The Return of Emmett Kai

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. My guest this week is Emmett Kai. Emmett's been on the show. Be basically linked right before the shit hit the fan on the pandemic. So we talk a lot about kind of what that year, year and a half period has been like. Emmett's an amazing musician. You can check out his stuff on Instagram. Oh, Wasp just flew into the room. That's fun, cool. It's a fun episode. It's a long episode. We talk about a ton of shit. There's a cool part where he talks about kind of these panic attacks he's been going through. Not cool that he has panic attacks, but kind of how people will feel when they get back into the world and kind of interface.

Think a lot of us are gonna have these new found for some of us ability to kind of empathically feel people around us. And that comes with its own set of challenges. And we kind of talk about that. Big shout out before we get to the episodes, if I guys at Ned, go to helloned.com, use the code SYNC at checkout. You get 15% off your order. They have a ton of stuff. My favorite stuff is the full spectrum CBD hemp oil. I also like their lip balm, but they got magnesium, they got sleep aid, they got stuff for the feminine period as he's whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. Jesus Christ, don't come near me, bro.

How did he get in here? So yeah, go to helloned.com, use the code SYNC at checkout. You got 15% off your order. Everything else is great. We're settling in. There is news. There is news, we're in the preliminary parts of planning it. But all I can say is there's going to be a live event in Brooklyn mid September with some people you really like. I just wanna say right now we have confirmed Jessa Reed, Lacey Free, P the Fairy, Romine Nazer, myself, and probably some other fun guests. That is gonna be going on. Stay tuned for details. You'll hear about it from all of us. That's gonna be in Brooklyn.

So mark your calendars, that's gonna be a cool thing. That's fun. All right, that's it. Let's just get to the episode. Without further ado, here is Emmet Pot. (upbeat music)

Yo.

Welcome back to the podcast.

This is great. It's been like over a year.

When did we get our first podcast in?

Wow. Also, I don't know if you know this. I might have shared it. I have had maybe like two or three out of like 330 podcasts that I actually had to edit. I don't know if you knew this, but like there was a point in the last one we recorded where for some reason like during the episode, I'm like, I hope this sounds okay. I never worry about recording, especially on the Zoom.

I remember this. There was something wrong with my mic. Or the Zoom cutout, batteries, maybe?

No, it wasn't batteries. You were exactly right. There was something with the mic, but it was bleeding through and it just like buzzed through the whole thing.

I was probably saying some fuck shit.

I don't know what it was. No, I think it was all good stuff. It was just like, I remember having to go back and edit it for like two hours and like fuck. Like what? I had to like snip parts out and drag them. It was like a whole full fledged session.

But when was that? That was like October 2019. If I remember correctly, it was like 20. Yeah, October 2019.

'Cause it was before the pandemic.

Yeah. Yeah, it was like right before that.

I just started seeing your partner right around there.

Yeah, we literally that month, I think.

Yeah.

That month.

'Cause I think that it was like a whole thing where she was like, you gotta meet, you know, and you guys are gonna get along.

Yeah.

Podcast, music, all this kind of stuff, synchronicity, et cetera.

Yeah, we had just met. Wow, that's wild.

And then I went on your podcast. We did the podcast. It was great. Super fun. I was probably in the prime of my life. Living in Brooklyn, dude. Like 20, what was I, 27?

We've aged like 20 years.

I shouldn't have been like 26, dude.

Yeah, that's how years work, two ago. You're 28 now.

Yeah, I was 26. Yeah. I was 26, living in Brooklyn. I had a sweet apartment on Guernsey Street with all the beautiful trees. Everybody knows that street that I was living on. And I was walking to the fifth house to work every like, whatever, bartending, playing shows, DJing, just having a great time. Not knowing that like this murderous pandemic was right around the corner that was gonna make all of us either face our fears and like have to really deal with some shit and figure our lives out or the opposite and just go party and say fuck it and just rage through the whole thing. Which is what a lot of people did.

Are you vaccinated?

No.

I'm not gonna most likely get it. Not for any strong ideological reasoning.

I had a feeling that you weren't.

Yeah, I mean, I won't speak about other people in my life's views on things.

Well, 'cause everybody that gets vaccinated has like a glow to them and you're just missing the glow.

I'm also fucking exhausted. But the truth is, is like I don't feel ultimately, this is what I really truly believe at my deepest part.

Yeah, shoot.

I don't think a vaccine protects or doesn't protect someone at the end of the day. I think their willingness to allow, and this is like a weird kind of like callous viewpoint if looked at from one perspective, but I do think like your susceptibility to anything you experience in life, whether physical, ailment, mental, psychological, is your awareness of that kind of merging with the experience. So I fundamentally believe that. From that point, if many people in my life around me who, you know, whose opinions I value and they feel strongly about it, we're like, you definitely have to get vaccinated.

I'd probably get vaccinated. I don't have a strong stance on it. Like I'm not some like person who's like,

Oh, okay.

Wine in the sand like.

You're not like anti-vaxxers in all the way.

No, not an anti-vaxxer. I know people who like at this point in my life, who I'm very close to, multiple people who are essentially, I don't think they would label themselves anti-vaxxers, but all the things they say are essentially like anti-vaxx.

Well, maybe against these vaccines for the COVID.

Yeah, I think that war potentially even other ones. Who knows, I think there's a large contingent of people who, and I would say I subscribe to some aspect of this. I don't get the newest operating system when Mac comes out.

I don't either.

I wait.

I wait two, you know why?

It's compatible.

Because the latest Mac OS system that came out was bullshit and fucked up all of my like, DAWs and all of my plug-ins.

UAD sends the email, don't do it.

Yeah, they're like, wait, just wait, we have bugs to fix. And I was like, oh, you got bugs to fix.

You did it?

No, I didn't do it.

No, you didn't, right. You waited.

I've never been that.

Same.

Dude, I've owned three computers in my life, but I only bought two of them. The other one was like my mom's that she like handed down to me and it was a big desktop computer like that. And I, Mac, the one that you're, I think you're thinking about getting, right? Like a desk.

I'm probably not gonna get the, I might build a hack in Tash or get a PC for production, it's the same thing. So I'm using Ableton, it's the same thing.

No, totally. I can't get around the, my designer mind is like in love with Macs because they're so.

This is 2006 specifically.

Yeah, they're just this 2000 telling me this computer I have now, that was bullshit. It's just, I hate saying that about something I use and love, but it's just not a good machine. The fucking took away all the ports. You gotta have the adapter or something.

Oh dude, that was like.

What are you doing?

You should see my adaptor set up. My ports are just like insane. I have like my you, my Apollo running through a thing and going into another like a splitter that has like.

Exactly.

And it's like.

Yeah, it's crazy. But you know, talk about like subscribing to a fucking, you know, some changes and the latest and the greatest. Like I made it, I made the decision in 2019, I bought the new MacBook Pro and I was like.

Me too.

I was like, 'cause I had one from 2011 forever with a cracked version of Ableton 8.

Yeah, I had one 2013.

Yeah, and it was like, I mean, it was still running and everything like that and I was playing shows with it where we were like running the stems through the computer and then my drummer had headphones on and we would have like an MPD, like a CHI MPD button.

Nice, yeah, the drum thing with that trigger, yeah.

And we had all the stems lined up on there and he would trigger them and it worked, dude. Like the computer never crapped out on stage or anything. If anything, it was like.

That's impressive.

And my drummer was the one that would make a mistake but it's easy to make a mistake when you're triggering samples live, like first. And, but when I was recording, dude, it was just like constant dropouts and crackles and all kinds of bullshit that I was like, dude, I'm, this might sound corny, but I was like, I'm too old to be dealing with this. I've been doing this for way too long.

Yeah, everyone hits that point.

Yeah, and I bought the new computer and my life didn't change that much. Like I bought the new computer. I got a free version of Ableton from my partner Nick shout out Nick Monaco and he gave me like, you know, he just had like an extra licensing.

Of course.

Gave me extra licensing. So I've got like the most recent.

10.

Real version of Ableton, not a crack.

I know, I remember when that happened for me. It was a big shift.

It was such a big shift and then I was using a scarlet interface for so long. Those things suck.

Yep, I know it.

I mean, sorry for, you know, it's a great starter interface but like, then I, then I, it wasn't until I bought the Apollo that my life totally, my like flow and everything changed.

I know exactly what we're talking about.

And that was a big, I mean, that's a big chunk of money to like, to drop, you know. It's like, I think I spent $1,800 on like a package. So I got like a microphone.

Yeah, I spent about that much on the times for when I was at the equivalent.

Tables.

Yeah, I mean, I found that I spent almost all of my, extra money on music stuff. And the more I very rarely regret it. I'm very rarely like, that was dumb. Like I shouldn't have done that. In fact, just the opposite, I've sold synths where I'm like, I wish I wouldn't have sold that.

The worst thing you can do for your soul.

Oh God, it's crushing.

It's crushing.

No, like good ones. Andromeda, Elisa say six I sold.

Oh dude. I mean, if you're ever selling a synths again, I won't, I won't talk you out of selling it to me.

I got, I bought the virus.

There you go. It's literally, you gotta turn around and buy it again when you get a little bit more dough and then they go, you know?

Yep, yep.

I think that like investing in gear, if you're investing in gear, it's the best and don't ever turn back on that. Sell your fucking kidney dude before you sell a synthesizer.

I hear this sentiment. I just think there's something about when you buy something that's related to your creative profession or even if it's not a profession, but just like something that like exercises your creativity. It's a very beneficial, it actually taught me a lot about money because like I said, that's what I spend almost all of my extra money on. Like legitimately, it's either plugins or pedals or instruments or synths or whatever. Like that's what I like to spend it on. I don't see how that's a bad situation for anyone. Like I'm happy to pay for this stuff. I want people to be able to release it.

I use this stuff. It's actually, it's not like something I buy and I don't like this TV. It's nice TV. It wasn't that expensive.

It's a very nice TV.

I don't use it that much. I'm not sitting around watching a lot of TV, but like instruments and stuff.

I use those. So it feels good to kind of invest and spend money on things like that. And it taught me that money is like a cool thing for that reason.

Dude, if you're investing in your happiness and your wellbeing, people are gonna wanna hang out with you more.

That's your goal.

