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 suburbs is a derivative of the initial movement that happened in their early two thousands where. This initial life was given to independent creators where you know, you could post your, you just post your stuff online and have a platform that was easy.

[00:44:47] Chris: [00:44:47] Well, cause even back then, if you made a record when it put it on iTunes, it was not fast. Oh, it took a while.

[00:44:53] John: [00:44:53] Well, it was the first, it was like was the  was the first single on iTunes, right?

[00:44:57] Chris: [00:44:57] I want to say iTunes was like 2002

[00:45:00] John: [00:45:00] 2002 to this theory.

[00:45:01] Chris: [00:45:01] But even then, like, you know, when it, it became possible to get distribution. As an independent artist, you know, a CD baby, and then eventually tune core and  district kid. Now, like these companies have made it easier, but initially back then there wasn't really a space where you could just like, Hey, I made this like five minutes ago.

[00:45:20] I just finished. I want to get real time feedback.

[00:45:23] John: [00:45:23] You know, it's interesting. It's like when I think about my music career, I think someday I'm going to be able to look at this and even maybe even find it more fascinating, but. My career follows the trajectory of that shift in that change. Like my first album came out in 2002 beginning of 2000 cassette tape and CD things being boxed and shipped  stores, but then there was always this rumor that the world was about to change.

[00:45:48] All throughout my music career, things are going to change drastically. Yeah. A second record came out was still is kind of a similar thing, but at that point, that was right when things are becoming. Like the beginning stages, I think of iTunes. So every album there was always this weird thing of like, yeah, it's sold less, but in today's landscape that's even better because the world is changing Napster's out there.

[00:46:11] And so there was always this sort of like my career, and by the time 2010 hit. This was before streaming, fully hit, you know, and there was a sense of like, nobody's buying music anymore. And then I pivoted into  different, you know, still similar to the space I was in, you know, in that it's entertainment and you're putting out, you know, created content.

[00:46:31] But a, I shifted more into the video space.

[00:46:34] Chris: [00:46:34] Well and let me bring something up here. I think one of the things that's interesting, I'm always kind of fascinated with trying to figure out someone's superhero ability. When I'm doing like I'm coaching somebody or every single time I meet anybody, like that's the first thing I'm thinking of. Like what makes them special?

[00:46:51] for you, I think a lot of your success is probably rooted in the fact that you were a great entertainer. And that you knew what entertaining was. That's how you're able to entertain people. So when you pivoted to taking more of a behind the scenes role, that was a super strength for you  to be able to see that magic and somebody else and recognize it and  compass.

[00:47:14] John: [00:47:14] I don't know. Are we allowed to sit around talking about our superpowers? It feels a little, it feels a little cocky. You're talking about super powers?

[00:47:24] Chris: [00:47:24] single person has a

[00:47:25] John: [00:47:25] Well, yeah. You know, for me, I think I was always hands on in my own business, so even when I was an artist. Yeah. I'd hear people complain about labels and how bad the labels were.

[00:47:35] Now, I would always think to myself, man, these guys are putting hard earned money towards your career, and I was always doing the numbers. I'm like, most of the time these labels aren't making money off artists. They're there. They were hedging their bets that one artist would break, and especially in the world I was in.

[00:47:50] Certain aspects of Christian music. There was good money to be made, but you know, there was a ceiling for all alternative Christian hip hop heart in heaven. Heaven was a ceiling.

[00:48:01]

[00:48:01] So, you know, going back to some of our earlier conversations about like me building my own studio, I also was my own manager and I had my own team and we just managed it like a small business.

[00:48:13] And I always had a tremendous amount of respect for my label and my booking agents and all the people who were working on my behalf. Who were putting all this energy and there their resources and to making my career move forward. Like I had nothing but respect for that. I think what that did, because I was also dealing with my own business dealings, is the way I looked at it as like if I got a manager and I went through that process, I was doing those percentages.

[00:48:37] It was like I knew what my ceiling was in this market. I think I knew that, Hey, this is the difference between having a mortgage or like either living in a middleclass life or like struggling. I think I could do the numbers and I could kind of, you know, I mapped it out. So we took on more work. My wife worked for the company and we just built it like a, a mom and pop operation.

[00:48:58] worked out well because I had to deal with the business side of it. I knew how hard it was. And so I think I also knew how hard it was to be an artist and to be vulnerable and to put yourself out there. And so I think where I was able to get ahead, probably in many ways, is that I understood both sides really well.

