How To Stairstep Your Way From Local Bands To A-List Artists: With Grammy Nominated Engineer Jesse Ray Ernster

Episode 116

Brian: [00:00:00] This is the six figure home studio podcast, episode 116.

[00:00:19] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure home studio podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I'm here with my bald, beautiful, amazing purple shirted cohost, Christopher J. Graham. Chris, how you doing today, my friend.

[00:00:31] Chris: [00:00:31] Well, I'm really good. And let me tell you why we're at Nam. We are in the Vista room on the 14th floor of the Hilton. We're getting ready to give it you as an episode while we look at Disneyland and mountains in the distance.

[00:00:43] Brian: [00:00:43] This is an Epic view.  this is the worst way to describe it. I'm doing a video of it

[00:00:47] Chris: [00:00:47] a rollercoaster. It just drove by us. It's pretty crazy.

[00:00:50] Brian: [00:00:50] great. So we're right across the street from Disney world at the Hilton hotel where Nan is. We're actively at Nam. It's day three of Nam. It's Saturday.

[00:00:57] Chris: [00:00:57] a naked person below us in the pool.

[00:00:59] Brian: [00:00:59] There is a naked person below us in the pool. So these are all the details that you don't need to know, but what does matter is we are at Nam right now and we are having an incredible time and I'm just glad to be with you, Chris.

[00:01:08] Chris: [00:01:08] I'm glad to be with you too, man. This is fun, man. It's

[00:01:11] Brian: [00:01:11] By the way, this is the first live in person interview we have ever done or episode and all. By the way, I've never recorded in the same room as you for this podcast

[00:01:19] Chris: [00:01:19] this is true. Yeah. It's always been remote.

[00:01:21] Brian: [00:01:21] is weird.

[00:01:22] Chris: [00:01:22] the hell? You're right.

[00:01:24] Brian: [00:01:24] 116 episodes in, and this is our first in-person, like the first time I've ever talked to you on the podcast in

[00:01:29] Chris: [00:01:29] What the heck? Yeah, man. So we're at Nam. It's been wild. We've met so many people that listen to the podcast

[00:01:38] Brian: [00:01:38] My waiter last night was a file pass customer. By the way,

[00:01:41] Chris: [00:01:41] who was not at Nam. It was,

[00:01:42] Brian: [00:01:42] he wasn't an N. this is none real. This is like 20 minutes from Nam at umami burger. So shout out to my waiter at umami burger.

[00:01:51] Chris: [00:01:51] that's amazing. Yeah. It's been a wild, you know, we went last year in, our podcast wasn't terribly old at the at the time, but it was like weird to meet anyone that listened to us, and now it's just like a nonstop smorgasbord of new friends, which has been really, really

[00:02:07] Brian: [00:02:07] Yeah. This is like, this is the shift of last from last year to now, which is we went to the bottom floor pro audio, like the big floor for pro audio first day, and we didn't leave. Because every like seven steps who'd run into somebody we know. And it was like so much fun.

[00:02:22] Chris: [00:02:22] still processing that. It's kinda

[00:02:24] Brian: [00:02:24] So enough about that.

[00:02:25] So we're having a good time at Nam. We're loving it here. Uh, my wife just flew in today, which is amazing. So my wife's gonna experience Nam, and hopefully not contract anthrax.

[00:02:34] Chris: [00:02:34] Hilariously, if we'd been recording this episode a little earlier when your wife was flying in her plane, I mean, we can see for like probably a hundred miles. I'd like, it's all windows where we're at and we can see all these mountains. She would have flown over those mountains on the way to lax.

[00:02:49] Brian: [00:02:49] seen her fly by. Yeah.

[00:02:51] Chris: [00:02:51] we can have you signal mirrors.

[00:02:52] Yeah.

[00:02:56] Brian: [00:02:56] So today we actually have a guest. This is somebody that I just met you, Jesse. Well, we'll introduce him right here in a second. Met him at Nam. Did you know, did I say before

[00:03:05] Chris: [00:03:05] Well, I think I met you through bounce Butler. I think you made a story. It was like right after I launched bounce Butler, and you had just had a baby and you put a story up on Instagram about how he was like a picture of you holding your baby. And it was something about bounce. Butler was bouncing bounces for you while you went and had family time.

[00:03:27] And I was like, that's, Oh my gosh. Maybe it was like, exactly why I built bounce Butler in the first place was so I could hold my baby 10 years ago. And yeah, so it was just, it was really, really cool. I like got my wife and I was like, look, this guy. Oh wow. He's. Really legit. He's like a like a first rate.

[00:03:51] Brian: [00:03:51] me try to talk them up a little bit. You're better at this than I am, so I'm going to try my best here.

[00:03:54] Chris: [00:03:54] no, you're better at this. And I am Brian.

[00:03:56] Brian: [00:03:56] No, you're better at this than I am. No, you hang up first

[00:04:02]

[00:04:02]

[00:04:02] Jesse Ray is a Grammy nominated. You're up for Grammy next week, right? Mixing engineer, audio engineer. What other services you offer?

[00:04:11] Jesse: [00:04:11] Well, I'm just mixing now.

[00:04:12] Brian: [00:04:12] Okay. Just mixing now. Yes, and he's worked with the likes of Kanye West. Who else? I mean, you know the list better than I do.

[00:04:19] Chris: [00:04:19] I'm so bad with lists. Jesse, why don't you tell us a little bit about . Let's just hand the keys to you. Tell us about your

[00:04:25] Brian: [00:04:25] This is Jesse Ray from Jesse Ray, mixed.com.

[00:04:27] Jesse: [00:04:27] I am 28 years old. I came up in a musical family. Dad was a producer, engineer, mixer guy, and mom was a songwriter and yeah, so they kind of nurtured that environment for me. We had instruments in the house and freedom to explore all of that, uh, played in bands. Fast forward through all of that. Uh, learn to record.

[00:04:48] I was the guy who had the gear at the house. So did that, moved out to LA a few years ago, was engineering for Kanye West. And. Kind of pivoted into mixing after that. So the record, I'm up for a Grammy for, for mixing this next week is Burna boy African giant.

[00:05:03] Chris: [00:05:03] Wait a go, man. It is so cool to see young people doing well at that at your level. It is, and I feel like an old man saying that

[00:05:15] Jesse: [00:05:15] Yeah.

[00:05:15] Chris: [00:05:15] I'm 37. But like, uh, you know, I'm as old as you can possibly be and be a millennial. I kind of have to root for millennials,

[00:05:23] Brian: [00:05:23] once they, once you were born, they're like, all right, no more millennials are allowed to be born.

[00:05:27]

[00:05:27] That's how, that's how like tight it is in the window there.

[00:05:29] Jesse: [00:05:29] You really cut off point.

[00:05:30] Chris: [00:05:30] I was the cutoff point.

[00:05:31] I was the very first millennial.