That's pretty, I'm sure. I mean, if you're stoked on life, if you come to a party and you're like, do and you're just like thinking of, you know, whatever. I mean, is it up there, it might be up there with retail therapy in a way, but I think that it's more than that because you can't make like a piece of art after buying a pair of Nikes. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I think that like when I get that a really efficient flow of creativity over like over a week or a couple days or whatever and then you go to a party or you go and hang out with somebody or you go to dinner, you're not like, you might be kind of thinking about it like obsessively, but you're not like dwelling on it. You feel like, like I just fucking accomplished something. I just totally made something great and I feel great about it and I'm flowing and everything's flowing and then you can reflect on it and then you can talk about whatever at the party or at the dinner and it's like so much more enjoyable to be around people when they invest in a new synthesizer.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think any medium where you, like you said, it's like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and you know that on an intrinsic level. My dad asked me a simple question here that he's like, you know, what are you doing that like really makes you happy when you're doing it? Like, how does it make music? I was like, that's actually the thing. If I think about it, when I actually sit down and do it, it may not be the easiest thing to do all the time, but when I sit down and do it, I'm usually like, this is fucking awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is like, I forgot this is a thing that can happen. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

So we kind of were catching up a little bit before this, but what's going on with your Patreon because I started a Patreon this year, or last year.

Nice, nice.

And it's been a disaster.

My first attempt was a disaster and it's soul-crushing.

It's soul-crushing people are on subbing, people are lowering their dollar amount, people, whatever, and I get it. Like, I'm like, I literally felt bad. Like, it's good for me to put this on a podcast somewhere so that people can actually hear this because like, to everybody out there who like subscribed to my Patreon, which was only like maybe 14, 15 people at the most, I'm sorry. And it was so hard for me to like, it took so much energy for me to come up with a concept.

See, that's the thing, that's the thing. Okay, this is what happened. I also did this, I think like two, maybe like three or four years ago, I had a Patreon and it was a very similar experience. I think I had like, maybe like 50, 60 people at the peak for that and there was one guy, he was super nice. I always remember him Patrick, he would give me like 100 hours a month. So my numbers were, I was just like, what a nice fucking human being, just the cool guy.

Was that a tear or was that like a constant tear to the thing?

It was an additional like, I enjoy what you're doing and I was like, that's really cool. But, I think my mistake back then, I mean, I know what it was, is I was trying to do something that I wasn't naturally gonna do anyway and I came up with like, oh, I'll do this much and I have to do that and you know, like these additional things and like, it didn't work out, you burn out, even if you can't like, even if you do that for a little bit, eventually you'll hit the end of the road 'cause it's not something you're naturally inclined to do. So when I kind of switched it over and just did the same type of stuff that I would do regularly, like I do some live streams every month on Twitch, you know, where I'm just either like, pulling cards, listening to music, talking to people, talking about crypto and stuff like that, that's when it really started to take off.

Yeah, I forgot that you're a crypto guy.

Yeah, on a very bloody day for crypto today.

Yeah, I mean, I've been watching this shit.

It's brutal day, but I mean, the server I had there was also a big catalyst, I think just because when there's a community of people and it's real, when people encounter it, they can sense that like, this is something that's not like, you know, one person's idea of what a community should be, it's like actual community.

Right.

And now it is, there's people, so I think that was like a big thing.

Well, that's when like a Discord comes into play too.

That's the Discord that I started in 2017, not part of the Patreon.

Chats, all that kind of stuff, yeah.

Yeah, and then you get like a good core group of people who I think the reason it's successful now, or what I would call successful for me, is because people kind of get, I'm not like selling anything, I'm not really pitching anything. What I did say to people this year, and I think a lot of people are happy that I did, I was like, listen, you can join it for $7, like basically eight bucks. And-- - A month.

A month. - Yeah.

Join the Discord, have access to the Discord forever, leave the Patreon after. So basically it's $8 to see if this is like a total scam, or like, you know, what this is, and then leave. Like, $8 is not a lot of an investment. It certainly doesn't make it breaker for me, but I found like a lot of people who take that kind of leap, and actually, we were talking about like spending on money.

Yeah.

When you spend money on shit, like I subscribed to a bunch of different Patreons, 'cause I like the stuff they put out, and Tim Dillon, I happily pay $5 to listen to this dude, give me an extra episode of, we're talking--

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

It's fucking great. So that, I think, is what like the major difference was, when it really started to take off. Like, I stopped trying to do something with it, and I was like, this is what I am naturally gonna do. Here's some of the things that you're likely to encounter, and like, a lot of times I'm negligent. Like, I just had another baby. It's like, I don't do the shit I say I'm gonna do every month, and people are cool about it, 'cause they kinda get that like, you know what I mean? Like, this is what you're plugging into.

They're in for the ride.

Basically.

And if you're in for the ride, you understand that it's like, a human behind this,

Yeah.

Patreon page, and all the content and stuff, and not just some like, fucking word generator, you know, or whatever, you will have an off day where you can't complete some content.

Yeah.

Or whatever like that. My problem with the Patreon was that, I think as a musician, primarily a musician, I do other stuff, but not for the public to see. Like, I do visual art, I paint, I draw, I write a ton. I'm really into writing, but getting to the stage where I wanna, you know, share all of this stuff with people and feeling like it has, everything that I put out has to have like this image to it, like a brand, but not in like a capitalist sensor, like not in like a--

Like just some identity.

Exactly, it has to have an identity to it, it has to have a face to it that people can like attach them, or that at least I can attach myself to. I don't give a fuck if anybody else can attach it to it or not, but with the Patreon thing, I was like, okay, this is how it started, was like, it was a pandemic, shows were canceled.

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

My drive for hustling in this music industry, completely dropped out of my ass, like a pro-lapse chicken asshole, like, I have seen a chicken pro-lapse before, and it is, that's how I felt, it was the way that that looks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was really toxic, and it was also really eye-opening for me, but I was watching all of these young kids, like, and I'm young, I mean, for sure, like I'll acknowledge that, but I also feel old because the kids that are like, really blowing up now, and like, doing a lot of like, getting a lot of traction, they're like 21, or they're 23, or whatever, and they're like, or even like, even my age, but they're like, they've been doing it since, you know, they've been like, on the same trajectory since they were like, really young, and they're like, getting label funding, and they're getting all this like, press, and they have, da, da, da, da, da, like all this money behind them, but obviously they have money behind them because it's like, dude, I've been doing this for so long.

I know like how this industry works, and so I was feeling so burnt out on the fact that like, I don't wanna like, wait around for a label to give me X amount of dollars to do--

I'm gonna do it myself.

X, I wanna do it myself, and I feel like, I have enough fans, enough like, real true fans that really love what I do, and like, and just wanna support my content in whatever facet it comes out in, that a Patreon is perfect because I can like set tiers, people can do their, you know, they can subscribe, and then like, I'll dedicate time to create this content. Dude, I, like, it took me months and months to even think about what am I gonna give them because it's like, oh, well, I wanna do a podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wanna do, I wanna post my writing, oh, and I wanna do like, I could do like, like, little snippets of songs, or I could do little like, like instrument, or not instrumentals, but demos and stuff like that. But--

I do that.

Right, I do that on mine.

Yeah, yeah, and that works because you're owning it.

Yeah, I mean, it took me--

I did like a cover, like a Neil Young cover.

Cool.

And I put that up, and now it's sick.

Desert highway, fucking.

Cool.

Wait, was it desert highway? I gotta think about, I can't remember what that sounds like.

That's fine, you know what I did? You're not known to be put on the spot. ♪ On a desert highway ♪

Yeah, that one.

Nice, man. ♪ She rides a Harley Davidson ♪

Yes, yes, yes.

You know that one?

I do, Neil Young's the man.

Yeah.

I was telling Laurel Canyon, outside is fucking--

Yeah, there you go, dude.

There you go.

Yeah, I get it. I mean, I think looking back, though, you probably realize that it's more about just kind of doing this stuff that you wanna do, also like doing it if it feels a little scary. Like, there's lines to that. There's stuff I've recorded that like, I know I will put out one day, but like, I have to hit the threshold where I'm like, I'm comfortable to put this out.

Right.

That's, everyone has that kind of stuff. Patreon's a weird one. It's a competitive space, it's like podcasting, but I think, ultimately, if you just like, put stuff out there consistently for people to like, see, you will find people. Like, I know people who, I'm not even really fans of any of their art, they're wonderful people. Like, I'm just not, it's not my thing.

Sure.

Who have lucrative careers who are able to kind of like, navigate whatever weird world it is to like, maintain, you know, especially during the pandemic. I don't want to name names, 'cause I just said, I don't like that. (both laughing) I know, I know, I know, right? I never would. I mean, the thing is, it's like, there's--

I wanted to chisel that out of your heart.

Right. There's ways to do it, but basically, it has to be like, from a place where it feels right and good, and I only know this having done it, kind of knowing that like, I was doing something and that first time I started it, it literally was like, it wasn't right. I knew it wasn't right almost from the beginning to the point where I started to--

You're talking about your debut Patreon, like--

Yeah, like if you go back to whenever it was, I don't think there's like, archives of it, but I know it was like, 2017, '18.

Sure, sure, yeah.

Wasn't in a great, it was 2018 at that. It was like, wasn't in a great place.

You had just moved to New York?

Just moved to New York. Just basically stopped working with, you know, an employer for like, a long period of time who I had like, who lied on income from. So it didn't have a lot of money, crypto was crashing. I remember that, and I'm like, what?

Right, okay.

I was like, all right, now's the time. Like this is when I got to start making that money and I was like, wow, it just wasn't the right energy. Now when like, legitimately people will, like 30, 40 people will leave, you know, a month. Great, like that's what I want people to stay who enjoy what it is and like, it's a natural kind of like, I don't know, I think, it's just you have to do it from a place of like, I would do this shit normal.

Exactly.

I'm doing something I like to do. It's like the streamers. I think about this a lot 'cause I do Twitch, you know, every so often, you have to enjoy that. You can't just like, become someone who wants to like, this is what everyone's doing now. I'm gonna become a streamer.

And nobody's gonna approach you to do that. Like Twitch isn't gonna come to you unless you're already doing that yourself. And in which case you would be a natural, yeah, you'd be natural born streamer. Like you're just, you know, that was actually what me, Gaudy and Morgan called our like Fortnite crew when I was like hanging out with them a lot playing Fortnite pre-pandemic. You're called the natural born streamers. But yeah, man, no, I feel it. I think it's like, you know, I think that like, in the space of music and creativity, like there's a lot of, for me, this is solely just coming from my end.

But it's been so wrapped up in identity. And like in meaning and like what I'm, how I'm portraying my ideas or how I'm portraying myself. And it gets wrapped up in money and it gets wrapped up in fame or like success and all of this kind of different stuff.

Which is normal, I think.

Like it's super normal. I think it's also very, I think, yeah, no, you're right. It's totally normal. And I think that it's actually like, it jades a lot more of the people that we like than we know. Like, for example, like, there's this guy who I saw on Instagram and I'm gonna name names here, but he goes by Love Leo or something like that. And he's a pop artist. He's like, you know, a skinny, tall, lanky like pop artist who lives in L.A. And he's got like, you know, half a million Instagram followers and he's like fashionable. His videos are insane. Like he's obviously got some like incredible funding of some kind, I don't know how.

But when I found him, I was like, I hate this.

Yeah.

