearly, you know, this is ages ago. I was not as good as I am now, and I had inadvertently double dithered.

[00:22:57] I had more than one. Dither going on in the master, and I gave you a master dad, just like,

[00:23:06] John: [00:23:06] And I explained to me what dinner is again.

[00:23:08] Chris: [00:23:08] well, without getting too technical, like it makes things sound better. When they get converted to like a lower quality file,

[00:23:14] John: [00:23:14] It's just a subtle,

[00:23:16] Chris: [00:23:16] it's, you shouldn't be able to

[00:23:17] John: [00:23:17] you shouldn't be able to hear.

[00:23:18] Chris: [00:23:18] So what happened was I gave you a master where I inadvertently just had like way more dither than I should have had on it.

[00:23:26] And then I was like, Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me redo that. And I sent you a second master. And you could, even though, like I couldn't hear any difference, you could rely on bubbly pick between too much dither and proper did there. I remember sitting in your car. So I made a CD that was like track one, like I randomize it like track one song, one too much to their track to song one proper amount of dither and didn't tell you which is which, and you like nailed it.

[00:23:52] Like you're like, Oh, it's that one. It's that one. It's that one. And I remember just being like, what the hell? Like, let's see doing this.

[00:23:58] John: [00:23:58] I still don't fully know it did her is, but I wear that as a badge of honor. Whenever, whenever I tell Seth when he's mixing, I'm like, Seth, remember. Stop acting like I'm being too picky here. I'm the man that can hear dither. I can, I can tell the difference.

[00:24:12] Chris: [00:24:12] Oh man,

[00:24:13] John: [00:24:13] uh, what did we go with that we go with double

[00:24:15] Chris: [00:24:15] we went with way too much dither.

[00:24:17] John: [00:24:17] those songs still sound really good.

[00:24:19] I went back and I was, uh, cause I'm working on a new set and I pull in a few tunes from that album and I listened to, was like, that sounds really good,

[00:24:27] Chris: [00:24:27] Yeah, man. Well, thank you. It was a ton of fun. Your mix engineer was really good. He made it very easy on me too. So there's that. I forget who it was. Anyways. Okay, so let's grab us back on course here. So you, you're working out of a home studio, you're making records. These records are. Doing all right.

[00:24:46] They're selling

[00:24:46] John: [00:24:46] They're selling. Yeah.

[00:24:47] Chris: [00:24:47] a ton of people are all over the world listening

[00:24:51] John: [00:24:51] Well, I mean, I don't know if I'd say a ton, but I had a good audience then I, you know, like enough to keep making records. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:58] Chris: [00:24:58] how many records you sold in your life

[00:25:00] John: [00:25:00] I don't know the exact number of, Hey, it wouldn't be like, it's nice. I feel good about it, but it's nothing like, it's nothing insane. Like

[00:25:09] Chris: [00:25:09] music? It was good.

[00:25:11] John: [00:25:11] for what I was doing in the two thousands as a guy doing kind of alternative hip hop.

[00:25:17] And the youth group world, whatever I was, I did really well and I'm really, I mean, I got to make music. I was proud of that. That's the thing too, like go-to was all, again, they were very supportive of me and it wasn't like I was just handing them. Sometimes it would be something I think was like, could have been easily marketable.

[00:25:34] And sometimes it's like, how are we going to market this tune? I who's going to listen to this? Like it depends on, depending on the project, but, or the, so you know, but I think. Yeah. I did. I did. Well, I'm, I'm happy with it.

[00:25:46] Chris: [00:25:46] awesome, man.

[00:25:47] John: [00:25:47] Yeah, I liked it. You think it's a ton?

[00:25:49] Chris: [00:25:49] Well, like in, in the Christian music world,

[00:25:51] John: [00:25:51] Well, you tell me what you think of ton is. I'm actually curious about this.

[00:25:54] Chris: [00:25:54] I dunno, but like 100,000 records

[00:25:56] John: [00:25:56] have

[00:25:57] Chris: [00:25:57] day is a lot.

[00:25:57] John: [00:25:57] ton of records then my man. Okay.

[00:26:01] Chris: [00:26:01] Well, I mean, case

[00:26:02] John: [00:26:02] Hi. I have no gold records.

[00:26:04] Chris: [00:26:04] It's all good. So here's the thing. Case in point, we were just at breakfast at Northstar cafe down the road here in Westerville, Ohio. I don't know if I mentioned this before. You also live in Westerville again. Westerville this is weird. There's no reason Westerville should have so many cool people living in it, but there are a bunch.