[00:49:13] And I think that worked in my advantage when working with talent to be able to, you know, I don't know if you call me an ANR, but for lack of better words or to be in that space. To know that these artists were putting their like everything into something, but then then also to be able to see the other side and how hard it is to run a business and how hard it is to keep that thing going and moving and to make payroll and all these sort of things that come with, you know, the business side of it.

[00:49:37] So I always been able to kind of live in that, that tension between artist and the practical side of what it takes to run a business. And that's not to say like. Now, I think there are a lot more artists who are much more, cause they, a lot of artists are doing it all themselves and so they are entrepreneurs.

[00:49:53] Right. But in that time, in that space, it wasn't, you know, people were waiting for the label to do something and break them now ever. I think a lot of artists inherently understand, I've got to do it myself. So I don't know. I think I probably was a superpower maybe in the two thousands to 2014 maybe I had a superpower in 2015 but.

[00:50:13] Chris: [00:50:13] Well, I think that's still really relevant for today. We were talking to this morning, this place that I talk about all the time, Northstar cafe is like this masterpiece of restauranting and the building is gorgeous. This gorgeous modern architecture. The food is amazing. Entire experience is incredible.

[00:50:31] And we were talking this morning about this kind of Venn diagram. You've got two circles form and function. And where they overlap is, that's kind of my favorite place to live,

[00:50:40] John: [00:50:40] Thanks for breakfast, by the way.

[00:50:41] Chris: [00:50:41] Hey, you're welcome.

[00:50:43] John: [00:50:43] Keep going.

[00:50:45] Chris: [00:50:45] so the idea there is when you get form and function together, that's really, really an interesting, and this is kind of what this podcast is about.

[00:50:53] There's a predominant lie in the arts and in especially music that just owning the art circle is enough. Just having talent. Is enough and that this business circle is totally irrelevant. If you just get the art circle right, everything else will figure itself out. But man, dude, music business history is littered with like the normal story is artists.

[00:51:20] Career cheated artist is not poor. This constant theme. So I love where you're going with this, of having both of the circles and how that was a super power for you. And I would say probably everyone listening to this show. Is pursuing that in some way, shape, or form. They're like, okay, cool. Got to work on my art skills and got to work on my business skills and only with their powers combined when I realized my dreams.

[00:51:45] That's true, man. That's my story.

[00:51:46] John: [00:51:46] Well, we were, I mean, you know, SAS and you probably don't remember it. The guy who was torn with the Brad Bennion, but the,

[00:51:52] Chris: [00:51:52] know Brad.

[00:51:52] John: [00:51:52] okay. You know, Brad. So I mean, we had, I mean, it was funny. Our operation was very different. I mean, it could not, it was the least rock star thing out there. I mean, like, everyone's like, Oh, you got tours?

[00:52:03] Like, yeah, we were usually in bed by like 10 the whole time I was even with goatee. Yeah. My experience was, I was just a really good experience. I never blew up the way. Some other artists maybe had blown up, but I also, you know, ran a successful business and I had a great partnerships. And one of the things I did love about the, we were talking about, you know, some of these early stages of these content creators is they're all very savvy.

[00:52:28] It felt like, Hmm. A lot of them were very savvy. They wanted to do it all themselves.

[00:52:33] Chris: [00:52:33] Well, that's a wild West ism. Nobody shows up in a brand new world and says, no, you know, the system will take care of me. Like they knew,

[00:52:43] John: [00:52:43] They were very entrepreneurial. Yeah.

[00:52:45] Chris: [00:52:45] this is only gonna work. Like I'm, I would imagine. Was it Mike Tompkins, you mentioned earlier, said

[00:52:51] John: [00:52:51] My mic someone. Yeah, they worked with, yeah.

[00:52:54] Chris: [00:52:54] So I would imagine that, you know, like one of the guys you worked with, Mike Tompkins, he was killing it on YouTube, but we'd like meat like his mom's friend and his mom's friend and be like, Oh, what do you do for a living in cubit?

[00:53:08] I'm a YouTuber. Like it would be awkward to be like, well. I'm a wild Wester like I'm, I'm do, I'm trying to do something new. So as a result, like I am actively problem solving and I think that that, yeah, this kind of brings it home. I think that a lot of people in the audio industry, in the music industry lose because they're not problem solving.

[00:53:32] They're not actively problem solving. And as a result, they aren't actively growing and they're just like sitting back and it's the, we talked about this a lot on the show. It's this, if you build it, they will come. Mentality of like, Oh, like I made this piece of art and I was so genuine and in a, poured my heart out and like the world now owes it to me to be like, wow, good job.