I found, now this is my, this is just me talking but I found him and he popped up on and like as like an ad like a year and a half ago or something. And I was like, dude, I hate this. And I just next like moved on, shut my phone off, whatever. Circling back like just a couple months ago, he came back up in some capacity.

Yeah.

And I listened to his music and I was like, I was like, yo, this is fucking dope. Like, I love this shit. Like this is sick, had no idea it was the same guy. And then I like looked at his face and like the video and I was like, oh, this is that dude doing that whack shit that I didn't like like a year ago and now I like it. Like that's pretty crazy. And then you fast forward to just like a couple weeks ago, he posted this thing and meanwhile, keep in mind, like I'm watching this as an observer, as a fan, as somebody who's like, as a peer almost because I'm like, I'm in the same field, I do the same shit on a lower budget but I'm doing the same thing and with the same trajectory.

And so I'm observing this and I'm like, I am judging it. Not necessarily negative or positive but I'm just observing and judging it and taking it in. And so I'm like, this guy has resources or this guy has a label or he has some kind of funding and something's going on here. And he posted this thing like a week ago or two weeks ago saying like, I'm tired of creating music for other people and creating music in a space that is like ultimately going to somebody else to approve or with them in mind. It's toxic and nobody, none of you guys should create like this. He likes, I'm paraphrasing but he said that, right?

And I was like, welcome to my train of thought. Like that's exactly how I've been thinking for the last year, I mean, if not forever, I've kind of always had that idea but.

You know, I've been really lucky in one regard and I think kind of like, I don't wanna say curse but I think self limiting in another regard and the same thing where I never really tried to commercially release any music to like any like, I never had any expectations. I never was like gonna drop something. Like I released thing through the podcast that I like.

But I never.

Do you ever feel like you want to?

I know that I will at some point. It's, I think though what it's basically been is like a pretty good waiting game until I do think that like it's gonna be easier for people to make art that resonates with a large swath of people not because they're trying to like mold themselves into an identity and what people wanna listen to but because this is what they just feel like they should be doing. Like they wanna get down, they wanna get into the studio, write what comes naturally to them. There's no better feeling than that. You can go in and have to like, you know, adhere to a style or do a remix or like help someone but when you just go in there and like whatever is coming up whether it's a melody you add in your head or whatever, like that's an amazing feeling.

I feel like more of that seems to be percolating up from the top. I'm free. - For you.

For, not just for me, honestly.

Or in general.

In general, I just think there's more opportunity for that. - You've been noticing that energy around you.

I do. I notice it also a lot weirdly on TikTok. Like I see what like, not even just younger people but how people are using it as a medium to like highlight their creativity or feel like they actually have skills as like a production person or like an instrumentalist or a vocalist. Like it works like you can't really fake that in like that period of time. Like not the pre-produced stuff but like someone just like nailing something or like highlighting something they did. So I feel like that layer of having to like make your art, even if it's not music, conform to something so you can get signed by a label or get funding 'cause I think funding in general is just not gonna work in the same way.

Like it is still a pay for play model. Like you bring up funding for a lot of these people and that's why they kind of rebel against it 'cause they don't have creative control because it's ultimately not their money at stake. Other people are telling them what to do.

Even just psychologically, it can be, even if it's like your fucking dad or something like that, it's not like, sometimes it's not actually in the cards that you owe them something specific that they're counting on you to deliver like a hyper pop ballot album. It doesn't have to anything to do with that but it gets into your head as if you do because that's kind of the way that our society works is that like people pay you for a service.

Yeah.

But that's why I think like being your own boss with this stuff seems to be the future. Now what that I think freaks a lot of creatives out is that it's like, well, how do we make money? Where's the money?

Fuckin' A, dude. Now we're talking like, that's the ultimate question because I mean.

My views on this are obviously--

I wanna hear your views on this. This is why I came over here today.

Most of the last, I would say six months or so, if not longer. I've been talking more and more about money, how like I ultimately do view it as a meme. It's something that just isn't as hard and rock solid. This isn't even like a novel concept anymore. Like people know this from cryptocurrency and everything like that. I think it's an energy. I think it's just a reflection of your capacity to have things come to you and flow from you. And I think that's a really important aspect that I think--

This is a stage that I've been through before and that I feel like I'm entering now again.

I don't think I really grasp this concept, like in a way that I would say like, all right, I think my money issues, like no matter what happens, like in the bank accounts or anywhere else, like are pretty much okay. I don't think I really got that until I was like 35. Like that was like, that was like kinda when I was like, all right, I think I knew this, but now like I can actually see it in action. 'Cause up until then, it was all work for a service thing. And like people can blame capitalism or like, I don't think it's any of that. I think again, it's important for people to recognize that as a potential pattern and then be able to break free of it.

And I, hopefully ideally, be able to remember how they broke free of it. So if it starts like lack of talent--

Have you realized that you're a millionaire yet?

Yeah, like that type of shit. Like in like truthfully like understand that if that's like a goal that feels resonant with you, and I wouldn't, I don't go for like millionaires, but like knowing that you like live in a state of abundance.

Sure, sure, sure. - No matter what's going on. Even if like in your face is like anything but abundance, but knowing that that's something that exists in you have access to just by being aware that it's a thing. That does allow it to come forward. That is challenge. Like I challenge myself with that at various times, but ultimately I will say like, I've kind of turned a major corner. I think yeah, when I was 35, 'cause I was like, it's just energy. Like there's nothing wrong with it. I think I held plenty of subconscious beliefs that there's something wrong with money because of the way some people use it or the way it can be used. - Yeah, like you hear people say and I've been there and I've said this before.

You hate like, oh, I hate money.

Yeah, that's an act. - Like I don't, yeah, I hate money. - Treat it like a relationship. That's the way you look at money. - Yeah, exactly.

But treat it like how would you want, if you really wanted a good partner, how would you treat that person?

It's funny 'cause I had the same analogy with cigarettes. The other day I was with my mom and she asked me, because I, like I told you before we started the podcast that I'm like mourning the death of my addiction. So it's kind of sad. - Yeah, yeah.

Like I feel like a little sad. - There's a loss, yeah.

I don't miss like, I don't feel like I'm having like nicotine withdrawals because I have this little fucking e-sick that I can suck on every now and again.

Yeah, yeah.

But like, it's also like the, when you're with something for 15 years or 10, or however long I've been with it, it's under 15 years, but still long enough to be like, committed to smoking and you, I guess where I'm going with this is that I gave it up and because I actually had to, I felt like I was like, I was like, I have to give this up. Like this is, it's time, like I'm done.

Yeah, that's what we're saying, yeah.

It's not like I'm never gonna have a cigarette again, but it's like, I'm--

It's important to also acknowledge that too. I think a lot of people, I get a lot of addiction people for like readings and stuff and I try to point this out as gently and I don't think this is advice for everyone or a way to approach it for everyone. But people who really, really like have to hardcore hold onto an idea of sobriety just as a identity concept, that's tough to hold up. That's fighting a monster. - Super dude, it's loaded. It's really loaded.

I have a lot of friends that are sober and that's, I feel like maybe some of them hold onto it in that way.

It's rough, it'll get you. And anyone who's ever dealt with something where like, you know, maybe it's just like eating something that you know you shouldn't be eating and you try to like fight, it doesn't work. Like you can't fight that monster forever. So I find that like, if you just permit yourself to be like, hey listen, if I want to, I can. It's something I can do. It doesn't mean I'm going to do it. Yeah, so it's just like, if you wanna do it, it's just a healthier way of looking at it to bring back. It is, money is the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. I was gonna circle back to that at some point, but totally.

Yeah, I mean, it really is. What we continue what we were saying though.

Well, I was gonna, I mean, I guess I was kind of just like riffing, but I feel like money is like this thing where like, okay, like cigarettes. Okay, what I was actually gonna say about the cigarettes and how this coincides with money, I guess maybe it'll coincide with it, it might not, but bear with me, if I, my mom asked me, how are you doing with not having a cigarette? It was like, it had been three days. I still have a full pack of cigarettes at my house. It's sitting right there in the open. I walk by it every day, I look at it. I think about times that I've smoked. The way that I put it in my head, when she asked me this, was it's like dating the most, it's like the most toxic relationship that, but the sex is so good, kind of type thing.

And we've all been there, and if you haven't, you probably will be there at some point. It's never too late to date a toxic person, but you just like, you know that it's fucking killing you inside, but it's so fucking good, and it doesn't actually hurt you right away. It's just this slow kind of thing where like all of a sudden one day, like I've been getting into tennis, right?

I love tennis.

I'm addicted to tennis.

You know the tennis place right in right back here?

Oh, you play?

I'm not good, but I do, yeah.

I would say that I'm pretty good. So you practice and then when you're ready up to it, I'm down to do a match or volley or something like that.

Amazing.

I've been taking it pretty serious. I play every day.

That's awesome.

Well, not on days like today, but.

Oh, that's awesome, where do you play?

Well, I play in Kingston, there's a couple of other, there's a couple of courts out there in Kingston where I'm at, and there's like walls that I can go to by myself.

Amazing.

Yesterday, I played for 40, I do like 45 minutes or an hour up against the wall nonstop.

Oh, you're really good now.

Yeah, and I'm just practicing my swings and everything.

Basically in the city on the courts on the river.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Dude, I love it. I mean, it's like, Nick Monaco got me into it because I was gonna go visit him for his birthday and he caught we were on the phone and he was like, he's all, man, I've been playing tennis, taking lessons, all this shit. And I was like, dude, and I was like a month before I left. So I said, okay, well, I have a month to get really good and I can like show up with some firepower.

Nice.

And then we could play some matches.

Nice.

Which is exactly what we did. And that fool smoked my ass.

He's taking lessons.

That fool's taking lessons.

Yeah, I mean, he, I maybe won, we played like 20 matches one day in El Serrito. And he like was, and he's a bigger guy than I am and he can move his weight around the court. Like nobody's business. Like it was really impressive. And he was just, and I must have won like maybe two or three games in the whole weekend. And we played like, we played a lot of matches. But anyways, I guess what I was really saying is that like, I realized that, okay, I'm playing tennis, I'm playing Frisbee, I'm like running all the time and trying to do, trying to do good things for my body. You know, as opposed to what I've been doing in my whole life, which is like sucking down coke and fucking drinking and smoking cigarettes and, and, and just having a great time.

But sure, I don't, I don't regret any of it. But I was like, I gotta give this up so that I can actually really like fucking feel it because you really can't be, like you might have a cigarette here and there, whatever, not a big deal. But when you relate, when I'm, I was a pack every two days.

Yeah.

Sucking down 10 cigarettes a day.

Yeah.