[00:26:19] John: [00:26:19] It's great. It's a great town.

[00:26:20] Chris: [00:26:20] it's a great town and we were having

[00:26:22] John: [00:26:22] Does normal better than anybody else.

[00:26:24] Chris: [00:26:24] it's true. We're the most normal town you can

[00:26:25] John: [00:26:25] the most exciting, normal town on the planet.

[00:26:29] Chris: [00:26:29] There we go. Let's make that a slogan. But yeah, we were at breakfast and somebody walked up and, and uh,  introduced himself and quoted your song lyrics at you. And it was like, yeah,

[00:26:37] John: [00:26:37] Chris, this is, I know this is making me sound good, but that was my wife's old boss. You're trying, you're trying to create a story here that's not here, man.

[00:26:46] Chris: [00:26:46] come on.

[00:26:48]

[00:26:48] It seemed like, it seemed like he was a fan until he told us he was your boss. And then, yeah, I might've oversold that a little bit.

[00:26:54] John: [00:26:54] I had people who like my music. I sold, I feel, I, I toured around the world. I was very fortunate.

[00:27:01] Chris: [00:27:01] Yeah. I remember hearing a story one time. About for somebody who was like, man, I just want an a missions trip to Africa. And all the people over there knew who John was. And I was like, wait, what?

[00:27:12]

[00:27:12] insane. But let me, let me get us back. And of course I know Brian Hood is listening to this episode as he finalize it and he's, and he's thinking, damn it, Chris, like, tell like get on point.

[00:27:21] Tell a story. So let's talk more about maker. Tell us the story of maker.

[00:27:26] John: [00:27:26] So when you talk about that story, I, I, again, you kinda talk about what I consider the beginning of a really cool scene, you know, so to me

[00:27:36] Chris: [00:27:36] What year is this by the way?

[00:27:38] John: [00:27:38] I don't know, the exact date maker came into existence off the top of my head, but.

[00:27:45] Chris: [00:27:45] Oh 10 is probably

[00:27:47] John: [00:27:47] Ten nine eight Oh 10 10 ten two thousand and Oh 10

[00:27:55] Chris: [00:27:55] Out to head in Oh 11

[00:27:57] John: [00:27:57] you know, if you back up even before that, what was interesting is around 2006 I think it was, we could look it up.

[00:28:05] Oh five Oh six I think my brother wanted to shoot. He just was really into this thing called YouTube.

[00:28:11] Chris: [00:28:11] which had just come

[00:28:12] John: [00:28:12] You just came out and my brother really wanted to shoot something around me and my career and do something funny or come up with something and pitch an idea. Cause he saw YouTube as this. Um, he was extremely excited about it cause this was, you know, he had, he's been, he was talking about the future a long time ago, you know, like, and I think he was a big champion of.

[00:28:31] The idea that you didn't have to go to the gatekeepers and you could do this yourself. We were looking at it like, we'll shoot this fun video. We can put it on YouTube. I think he had figured out a lot of the different ways to like comment and get traction and you know, you can interview him. He probably could give you all the, you know what he was, he lives in LA, Venice beach, so he wanted to shoot this video.

[00:28:54] We had talked about it, collaborated on it, and at the same time, Lisa, and I think he, I think he goes, Hey, could your label get us a budget? To shoot this video. And so I talked to the label about it  doing like a, like a mockumentary. And at the time I had just got done, I mean, I was big like no Christopher guest fan and all that stuff that was out.

[00:29:13] So this was before mockumentaries were mockumentaries, but I was also just kind of pulling from this bizarre character that was. Probably a little bit of some relatives mixed with my own delusional ideas of, you know, trying to figure out how to be, find my place in, you know, the world of music as an emcee.

[00:29:33] And then kind of spoofing aspects of like a indie culture, I guess. You know, we're kind of combining all of these into this character, and we call it the professional rapper. Well, he was just like, have you ever seen this video?

[00:29:46] Chris: [00:29:46] I have not.

[00:29:47] John: [00:29:47] And you have to go watch it again. But we shot this thing and it did really well.

[00:29:51] Ended up getting featured on YouTube, and at the time it was like 250 maybe 300,000 views or something like that. But at the time, that was like, and again, memories of memories, like I'd have to double check and verify all of this, but at the time, that was like. Really stinking good. And I remember like  a guy from my label was like, this is the best marketing plan we've ever had because we just got all these views, you know, all this traction for X amount of dollars to shoot this thing.