[00:05:35]

[00:05:35] No, that's not true. What kind of that is such a millennial thing to say? Well, I was the first millennial, like, you know, they just, there was a meeting at the hospital

[00:05:46] Jesse: [00:05:46] That should be the

[00:05:47] Chris: [00:05:47] and they're like, gen X has died.

[00:05:50]

[00:05:50] Brian: [00:05:50] Oh, I was, I, I completely got that wrong. You were, uh, right before you were born. There was no more Genex is allowed. That's what it was. I completely got that

[00:05:57] Chris: [00:05:57] It's all good.

[00:05:58] Brian: [00:05:58] Hopefully we edit it out, so no one

[00:05:59] Chris: [00:05:59] millennial move, Brian, don't worry about it.

[00:06:01] Brian: [00:06:01] It's all about me.

[00:06:02] Chris: [00:06:02] Anyways, we're, we're over bantering your story.

[00:06:05] Brian: [00:06:05] so we're going to get into the story how you started working with Kanye, but I think it's actually important for us to get a picture of some of the earlier stuff because I think one of the reasons I wanted to interview you is because in our conversations, I heard stories of how much of a hustler you were

[00:06:19]

[00:06:19] in a good way to where you are willing to do things that other people were not willing to do.

[00:06:23] And I think our listeners can get a lot out of hearing some of these stories because. A lot of people, our biggest audience is millennial males, and millennials are really good at making it about me, me, me, me, me. Not to offend anybody in our audience. If you're a millennial  a lot of times we make it about us, and I think some of the stories you've told me so far are

[00:06:43] Chris: [00:06:43] Not as much as boomers do, but close.

[00:06:45] Brian: [00:06:45] boomers, they'll listen this podcast though.

[00:06:47]

[00:06:47] I'm joking. They do.

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[00:06:49] So I want to get some of these stories out of you and I think it's really good to start early on. You are from Minnesota early on or the twin cities area. Uh, tell us about your getting started in that time and kind of that niche you started off in early in your career.

[00:07:02] Jesse: [00:07:02] Uh, yes. So I found a, a hole in the market where there was a need for engineers to work on college acappella records. And this was right around the time that this group called Pentatonix was getting very, very big and having a lot of success.

[00:07:17] Brian: [00:07:17] I would like to state that that's my wife's least favorite band. On earth. I'm going to put her on blast here. She gets physically angry if she hears them. It's incredible.

[00:07:29] Chris: [00:07:29] so it's your least favorite band. It's Ryan's Webster band. So the

[00:07:31] Brian: [00:07:31] No, least

[00:07:32] Chris: [00:07:32] least fit, if you're both, it's both of your guys' least favorite bands. So you guys are in harmony on that

[00:07:41] Brian: [00:07:41] sat side note started, started hijack the story real quick. We're going to get back to you, Jesse. Uh, we had, uh, if anyone here came to Nam in the six year old CDO community, and you came to that, there was a panel called the power of podcasting that Chris grandma's on and Chris decided to forced a pun into the conversation.

[00:07:58] Chris: [00:07:58] wasn't even my turn. It was

[00:07:59] Brian: [00:07:59] Uh, it wasn't even his turn. Someone else was talking. He forced it upon, as Chris does, and I boot him from the

[00:08:04] Chris: [00:08:04] It was great. They got to laugh though. It got a laugh. Yeah. The BU helped with the laugh.  that might've been the only laughing. Might've been at your boo.

[00:08:12] Brian: [00:08:12] yes. Probably. Anyways, Jesse, you are in twin cities. This is like kind of in the height of Pentatonix when they're up and coming and there was a lot of like acapella groups in your area.

[00:08:22] Continue the story, sir.

[00:08:23] Jesse: [00:08:23] Yes. And, uh, all of their records were clearly being done by, uh, either recording professors at the school or just local, I would call them seasoned engineers, uh, that were essentially giving them, giving them like a live choir sound. And that's just not the modern sound like you needed to. Really layer and stack vocals and blend in samples and just get this really punchy, elaborate, modern production.

[00:08:48] So to convince the first group to kind of start the domino effect of getting a lot of that work, I just put together a demo that I, I sang the parts of myself and structured the harmony out and, and made these kinds of artificial. And drum sounds with my mouth and just like, and it's all really exaggerated and it's such a hilarious sound, especially now looking back, it's like, wow, this really was ridiculous.

[00:09:11] So I understand why your, your wife has such and such a dislike for that. That

[00:09:15] Brian: [00:09:15] It's not, it's not an archipelago. It's not all acappella groups. It's just the Pentatonix.

[00:09:19] Jesse: [00:09:19] Just them, which is amazing because the irony is they're so fantastic when they're just singing in the room like it's, they had it did a documentary on Netflix a few years back.

[00:09:28] Brian: [00:09:28] I won't be watching it.

[00:09:31]

[00:09:31] Chris: [00:09:31] You're really singing their praises here, man.

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[00:09:34] Jesse: [00:09:34] Well, if you check it out, the first minute is them like backstage prepping just in the rehearsal room before they go on stage, and that's impressive. Then you can turn it off 60 seconds of your life. Yeah. So I threw together this demo and sent it to one of the band leaders. And he was kind of the musical director, also a student at the school.

[00:09:51] And, and I just said, I can make your life a lot easier. I can sort of musical direct this and coordinate and I can help with the scheduling and bringing in, you know, the members of your group and I know how we'll do this and this would be the plan and this is how long it would take and this is what it would cost.

[00:10:05] And, and at the time it was, most of those groups were funded by the universities, so that was great. And I th yeah. And I, some of them had to kind of fund themselves and do like fundraising concerts and benefit concerts at Christmas time and, but, uh, yeah, a lot of it ended up working out nicely like that.

[00:10:24] Uh, yeah, that took off from there and worked on a lot of that stuff

[00:10:28] Brian: [00:10:28] So you spotted a niche that had a need then was not being filled currently.

[00:10:34] Chris: [00:10:34] And was funded.

[00:10:35] Brian: [00:10:35] was funded

[00:10:37] Chris: [00:10:37] That's quite a combo.

[00:10:38] Brian: [00:10:38] and then you went out of your way to create an example, a portfolio of yourself. That's what I did when I first started. I created like four or five different styles of music with just like little 30 to 62nd clips of songs that I wrote in those genres, and I wanted to show examples of these different types of genres and what I could do with those.

[00:10:58] So that I could prove to somebody that I could do good enough work for their style of music. And the cool thing about the acapella groups, as you were saying, there was a need that everyone was making him sound like choirs. And if you ever listened to acapella recording, it's a very interesting, like it's very specific needs that they had.

[00:11:12] And you probably went out of your comfort zone cause you're not necessarily an acapella singer yourself.  you spent some time on it, how much time you spent on done that.

[00:11:20] Jesse: [00:11:20] Nights and nights and nights of just being up all night and studying and researching and figuring out how to do it, and emailing the guys who did it. There's a, there's a group of about three or four producers on the East coast that do all of those records, and one of them was kind enough to send me just a novel of information

[00:11:37] Brian: [00:11:37] Wow. Do you remember the guy's name?