And when you want to go on a run, you literally just want to get that run over with so you can have a cigarette. Like that's, your whole life is just like, and that's how I was with, with drugs too, at some capacity for me when I was younger was like, I just want the night to start so I can party and get fucked up. And like, that's a way to live. I'm not saying it's not a way to live, but it is, it is a way to live. Just, at some point it may stop working for you. Anyways, money, hating money, and like having the sour relationship with money.

Yeah.

It was so not working for me.

Yeah.

At one point that I like, I called up a buddy and he was just like, dude, you know what you're, he's like West Coast lives out and like fucking the sticks and you know, grows weed, trims weed, and whatever. He's like, you know what your problem is? You're holding on to money for dear life. You got to let go of it, bro. And like, such a like, heady shit thing to say, but I was like, it resonated with me. And I was kind of like, all right dude, whatever. But then I kept thinking about it. And it's been like a very long journey of me like coming to that conclusion where it's like, stop tripping about it all the time.

Yeah. It literally creates the problem.

Yeah. You're literally creating the problem.

You're creating it by thinking, how do I fix this? How am I going to do this? How's it going to happen? You're actually creating the situation to be a problem. The second you stop worrying about it and go like, I think I'm going to have enough weird shit happens. Like inexplicable stuff. I've seen so many like bizarrely weird things. Like every-- - Unemployment.

Unemployment.

Totally.

One of the pandemic stuff.

Pandemic assistance, dude.

It's really, it's a weird thing that happens when you kind of let go of it. But I think ultimately a pretty productive one because that's an important lesson to learn. That goes for almost everything. If you're really holding on or focusing or like obsessing about something and it's not serving you, I mean, maybe just let it go and see what happens. That to me is like a very like, it's been a big theme, I think of the past, I don't know. Year, I would say, like just let that shit go.

Yeah.

Like there's literally no reason to keep--

Well, what are you going to do about it?

That's the famous Shanti Deva quote, which is, if you have a problem and you can do something about it, why worry about it? If you have a problem and you can't do anything about it, why worry about it?

Exactly.

It's like, you meditate?

I used to meditate. I don't really meditate anymore. I got to a point with meditation, where the act of sitting down to meditate became kind of like too much of a thing and it didn't serve the purpose of kind of just getting in touch and being quiet. So like that was kind of a distraction for me. Also, I found that like active meditation or like the imaginal stuff kind of serves a more directed focus that I like creative imagination to me, I guess is my meditation. I find when you change, you swapped it for something else that works.

That felt more normal and natural for me.

Yeah, I think that's important. That's cool, that's cool.

Yeah, and I mean, it's not always easy to do that stuff, but it feels like a more directed and focused use of what is normally a pretty active mind. I can slow it down, but I never found like the use in it. And again, not in like a bad way. I was just like, all right, this is how it is. Let's see what this baby can do. Let's turn it on so we can get going in this dimension. So that is kind of what, and I think--

It's like firing up your shitty laptop. You're like, let's see if today's the day.

Well, I mean, fuck man, I think I'm gonna get a desktop. Mine's, it's not gonna die. These computers always last like five years, at least for me, six years. But I just feel like I got hosed with these. Do you have the touch bar?

Yeah, I got a touch bar.

I don't like it. I don't like any of this stuff, man. I want the fucking--

I just adapted. I just adapted.

I did because you have to.

You gotta adapt, yeah.

Of course, I've had it now for two years.

You're gonna be wrong. I was definitely complaining for like months and months.

I'm still complaining.

And then I also was like, we're back on the computer thing, but the adapters cost me like 160 bucks or something, or like something like that. It was like absurd, how much it cost--

Way more than that from me, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Between getting the wrong things and then our return is like, please.

I mean, yeah, and if you're billing yourself by the hour to like figure this whole thing out, it costs a lot more than that.

Yeah.

But, no, but anyways, back to the meditating, I guess the reason that I brought up to meditating was because I just started meditating. And I'm day like six in meditating. I started with like 10 minutes in the morning, not crossing my legs or sitting on the ground. I was like sitting in a chair with my feet--

Comforably.

Yeah, comfortably with my feet in the grass.

Nice.

And the reason that I was doing this is because I developed this panic disorder over the last month that was like pretty fucking severe. And the worst thing about it, too, or maybe it's not the worst thing, it might be a blessing actually, is that I'm lucid through the whole thing, so I'm not actually like, I'm not quote unquote--

Disassociating.

Yes.

Right.

Which I was afraid that maybe I was starting to, but then I realized the fact, the sheer fact that I'm having that idea and that I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, am I disassociating? I'm not.

That's me and I was young.

The disassociative like--

Yeah.

Everything would repeat. It was like, basically, actually, the only way I could describe it is, until I had done ketamine, it was exactly like that. It was exactly like I was being pulled outside of my body, witnessing what was going on, not be able to react in like real time. It was like a fucking weird, weird situation. Yeah, it used to happen when I smoked weed early on, very, very young, and it would last for hours sometimes. Like really long time.

Would you have physical manifestations from it or anything? Were you just like, was it all heady or was it physical?

It was physical in the sense like it felt, like everything I was doing was, it felt like tripping. Like it was like a very weird kind of state to be in, but it was as far as I can tell, like endogenous, like it wasn't because I smoked weed per se. Like it was some reaction to my consciousness. It felt like lag, basically.

How old were you when this happened?

I was like, I think back then, I wanna say like 13 or 14. And it would happen.

Well, that's young.

Regularly, so really long periods of time.

Well, we both started smoking weed around the same age. Of course, you're older than me. So when you were my, when you were that age, it was probably shittier weed.

It was terrible weed.

Yeah.

My weed, I looked out. When I was 13 or 14, I got the good weed.

You're in California too.

I was in California.

Yeah, you really hit the jackpot there. No, it was terrible shwag. Like, I mean, it was really bad weed. So it wasn't because I was like so high or like--

Yeah, sure.

It's like an amazing stuff. It was just like-- - It wasn't like a psychedelic effect. It was a cerebral kind of thing, yeah.

I've seen people go through, I think similar things, and they've labeled them as panic attacks. And I think the key qualifying difference, and it seemed to like mitigate it, and it just doesn't happen to me anymore, and hasn't since then, is you just kind of watch it happen and don't react to it happening. And that seems to basically, there comes a point where like whatever functional thing that is, is no longer needed, like you don't have to do that. It is disassociating though. I just remember being also tethered at the same time, like I wasn't fully gone. So I had to interact with this world--

Fuck you.

While essentially being like acutely aware of what was going on. Yeah, but describe what yours are like.

So mine started like there was like, I think mine started my girl went to Florida to visit her parents, and I had the house to myself, and I was like literally just like working in the studio every day, exercising, eating, doing everything that I would do when she was home, except having this like sense of kind of like, your own domain, right, for a second.

King of the castle.

King of the castle. Sure. Like since the pandemic, we share the house every day, which is lovely, and I love it. But it was the first time in all of the pandemic that we had spent a full day, I mean, a week, but like even just like a full day, 24 hours apart from each other. And it wasn't, I missed her, but it wasn't crazy. Anyway, it was great, when she came back, something kind of clicked in my head after a couple of days of her being back that I was about to leave on my trip. So she left, came back, and then my trip was next, right? And like, we have this little kitten who's kind of like has like these some health concerns and stuff that we've been, you know, that's like our little boy.

So we don't leave him alone yet until he's like,

Sure, how old is he?

He's only eight months old.

Oh, he's young, yeah.

Yeah, he's young, he's getting bigger, but--

Kittens are so cute.

Yeah, he's the cutest. His name's Glacier, he looks just like me. He has all my genes. And he has had like, you know, he had like bloody diarrhea for a while, and then he had just diarrhea, and then he had like ear mites and he has like a respiratory problem.

Upstate cat?

Upstate cat, yeah, or adopted. And he doesn't know that he has any of these things, he's just kind of like waiting for a mouse to, like a fake mouse to appear in play. Anyway, so my anxiety, it wasn't panic. It was like anxiety started kind of like bubbling. And then--

About what, just anything?

I don't know dude, like I literally was just like, okay, it's bubbling because I'm leaving, like it's because I'm going on a trip. And like, I'm nervous about, you know, I'm feeling anxious about the world reopening, I'm fully vast, I'm getting out there, I'm doing the damn thing, I've been wanting this forever, but holy shit is it scary, like, you know, you're like, in my mind, I was like thinking about, I had all these images in my mind and videos that would play like little jiffs that would play of like me interacting with this person, or me going to this gas station, or me going on coffee shop and seeing this person, et cetera.

And so fast forward to like the couple days before I left, it started getting worse and like more of a panicky sense where I was like actually having like physical trauma kind of vibes, like my chest was tight, my mind started going into these dark places where it's like, maybe I'm not having a panic attack, maybe I'm having a heart attack.

Yeah, I get it.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, like freak out.

Freak out vibes. And so I'm fucking thinking about all this shit. Meanwhile, Alexandra's like, what are we doing for dinner tonight? And I'm like, well, that is if we make it past this heart attack that I'm about to have, you know what I mean? Like literally like--

What do you like respond that out loud now?

Sometimes I would be like, well, I don't know if I can eat because babe, I think I'm gonna have a stroke, or like, I think I'm gonna have a heart attack, like I think I'm having a heart attack. And she's like, you're 28 and you run every day. You're not gonna have a heart attack. Yeah, you're not having a heart attack. And I'm like, really? Like, you really think that? Like, I don't know.

That's also more of a disturbing thought sometimes when you have like a psychological basis for a physical thing. That's always kind of blown my mind when I come face to face with that shit. I'm like, damn, that's weird.

It's fucking weird. So my buddy Nick Monaco, business partner, label partner, we run the Unisex Records together, where we co-lab together. I produced his last full length album. We've been friends for like five years. And like I told you before, we started the party. He's the reason that I live here. So we're very close.

Yeah.

He lives in California still where we're from. And up in the El Cerrito Hills and like, he has this beautiful house. And I didn't get to see him a lot last summer when I was home, which we could get into as well. But so I really, I've been missing him, you know? We needed that brother early time. And so he, you know, he's turned in 31. He was, you know, his girlfriend and I were like corresponding back and forth about this surprise party.

Sure.

And so I was like excited for it. At least in my lucid mind, I was excited for it.

Yeah.

But maybe subconsciously, I was getting a little nervous or something, I don't know, whatever. I still am, I may never find out what I actually was the cause of it.

Yeah.

And that's okay. But I got on the plane. Everything was fucking great. Like I felt fine. Like literally everything went away. Like my palms turned back to a normal temperature. My, I, you know, wasn't having like irritable bowel syndrome vibes.

Yeah, your body is in like a state of shock and tension.

Yeah. And now I'm on the plane and it somehow is totally relieved and like I feel great. I slept a bunch on the plane. We, you know, I get in. He picks me up from the airport in like a fricking Mercedes, which wasn't his for the record. And we go to his house, we pick up a bottle of wine. We go to his house. I feel fantastic, dude. In the whole time, I'm like, I'm exhausted because I'm like, woo, like finally I don't feel like you're relaxed. I feel, finally I feel relaxed, dude. And we're catching up and we're laughing and we're watching funny videos and we're like telling jokes and we're just doing our damn thing that we've always been good at.