[00:30:17] And so it was like a, you know, now we were always having these sort of conversations at the time about like. Eight, you know, content is marketing. People weren't talking like that at that time. Now that's like, no, duh. But at the time it was like, why would we put all this money into print? Why would we put all this money and to radio that no one's ness?

[00:30:36] Maybe my . Now listen to you, especially in the Christian world, like a lot of these different marketing tactics weren't working, but if I could create a really. Stirring piece of content  like engaged people. And you know, I was always into this idea of kind of creating these sort of worlds around what I was doing.

[00:30:52] And like, I honestly think there've been interesting, had my music come out 10 years later in the world that we live in now. You know, if I would have been a young 20 year old, what I would have done, you know, with video and all these sort of things. So I say all that. I mean, I'm being long winded here, but that was kind of the beginning origins of like really like.

[00:31:11] For me at least, looking at the YouTube space and looking at the online space and getting

[00:31:17] Chris: [00:31:17] there's

[00:31:17] John: [00:31:17] really

[00:31:18] Chris: [00:31:18] we should lean in?

[00:31:19] John: [00:31:19] and this is back, you know, again, Oh five Oh six when it wasn't like it wasn't what it is today. Fast forward a few years, I went back to LA cause my brother and a different group of people  starting to build like a small little, you know, collaborative community of people who were shooting.

[00:31:37] Videos and content and being able to go directly to like a different people who, who were advertisers and were utilizing the online space to like promote their videos and still very new, very all kind of the beginning stages of what we would now understand as like, Oh yeah, you're a YouTuber warrior, you know, whatever.

[00:31:57] Anyways, so mumbling here, trying to fast forward all this sort of stuff, but around Oh nine so I was out there til about Oh eight we'll move back home. I think it was like a year or two later, makers started. Then I moved back out in like 2011 and was a part of this company. That was it. Just kind of. It was mean.

[00:32:16] It was really exciting and it was like really taken off and so mad, man, you gotta go know the number of people who were there when I started, but by the time I left, I mean, it was quite the operation. It was a, it was a pretty big operation and it happened very quickly. It was just the right place, right time.

[00:32:30] But then there was also a lot of like hard work from a lot of likeminded people who had a lot of vision around what the future of entertainment could look like.

[00:32:39] Chris: [00:32:39] Well, tell us a little bit more about what you were doing at maker, like what did a day look like

[00:32:44] John: [00:32:44] Okay.

[00:32:44] Chris: [00:32:44] for, I mean, I'm sure there was like every day was different. But like, what was your kind of primary role?

[00:32:49] John: [00:32:49] Gina startup world, man. Geez. Did you just like, yeah, but there is a little bit of that startup world, man. Like there were a lot of things, you know, you did a lot of stuff. You know, I hunkered down at the music studio, so I was in, you know.

[00:33:05] Chris: [00:33:05] Let me interrupt real quick. I think what would be helpful for, to set the stage here. Are name some viral videos that you had a hand in producing or working directly with the artist, like what are some of the projects that people are gonna be like? Oh, no, I saw that.

[00:33:19] John: [00:33:19] A lot of the stuff. So when the studio I was in, you know, I won't say like, I had a hand in this a that like I, I was always pretty adamant about making sure as an artist myself, that the creatives got. You know, like did they, yeah. Cause this was, we were facilitating, we were facilitating a culture and a community and an operation and doing our best to like bring people together to like, you know, build together.

[00:33:43] And so, and our studio, we had a cool little spot, you know, Venice beach, I don't know if you were ever there, but you know, we had like four rooms where people could record. We had a bigger room with a main engineer, but in that office where I was at, where I camped out at, we had 'em. You know, Epic rap battles of history was in there.

[00:34:02] Mike Tompkins, who, you know, Mike's, you know, still a very good friend. We've recorded the test of violet record in there, which, you know, Tessa stuff. Yeah. It's like your favorite Martian. Trying to think of some other big stuff that I went through, but we were always getting like some bigger guests that would come through and do stuff.

[00:34:19] So there was a lot of really successful people doing like some pretty cool things in that building. And again, I was one piece. Of a much bigger collaborative group of people who are pushing this thing forward. But it was wild, man. It was, it was really wild cause it all, I mean when you think about like a, a factory of the, you know, innovation and her like content creation.

[00:34:41] And when we had three or four studios and people were creating and soundproof rooms and. Pumping out videos that would generate huge numbers and you know, people would be, I mean, there was a lot of like, I mean, when I look back on it, I'm like, this is pretty cool that I got to be a part of all of that, you know?