[00:53:53] John: [00:53:53] Well. Oh man. You know, like I can even say on my own stuff, but the new stuff I'm putting now, like I, it's, it's hard not to fall into that. If you build it, they will come and tell it. Cause you just been when you've done it for so long. But I'm like in many ways I have to start over. Cause there was this huge gap and it's like, start to ask yourself, it's, I mean, it's really funny.

[00:54:11] I mean, sometimes I sit back, I'm like, I'm 41 years old putting out mine a rapper, Iger Dino, and you're just like  you could see you could, this self-awareness can kind of kick into the whole process, but take all that out of it. What I've also realized is like I'm not owed anything. I got to start over all over again and I've got to build it all over again and now how bad do I want it.

[00:54:35] You know, is it just a hobby at this point? Which, you know, is it just something fun I'm doing? Which it is just some fun I'm doing right now. But I think you've got to always do, you know, be willing to reinvent yourself. I mean, I feel like we're here. You hear this sort of talk all the time. So I'm like, Oh my God, am I ready?

[00:54:49] Let's say reinvent yourself and stay hungry and stay, you know, nimble and all these sorts of things. But you have to, because it changes so fast. And I think what a, again, a lot, a lot of these creative people who were coming up and at that time. They were like, yeah, you're excited that there was a place that you can make something and be a part of this socialized video conversation that's happening.

[00:55:11] Kind of this new medium for entertainment that hadn't existed before. You were excited to be a part of it. You're already on the forefront. You are ready, probably very assertive in your own, you know, and what you. And not just waiting for somebody else to come along and you know, fun to something for you.

[00:55:28] Yeah. You did. You took the initiative on your own. I don't know how that translate into the world year end. You know, it does translate. I don't, I don't, I wouldn't know the mechanism in which you would, you know, what sort of like tricks of the trade or anything like that.

[00:55:41] Chris: [00:55:41] Well, here's how I would apply it. So yesterday, some kind of weird happened here at the office. Ryan, who is Andy J pizza's agent showed up with a piece of art that he found like sitting outside his neighbor's house in the trash. And it's a pretty big poster from the 60s and it's a caveman with a chisel making a wheel.

[00:56:05] And then there's two cavemen in the background and kind of like whispering and snickering. And then the quotation Mark. It's kind of like a new Yorker style cartoon is it'll never work. To me. I was like, that's the freaking coolest thing I've ever seen, because I'm sure that's how it was that like, Ugh, the caveman is like trying to make a wheel and it would be pretty hard to do this in like 10,000 BC or whatever it happened to be, and I would imagine did a lot of cavemen were just thought it was hilarious that he was willing to go into wild West world and be like, yo, I think I can overcome friction with this shape.

[00:56:42] Then I'm making and like we'll be able to move things farther. So like if we catch a giant animal, we can like put him in this thing, I'm going to call away gone and like drag him to me. Like that's so fascinating. And I think what's interesting to pull out of your story here is that there will always be two cavemen in the background saying it'll never work.

[00:57:01] And there will always be a new wild West. There will always be like a tick tock man. That's for kids. You know, like why would you spend any time on tic-tac or like Instagram, man, that's like, that's Instagram is harder to hate on cause it's kind of, it's super popular, but you look at every new shift in culture and the reaction is always a collective.

[00:57:24] It'll never work.

[00:57:25] John: [00:57:25] That makes sense. But you know, and here's the position, because you're sitting center thing talking about stuff. I, I think one of the challenges I always have in these sort of conversations is half the time I think I was just a doer. Like, why wouldn't I. Start an indie label when I was 16 and indie Christian rap label, or, you know what I mean?

[00:57:45] Why wouldn't my mom start a crew, be a part of the Christian death metal scene in her mid forties and why wouldn't I just plug into, do we you have gear? We can make a record, we'll put that record out and it will be distributed. Right. That's how that, you know, I, they sometimes if you overthink something, instead of just moving forward with something and letting.

[00:58:06] There's that sort of like, you can stay in conceptual mode so long that you never go anywhere and you try to mastermind something and you think about the wild West as you got out there, you didn't know what was going to happen and you just went for it.

[00:58:17] Chris: [00:58:17] You drew. Yeah. Pull the gun out and get started shooting it.

[00:58:20] John: [00:58:20] Sometimes a lot of times it doesn't work. So I think for me, Oh yeah, I'm looking back and being like, wow, that's crazy that we did all of that, you know?