And then the next day is the surprise party. So we wake up, we play tennis. He beats me in tennis a bunch. We hop in two separate cars and we drive up north to a surprise party and I show up and I was good up until I showed up. And then when I showed up, I saw all of his friends, some of whom I knew, but I like saw all these people and I don't know if it's like, because I haven't, I hadn't been around like a crew yet since the pandemic.

Definitely part of it, I'm sure.

Definitely part of it, right? Or that I was worried that like whatever was happening was gonna come back in the moment and then I wasn't, I don't know how to deal with it. And that's definitely what happened because as soon as I saw everybody, I got lightheaded, my chest started caving in and I then again was like, I literally was like, fuck, I'm having another heart attack again? Like, you know what I mean?

I know, I get it.

You get the vibe, I don't know, have you been there before?

I've definitely been there. I mean, I've also like played pretty fast and loose with like, you know, sanity at times. So I've definitely, you get out there into these wild places where like, you don't know what is creating what and what's really going down in this system. - I know, dude.

So I get it, I also get the social anxiety kind of panic-induced things. I think, I've been wondering this actually, it's interesting to hear you talk about this 'cause I've been thinking about this, that this would probably be a more common phenomena than people expected to be.

Totally, I totally agree with that.

People who haven't really for the most part, even like the most introverted of people are usually dragged out in some capacity. There's usually some tether, whether it's a friend or a dungeon and dragons game or whatever, dude. Like, I've got friends that are really like, they don't really leave the house with their comfort zone, and when they go out, it's because they're going to a match of like a card mat, you know, like some kind of like thing or like a video game conference or something that's like even in their total wheelhouse, full of people just like them, and they're still, they still have this like, you know.

So I think it's just something that is normal. I also feel like people, whether they know it or not, really transformed a lot kind of like energetically, not to get too woo about this, but during the pandemic, like you were saying, people faced fears, they either overcame them, they shied away, they probably had a lot of stuff come up around like death and life and health and all of these things. You're more sensitive energetically now. People wouldn't get around other people who maybe weren't accustomed to kind of like feeling everything that has always been around or like, what the fuck is this?

Like what the fuck is this? I can now feel everyone's energy. And then that's when one of those straight thoughts can come in where you're like, oh shit, am I?

Straight thought, that's what it is. It is a straight thought.

It's a straight thought and you just engage with it and it can be a sticky one.

It's like a fly in your house that you're like, how do you get the other fuck you get in here?

I've learned, I think just from being a long time weed smoker and I think that what people call paranoia is usually just like the subconscious material. It can be fear based that like if you don't have the proper perspective on how to deal with it, it's like not fun. That's why people don't suppose weed. But if you recognize like, oh, like that's a fly, I'm gonna swat it away.

Or just let it just.

Yeah, or wash over you. I mean, I also like, again, not to bring it up too much. But like, I found ketamine to be quite helpful with even bigger straight thoughts.

No, that's fine. You're a ketamine advocate.

Yeah, and I haven't done it for you in a long time.

I hope that the ketamine organization of United States or they're giving you a stipend for this plug.

That would be great.

Whatever research lab is around here, we should plug, tap in.

I would love to be sponsored by, I just, you know, the thing is with like the clinical ketamine. I don't know that I would ever want to do that. I could be prescribed it, I guess. But I use it truthfully. Like I do most other psychedelics, even though it's a dissociative. It's just like a cool, interesting realm to explore.

I've done ketamine multiple times. I've got friends that still do ketamine.

Yeah, I know people who have really can get weird with it too. It can get to a dark place for some people, but I find it to be a pretty useful thing. But when these thoughts come up or these fears or things come up, like knowing that you have a choice in how you respond to them always and reinforcing that as a belief, it doesn't mean you don't get knocked off course sometimes. Like everyone's gonna have a natural reaction or what seems like an unnatural reaction to like anxiety or fear or whatever. But usually it's like too much of a focus on the self and wondering and thinking that other people are gonna like, you have to uphold like some social standard or whatever.

And like most of the time, which is the truth, no one gives a shit.

Exactly, nobody actually gives a fuck or is even thinking about it.

No, especially like even like if there's someone like really weird at like an event, like or a party or like a small gathering, like at most it'll be like tomorrow's conversation for like five minutes. Like no one is like, no one is really like dwelling on energy stuff. - Totally, no that's a really, that's a really great point. And I think that what you're describing is to my understanding would be like categorize as performance anxiety.

Yeah, I mean it's similar because that's like--

And it's not just shows like or like for me, when I say-- - Being in the world is a performance. - Yeah, just you're performing.

You have a persona.

Yeah, whether you're on a fucking podcast and it's one-on-one or it's you're going to the grocery store and you don't want to fumble your wallet when you get up to the cash register or like whatever the fuck it is. Like nobody actually gives a fuck. The other day or yesterday, I was at the, I was at Adam's Fairacre Farms in fucking Lake stream.

Amazing, great, wow. Oh and Lake or Dream?

Yeah, 'cause that's closer to me.

That's how cool.

And I was like checking out and I was feeling good. I was feeling normal, you know? I've been pretty good the last couple of days because of my meditation. I got some produce, I got some steak.

You have really good stuff.

They got really good stuff there.

I'm out of this orange juice.

You know some fucking watermelons.

It's a true upstate shit, Adam.

You have some corn dude. And I was fucking like, I was right there in the checkout line and I was like, you know, just chilling dude. And like the Elton John song "Tiny Dancer" was on.

Yeah.

And there's that big build up.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. ♪ Homey cluster, tiny dance ♪

Yeah, totally.

And I fucking, I mean, I just got the chills just thinking about it. But I like looked at the cash at the, I looked at the lady in the, you know, as she was like ringing up my stuff and I just like, I just did like the gun fingers to her and I just like, and I just was like ♪ ♪ Dummy cluster, tiny dance ♪ And I reached out to her and like put my hand out and she just looked at me with not a single fuck. Like she just was like, didn't say anything. Stared at me right in the eyes and then just went back to doing her job. Could care less.

It's amazing.

And you know, so like, what are you anxious about? Because even in a grocery store when you start singing, nobody actually really gives a fuck.

No one cares.

And at the best or the worst, you'll be a conversation at their dinner party the next night for five minutes.

That's really like, there's nothing. I think feeling like there's something that you should be anxious about is again, it's like the money thing and not having it. It's like you're creating and you're focusing on a problem that in reality doesn't exist and only has existence because you're aware of it. So like kind of withdrawing the awareness from that and being like, you know what? I think from henceforth, I'm the type of person who's pretty comfortable in social situations 'cause I know like, I don't have anything like no one cares and like, I'm pretty, like, evidence would say that I'm a normal person who get along with people.

That's usually enough to kind of like move past those things. But also, I think there's like a lot of lessons when that shit pops up. Like I think the best part of like, really intense trips that I've had on psychedelics is like, the weird gets gnarly and weird. Like that's where you're gonna learn some shit. That's where like that catalyst is gonna come from. So, you know, I think, I think again, it's a matter of perspective. Exactly. It totally is a matter of perspective. And to take that back into the meditation thing, the thing that I'm finding was like, so to continue on with my story, in to summarize it up, I went through my California trip that was supposed to be a fucking vacation struggling.

I was struggling through it, you know, I had good moments, but those good moments would default into like normal or not panic moments.

Sure.

Right, where you're just like kind of neutral. And I would have these, it would, at some point in the day, it would typically something would happen. Like I'd have an, you know, like you would have like a twitch in your finger that would just like, you'd start, and it just, anything--

I get it, I get it.

You get it. And so, then I came home with my mom and it was still kind of happening. And it was a little bit less, but it was more like manifesting in ways of like, kind of just like frustrations, or like not having my own space, you know, or whatever, not having time to make music. Like you said, you know, like you don't have your time to, whatever. And that's the thing too, is like my mom was like, you know, honey, if you want to just like, make music for a day or do whatever, just do whatever you want. I don't need you to entertain me. And she sincerely meant that.

Yeah.

'Cause she's such a sweetheart and she really doesn't need anybody to like hold her hand through anything. But my insides were like, I hear you, but like, there's no way that you don't need me.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I get this vibe very much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I met up with my, so then she left, or that one of her last days there, we had a really good day. We went on a hike and I cried and like, lots of crying, lots of like--

Crying is great.

Crying is great.

It's amazing.

Every time I meditate, actually, I think I'm, when I open my eyes, I almost cry because it's intense, you know? And so anyway, so we went on this hike, it was like misting, we went to the overlook in Woodstock, you know where that is, where you can see-- - I don't.

You gotta go sometime, dude. We'll go if you ever wanna do it with the knees or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's going on?

And we, you go all the way up and you can see the whole Hudson Valley, and you can see all the Catskills, dude, and it's fucking epic. And it reminds me of like, why this California boy is living in upstate New York, you know what I mean? And I almost had a panic attack when I showed up to the place for some reason. I was with my girl and my mom, and it was like no big deal, but I almost had like this, another strange sensation. When I got back, I felt great, and like fantastic. Not just like default, not panicking. I felt-- - Good.

Felt good, man. - Yeah.

No, I'd say great. - Great.

I felt great. - Nice.

I felt relieved, I felt like free, and all this shit, and I met up with my buddy, my mom, my girl, my buddy, we met up, we got some pizza, we got some lemonade, some oysters. Dropped like a fucking ton of money on this food, you know what I mean? - I got it.

It was a bunch of us, so it wasn't that bad, but--

That's-- - And he came back home with me, and he suffers from something very similar, right?

Yeah. - And he not suffers. I don't want to use that word. I would like-- - Experiences.

He has experienced and still just deals with what I'm going through, but on a more intense level, and I'm not gonna name his name, 'cause I don't want to put him out in case he doesn't want to be mentioned, but we sat outside on my porch for like an hour and a half, and he was like, he just gave me some really great pointers, of which I will share with the listeners now. And one thing was that when you're meditating, it'll take a while, right? You have to do it a couple times to actually even drift off and kind of be in that--

Space, yeah. - Just be in space and just be, but when you actually get to that point, keep in mind when you come out of that, that you did that, right? - Yeah.

Nobody else did that for you. - That's right.

You put yourself through this 10 minute, 20 minute process this morning that was you and solely you, and remember how it felt. Even if you were feeling a little anxious through the whole thing, - Yeah.