[00:11:39] Jesse: [00:11:39] Man, I don't, I would have to take through an archive of emails, but he was incredibly helpful. Uh, you know, things, all the technical types of things that.

[00:11:46] Brian: [00:11:46] read the Go-Giver.

[00:11:49] Jesse: [00:11:49] Yeah, it was extremely generous and, and I always remember that and I'm trying to implement that behavior myself now. Yeah. So with that, at the same time I was doing like a lot of younger engineer producers do, is I was working like five different types of jobs, like offering, mixing, mastering.

[00:12:05] I was giving music lessons. I was gigging and singing and playing guitar in a band in a country band, because that's what the Midwest park and market kind of looks like. So with that, I knew a bunch of the other country bands, so I kind of did a similar thing where I would, I would make up a some songs like you did and send them out and be like, Hey, here's what I can do.

[00:12:20] Did the same thing with some of the rock bands and.

[00:12:22] Chris: [00:12:22] I love this.

[00:12:23] Jesse: [00:12:23] a couple of years I was, you know, I had a portfolio and I had bands that were coming through pretty regularly and it was, it was great. And through the connections I made, I started teaching at Minneapolis media Institute, a college of recording arts and teaching, mixing and engineering courses.

[00:12:38] And. It wasn't long. I think less than a year before that actually closed down. And then the writing was kind of on the wall that the, uh, the move was to get out to LA or Nashville or New York. And my then girlfriend, now wife, Stella, and I decided, let's, let's do the LA thing. Let's,

[00:12:56] Brian: [00:12:56] Well, let's, let's actually dig into that cause I think this is, a lot of people are in those crossroads right now. It's like my city is not working or I've reached my limit. I've hit the ceiling in Reno, Nevada. I shit on that city all the time. It's such a trash hold. I've hit the ceiling and Reno, Nevada.

[00:13:12] Chris: [00:13:12] What we should do. We should make fun of Fresno, California, because we have history with Fresno. When we were on your bachelor party, I'll never forget, we were driving to Yosemite. We were going through Fresno and it was like nine o'clock at night, and I turned my head and I saw a guy driving a bike down the sidewalk.

[00:13:29] Transporting a door on his back that he had stolen and I was like, Whoa. Sub Fresno, what?

[00:13:39] Jesse: [00:13:39] What are we doing here?

[00:13:40] Brian: [00:13:40] you can blast Fresno. I'm going to continue to bless Serino cause Reno is one of the saddest cities I've ever been to and still Fresno has nothing on

[00:13:48] Chris: [00:13:48] Okay. I'll take your word for

[00:13:49] Brian: [00:13:49] So anyways, a lot of people have like, I've hit the ceiling in my city, whether it's Fresno or Reno and, or Athens, Alabama, which is where I'm from.

[00:13:56] I'll shit in my own town. It's fine. And it's time to move somewhere. Maybe it's Nashville, maybe it's LA, maybe it's New York. It shouldn't be Newark. Probably. I've heard a lot of people say it shouldn't be New

[00:14:03] Chris: [00:14:03] shouldn't be a city whose name ends in the word no. Fresno. Reno.

[00:14:09]

[00:14:09] Sorry, Brian.

[00:14:11] Jesse: [00:14:11] Hell no,

[00:14:11] Chris: [00:14:11] Hell no. Yeah, I can't. I was trying to think of another team. Another town that ends in the word. No. Ah, someone, someone in their car listening to this podcast is shouting the

[00:14:21] Brian: [00:14:21] I don't, I don't want to give you time to think

[00:14:24] Chris: [00:14:24] We can't hear

[00:14:24] Brian: [00:14:24] Like 10 minutes from now, you're just going to shout out some stupid city

[00:14:27] Chris: [00:14:27] probably

[00:14:28] Brian: [00:14:28] So again, a lot of people are in this.

[00:14:31] Chris: [00:14:31] Is that it?

[00:14:32] Brian: [00:14:32] Shut your face.

[00:14:34]

[00:14:34] Jesse: [00:14:34] That's where I

[00:14:34] Brian: [00:14:34] what's, what's worse about this

[00:14:36] Chris: [00:14:36] Oh, what the heck? See, that's, that can't be an accident.

[00:14:40]

[00:14:40] Brian: [00:14:40] is, here's the problem with this, Chris, we're live. We can't cut out your shit just randomly when you talk over me. So this is, a lot of the stuff has to stay. Now this is permanent. This is the negative recording in the same room.

[00:14:50] Chris: [00:14:50] I'm terrified.

[00:14:51] Brian: [00:14:51] Yeah. So a lot of people have been in this situation where they've hit the ceiling in their city and they've thought it's time to move.

[00:14:57] If I want to do this at a, at a high level. A, how did you decide between Nashville, LA, New York, you know, some of the major cities. What made you go to LA and then once you get out of the way, what pushed you over the hump of the fear that it takes to actually make that move? Cause that is terrifying for most people.

[00:15:15] Jesse: [00:15:15] A, I love warm weather and in California, that's the end of

[00:15:21] Chris: [00:15:21] I get it.

[00:15:21] Jesse: [00:15:21] Be. We made the move, we made the decision months in advance and we had savings and we did not burn our ships by just going out broke. Cause I knew that if we came out here it was going to need to be a fulltime job of networking, coffee meetings, sending emails out, running around town, hustling, not sleeping, meeting everyone, befriending everyone

[00:15:44] Brian: [00:15:44] So this one you made. And you said we are going to do it. How long have you been, how long in advance did you like? Say, all right, on X date we're moving.

[00:15:51] Jesse: [00:15:51] Well, the small factor that was involved was that. My, then girlfriend Stella works in the corporate world, and we need to give notice for her job and begin to look. And we were convinced that this was a difficult market to break into. So she said, I could start sending resumes out now, but it might be up to a year before anything would bite.

[00:16:10] But she's very humble. She has a master's degree in, just was a ridiculous student, and she's brilliant. And within a week she had three offers

[00:16:18] Chris: [00:16:18] Oh wow,

[00:16:19] Jesse: [00:16:19] she flew out and did some interviews and . God hooked up at a great consulting firm. And so we came out, uh, literally like six weeks after we spawned the

[00:16:28] Brian: [00:16:28] So that made the, that made the decision a lot easier cause you had, you had a gig lined up and, and, and it, that takes a lot of the stress

[00:16:34] Jesse: [00:16:34] Yeah. And I was able to still be mixing a lot of the projects I was working on specifically, I had this 52 song rock opera that I had been engineering for the past, like eight months, and it was corporately funded and it was, so I spent like the next four months mixing

[00:16:48] Brian: [00:16:48] how did you get that gig? I'm just curious. That's a very bizarre type of project to get, and I'm sure people would like to hear this story.

[00:16:54] Jesse: [00:16:54] that was a nepotism thing. My dad, that was a client of my dad's, uh, he retired from the studio world and kind of gave me a lot of those contacts. So they, they kept working with me and we did the thing, I knew the system. I knew how he did the job and kept it alive.

[00:17:08] Chris: [00:17:08] That's amazing.