[00:58:29] Because it was just like, well, yeah, why wouldn't I do that? Well, I wouldn't. I, you know, someone wants to offer me a record deal. That's cool. I liked them. They seem like Geier grade guys, and you know, at the time there was no sort of like, I didn't have a manager, you know? I didn't even know what an A&R was.

[00:58:44] I didn't know any of this stuff. I didn't know any of the parameters of it. I just knew I wanted to make music and build something cool around what I was doing and bring my team along and put it out there and you know. Then it's like, Oh, we're going to shoot these videos and do this cool thing. Oh, that's fun.

[00:58:56] We can create. A series of sketch comedies and I can somehow apply that to my music career and I can have a multifaceted, you know, I could be a Renaissance man. I give you like I can be, I can do sketch comedy, I can be an artist that works well with the live show I'm trying to put together, you know, why wouldn't I do that so much better than, you know, hoping someone thumbs through a magazine and sees my face there and says, Oh, he's got a new record out.

[00:59:20] You know, I would much rather build a culture around what I was doing. And the whole idea was you build a community and an audience. And you engage with that audience and you're constantly engaging with them. And that's what I think more than anything the new world offered, you know, is that you could stay in constant communication and engagement.

[00:59:37] Now I think there is also. A downside to that because you can overdo that. You know? Now you have all these people coming in with their marketing strategies. You got to communicate on social media and you do it this way and you did this way. And honestly, I think some of it just becomes noise. If it feels like you're a marketer, you're not doing it right, probably, you know?

[00:59:52] And so I think that's the flip side of the challenge, I think, of being able to do it all now. Because like I, you ever see this near you, you're on Facebook or something and some guy just blitzes you with like everything he can do for you or what he's doing. And it's a, it's just too much.

[01:00:08] Chris: [01:00:08] It's too

[01:00:08] John: [01:00:08] It's too much.

[01:00:09] So I think there's a, there is a real strategy and to, I hate to use these words like brand building and all of that, but it, you've, it's a, it's a delicate balance between what you can offer and then just feeling like a marketer. But I think for me it was just every step of the way. There was always like, why not?

[01:00:25] Why not? And then, you know, like,

[01:00:26] Chris: [01:00:26] You're an optimist.

[01:00:27] John: [01:00:27] yeah, but I can, I can be deeply cynical too, which is a great out a whole album. Uh, I'm also a, you can check that out. It's called boy versus the Sinek. It came out and. The mid two thousands,

[01:00:38] Chris: [01:00:38] I love it.

[01:00:38] John: [01:00:38] but, no. But I, I think, um, I think at that period of time I was more accustomed to just kind of going forward, you know, just do it.

[01:00:47] Chris: [01:00:47] dude. Yeah, so I think this is really, really cool. I love your spirit of a couple of things you said I love you said you're a doer. And I love this. I'm fascinated by this quote. If it feels like marketing, you're doing it wrong. I think I probably misquoted you just, but this idea of like did we talk a lot about this book called the go giver and we're like obsessed with it.

[01:01:07] And the essential idea is just like help people and everything else will figure itself out over the long run. And that's been a really intense kinda message for me cause that's the podcast. It's like there, there really wasn't a whole lot of strategy and it was like, Oh we want, we're nerds and we like talking about this stuff.

[01:01:25] Maybe people would listen. Okay. Yeah, they do. They will. Cool. But there was never, I think I've emailed my email list like one time about the podcast and it just sorta keeps working. But the thing that's been really weird for me too is as we make this content, and maybe this is too much behind the kimono here, but like all of my businesses dramatically changed as I just started trying to make content.

[01:01:49] John: [01:01:49] Just make it and do it.

[01:01:51] Chris: [01:01:51] Make it and do it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I stopped being so intense with like YouTube ads or figuring out, you know, really complicated targeting, which all those things worked

[01:02:00] John: [01:02:00] Yeah. No, I mean I and I do some of that too. And actually I have a buddy who's helping me do some of that even with my new project, cause I, cause I think it's important. I mean, I, but there is a level of like,

[01:02:11] Chris: [01:02:11] It shouldn't be the only thing.

[01:02:12] John: [01:02:12] well, and it goes back to that whole initial concept. Which again at the time was super revolutionary, I believe.