Just remember that you did that for yourself. So that was one thing. The second thing, which I'll end on, but the second thing was that when you feel any type of feeling, just give yourself permission to feel that, right? This is like common shit for people that have been doing this for a while or that have experienced or maybe even--

Everyone deals with this no matter what. I don't think this-- - No, no, no, totally, but I've never had this conversation before. I've never had this conversation with anybody. My mom is very in tune with this kind of stuff. She meditates and all this stuff, but it hits different when your 28 year old friend is who you fucking play sports with and hang out with and whatever, when he tells you this, it hits different. 'Cause it's a peer. It's not your mom. - Yeah, yeah.

Whatever, mom. You're like, "Totally, bro."

No, it's trying to preach to you about it.

Yeah, exactly. He was like genuinely just like, "I'm here for you, dude." "I understand what you're going through." And dude, that was like what, on Friday, it's Tuesday. Since then, I haven't had a single incident. There's been moments where I get a little fucking, little like, I trip a little bit and I'm like, "Ooh." But then I just remind myself, I'm like, "Yo dude, like three hours ago, you were in your lawn on your lawn, like cross-legged chilling with like butterflies flying around your head and everything was totally good. What are you tripping about?" And I guess, I'm not a fucking, I'm a beginner.

I'm a student of this, but I guess the point is to just train your body and your mind to into this new habit of like--

Allowing.

Allowing, yeah. Just permission, allowing and just being and just remembering that like, you are in control. Not you're like, I can't remember what he calls it, but it's like a type of your mind, you're fucking anxious mind, I'll just call it. You know, instead of letting your anxious mind get the best of it, that's hilarious, just right across the street. There's like a fucking, "Blue Lives Matter" flag.

Oh yeah, they're Trump people too. They're also really old, I think.

Yeah, classic, those hand in hand.

I never really see them. I'm actually not gonna miss anyone. I actually live there. It's just like your art piece.

Yeah, exactly.

It's very, I haven't seen them literally, I think in like a year.

Maybe they died and they're still in there.

There's a gardener who comes there. I sometimes debate whether he murdered them, but I don't think he did. That'd be weird.

That's the scoop that someone could get.

Of course, weird shit that goes down in these parts, though, I'll tell you, for a really small town.

Dude, upstate New York is a trippy fucking place, man.

It's pretty weird.

It's pretty weird. The thing about it is that it like, I mean, and I know this just from shopping for homes, dude, and in the real estate market, as my first ever encounter in the real estate market, most of these homes, whether or not it's been remodeled, like most of them were built in like the 1800s.

Yeah, they're old.

You know, they're fucking old. And like, this is like the first, like, America, yeah.

They're like, this is the place where we're gonna stay and build stuff. There's like all this crazy revolutionary and war stuff, back in Red Hook, where I had a house, it was, there's like down the street, there's some like famous general.

This is a little village.

This is a hamlet, I think, I just think.

Oh, a hamlet.

No, it's the village of Ranklet, I guess.

Is this your yard back here?

This is part of it.

That's cool.

That's a good chill in your yard.

That's my neighbor's, he has that area. We have this like, front place. There's no mailboxes here. You have to go to the post office, which is down the street.

That's fine.

Yeah, no, it's weird, it's Bizarro World. It's like a Norman Rockwell, like.

It's cool, 'cause that way you're in control of when you go and get your mail. You're not just like, come home to a bunch of fucking stacks of bills.

It is true. It is, you do get to gate your own mail delivery system.

Yeah, your gatekeeper for your own bills, yeah. It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

But yeah, man, I think that it's a crazy time and I'm glad to be, it's cool to talk about this because it's like, I can talk about this with my girlfriend or with my mom or with my buddies and with you, but talking into it into a podcast where people will be listening.

Well, a lot of people, I think, that's what I'm saying. This is not gonna be something that I think is completely unique to this view.

Exactly, yeah.

I know, I would consider myself someone who kind of encountered what you're describing. I wouldn't say whatever described it as social anxiety or panic attacks as like an adult, but I learned how to be like very energetically sensitive to surroundings, which I think is important to acknowledge. Like sometimes if you get in an environment and you start to feel weird, it might be because of your environment. It's not necessarily just because of you, yeah.

'Cause it's your reaction to it ultimately, but like that's a good like primal kind of instinctual thing. Like this is a setting that I feel comfortable in. So that's totally.

Dude, if you're at Haniford and you're fucking feeling a little sketched out, maybe switch up your grocery store.

I'm just saying. There's weird vibes depending on where you are, you know? I'm just saying.

No, totally.

Yeah, so I mean, I think that that's something that people are probably gonna encounter more and more. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's good to be ultimately more sensitive to your surroundings, but learning how to kind of like work with and live with that is something that takes just a little bit of practice and intention. And I think the meditation stuff is really, I mean, I know people who really, really love meditation. I find active kind of meditation. That's what I would describe as.

I mean, I know you're, I did your podcast and I've been listening to your podcast, but tell me what you mean by interact. Would you say imaginative meditation or just like.

Just like imaginal activity, creative imagination, right? So for instance, today.

'Cause it's been a while since we've hung out.

Yeah, it's been almost two years, right?

Yeah.

A little less, you're gonna have. For me, like today, before you got here, I was like, you know, I'm a little tired, I'm gonna lay down, I'm not gonna go to sleep, but I'm just kind of kind of drift off.

Wow, that's kind of what we talked about, the last podcast. I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. And this particular time, it was just like a lot of like, kind of like what I would describe, kind of what you think of as space, but moving through it and then being able to slow it down and then kind of like expand the space between what I was perceiving as like stars or whatever and kind of get into like that more like void state. And I did that for, I don't know how long, not that long. That to me is probably what I would describe is like a form of meditation that I do. I don't do it regularly every day.

I probably end up doing something close to that every day, whether it's directed or not, like I'm envisioning something that I, you know, wanna like imagine into this reality.

Sure, sure.

But just letting my mind kind of go to different places and see what pops up, notice any resistances to scenarios that, you know, maybe I would like to experience or I think that I would, that for me functionally seems to be, like it feels natural for me. And I think that's a big part of it. I don't think everything has to be like easy and like, it's like learning an instrument. You're not gonna be a pro, literally off the bat. You have to teach yourself some skills.

I mean, there's also the 10,000 hour rule.

Yeah, I don't know how much I would subscribe to 10,000 hours because like, I'm sure you could have--

Isn't that what they said the Beatles said that.

Yeah, no, that's like a Gene the Mastery thing too.

Yeah, yeah.

What's his name, the scientist, pop scientist guy. Malcolm Gladwell.

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, I mean, but I'm sure you've experienced this too. Where like, maybe you've put in a certain amount of time to an instrument or some skill, and then like you don't use it for a long time. And then you go back to it, just like pick it up and you're magically like way better at it. Like that's happened to me enough to know that it's not like a linear trajectory of like how much time is put into it. There's clearly like benefit with repetition and like learning things, muscle memory and all that. But I've experienced that too much where I'm like, all of a sudden, like when I was in Laurel Canyon, I'm like, what the fuck happened where I know how to play like this.

Yeah, totally.

I literally don't know why it's happening. And all of a sudden I've just unlocked like all these like cheat codes to the guitar.

Totally.

Like that's, that's not 10,000 hours. I don't think so. - No, no. If anything, to me, that makes me think about like, you're letting go.

Yeah, exactly.

Right? - You're like letting it. I mean, dude, like I make music for a living. I mean, it's like crazy to me to be able to call myself like a professional musician at the age of 28 'cause I felt like it was like just yesterday, I was like 18 learning how to like program beats or like learning how to like rip a record or whatever. But there was, can we pause so I can go to the bathroom and we can come back and pick this up?

Of course.

Okay, we're back. So what I was thinking about was I work on music so much. Like there's, there's always like this. I mean, whether I'm working with another artist or helping them like achieve like their song or I'm working on my own stuff or just for fun or whatever, there was this long period over the last year where I felt like at this immense pressure and I'm not gonna get too much into detail, but it was like through this kind of like partnership with this entity. And it was like writing, there was like money involved and there was like, you know, like an expectation involved and kind of stuff that was like, you know, significant.

And there, well, there was one, I did just sign a publishing deal, which was huge. Thank you. It was a huge, just a huge milestone for me.

Yeah, it's a big deal.

And that's great. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something else. And I was working on music all the time 'cause I felt like, well, I gotta provide.

It's your job.

I gotta produce something for this thing that may happen that may become a contractual, contracted contractual thing.

Thing.

Yeah.

And dude, I wasn't making anything. Like I was like, I was working every day writing music, stuff that like my girlfriend would be like, like this sounds amazing. And I'd be like, are we listening to the same thing because this sounds like total, like this sounds like trash or it sounds like every other song that's out there right now or it's this or that or whatever.

Yeah.

And so one day, this thing that I was like in the middle of, it fell apart and it like, and it went away.

Yeah.

Not for any reason that I'm gonna mention, but it just ended and never started.

Yeah, it didn't materialize. It never materialized and it just deteriorated and went away and it was in the past and, or it wasn't in the past, it would just never happen.

Yeah.

And that day, I walked down in the studio and I wrote some of the most amazing music. Maybe it wasn't even amazing. I just had the most fun.

Yeah, it feels good.

It felt so good.

Which usually tends to be, let's be honest, the stuff that's kinda amazing.

Yeah, exactly.

This is fun. Have a good time doing this.

It's why people are supposed to make music.

Yeah, keep your fucking nose on that, okay? 'Cause that stuff is like, that stuff's special. When you have a great time making it, that means something. If you don't have a great time.

Yeah.

I mean, there's something to be said for blood, sweat, and tears, but I mean, it's gotta be good blood, sweat, and tears. It can't be like negative, nasty shit. Like anyways, so now, you know, I was like in a whole different head space. I had a, you know, and I got this publishing deal, so I got like, you know, a little bit of money. Things are good. I felt like, and I just, I was like, I'm done making music for a while. Literally, like that might sound totally backwards.

No, I don't know.

But I was like, I felt like I had just accomplished something, I'm like, I need a break from this. So I just stopped, dude. Like, for like a week and a half, two weeks, I didn't make anything, or like, maybe even like three weeks, I just wasn't making anything. I was like reading, I was exercising.

Do other stuff.

Yeah, trying to do other stuff, trying to maintain my panic attacks. Like all this other, I was distracted. Let's be real, I had shit to do. And then, you know, like buying a house, inspections, like termite inspections, yeah, structural stuff, pool stuff, all this kind of shit. And so I was distracted, and it felt really good in a way to just not do it and just to walk away from it. And then last night, or two nights ago, was the first night that I got back into things. And I just fucking kicked ass.

Yeah, it's fun again.

Yeah, I just like went down there. I turned my, I fired up my whole thing and just had a blast, dude. Just had such a good time. And like, so yeah, there is something to be said about, just like letting go of stuff and walking away from it and not putting it up on this pedestal and kind of just-- - It will really help.