[00:17:09] Jesse: [00:17:09] yeah.

[00:17:09] Brian: [00:17:09] Okay, so he moved out to LA. Tell us what you did next to kind of get your foot in the door with some of the studios in LA.

[00:17:16] Jesse: [00:17:16] Right? So the first couple of weeks was failed attempt after failed attempt to get ahold of studio managers by dropping off resumes, emailing resumes, calling, trying to get ahold of anybody, trying to find people who know someone who works at the studio and get an an and.

[00:17:31] Brian: [00:17:31] This is what most people do, by the way,

[00:17:32] Jesse: [00:17:32] Yeah. And I didn't have a, a school type of counselor who could reach out.

[00:17:37] And so I didn't have that resource to it to make those connections. And so I was starting at the very, very bottom and starting over and,

[00:17:44] Brian: [00:17:44] Ground zero.

[00:17:45] Jesse: [00:17:45] yeah. And trying to apply and get these and get like a minimum wage studio job to just start meeting bands and musicians coming through. And that was my, that was my goal.

[00:17:52] So when that wasn't working and I was just dead in the water, I. I filled up my Jeep full of boxes of donuts, like floor to seat to ceiling, I think it was like 10 dozen boxes of these donuts and slapped my resume to the top printed in full color. It was just flashy and obnoxious and these were expensive.

[00:18:13] Dealt like really, really nice donuts from a great place

[00:18:15] Brian: [00:18:15] What's it called? What's the sh shout out the place.

[00:18:17] Jesse: [00:18:17] not remember. I actually had to make two stops. I ran out of boxes and resumes like halfway through the day, so I stopped somewhere else and

[00:18:25] Chris: [00:18:25] I'm obsessed with this story. This is awesome.

[00:18:27] Brian: [00:18:27] studio by studio dropping off

[00:18:30] Jesse: [00:18:30] I went to every single studio in the Valley and a few others that were kind of down in central LA, but I wanted to stick in the Valley, like some of the iconic

[00:18:38] Chris: [00:18:38] Just sprinkling LA with your resume.

[00:18:41] Jesse: [00:18:41] yeah.

[00:18:41] Brian: [00:18:41] And did you just drop it and leave? Did you try to talk to anybody? Did you do like.

[00:18:44] Jesse: [00:18:44] I would ring doorbells, I would come in, I'd give them the pitch like, Hey, I want to come in and work hard for you guys. Um, I'm hungry and I love your room.

[00:18:54] It meant a lot to me. Growing up. These records were made here and I, I meant

[00:18:57] Chris: [00:18:57] Huh? Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:59]

[00:18:59] Jesse: [00:18:59] about the locations I selected. Uh, they made records that inspired me. They had engineers there that inspired me and I meant it.

[00:19:06] Chris: [00:19:06] Dude, that's so dope. One of the things that drives me nuts is when you talk to somebody that's super, super young and trying to break in and, and they say like, Oh, truth, want to work in music?

[00:19:17]

[00:19:17] Wouldn't really courage. It's one of work in music. I'm like, blah. But yeah, to have like a personal connection and be honest and have a story and like this place, this record, your work impacted my life and there's a part of who I

[00:19:30] Brian: [00:19:30] And also Bri bribes help,

[00:19:32] Chris: [00:19:32] And bribes help. Yeah.

[00:19:33] Brian: [00:19:33] bribes help.

[00:19:34] Jesse: [00:19:34] Yup. And, uh, I have a few friends that I live way later down the line learned were working there at some of those studios that day. And, and they're like, dude, you're the donuts guy. I remember that. We loved them, man.

[00:19:47] Brian: [00:19:47] You were. You found a way to, instead of being like every other damn kid who's fresh to the city and like sending out resumes blindly and like call it cold calling people instead, you found a way to become a purple cow.

[00:19:58] Chris: [00:19:58] Totally well, and let me dig into that a little deeper. What I'm hearing you say is your buddies. Knew who you were. You're like, Oh, he's a donut guy. I would imagine it, while you weren't there, that a conversation with the manager or the head engineer, whatever, that it was easy for them to endorse you as a person.

[00:20:16] Just say, Oh yeah, dude, Jessie's awesome and donut guy. We go back, he's awesome. He would be great here. That's so much easier for your friends to give you. A recommendation then for them to be like, Oh, excuse me sir, I have this friend. He's a very talented, he's very hardworking. People. Don't do that. You have to give them an excuse to talk about you while you're not there and say nice things.

[00:20:38] So what you did, I'm, I'm struck with how clever it is,

[00:20:41] Brian: [00:20:41] I'm going to pause right here and say there's a mermaid swimming in the pool below

[00:20:44] Chris: [00:20:44] the hell there,

[00:20:45] Jesse: [00:20:45] Oh my

[00:20:46] Chris: [00:20:46] there is an actual guys,

[00:20:48]

[00:20:48] this is Los Angeles. She's not doing so well.

[00:20:51] Brian: [00:20:51] She's struggling.

[00:20:52] Chris: [00:20:52] Oh yeah, she can barely tread water.

[00:20:54] Brian: [00:20:54] will be a clip of

[00:20:55] Chris: [00:20:55] Oh, she's diving.

[00:20:56] Brian: [00:20:56] Oh, wow. There it

[00:20:57] Chris: [00:20:57] Oh, wow.

[00:20:58] Jesse: [00:20:58] is so

[00:20:58] Brian: [00:20:58] There will be a clip of this on our Instagram. If you go to the six figure home studio on Instagram, uh, there will be a clip of the mermaid from this interview.

[00:21:06] Chris: [00:21:06] ma'am, ma'am, ma'am.

[00:21:09]

[00:21:09] That's amazing.

[00:21:10] Brian: [00:21:10] give you, I'll send you this clip.

[00:21:11] Chris: [00:21:11] That's my first mermaid.

[00:21:13] Brian: [00:21:13] I'll send you a couple of that video, Chris, and you can put it on our

[00:21:15] Chris: [00:21:15] Please do. Yeah. We're actually going to be posting stuff on Instagram for like six figure home studio. So apparently that's a thing that people do. So stay tuned for more of that.

[00:21:28] Brian: [00:21:28] So you've passed out all these donuts to these places. She'd given them sugary, sugary bribes.

[00:21:35] Chris: [00:21:35] You could have worn a mermaid costume when you showed up. That would have really made you memorable. Very

[00:21:41] Jesse: [00:21:41] hindsight is 2020 man.

[00:21:44]

[00:21:44] Brian: [00:21:44] So what happened next.

[00:21:45] Jesse: [00:21:45] Truthfully, I, I was laughed at, I was called a goofball. I was ringing doorbells and, and you know, usually it's these Gates that, that these studios are back behind. So, you know, you ring the Intercom and then you have to go in and, yeah, I got laughed at and I didn't get called back. And it was the very last studio of the day.