[01:02:18] I don't know what it is now to say this, but content is marketing. Make meaningful stuff, make meaningful stuff, and be consistent with it and engage people and, and I don't know what the line is. I don't, I E people be like, where's the line? I don't know. You have to kind of figure that out and not really be able to, it just, I don't know when the line is, you're doing it too much or you're not doing it enough.

[01:02:41] I don't know.

[01:02:42] Chris: [01:02:42] Yeah. Gary V would say you can't make too much content. I think

[01:02:47] John: [01:02:47] You know, I hear about it. I honestly don't know much about Gary V I know a lot of people like,

[01:02:51] Chris: [01:02:51] you'll love or hate him or both. Yeah. So he's interesting, but I think, let me pull some kind of true side of this for us. I love your story. I love what you learned through it. I love that you were faithful the whole time to just make stuff. Just do it and see what happens, and then keep making stuff. And I think one of the things that worked out really well

[01:03:13] John: [01:03:13] I do want to say this. I do want to say this. In all fairness. I had a label also like I want, I want to be clear about that. I had a label hoping market me like, so there's some things that I wasn't hands-on. Probably an understanding even when I was young, and so I could kind of come in here, flip and be like, man, I just made and look what happened.

[01:03:32] You know? Mean, but there is. I guess what I'm saying in all of that is like some of the unique paths I took, I didn't think like, why shouldn't I do that? I just did it. So that would be probably unique. Like I didn't, you know, everybody else might've, where I think maybe some traditional artists more, we might've been like, well this is the way you do it.

[01:03:48] I was like, why not do it this way? Why wouldn't we do it this way? And I think some of that paid dividends for me and some of it also like. I was telling you when I put out the professional rapper video, you gotta watch this thing. I remember watching it that GMA Gucci played it at GMA. And I remember watching people's expression on this video and I actually remember being insecure about it cause I was like, Oh man.

[01:04:10] I realized quickly how weird it was that I, I made this mockumentary and I think what probably happened to the course of that period is like. Probably five out of 10 people who were into my music loved it. Two out of 10 we're probably like, yeah, whatever. And probably three people were like, this guy's lost his mind.

[01:04:32] Oh, we don't know what's going on here. We're done. You know? Like, I'd go no, at the end of the day, but that what that did is that that sort of thinking paid huge dividends in the overall story. I think of what I was doing.

[01:04:46] Chris: [01:04:46] were okay

[01:04:47] John: [01:04:47] Yeah, I was okay with that because I knew that if just music alone making, just putting out another record, doing the same tours over and over, I wanted to do more with creativity and I wanted to expand on it and I wanted to build a real culture around what I was doing and not just put out  records and cross my fingers and hope people will listen to them.

[01:05:07] And so I think that really helped. Yeah. I think long after my, I wasn't selling as many records, I was still getting shows because I think. You know, I was still getting tours and tour, you know, people were taking me on a tour because I think they knew that I brought something more than just the music that even people would know or not know.

[01:05:25] They knew that the music would connect, that there was something bigger to what I was doing that made it a little more engaging. And so I think it did pay dividends as you know, it didn't, I don't know whether or not it blew my records up or didn't, you know, that's not the, that wasn't the whole, that wasn't the point.

[01:05:40] The point was, is it built something much bigger. But also, I was going to say. The thing about content too, when we talk about this story of like audiences, what I loved about those YouTube community figured out in his early days is like the collaborative side of it and the sharing of audiences. And so again, I'm not sure how that's applicable to your

[01:05:59] Chris: [01:05:59] no, no, no, no, no, no. Dad

[01:06:00] John: [01:06:00] but the share the sharing of audience in the collaboration.

[01:06:04] I think hip hop does this well too. I mean, hip hop has always featuring different people and you know, and, and there's a, there's a real community aspect to hip hop music where. You know, you get feature on one person's project, they feature you, and you share audiences and you build a community together.

[01:06:19] What I liked about the YouTubers is they would be acting in different, you know, a lot of the people I was around were acting and other people's sketches. You know what I mean? They were like telling their fans about it. Their fans were telling their fans about it. They were sharing audiences. They were helped giving, you know, like sharing that audience with a new person coming up that they believed in.

[01:06:36] And so that. There was a real cool community aspect to what was going on. And you know, and I sure these books, I mean, I haven't read any of them, but I know there's tons of books on building your tribes and all that sort of stuff.

[01:06:50] Chris: [01:06:50] John, you're a weirdo because I know you're not like a business book nerd. You somehow seem to have like an inherent wisdom. Oh, on the  like . Understanding how machines work. Understanding how cultures work, understanding how communities superpowers.