And that's the same with money. And it's the same with, you know, like, performance anxiety or fucking--

All the things. - All the things. Like just kind of let it just be, dude. And once you can like let it be, I'm finding, and hopefully like we'll find more and dive deeper into this, but it seems like the more that you can just kind of let things be and let the organic matter kind of like come out of you, be like more of like a vessel for some shit.

It's gonna be a better experience overall. And not just for you, dude, but for somebody listening.

That's what I mean, the resonance of what's being done. That's why I was bringing it up. It sounds weird to make the connection between what you're saying and like people on TikTok and stuff, but they're--

What is the, yeah, what's the TikTok thing?

I see kids or they're not always kids, but young people.

I'm over here getting heady and then you bring up TikTok and I'm like gondering. - Because what's going on and it's like the root spirit of what, like, and this is where I think some people miss that it's going on 'cause they think it's just people like dancing and like doing weird shit. There's some like very talented people who are capturing people's attention with like legitimate, cool skills, like whether, like I said, it's whatever it is.

Recipes.

Yeah, recipes, even that stuff is cool. That's more like practical. I'd like the recipes on TikTok as well.

I found a lot of cool stuff on there.

Just like music shit and just like also the songs that are used, like I've been finding songs through TikTok, like just like obscure things that are heard. I'm like, what's that? I'll go and find it. I just think there's people making music for reasons that aren't to necessarily have like an identity to be something but are just doing it. It's also really easy and I think this was always kind of a debate. I remember like when Ableton first came out and I, there was this debate of like whether it was going to get too easy, that everyone could do this. It's so easy now and like that's pretty much where we're at.

Like let's be honest, like if you know how to use loops and fucking any basic understanding of media.

Yeah, if you got spliced now you can just kind of make whatever like in like 30 minutes.

You hear it a lot, like just out there in the world. Like I'm like, I know, I know that splice loop. I've heard that one more.

Yeah, exactly. You're like, I ripped that same loop like 40 times the other way. Yeah, like I totally know. I've been in some, I've been in like this big studio and fucking in Brooklyn that I used to go and work out, work out of, I mean, it was really just like my buddy was like the manager there and I would just end up playing Frisbee with him the whole time instead of like actually making music, but when we did make music, I mean, I just looked around and I was like, oh, everyone's just using splice loops here.

Pretty much.

You know, or like pre-made things.

I found that as like a demo creation thing for me was super a big turning point when I found splice. Not for stuff that I would release as like any loops that you could identify as like a finished product. I probably wouldn't do that just as like, you don't have to, you can really get it in a cool way too. But from getting like an idea off the ground with some, it's really, really, really, really good for that. And I think that's like a huge thing for a lot of people who don't like know necessarily where to like, if you don't have a melody bouncing around your head or you don't have this groove that you heard in the song that you want to recreate, that can really help people.

But yeah, I mean, it's crazy how easy it is to make music now, which I think the argument was it's just going to diminish the overall quality. Like we're just going to be jacking this song with this conversation. I've been part of this conversation for a while.

Yeah, of course, everyone has, if you've made music ever on a computer or had any like multi-tracking stuff, you're going to have this conversation eventually. I find despite the ease or in spite of it being so easy for everyone to make stuff, there's still shit that rises to the top where it's like, that's dope. Like anyone could do that, but you did that in a cool way. And I feel like there's like, there's something there and it may be that they're having fun doing it.

Literally. - That is the thing that makes it resonant with people and allows it to kind of capture people's attention. Whether that can be parlayed into like a broader, consistent thing. I don't know where that fits into the equation. I do know that though, it's like a mechanism for like just having fun with music and stuff. It seems like that's like a vibe right now.

I think it is a vibe, I think you're right. I mean, I think it's, I see it a lot. I see it a lot with, especially with artists that aren't instrumentalists, they're, they're, you know, people that have a laptop and just wanted to have, want to have fun and want to just be creative and stuff like that. I think the argument that it's like not creative is bullshit. - Yeah.

Because that's like telling a collage artist that it's not art, you know, or something or it's not creative or it's not real or anything. It's like, fuck off.

It's like the proof is in the pudding. That's literally how it always works. I watch the fucking YouTube of Tiny, the producer, reggaeton producer. - Uh huh.

It was incredible. First of all, you gotta watch the ones in Spanish if you can understand it 'cause he actually tells you what's going on in the English one. It's like literally like, here's a plug-in. It's, but it's like so simple, but you see what he's doing. And I'm like, this guy is kind of genius. Like you figured out how to just make like really simple, amazing things that undeniably when you hear them, like that's good.

I think that's a really cool place that we're at now 'cause it's, but I also will be honest. I mean, like I also have a little bit of a sour taste because I am, I play drums, guitar based keys. Like I like, I came from like a place where when we were making electronic music early on, like me and some kids that I grew up with, for some reason, the vibe was like, don't use presets. Don't use-

Same, that was like an ethnoma. Like don't you dare.

Build your own, don't you dare, exactly. It was like, don't you dare like-

I went to Berkeley. I mean, it was like you couldn't use presets. Like you can't-

Yeah, oh, you went to Berkeley. Oh, I know some fools I went to. Did you drop out?

No, I graduated.

Oh, you graduated.

Music synthesis, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that was fun.

I got my two, like I got some really good friends of mine. They're in this band called Ablo Brown. It's like the Brown brothers, they're like, I think twins or something. And then Linus and they are like this, John Mary's Neo soul, like whatever. I opened up for them in like 2018 at Babies All Right in Brooklyn, sold out the show. It was fucking fun dude. There's still some really good friends of mine. And they all went to Berkeley and they all dropped out after like the first year or something like that.

I kind of dropped out after the first year. I did a bunch of acid in psychedelics and just stopped going to classes.

And literally you dropped out? You didn't drop out only from Berkeley. You dropped out from fucking reality.

Yeah, for a little bit. And then I went back and applied for, where I think if I wouldn't have gotten into, at the time it was music synthesis, which I think they call music production.

Sure.

If I hadn't gotten to that, I probably wouldn't have dropped out. I was, I had to play saxophone. That was my primary instrument and I hated it. Like I just didn't like doing it wasn't fun for me at all.

Sure.

And that's, I still had to do that in my major. If I had to only do that and plan on psalm wasn't shit, I would have been out of there. But the cool thing about the program I was in is like, you actually got to use like the cutting edge technology at the time, which was basically like Pro Tools. It wasn't anything that crazy.

You still Pro Tools is industry standard, right?

Pro Tritons at the time back in the day.

I Berkeley was cool because you would get some nice and like very genuinely like helpful professors who were like teachers, who were basically just musicians.

Right.

And there was one dude who was at Jeff Baus to give him credit. He said something that stuck with me that I think about a lot during music production and just like creative projects, which he was like, you ever see like a really shitty movie where it's just like bad. Those people didn't mean to make a bad movie. What happened is they ran out of something, either time or money or something and they fucked it up. So don't try to like get something totally perfect. Just don't fuck it up. Don't fuck up the original vision of what it's supposed to be.

Totally.

Because then you're gonna end up with something that's like, that's not good and no one wants that.

Yeah, you're gonna butcher it and that's when it's never gonna really go through it.

That was a lot of drugs at Berkeley. It was good times.

That's good times.

That sounds like a good time.

I mean, yeah, man, I think that for me, the producing music and writing music has always been a solo activity and it was always just my escape, my meditation for years, it was like that kind of vibe. It was like, you literally turn on your gear or whatever you're doing or sit down to the drums or whatever and nothing else exists. It's just you in that space doing that thing. And my obsession recently has been like, I think that when the pandemic happened, I was living in Brooklyn and I was living in a small apartment in a basement room and then I had the basement was like the studio and I shared it with one of my best friends and guitarist Kevin McLaughlin and we were like, taking turns at having our own little sessions and being creative and stuff and my girl was living with us and it's a tight house, dude.

And so that's why I moved up here 'cause I wanted more space and that's what we drove across the country to California.

Yeah.

I remember, yes, you were doing this.

Yeah, brought my studio with us, set up shop on my family's like, my grandma owns like four acres out there like that's been there for like generations.

Nice.

And it's like just this beautiful property on this hill and there's like all these funky little structures and stuff and it has all this creative energy and I set up a studio over the summer in this shop where I learned how to play drums for the first time and I've always made music in this little studio shop thing and it was awesome. And then I started collecting more gear and investing in more stuff and then we decided to drive back after the fires came. So then we drove back across the country, went southern route, took our sweet ass time, landed in Kingston and I just was like and it was snowing.

Yeah.

Cold as shit.

Yeah.

Super like, you know, creative vibes.

Yeah.

I was just like, okay, I wanna like, I just wanna like invest in as much gear as I can, microphones.

Totally.

I plug-ins, you know, fucking I got this tape machine that I use and that shit broke but I still use the like compressor in it and all kinds of stuff and I'm just making do, I got my drums out here. I got a Juno 60 from the '70s out here, the '80s or whatever. And it's like a family air at Loom that decides to work whenever it wants to work. And I've got, so I've got this like sweet studio kind of set up going and my whole thing has been like, I wanna just like, I want my drums to be like, when I leave them mic'd up, when I hop on the drums and I hit record, I want that shit to be sounding perfect.

Like my perfect, whatever my perfect.

Ready to go.

Yeah, it doesn't have to sound like-

No, I get it. The way you want it to sound.

But I want it, and it's an ongoing process and I'm gonna die trying to figure this out, you know?

I know this struggle all too well.

So like when I think, because the way that I was forced to work in Brooklyn was sample based.

Right.

You know.

Oh, you gotta break out of the box. Also, I think this is-

Which is great though. I mean, it's great.

No, it is, it's great. I love, I probably do more sample based work now than I've done at any other point in, that's maybe not true, but pretty close to it, I always place stuff. But like, you know this, and I think this is why it's not one or the other, but like when you're really letting go and playing something, whether it's drums or keys or guitars or bass or whatever it is, that's what it's about. Like that's-

Error.

Literally, is-

Literally error, yeah.

Yeah, like this is like, you're surfing the wave.

Totally.

It's like, you don't know what's gonna come out.

Totally.

It's pretty amazing.

It's how beauty is created in general, is just through error and just through like-

Dynamic situations.

Yeah, dynamic situations and shit like that. And that's where I really shine, I think, is when you're slamming a chord progression down and you accidentally hit the wrong thing and you're like, dude, I could take it there. Hold on a second.

Exactly.

Like I could actually just take it there. That sounded like shit. I was afraid that that was gonna sound like shit, but it actually sounded really great.

Yeah.

Yeah, now I'm working with this really cool artist out of London. And I don't think that I can really talk about it, but she was actually on TikTok and Instagram.

Cool.

And she was like, a friend of a friend kind of like connected me with her. And she's like this really sweet, younger vocalist, like songwriter from like not London, but like in the country side of England or something like that.