[00:22:01] I thought, well, it's sun's going down. Huh? I'll pick up again tomorrow. There's more. I hit the last spot. It was NRG in North Hollywood, Jay BOM Gardner's room where they did pretty much all the new metal recordings of like the early two thousands and a lot of the Howard Benson stuff happened there and it was extremely influential

[00:22:17] Brian: [00:22:17] Isn't this where all the slate samples are recorded as

[00:22:20] Chris: [00:22:20] Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:22:21] Jesse: [00:22:21] yup. A lot of the, like first two generations of his sample releases were there. Yeah. I walked right in and they loved it. I'm like, okay, yeah, you, you got it. So I joined there like three months internship program, and then after three weeks they just hired me on and I became a runner and

[00:22:37] Chris: [00:22:37] Mm. So you had to try. You did. I did this a bunch of times. It didn't work on the first time. It wasn't a donut hole in one.

[00:22:43] Jesse: [00:22:43] perseverance. Ah, man.

[00:22:49]

[00:22:49] how do you deal with this guy?

[00:22:50] Chris: [00:22:50] I don't, I don't know how I deal with this with myself. It's,

[00:22:55] Brian: [00:22:55] How do you sleep at night?

[00:22:56] Chris: [00:22:56] Not very well. I just lay there

[00:22:59] Brian: [00:22:59] the way, Chris Graham snores. Just tell everyone, I want you to be aware that I have a clip of your snoring as well that we can put on the podcast.

[00:23:05] Chris: [00:23:05] That sounds great. Can we, can someone make it into a song on the podcast that would be not pleasant.

[00:23:11] Brian: [00:23:11] Well, we got shit. We've got two

[00:23:14] Chris: [00:23:14] There's two mermaids. I'm gonna, I'm going to cuss. There are two fucking mermaids in the

[00:23:20] Brian: [00:23:20] in the pool.

[00:23:21] Chris: [00:23:21] but yeah, there's two people bikinis with like a mermaid

[00:23:25] Jesse: [00:23:25] Where do you buy a mermaid suit?

[00:23:27]

[00:23:27] Chris: [00:23:27] You know what? I'm going to go ahead and say, at Disney land across the street, they definitely went to Disneyland today and bought mermaid costumes.

[00:23:35] Which is funny cause there's so many people here at Nam that aren't even doing Disney. They're just walking the Nam floor. Zane, look at this stuff. Isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think that my life's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl.

[00:23:50] Brian: [00:23:50] Do not fucking look at me.

[00:23:52] Chris: [00:23:52] It has everything.

[00:23:54] Jesse: [00:23:54] It's my wife's favorite song, man.

[00:23:56] Brian: [00:23:56] tell. You can

[00:23:56] Chris: [00:23:56] jam. It's a gym.

[00:23:58] Brian: [00:23:58] can tell who here has kids and who doesn't.

[00:24:01]

[00:24:01] Chris: [00:24:01] My kids haven't watched a little mermaid yet, and this is, I'm reciting this from, from my childhood, sir.

[00:24:06] Brian: [00:24:06] All right. Sorry. So let's get back to the story here. You've passed all these doughnuts out. How many boxes of donuts do you think you delivered? That was it in one day, two days. How long did it take

[00:24:14] Jesse: [00:24:14] It was one day. Yeah, it was out for about eight hours. Uh, I was like 14 or 15 boxes of donuts, so I had to like throw down a couple hundred bucks and you know.

[00:24:23] Chris: [00:24:23] going to fist bump you for that move.

[00:24:25] Brian: [00:24:25] I just loved that it was the last one you went to.

[00:24:27] Jesse: [00:24:27] Yeah. Well, I suppose if I had not taken the job there, I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't have left that see you and be like, Oh, I'm going to try some other studios. I was tired.

[00:24:35] Chris: [00:24:35] So you got, you got the job that day. You walked in, they're like, Hey, check it out. And they're like, you're hired in Hollywood at a famous studio,

[00:24:44] Jesse: [00:24:44] Yeah. And it was great. And I went on to work there and really learn about LA session flow and the speed of things, which was extremely different. And then the way I had known about things and, and kind of the dynamic of. Knowing when to speak and when not to and when you're allowed to contribute to the creativity of a session and really when you're not.

[00:25:04] And I have thought that I would, you know, I'd been making records for like, almost 10 years and like, I kind of know what I'm doing, but I also want to be humble and be quiet, but like, no, I, I did get put in my place, uh, from a few of the guys there that, that knew what was up and they really wanted to. To make sure that I didn't fail.

[00:25:23] Is there like a man love you bro. But you know, now now's not the time. So I listened and there are so many moments that would follow after I left that studio really, really quickly because I got picked up with the engineering and mixing thing around town. And ultimately that was the move was to pivot away from that studio.

[00:25:42] But yeah, I used those lessons I learned there and am still using them all the time.

[00:25:48] Chris: [00:25:48] That's awesome, man. That's a great story.

[00:25:50] Brian: [00:25:50] So let's talk about from picking up from that point, when did you start to gain traction in LA?

[00:25:55] Jesse: [00:25:55] I befriended a few guys that were tracking engineers that were pivoting into producing and mixing, and they didn't want the tracking gigs anymore. And that's kind of the, uh, the hierarchy. So, um, a few really great guys were throwing work to me and suggesting me to other studio managers, and that ultimately led to the opportunity to go in and sub in one night for an artist named Taiga.

[00:26:17] Doing a tracking wrap, wrap vocals at night

[00:26:20] Chris: [00:26:20] I've heard of him,

[00:26:22] Jesse: [00:26:22] Well, see, it's not my style of music. And at the time I was like, yeah, I've heard of this guy. I know nothing about it. So I listened to it for a couple hours and then went in and, and yeah, we had a great time. We tracked for like five hours, and it's was like, cool, this is a very chill session.

[00:26:34] Uh, how cool I'm getting to make music and, and charge a day rate in LA. Like this is beautiful. And towards the end of the night. Kanye West walks in to the room and they're their buddies. So they're hanging out and, and we're all kind of making music together and I'm just like, I have to capitalize on this.

[00:26:53] I'm going to get fired from the studio and never get invited back, but I need to speak up and try to work for that guy. And I was going for about three or four more hours. We went late into the morning and I was texting my wife like, Kanye is here. I need to, I need to try to make this opportunity happen.

[00:27:10] I need to work for this

[00:27:10] Brian: [00:27:10] at the time you were playing a cool

[00:27:12] Jesse: [00:27:12] I was playing it. Cool.

[00:27:13] Brian: [00:27:13] you are, you're staying in place. You were like showing that you can hang, you know when to talk and when not to talk. You know when to lead and lay back and let them do their thing.

[00:27:22] Jesse: [00:27:22] Yes. I'm glad you said that. The role of a tracking engineer in the hip hop world is that you are silent. Like you don't speak. You don't contribute ideas unless you are asked. But you are there to serve. And I mean, that's been what my parents taught me from the beginning. Like, you are here to serve. What can you do to bring value to our others and to artists and the people that you work with.

[00:27:40] That's what we're here to do. And that's our contribution to this planet. That's what we do. Jess. That's my, I'm hearing my dad's voice right now. Uh, except he's got a little more Scruff with the mustache. He sounds kind of like a cowboy. He smokes a pack a days. Is that kinda guy?