[01:07:10] John: [01:07:10] super power.

[01:07:12] Chris: [01:07:12] But so, and like, that's why I wanted to have you on

[01:07:13] John: [01:07:13] Well, cause I, cause I, cause I did it. I did it. I mean, if I was a good enough writer, I could have wrote a book pod. But I, I, you know, there are other people who are better writers than me that are, you can write that book. But I, I mean I was, I've been since I was 15 or 16 and we were throwing hip hop shows.

[01:07:28] And you go out and you pass out flyers and you try to get people to come and you build a culture and community, you engage in me, you just build, you find the people who are going to be into what you're doing. And then you find other people who are doing something similar. And.

[01:07:40] Chris: [01:07:40] Dude. So let me deliver kind of like the final blow here cause I'm learning a lot from this conversation. What I observe in our community of recording studio people is we have a lone Wolf culture. And there's like a myth of the lone Wolf of like, Oh man. Like he was just like a God and he

[01:07:58] John: [01:07:58] I don't know. I don't buy that.

[01:08:00] Chris: [01:08:00] So my buddy Brian Hood that hosts his show like it was when we developed a friendship that we started to see a lot of growth in each other and the podcast grew along with it. Same with Andy J pizza is, as we kind of met and became friends, we, I have gotten better and I look back at myself like a year or two years ago, and I'm like, wow, what a loser.

[01:08:20] Like. Learned so much and grown so much, but it's the community that drove that. And I think in our industry, the people that listen to this podcast, primarily  recording studio folks, that there's a mentality of like, don't share. Keep your secrets secret. Do it on your own. Because what you're really, really, really want is validation.

[01:08:41] Do you want to be like, I was successful. I did it by myself cause I'm awesome.  smirk.

[01:08:46] John: [01:08:46] I don't buy, I think we use the word genius way too frequently. Yeah.

[01:08:51]

[01:08:51]

[01:08:51] Like you're not that special. None of us are that special. That's why I'm doing the collaborative effort. I mean. I will say one thing. Sometimes commitity too many voices can kill a project. So there is a level of that, you know, too many people speaking into something.

[01:09:07] I've fully understand that as well.

[01:09:09] Chris: [01:09:09] there. I heard a saying one time that a camel is a horse made by committee

[01:09:15] John: [01:09:15] Well, I, I'm just saying when canceling is a horse

[01:09:19] Chris: [01:09:19] Well, let's give it a hub. No, let's give it two hubs some of the times.

[01:09:26] John: [01:09:26] That's funny. That'd be that. She like to, I know I'm, this is me logically thinking about something's really funny and not laughing, but that's actually a really funny, yeah, you're very humorous, Chris. That's a, that's a fantastic joke. Well, I think I then, you know, speaking about myself, like that's why I'm quick to say like, you know, man, I just did it.

[01:09:43] Man didn't know I had people working my projects too. You know what I mean? And, but there were people who were catching on. Too. I think a big part of what my vision was also inspiring that vision, and I understand the power of the people who helped me get where I got. You know what I mean? And, and the ability to sharing and connect your audiences.

[01:10:05] And I mean, that's just, it's a cool thing.

[01:10:07] Chris: [01:10:07] This is a message that I don't think I'll ever stopping eating, but this I struggle with the lone will thing. I struggle with wanting to be like, Oh, I'm gonna do it on my own. Don't be fine. You like. Oh, um, gifted or some crap.  I love the way you've taken this conversation about like, because you started initially like, Oh no, I was on team and on his name, this guy.

[01:10:27] No, man. Tell us how awesome you are like at the beginning of this episode. It's funny cause even as we've been doing it, I've been like, man, I wish Brian was here for this episode with me because he makes everything better. We're better together than I am by myself. And

[01:10:41] John: [01:10:41] hear that Brian,

[01:10:42] Chris: [01:10:42] yeah, you hear that Brian, he's editing this right now in Taiwan or something.

[01:10:46] Thailand.

[01:10:46] John: [01:10:46] you make Chris better.

[01:10:48] Chris: [01:10:48] you make me a better, but like I, that really has been, I guess I'm like just connecting this right now. Like the lesson of 2019 for me was the power of collaboration.

[01:10:58] John: [01:10:58] being, you know what? And even if, here's the thing is, even if you're kind of operating on your own, doing a project on your own, the fact that you're under the same roof with creative people upstairs, and that you can swap ideas, you can get out of your own head, you can feel that sense of community.