[00:34:55] And at the forefront of a lot of like, and where are the world of entertainment was going? You know? You know, the ones that people always seem to get a trip out of, like, people will always bring up, like, you know, Epic rap battles of history, if you've ever seen it. They were so brilliant.

[00:35:11] Chris: [00:35:11] They really were.

[00:35:11] John: [00:35:11] Yeah, they're really fun.

[00:35:12] So. That was always a fun thing to, to watch come alive. Those guys, you know, they, they really had their systems dialed in and it just, it was like, you know, they were putting out some really cool stuff.

[00:35:23] Chris: [00:35:23] Well, I think your guys' story is so interesting because there's, there's a wave. There's a technological and cultural shift happening here.  YouTube was not the juggernaut that it now is. It was a baby. It was, it was like a tech talk, you know? Right now I'm like, Oh, this YouTube, it might be, it might become a thing, but we'll see.

[00:35:42] And you guys seem to, particularly with YouTube, ride that wave in a really, really intense way. And I think one of the things that I think is so interesting about that. We were talking about this this morning at breakfast  I would imagine you guys would make something maker. It's what you do, right? And then you release it, and within like two seconds, the views would start to come in.

[00:36:09] The comments would start to

[00:36:10] John: [00:36:10] It's like instant gratification.

[00:36:12] Chris: [00:36:12] Now you put it a record and you're like, do people like it? Ah, maybe, I

[00:36:16] John: [00:36:16] Well, it's funny cause now it's like I can, I can kind of, you kind of, you get that now when you put on music because you put it on music, you can kind of say, Oh these people are responding. I just posted this tweet about this new song. And people like it, you know? Yeah, no. So that's what I'm saying where it depends on what period mean.

[00:36:31] Cause you could even go back before maker. And I can go back to just that little that house in Venice beach were, there were like a lot of those first.

[00:36:40]

[00:36:40] You tubers and they, I mean, I remember like my brother's sitting up in his loft in his house, just like posting a video and you know, commenting on things and seeing how people respond and you know, so it was interesting to be a part of that.

[00:36:54] The origins of how all that came to be is really interesting to me. By the time we were deep into maker, you know, it was kind of.  you hear this term, it's almost played out, but when you say the wild West, it really is the wild West. You're kind of making it up, figuring it out as you go as creators and yeah.

[00:37:14] You just saw this new opportunity. It was a world, a new opportunity. You didn't have to wait for the big companies to come in and say, you can make something. You could just make it. And if people liked it, you could do well to, you could build a career at it and if you stayed active with it. And these, I mean, these kids, I say kids, kids, adults, whatever, they're insanely talented because some people were like, Oh, it's just a goofy video.

[00:37:35] I was like, you know how hard it is to make that goofy video, to shoot it, to edit it, to conceptualize it. To put it out there to stay engaged with the people who are responding to it, to build your audience. I mean, these sort of things. We're not like, I don't know what else to say. I already said it all.

[00:37:50] That's difficult to do. You know? So it's funny, we're sitting here talking and you're talking about your podcast right now. I'm like, you're saying like guy Lee. John had so much more sure that I'm like, I understand the stress you're going through. From an art. You're kind of like an artist right now.

[00:38:03] You're, you're a creator. You're trying to build your thing and maintain your thing and engage your audience with it and give them a real good product. That's why you have wonderful guests like me who come on and you know, and

[00:38:17] Chris: [00:38:17] well, let me kind of pull a piece

[00:38:18] John: [00:38:18] make bad dad jokes.

[00:38:20] Chris: [00:38:20] heck yeah, dude, I need more of those in my life. We all do. I think one of the things I want to, I want to pull out of what you just said is you talked about the wild West, and I think if you want to talk about your success, it's that you figured out where the wild West was.

[00:38:34] And you went out there and you did some gunslinger. And, and I think the reverse picture of that, that so many people do is they want to look at somebody else's blueprint. We talked, we talked about this a lot on the show, uh, in regards to, it's a book called blue ocean strategy. And for those of you that haven't heard that episode, the general idea is that when you're building a business, you can build it in the red ocean or the blue ocean, the red ocean, a lot of competition.

[00:38:58] Everyone's trying to do the same thing. Everyone's trying to follow the same blueprint. And as a result, they just blood everywhere. Everyone's getting torn to pieces and then blue ocean is like, I'm going to go and do something that nobody else is doing because I'm going to go to the wild West. I'm going to figure out where things are in flux, where things are changing.

[00:39:16] in the blue ocean that you can see occasionally really, really fast growth. You're not competing. You're not thinking about what other people are doing. You're just making art. You're just executing.