[00:27:55]

[00:27:55] Yeah. So towards the end of the night, Connie was packing up to leave.

[00:27:58] He was getting tired. And I was like, no, I missed the chance. He went, he left to go down the hall to use the restroom and then leave, and I thought, I'm doing it. I got up out of the chair. Way, way, way, red flag. Don't do that in a session while you're working. I got up and I walked out. I ran, I chased him down the hall at corner number at the end of the hall and I said, dude, I am so out of line here, but I will never be able to live with myself if I do not tell you that I admire your work and I would love to come work for you if you need somebody, if you need an engineer.

[00:28:29] And there was a moment where he free. He froze and he turned his head and just looked at me mean. And I'm like, Oh man, I'm going to get punched in the face right now. And then he said, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Let me get your number. And his team got ahold of me the next day they flew me to Chicago and we started.

[00:28:48] Chris: [00:28:48] Holy hell.

[00:28:49] Jesse: [00:28:49] And, uh, I got to meet one of my good buddies. Uh, Zach Jurich was his other engineer at the time, and we worked together just taking turns tracking and we traveled to Uganda and we, we made music out at a Safari and in there, hippo hippos running around. And it was wild. And yeah. Wow. I had just did kind of all took off from there.

[00:29:10]

[00:29:10] Brian: [00:29:10] talk about the similarities between business and dating a lot on this podcast, but that strikes me is. Something that resonates is like when you're, this is something I experienced a lot in my twenties is like hanging out with a girl, things are going great, and then you miss that opportunity to like get her number, ask her out, like do something to like continue to push that relationship to the next level and then the opportunity is gone forever.

[00:29:34] You never see her again. This was what you were experienced with Kanye West. You had to . You had to put yourself way out of your comfort zone. Potentially put yourself out of a job for crossing lines that you shouldn't really cross in the studio. But the upside was too great to pass up on the opportunity, but you had to get the courage to get pass that fear to see what's on the other side.

[00:29:55] And I think, I think that's a lot, a lot of people struggle to do that, to get past the fear of potential rejection and not just rejection, but complete annihilation from this career field. Because you did this to Kanye West  one of the main studios in LA.

[00:30:10] Jesse: [00:30:10] and artists who is notorious for blacklisting individuals who  him the wrong way. I could have never been hired again in this town.

[00:30:18] Chris: [00:30:18] yeah. Easily,

[00:30:20] Jesse: [00:30:20] I had to try. I had to try because we have all lived with those types of moments of regret or like what would have happened. I never took the shot. That is the worst feeling.

[00:30:32] Chris: [00:30:32] I'm so curious, like after you had the interaction with Kanye, did you walk back down the hall or go back into the studio and get a look from somebody else that worked at the studio of like, really.

[00:30:44] Jesse: [00:30:44] Yeah. The manager that hired me, he heard about what had happened. He had already left, but he texted me the next morning, heard about last night. Dot, dot, dot. And that was the headline of the text. And I've opened up to read the full text, and it was. How exciting man. Go get it.

[00:30:59] Chris: [00:30:59] Oh man.

[00:31:01] Jesse: [00:31:01] Oh,

[00:31:02] Brian: [00:31:02] heart saying for a second. Yeah. So how do you, okay, let's talk about this though. How do you know when it's an opportunity that you should jump on.

[00:31:12] Jesse: [00:31:12] well, a little extra detail in this story is that he had mentioned really, really quietly earlier in the night to somebody that he was speaking to, that he may be bringing on more. Engineer individuals because he needs some help for a trip they were going to be taking to Bali and a trip to Uganda, and I heard it like back, back, back, back in the room.

[00:31:36] I'm recording vocals, I'm with the artists, I'm focused, but I'm also, I had an agenda of knowing what was going on with this guy. This was a ticket in and I wanted to be involved, so I heard that that sent me over the edge. That was like, there it is. He's going to hire more engineers. I'm right here. He, we, we've been vibing all night.

[00:31:54] Let's do it. Let's go for

[00:31:56] Brian: [00:31:56] I think there's, there are some points in my life that are similar to this where it's almost like when you're looking back over the highlights, there are periods when you are just almost stuck in a rut. You're just kind of coasting and it feels like you're not doing shit with your life. And then there are these key opportunities that come up that if you felt a capitalize, you've just.

[00:32:20] Guaranteed another year of coasting and nothing's going to

[00:32:22] Chris: [00:32:22] Mmm, yeah.

[00:32:23] Brian: [00:32:23] if you trace back where you are now to where you were, there were two or three opportunities that you took advantage of in your storyline that completely changed the trajectory of your life. One was moving to LA, one was giving out donuts,  random studios, and then one was taking the opportunity to work with Kanye.

[00:32:44] Chris: [00:32:44] I'm struck by, there are probably, I don't mean this in an offensive way at all, but there are probably a lot of guys that are as talented as you are.

[00:32:53] Jesse: [00:32:53] Oh way more talented.

[00:32:54] Chris: [00:32:54] But you have bigger marbles and that it sounds to me like that was the difference. You had the guts to take risks and to put yourself in a position where there was upside and downside.

[00:33:06] And I see so many young people, not just our industry, but in every industry that are just unwilling to take any risk. Everything is, how do I play it safe? How do I keep from getting embarrassed? And this is like a middle school, high school mentality. You know of like, ah, I'm not going to, what if they laugh at me?

[00:33:25] You know, like, I mean, I just commend you for that. Like, these are, these are incredible stories.

[00:33:30] Jesse: [00:33:30] Thanks man. Well, I hope if there's anything that all the other engineers listening can take away from this is that you can, you can do it and I encourage you to, but there's a way to go about it. And I think it's, it is to avoid shooting people walking up to that band, breaking the barrier between audience and stage and saying, Hey, you guys should record with me, man.

[00:33:50] While the competence of school, I think the approach is wrong and the approach is not to talk about me like while I'm selling to you and trying to convince you to record me. It's not to tell you how awesome I am. It's to present you with what value I can bring to you. I'm like, man, we can, we can make this experience.

[00:34:06] Awesome. I hear what you guys are going for with this sound like I love led Zeppelin. I studied the Glenn Johns method like. I think I could help you guys get that sound that you're really trying to, I can tell you want that sound and I don't think the records are there. Like I'm, I hope you'll appreciate my honesty.

[00:34:20] Like I've said that to so many bands, like I know what you're going for and even if I don't understand what they're going for, I will. Then I'll go home from saying that and I'll study it for a week and then I'll mock something up and send it to them. But like, dude, check this out. Is that close? Like if it isn't, I would love to have you over.

[00:34:34] Let's do it together. Let's tweak this. Let's tweak this

[00:34:36] Brian: [00:34:36] Do you still do this today?

[00:34:37] Jesse: [00:34:37] yes, I have every mixed client come over. If they're able to, if they live in LA, like come to the studio. Let's work together and we're going to have fun. We'll bake cookies. We'll, we'll get all the goodies ready.