[01:11:11] There's a lot of power in that. And don't underestimate the collaborative nature of that. You know, so even if it is like there are times when he just needs to be you because if there's too many people over your shoulder, you just get out of the room. Man, let me just get this done. Cause I know what I need to do.

[01:11:27] I know where this needs to go. I'm going to take it there. Just being around like minded people like when we go and we have tea time. Do Westerville creative tee time. There's a lot of power in that. Like you just, you know, finding like-mindedness and collaborating in that way too. So, I mean, but that's, that's where you become less libertarian, Chris.

[01:11:46] You realize

[01:11:48] Chris: [01:11:48] Maybe these Democrats and Republicans

[01:11:49] John: [01:11:49] nothing, nothing, nothing is done on its own. That there's a team of people that always feed

[01:11:55] Chris: [01:11:55] man, he's getting me. So yeah, like it is like I appreciate you coming on the show, man, and you're, you're hitting the nail on the head. Yeah, for sure. You're hitting the nail on the head that I think the take home for this guys is that trying to build a recording studio, a successful career, trying to join that six figure club.

[01:12:10] That's how you want to say it is one thing. If you're doing it by yourself, trying to find a community of people, and that doesn't necessarily mean business partners. It might, but. Like, I definitely guarantee you, it's like a fly on my glasses. What is happening here? We have like one Nat. It lives in this office that I cannot kill no matter how hard I try.

[01:12:32] But yeah, so this idea of like having people with you doesn't necessarily mean business partners though. It might, but having people that like make you healthier. I think that is, and that make you better, I think is a huge piece of this. And I know, like you're a piece of that puzzle for me of like hanging out with you and Brandon and Andy.

[01:12:51] John: [01:12:51] And you are a piece of that puzzle for me.

[01:12:54]

[01:12:54] Chris: [01:12:54] Oh man. Well, I love you brother, and it's, I was so pumped when you moved back back to

[01:13:00] John: [01:13:00] man. Well, we've got a good thing going on here. So any of you out there looking for a, a place to relocate, come, come, join our tea party.

[01:13:07] Chris: [01:13:07] Yeah, it's super affordable and for some reason, amazing people keep moving back. That's the weird part, is this. People from Westerville that leave and then come back home a lot.

[01:13:17] John: [01:13:17] It did. We, we've said it and we'll say it again. It's the most extraordinary, normal place on the planet.

[01:13:23] Chris: [01:13:23] John, thanks for coming on the show.

[01:13:24] John: [01:13:24] thanks for having me.

[01:13:25] Chris: [01:13:25] dropping some wisdom bombs on us.

[01:13:26] John: [01:13:26] You know what I like about this? We don't have to shake hands cause no one can see this.

[01:13:29] Chris: [01:13:29] I know, right? We're John and I are fellow germaphobes and we're both struggling with what that means for our own sanity. Kindred spirits. You and I.

[01:13:38] John: [01:13:38] Yes. Awesome. All right man. All right, thanks.

[01:13:40] Chris: [01:13:40] have a good one.

[01:13:42] John: [01:13:42] Bye.

[01:13:46] Brian: [01:13:46] So that is it for this episode of the six figure home studio podcast. Quick correction to Chris Graham. You mentioned multiple times. I was in Thailand with my wife. We're actually in Vietnam. And if you listen to the intro or outro of the last episode, I'm in Phu Quoc this week, which is a small Island in Vietnam, just South of the Cambodian coastline.

[01:14:06] And, uh, it has been absolutely incredible here. And if you've been following me on Instagram and see my stories, you've seen probably some of the most amazing sunsets ever. I don't think I've ever seen sunsets like this. Anyways, back to the episode. It's really easy to listen to this episode and think, ah, what does this guy know about me running a studio?

[01:14:20] He's got a rap career from. Years ago. He has a big company with dozens of employees that sold a Disney for $500 million. What can he teach me about running a recording studio? And I think it's really easy to look at all the things that don't apply to you specifically. If anything, if you did not take away anything from this episode, I want you to L East.

[01:14:40] Think about this. Look at who he surrounded himself with and look who he mentioned the entire time was the people that helped him get to where he is, both with his rap career and both with maker. And as lone wolfs as audio people, we have a tendency to isolate ourselves. This is not good mentally, it's not good emotionally.

[01:14:57] It's not good for our businesses. In no way is isolating herself, help our business grow. I definitely have not done what I've done alone. I think if you've watched my webinar that thousands of people have gone through, I mentioned that I had a mentor that helped change my mindset, and I've had tons of mentors along the way.