First, yeah, sure, I've never been out there so I have no idea. But she, somehow I got connected with her and she actually, it's the coolest thing. And I've always thought this shit was kind of cheesy, no offense to if you're listening to this, but like I always thought this was kind of corny, but like, or stuff like this. But when I heard it, I thought it was like the opposite. I thought it was so fucking cool. So what she was doing was she was going on TikTok and Instagram and she was like posting like, hey, if anybody wants me to write a song about an experience that you've had for some whatever, anything, like just DM me and I'll write a song in a day.

And so every day for like a while, she was writing a song a day. She was writing a song based off of somebody else's story that they would pitch to her. And it was like a generator. It was like, you like put 25 cents in the thing.

Yeah, that's gonna pop out, here it is.

Yeah, you got this song. And so like I'm listening to all these demos that she's sending me and they're also dynamic. And she's pulling from other people's experiences. And I guess this is kind of correlating with like error because maybe not error, but just mystery and just kind of like the unknown because she's like a vessel for all these other people. Like, you know, what was it? Like somebody's dad had like a heart attack and was in the ICU or whatever. And the day before they like, it was like his birthday or like, and he gave flowers to somebody.

Yeah, it's like a whole story.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

You can just fall from, I get it.

Exactly. And like, how fucking cool is that dude?

That's what I mean. It's cool. I'm glad it was on TikTok too.

Yeah.

For some point.

I would plug her, but I would plug her, but I think that she's a little bit in development right now. So I don't know if that's really.

Well, I know is that you can plug her if you want, but basically there is this sense of whatever that is. It seems to be proliferating pretty well. And I think the people who can understand that kind of organic, just kind of like authenticity, whether it's someone else's shit or not, but like your ability to do that in a cool way, that's what's going to be valued one more time. I really do think we're shifting from a primarily pay to play kind of environment, which it is like for everything across media.

Oh, yes.

Music across anything.

And when you say pay to play, what do you mean?

What I mean that you have to have either resources independently or from some other outside investment to really compete in terms of just views, just base level, get your shit out. It doesn't mean you can't do it otherwise. It just means like in every, I'm testament to that 'cause I don't pay for advertising for this podcast, but I mean, for the most part, like as a musician or creative, you need to have some ability to kind of cut through the noise, which typically is gonna be through a major label or someone who's like, that's how it's been in the past. I see that shifting 'cause people don't have that anymore.

They're just like, I wanna make music. This is something I'd like to do. This is how I'm gonna do it. And that to me over time will probably win out because when you have forced media, even if it's an authentic project, that kind of carries through. It's like an ad in a certain point and people don't wanna be pitched ads for like creative stuff. They wanna like feel cool and find cool shit. And I think that to me is like, it's just an ethos that I see kind of percolating up and I think we'll continue probably for the foreseeable future. I'm also pretty optimistic on like social media as a whole.

I know a lot of people are like very against it and think it's like kind of degrading discourse and people's ability to interact one on one. I don't think so. It can. Instagram just made this thing available where you can hide like counts. Have you noticed that?

I haven't, but...

Dude, that's just game changer, dude. I can't even see my like counts anymore on my shit. It's a total game changer. It's like literally like you, you catch yourself looking at the likes on other people's photos or the amount or like, maybe not you, but me, I definitely do. Because I'm also somebody who's like comes from a very like, I'm not gonna lie. Like my whole life, I think that I've subconsciously been paying very close attention to like notoriety, fame, numbers, success. Like all this type of shit, right? But like, ugh, like holding onto it is that a weird way, you know?

That's what I'm saying.

And it's definitely toxic and it's gotten in the way of my creativity and all kinds of things. But what do you mean about like being optimistic about social media because...

I find it to be a vessel like any other that's ultimately neutral that can be independent of whatever intentions that were like the genesis or the current kind of intentions with like a platform that has like massive reach. I think it's like anything in life. It's like money. That money can be used for a horrible thing. It can be used for an amazing thing. It's just a neutral medium of exchange that we choose to engage with.

That we kind of corrupt ourselves.

Yeah, I genuinely know that sometimes but I'm just like, you know what? I need to fucking relax. I don't want to do shit. I'm okay with not doing shit. I'm going to watch TikTok for 30 minutes.

Literally my girlfriend every night after work.

It's great. It's fucking good.

She loves it, man.

It's legitimately great. There's nothing wrong with it. If you understand like whatever weird thing you're into it's kind of exists on that platform or it doesn't have--

I'm not gonna lie too. She fucking does that. She like she'll watch TikTok for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or half an hour or whatever and I'll look over at her and she's gonna listen to this I'm sure. And I'll be like, I'm like, what is she doing dude? And then two minutes later she'll be like, watch this video and I'll watch it and I'll lose my shit. I'll be on the floor just crying laughing. It's so funny. - It's treasure hunting.

Or a recipe that we then like I talked into our literally like every day. It's crazy. So like I do feel you like--

There's always one TikToker in the relationship. I'm that person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's really true. Because it's really true. I'm the person because the thing is like it's such a game changer. Like people don't understand that. Like I've learned like I just found out do you know why it's called a bull market and a bear market?

No, I actually never really understood that.

Yeah, no one understands it because a bull when it attacks attacks up with its horns and a bear attacks down with its things. So that's why it's bull and bear. Yeah, it's a ridiculous anecdote but it pieces together something that's something like there's just weird shit on there that if you kind of--

So you found that out through TikTok. I find most of the things that I had to start doing is stop saying like I saw on TikTok and then saying something I just say--

Because people will just discredit you or just do something.

But it's really an incredible resource. If you let it be, I don't know. It's like to me you can really look at that as like something that's pulling away from one on one time. It's like how much one on one, do you need like constant 24/7? Like people need private time. If they can get it through like watching other people do funny shit, to me that's like, that's a worthy thing that's not like a bad intrusive. Now, Chinese government may or may not be spying on us through TikTok.

Sure.

Well, who's not spying on us? We're all kind of like looking at each other through. What's that called when you're like looking at some, when you're like a creepy spire? Like a voyeur of a voyeur, yeah.

For all kind of voyeur.

I don't know. I think it's a medium that has the same ability to spread like legitimate joy and like creativity as it does to like get people all riled up about some issue that they feel very angry about. So it's like.

I'm glad that you find that through social media. I will approach it differently. I think we're now going forward because I've had more of like a, I've taken social media as more of like an existential addiction. And it's been.

Totally.

You know what I mean? That's a, I'm also, I will say this, like been on Twitter from like 2009, I think. Like I'm ruthless in terms of what I allow into my feeds, what I follow.

Sure, yeah.

What I subscribe to, what I'm gonna like.

You mean your, you.

Like I don't, I don't wanna see shit that is gonna like inflame me or see people arguing. Like inevitably you see it online, but like I'm pretty careful about like what's out there. So it doesn't feel like some like, I think that's like, I think that really is what makes people, I think misapprehend what the potential of this stuff can be, is because they see it used for negativity 'cause that's like an easy thing to use it for. It's really easy to be outraged online. It's like the easiest thing in the world.

Yeah, totally.

Like gives what Dopamine hate to feel outraged about something. It's just, to me, that's not that productive. So I use it a little bit differently. And I like it for that reason.

Yeah.

Therefore like I use it, if I felt like I was getting sucked into a phone world, like all the time, out of my control, I would be like, all right, that's not good.

Yeah.

But I rarely, if ever, have felt like that.

I think that's key. If you don't feel out of control, you're probably all good.

Probably.

Yeah, you're probably all good. But as soon as you start feeling like you're judging your own life because you keep seeing these like blonde white girls and fucking like, or in like Tulum, like just like live in their like sliding down waterfalls and drinking mezcal, fucking whatever. And you're just like, fuck, dude, I'm stuck in like, Schenectady fucking, you know what I mean? Like bag and groceries. It's like, whoa, your life is your life and your own experience. Fuck that other shit. Like, you know what I mean? They're probably suffering in their own ways too. So just let them just do their own thing.

Or if it looks cool. Figure out how to do that.

Let's get you a plane ticket to find a Schenectady to fucking Tulum dude, you know what I mean?

They're getting probably not gonna beat.

Yeah, like, let's just, yeah, it's important to just kind of be a little bit aware about like how you're affecting things. And like we said earlier, like letting the fly, if the fly comes into the room, you can always swat it. I personally always swat the flies. But for the sake of--

I laugh at it.

Yeah, for the sake of a metaphor or an analogy, I'll just say, let it find its own way out.

Yeah, that's usually the best thing.

That's probably the best way. But, you know, you'll usually just pass. It's like a B that comes into a place. It'll find its way out of that.

Dude, totally.

Emmet, I think you nailed it.

This is great. I'm gonna plug a few things really quick. Where this is coming out?

I don't know, within seven days?

Oh, sweet, okay, yeah. New song coming out July 30th with a sick video. I spent like a year on this song, I'm mixing it. I mixed it like 30 different times. It's called Happy Go Lucky. It's a fucking, might possibly be the only song that I dropped this year.

Nice.

And then on top of that, I only have one showbook this year for good reasons. And that's coming up September 30th at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, New York.

Nice.

Headline show, only show I'm playing. More details about that coming soon. But otherwise, man, this is fucking great.

Where can people find you though?

You can find me @emmettkai on Instagram, you can fucking, it's about the only place that I exist on the web, really.

It's a place.

Yeah, I have an email address. You can find my email address there too. But you know, other than that, I don't really--

You don't have the TikTok account yet.

I do have a TikTok account. It's the same, you can find me @emmetkai on TikTok, I'm pretty sure.

Maybe from after this episode you'll just be a TikTok.

I actually have some really funny videos on TikTok that I've made that I think are fucking priceless.

TikTok is pretty fucking cool.

Yeah, it is actually, it's pretty fun too. Once you get into all the ins and outs of editing and all that kind of shit, it's really--

It's creative, I know.

Like the background images.

Yeah.

Ooh, like--

It's legit. It's a creator's tool, that's why it's popular.

Maybe I'll go home and make some TikToks before therapy.

Oh man, all right.

That was great. (upbeat music) ♪ You don't know how to make a dream ♪ ♪ You just make a dream ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I'm pretty sure ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I'm pretty sure ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I'm pretty sure ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I'm pretty sure ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ You don't know how to make a dream ♪ ♪ You just make a dream ♪ (upbeat music)

I hope you enjoyed the episode. Go check out Emmet on Instagram and all of the other cool places. You can find him. His music is fantastic. He's has one of those songs. It's called Juicy. It's the first song that comes up whenever I plug in my phone to my car. I've heard it like probably a million times now and I still like it. That's a true testament to a good musician. If you like the show, Patreon. That's where most of the shit is going on these days. We got the crypto stuff. We got the fun community of people in the Discord server. We have live streams, we have tarot stuff. It's fun. It's a good time.

That's all I'll say about it. You can find it if you want other than that. I think readings are open. I do them three times a week. I'm limiting the time just because, you know, I got shit to do.

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