[00:34:48] Brian: [00:34:48] A lot of this reminds me of you asking your wife out on your first

[00:34:51] Chris: [00:34:51] I'm thinking the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:53] Jesse: [00:34:53] that story.

[00:34:53] Brian: [00:34:53] offer you're creating so that it's not just, hi, calmer Corwith may.

[00:34:58] Chris: [00:34:58] be my girlfriend.

[00:34:59] Brian: [00:34:59] Oh yeah. Will you play my fry? It, it is like, I am going to do this. This is the specific thing you're going to get. And we're going to sweeten the deal because of literally sweet things like cookies or donuts, and we're going to get the thing that you want out of it, which is this specific sound or this specific vibe.

[00:35:14] Uh, and I just love that. That is the approach you take.

[00:35:17] Chris: [00:35:17] Yeah. I mean, I'm struck by kind of two things, two characteristics I see about you. One. Is your courage clearly you have a lot of courage. You're willing to take risks, you're willing to risk embarrassing yourself, and that sets you apart. Not many people are willing to do that. And then the second  you have a lot of faith in yourself.

[00:35:38] And these two things obviously overlap and if clearly impacted the decisions that you've made. I think about people listening to this show that are, are trying to get a foot in the industry or build a career or grow their business or whatever. And I think you can make a list of like, what am I, what am I assets from a skill perspective?

[00:35:53] And then what are my. What are my issues? Semi talk about when I'm coaching people. A lot of figuring out like, what's the stuff that's not going well? What are the bottlenecks and what are the superhero abilities?  you can make a list of all these things like, Whoa, I'm really good at ACU, or I'm really good at look, you know, we'll plug it in waters and stuff.

[00:36:10] And um, you know, I'm pretty good at like first revisions. Like you could do all this list of all these things

[00:36:16]

[00:36:16] and inevitably you have to look at like, what are your strengths that can leverage you into success? The most? What are the things that you can do that nobody else can cause? That's where you can add the most value.

[00:36:25] But then also what are the things that you need to work on? What are the things that are holding you back? And like my story with Chris Graham mastering was when I started reading business books is four hour work week, and I mentioned this in the podcast a million times. Read chapter five and four hour work week about the 80 20 principle.

[00:36:41] Put it down and was like, , I need to learn how to automate all the crap in my business. It's not making art . Figured out like that's the bottleneck. I don't possess this skill and I think, I'm hoping for a lot of people listen to this show. The take home might be for them that the skill you need to work on is courage and faith in yourself.

[00:37:04] Those are. And people skills and people. Well, that's, yeah, you're right. There's actually a Venn diagram of three things going on here. There's courage, self-confidence, and clearly people skills. And I think as you're doing an assessment, I'm talking to our listeners now as you're doing an assessment of what are your character assets, that needs to be a new word in the show.

[00:37:25] What are your character assets and what are your, what's the opposite of an asset? What are your character liabilities? And figuring out how to minimize your character, liabilities, man. Courage, people skills, and faith in yourself. Whew. Those are potent. Yes. Like capable of overcoming a multitude of sins.

[00:37:47] You know, a multitude of character liabilities. Yeah, man, this is awesome. You're great. I like

[00:37:53] Jesse: [00:37:53] Hey, I like you guys too, man. Super happy to be here.

[00:37:56] Chris: [00:37:56] Yeah. We're glad to have you, man. It's so weird to just like have met you over Instagram.  now we're hanging out at Nam and Jesse, you've listened to podcasts before. Is there anything in particular that jumps out to you of, man, I wish Chris and Brian would talk about this.

[00:38:12] I, there's one piece of advice that you could give to our audience as far as building a career that has stability, longevity, profitability, all these things. If you had to. Give like your, I don't know, your little brother, your best friend advice. Like, here's what I would do. Pretend you know, this person's in the room.

[00:38:33] Kind of give us that advice on, on building a career as quickly and as effectively as you have.

[00:38:38] Jesse: [00:38:38] Can I ask you a question that might help shape

[00:38:40] Chris: [00:38:40] Yeah, sure.

[00:38:41] Jesse: [00:38:41] angle that this would take? Because you do all the coaching and I think you speak to a lot more up and comers than I do. What do you see as one of the biggest hurdles that they need to overcome right now? What, what are, what are they running

[00:38:53] Brian: [00:38:53] tables have turned.

[00:38:55] Jesse: [00:38:55] Man. I

[00:38:55] Chris: [00:38:55] like that.

[00:38:57]

[00:38:57] Yeah. I think it's kind of what I was talking about earlier is people not recognizing what their superhero strength is. People not recognizing their character asset. So yeah, I mean, I think that that's the big thing of not recognizing, I bring this to the table and I can help people with that.

[00:39:12] And we talked about this on the show all the time, but this idea of like service, are you a servant? Are you trying to help people rather than be the champion rather than like. We were talking earlier today at lunch about our breakfast, however you want to frame that. We're all,

[00:39:27] Brian: [00:39:27] as brunch

[00:39:28] Chris: [00:39:28] brunch. We were brunching, but this idea of like, you know, Elon Musk says we're in a simulation.

[00:39:33] And I think the tricky thing with that simulation is like, am I the only human in the simulation and everybody else's software? Like there's a, there's an inherently potentially selfish outlook on that.

[00:39:45] Brian: [00:39:45] What the hell does that have to do with audio engineering? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

[00:39:48] Chris: [00:39:48] Yeah. I just kinda, I know, I'm like, well, I'm way out

[00:39:50] Brian: [00:39:50] is that going?

[00:39:51] Chris: [00:39:51] way out there. But like the idea here is that if we're in a simulation, you are either a user or you're part of the game, and from a business standpoint, you will be much more successful seeing yourself. As a character in a game designed to help the person who's playing that game.

[00:40:12] So we're way down a weird rabbit hole with this, and I kind of regret getting too metaphysical.

[00:40:16] Jesse: [00:40:16] I can, I can jump in

[00:40:17] Chris: [00:40:17] okay, do it, do it, do it.

[00:40:18] Jesse: [00:40:18] Well, I see a common thread across every single. Successful person in every industry. And I think that it is complete just in their nature. They're, they're genuinely interested in giving and providing a service and providing value for their customers. And I think that because as custom, we are all customers.

[00:40:42] When somebody isn't genuine and they're trying to sell us something, you get the hard sale or that you, we can sniff it out like, like wolves,

[00:40:49] Chris: [00:40:49] Oh yeah.

[00:40:50] Jesse: [00:40:50] It like. Like I walk by some of the booths here at Nam and here take the pamphlet in. Did you know that you can win a hundred like, Oh, I, I, it gives me the creeps.

[00:40:59] It's just an everybody. I think that's a, that's a pretty universal feeling. I would just do some soul searching and just ask yourself like, do you love what you're doing? And do you truly want to help the planet be a better sounding place? Do you want to contribute to the art that is happening here? And do you want to be a part of the better good and the cause of making it just sonically improve over time?