[01:15:13] I've had friends that have helped shape my business along the way. And I think one of the cool things about the way our Facebook community, specifically in our Slack community, if you're profitable producer, core student, I think the way our community works is it is so much easier to collaborate and form lasting relationships with people now then has ever been before in the audio industry.

[01:15:34] And I really believe that one of the interesting business models that we'll probably start to flourish is more and more collaborative studios or co-op type studios. If you go back to episode 27 of the podcast, re-interviewed Matt Boudreaux of working class audio, that was one of his big shifts is when he shifted to a coworking style studio.

[01:15:52] He had people to collaborate with. He had shared expenses with people. It was a much more healthy environment than when he was trying to rent a big studio and incur a lot of debt. Uh, and had high overhead. So it does, there's a lot of benefits, not just monetarily, but emotionally and creatively to collaborate with other people.

[01:16:10] And I mentioned that we are starting another accountability accelerator bootcamp with the profitable producer course. That's a mouthful. I can't, that's really hard to say. But, uh, AAB with PPC students, I'm just gonna use letters now. One of the coolest things, the biggest takeaways that they have when they complete that program, that eight week program, is that they come away with a mastermind group.

[01:16:28] If they then.  forever for as long as they stay together. Um, it's, it varies from group to group, but I still have groups from way back with  from 2017 that are still meeting regularly. For their mastermind meetups, and if it looks like a mastermind or whether it's people you're actually working with together in a studio location, whether it's a multi-room facility or you're sharing a space, four, working on your business, which we talk about in the podcast all the time, working on your business versus working in your business, working in your business is collaborating in a studio, working on your businesses, maybe collaborating in an office space and working on systems of your business, whatever it looks like.

[01:17:03] Find people to surround yourself with. So that you are not alone in this world and you will be better off for it. I can almost guarantee it, but then there's always the chance that you pick the wrong people to be around, which can also be toxic, but maybe Christina will have an episode in the future on finding great people to surround yourself with for a go here.

[01:17:20] When I had mentioned that file pass, we just had, as of two days ago, we just launched client uploads a major feature where all you have to do is send a link to your client and they can upload files straight to your project. Super, super easy way to collect files. If you are a recording engineer or a mixing engineer and you're trying to collect large session files, or if you're mastering engineer and you're trying to get way files from your clients so that you can master them, it is the easiest way to collect files from clients because the, the files never expire.

[01:17:46] They don't have to have an account or have to download any app in order to upload files to you. It is completely a branded experience, meaning your logo is on the page. It's not like we transfer where there's just a bunch of ads on the page. It's a much more professional experience. Another feature we launched is accelerated uploads, and this feature means that the further you are from our servers, the faster your upload speeds are going to be improved.

[01:18:07] And I, we tested this, I was in Thailand at the time and we tested a 353 megabyte away file and we tried it without accelerated uploads on, we were testing this and it took 81 seconds to upload. Then we turned on the accelerated uploads feature. And it took 42 seconds to upload, so nearly twice as fast.

[01:18:27] And uh, I think if you're right next to our servers are not going to experience much of a boost. But if you are sending links for your clients to upload files to our servers, they may be all over the world. So it's just making that so much easier. And finally, one more big feature that we updated is indestructable uploads.

[01:18:44] Meaning, if you're in the middle of uploading a file, especially a huge file, say 20 gigs and it fails halfway through, maybe your connection's lost. Maybe you close your laptop, maybe your Peter went to sleep. Well, your connection's just terrible. As soon as you get back on the internet, as soon as your, your computer reconnects, it will resume right back where I left off.

[01:19:02] And, uh, I also got to test this thoroughly in Cambodia with really sketchy internet, really slow internet, uploaded a like a 20 gig file to file pass. And it took all day because the internet was terrible. However, I changed locations multiple times. I had my laptop open and closed multiple times as I was moving around throughout the day and had no issues with it, uh, resuming right where it left off.

[01:19:22] So if you want those features, go sign up for our pro plan@filepast.com and you'll get a 14 day free trial as well as a 30 day money back guarantee. So. That's it for this episode. Next week's episode is not done yet. I think I'm actually responsible for that episode. So you will have a solo episode with me of some sort.

[01:19:41] I'm not sure exactly which episode I'm going to do yet. I have a few different ideas, so stay tuned. Next week and early 6:00 AM for episode 120 until next time. Thank you so much for listening and happy hustling.