[00:39:27] John: [00:39:27] Yeah, man, I think I understand what you're saying.

[00:39:30] Chris: [00:39:30] Yeah. So I think what's fascinating for you guys is it even went to the wild West.

[00:39:34] John: [00:39:34] You always hear this, like the, what's the why. People always talk about the why, the why, the why and with really great and cool about maker and the whole culture at the time is I understood clearly the why and I was excited about the why. I mean, when you talk about the democratization of content or however you want to put that.

[00:39:56] What that era it felt like to me was a real sense of independence.  a really, I think for a lot of people, when I go back, and I was even saying this a little earlier, when I track how I got into music, I was never even, I never really cared about like getting a record deal, any of those sorts of things. It wasn't like.

[00:40:15] I was into independent hip hop and I loved the culture. I love, I loved the vibrancy of the whole culture of hip hop and not just even just the music or the idea of a record label or like I like, you know, Bboying I liked, yeah, the art. I liked the DJs. I liked the whole thing and the vibrancy of the community and the culture of it.

[00:40:37] And I think there was a, a sense of independence that. Me and other like minded people had. So when shifting into the YouTube space and kind of at that time there was just this sort of like crazy unique energy going on and where I used to hear these words, like the democratization of content and meaning, like anybody could do it.

[00:40:58] You didn't have to wait for a gatekeeper to say it was okay. If you had the will, you had, you know, enough resources to just put together a cool idea and shoot it low budget. Like there were people who were there to respond to it, and then the idea that, you know, YouTube is like, you could put it up there and yeah, I don't know how they look at it now.

[00:41:19] Younger, younger generations, but at the time that was, that was revolutionary did you could put something out there. Yeah. At the same time, you had my space pop in. You know what I mean? That you could put something on the line, people could share it. You could build an audience, you could build your own audience, and it was your audience.

[00:41:36] You know what I mean? And you could talk directly to people and you could create a format that was engaging. Then you could put it out there. You could get on a regular routine of putting it out there and you could kind of schedule it out and you could actually make a career for yourself doing that.

[00:41:51] That was revolutionary. I think, you know, what happened was that now you see major industries in entertainment, taking their cues from it, but at the time it was this sort of thing that was on the fringes of the Beano entertainment, but it ended up becoming kind of pop culture. You know? It's so  that was really exciting.

[00:42:10] We knew the why. I mean, if you ask what it was, it's like a digital studio is the studio of the future, you know? And that was really exciting to be a part of. And I think that. Did that is still like, you know, when you talk about like people who do things or want to set out to do something like, you know, you knew were going out moving out to LA when I flew out there with my wife and my one-year-old, literally got off the plane, went to Ikea, grabbed a mattress and you know, shared a house with my brother and his girlfriend.

[00:42:35] You know, like it was exciting cause we knew what we were getting into. You know what I mean? And we'd kind of been around. It had been a part of it from the beginning and it was a trip, man.

[00:42:44] Chris: [00:42:44] I think the interesting question here that the big takeaway that I think could change some people's lives listening to this podcast is there was a moment and there was a place, and it's going to happen again, but it's going to be something totally different. It might be tick tock, it might be somebody who starts a business.

[00:43:03] Doing similar stuff to what maker did, but for making like tick tock videos instead of just being like, Oh, we're going to hold our phone up and whatever happens happens to put thought into it and to have a production team. You look at YouTube, and correct me if I'm wrong, but before you guys generally speaking, he had one person, teams making videos and it's like, Oh, we've got a guy.

[00:43:24] There was no like, let's build a structure to make the best damn content that we possibly can.

[00:43:31] John: [00:43:31] Well, I think the one person team was still very much to spirit of that era. Yes. But it was the support that you want, you know, or the collaboration. You know, in the sharing of audiences and the growing of audiences in the, in the community of people who are engaged to this new form of entertainment.

[00:43:50] It's interesting you even say something like tick talk, and I honestly don't know. I think I've seen very little about tick tock. I mean, I'm, I'm surprisingly out of the loop on a lot of stuff right now, but a lot of that stuff always felt like a derivative of the first era anyway, so you can't recreate what was, it's kind of like saying, let's go back and recreate.

[00:44:10] Sixties rock, they will never happen again. It'll never happen again. So there's something else out there that somebody is exploring that we don't even understand. And if I understood it, then I would be the one champing it. But there's something going on. I think that would tick tock. Tick tock is like a derivative in my opinion from just how I view it.

[00:44:29] A lot of these other suburb