[00:41:24] And, and it's not just about Sonics, but do you want to help those artists tell those stories, tell those stories that are going to give, whether someone's listening to a song in their car and with the AirPods pro or in a house of worship like. I want someone to get goosebumps. I want them to feel something.

[00:41:40] I want them to reflect and let the negative energy out. Are you a part of that? Are you helping that be achieved? Are you helping get that to the listener?

[00:41:49] Chris: [00:41:49] yeah.

[00:41:49] Jesse: [00:41:49] interested

[00:41:50] Chris: [00:41:50] Oh

[00:41:50] Brian: [00:41:50] are you just trying to collect

[00:41:51] Jesse: [00:41:51] or are you just trying to get paid? Like that's gross and people will sniff it out? And if that's the case, I don't know if I would suggest.

[00:41:58] It's like professional help or or reading. Maybe you read how to win friends and influence others because that is a great book that that can help somebody who has the right intentions. Just hone in on those a little bit more. Maybe that would be a good start.

[00:42:12] Chris: [00:42:12] Man. This is honestly something I've been struggling with a little bit. You know, I built a career as a mastering engineer. I love mastering. We're talking about this earlier, but as bounced, Butler takes off and, and frankly, business coaching has been, what was one of the highlights of 2019 for me. And it's kind of on that, and this has been frustrating for me as the podcast is taken off and being like, Oh, I've, I don't know if mastering is the way that I can help the most people the most.

[00:42:37] And I think figuring out success probably on some level is answering that question. How do you help the most people the most? That's where you're going to be able to provide the most value. And, uh, I'm processing and I'm not, I'm not completely sure what I think, and this is certainly not me turning in my resignation as a mastering engineer, but, uh, I love it, but it's, it's definitely like seeing your, that story that you posted about bounce Butler and like, Oh my gosh, you got to hang out with your daughter for an extra hour.

[00:43:05] Whoa. That's like, no one gets to hang out with their kids more cause I mastered their record. You know, so I'm processing this and what you're saying of just like serving other people. And mean there is a component of figuring out, I guess what your purpose is, but at the same time also figuring out this life of service, how to help the most people the most.

[00:43:24] And I think I've mentioned this on the, on the packets before. This is weird, but like one of the things I've been contemplating and you always make fun of me for Brian.

[00:43:32] Brian: [00:43:32] I mean, funny for a lot of

[00:43:33] Chris: [00:43:33] do. You do. But so like

[00:43:35] Brian: [00:43:35] that's kind of our stick.

[00:43:36] Chris: [00:43:36] my story is weird cause I was like born and raised Catholic and then I became an atheist for a long time.

[00:43:42] made fun of Christians. I was like my number one favorite thing to do.

[00:43:45] Brian: [00:43:45] And now you just like to not wear deodorant, so your pits

[00:43:48] Chris: [00:43:48] That's also true. But at one point, uh, I like became a Christian. I became a born again Christian, which was super weird as an atheist, but so I'm fascinated by Jesus and one of the things he says was like, the disciples are fighting.

[00:44:02] And again, I'm not trying to get preachy here, I'm just, I'm pointing out that this is interesting and applicable to what we're talking about. But the disables are fighting about Jesus is like, bros are fighting about like who's the greatest among them, which is like, Oh guys, come on.

[00:44:16] Brian: [00:44:16] It's such an audio engineer

[00:44:18] Chris: [00:44:18] Yeah, I think I'm a, my ears are far more better than yours.

[00:44:21] Uh, my high in response, but what Jesus says to them, it's like, I think they ask him like point blank. Like, which one of us is the greatest? And he straight up says like, the greatest among you is one last and to the servant of all. Yeah, I'm just trying to understand what that means, but it has a lot of application for what we talk about on this podcast.

[00:44:44] Stuff like how this Go-Giver mentality, this service mentality, this hero's journey mentality of like, how do you support the hero in the story? Rather than like, Oh, I just want a career in audio. Would you hire me? It's my dream and what I'm asking.

[00:44:59] Brian: [00:44:59] the dream, the dream argument.

[00:45:01] Chris: [00:45:01] you should hire me because it's my

[00:45:03] Brian: [00:45:03] dream. Yeah.

[00:45:04]

[00:45:04]

[00:45:04] That will never

[00:45:05] Chris: [00:45:05] Yeah, no, thanks.

[00:45:07] So yeah, I mean, Jesse, I'm like fascinated by your misuse, the word gumption.

[00:45:15] Brian: [00:45:15] I was going to say, that's the word. It's gumption is the only, is a great word to use here.

[00:45:19] Chris: [00:45:19] Chutzpah. You got, you got those things, man, like you grounded out and you took risks and man, I commend you. You're badass.

[00:45:28] Jesse: [00:45:28] Thank you.

[00:45:29] Chris: [00:45:29] Six figure home studio salute. Do you Jesse Ray.

[00:45:36] Brian: [00:45:36] So that is it for this episode of the six figure home studio podcast. If you're wondering why my voice sounds so awkward and kind of quiet and way less energetic than normal, it's because that my normal environment for recording a podcast has changed. I am no longer in my studio in the privacy of a well soundproof room.

[00:45:54] Instead, I am sitting here with my wife on a bed. She's watching modern family. And, uh, the hotel we're in, the walls are paper thin, so I just feel all kinds of awkward in here. Do you have anything you want to say, Megan? Yeah. Hello world. Yeah, so she's, I just put her on the spot there. So, uh, we are in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which is Northern Thailand right now.

[00:46:18] And, uh, we're recording this outro here. And I was, it was awesome to hear back this episode because Jesse Ray is someone that Chris had met and Chris had talked to. And I had really hadn't gotten to know him until we hung out at Nam. And, uh, it was awesome to hear a story on how much he hustled to get where he is today and to see what taking leaps of faith like that.

[00:46:36] Gets you, which is recording an album in Uganda with Kanye West. Uh, I think that's a really awesome story to see where that kind of stuff can lead next week's episode. I don't know what it's going to be because Chris and I really don't talk a lot because of the time difference here. It's like a 12 hour time difference.

[00:46:53] So when it's 6:15 PM here, which it is right now as I record this, it's 6:15 AM , Ohio, where Chris is. So, uh, it'll be a surprise next week, Brighton, early 6:00 AM when that episode airs, what it will be, my guess is it will either be an interview or it'll be a co-hosted episode with Andy J pizza. Either way, it will be awesome.

[00:47:16] So a tune in for that. Meanwhile, I will still be a on my workcation for the next few weeks here in Thailand. And I think, next we're going to go to Vietnam, or maybe the Southern Thailand go to islands down there. Uh, but I do know that in the morning we leave to go to the elephant rescue park where mistreated elephants go to basically be rehabilitated.

[00:47:37] And it's kind of like an interesting way to do elephant tourism here in a much more ethical way that's not hurting the elephants, not riding the elephants. And. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. So, uh, excuse my unenergetic voice here as I awkwardly record this outro next to my wife. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

[00:47:56] Until next time, happy hustling.