Episode 34: John Hildreth

Exploring Musical Stories with John Hildreth

In this episode of the Face Your Ears podcast, hosts Rich and Justin are joined by the multi-talented musician John Hildreth. They discuss John's extensive background as a musician, songwriter, producer, and educator, as well as his unique instruments and recording setup in his home studio, 'The Blue Room.' John shares his insights on the use of AI in music, his memorable gigs, advice for budding musicians, and his latest musical releases. The conversation also touches on the importance of embracing one's unique musical abilities in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

00:00 Welcome to Face Your Ears Podcast
00:43 Milestone Announcement and Listener Appeal
01:08 Introducing John Hildreth
01:35 John Hildreth's Musical Journey
05:51 John's Gear and The Blue Room
10:24 John's Recent Releases
14:08 Live Performances and Local Scene
19:53 Highlighting Musical Collaboration
21:36 Embracing Unique Talents
23:38 The Role of AI in Music
34:58 Lightning Round with John
39:19 Final Thoughts and Farewell

Links for John Hildreth:

Website: https://www.johnhildrethguitar.com

SouncCloud: https://soundcloud.com/john-hildreth

Bandcamp: https://johnhildreth.bandcamp.com/album/the-hidden-world

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iNGTRZAZN9ryhPN7CAFaQ?si=fS7IXijDTtCNv96jqsWqVw

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/johnhildreth

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejohnhildreth

For Production Services, Coaching and Lessons, visit:

www.rjbmusicproduction.com

For help prepping your songs/voice for the studio:

www.bozicvoicestudio.com

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Transcript

John 0:07

Welcome.

Rich 0:08

everybody to the Face Your Ears podcast. I'm joined here with Justin. Hola. how are you?

Justin 0:15

I am doing well, rich. This is actually our second time recording listeners giving you a rare glimpse into the inner workings. Love the podcast. I had a little microphone issue. We had a little clicky clicky going on my microphone, but I'm back using a different audio interface and things are now all good. So

Rich 0:35

May the Gods be with us.

Justin 0:37

Yes, may the audio God smile upon us as we venture forth into recording this episode.

John 0:43

Well,

Rich 0:43

I got an announcement here.

Justin 0:45

Oh.

Rich 0:45

We're approaching our 2,500. Listens, milestone. We're just a few listens away. So please, listener, the word. Share this with your friends and family. People who love audio. People who don't love audio and mixing and recording. Maybe we'll convert them. Justin, why are we here today? What's going on?

Justin 1:08

Yes, we are here today joined by a dear friend of the podcast, John Hildreth. resides in Virginia. And John has quite a background as a fellow musician, songwriter, producer. And so before we bring John into the fold here and into the episode today, I wanted to do a brief introduction to set the stage. So John is a talented musician from the Blacksburg, Virginia area. He's a recording artist. Songwriter, composer, guitarist. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. You can catch him performing solo or with bands like Talk to Me, taco Cat, and various other pickup acts. He's also collaborated with artists and producers from across the country. John started playing piano in Oregon at the Kle Meyer School of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio as a kid. In high school, he picked up rock, classical and jazz guitar from instructors Mark Schulte and Martin Lockhart. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts and Music composition and guitar from Western Kentucky University, along with a writing degree in English. He studied guitar with David Kelsey and Sharon Law Composition in theory with doctors Charles Smith and Michael Strom. John then got a master of Arts and Music focusing on technology and education from Radford University. He studied guitar with Dr. Robert Trent Musicology with Dr. George Parrish, and Composition and Technology with Dr. Bruce Mann. John's compositions and arrangements have been performed in the us, Canada, and Europe. He's even had masterclasses with some of the best in the business like Lily Afshar. Kashkin, Carol Husa, gene Berger, mark Applebaum, Jamie Stanley Yates. spending some time in Nashville, Tennessee in the mid to late nineties, John was a founding member of the awesome dance band dot dash, which was active from 2002 to 2013 in southwest Virginia. They released two albums together. Since then, he's been busy recording his own music and performing session work and commissions for various clients. His latest release is called The Hidden World. welcome to the Face Your Ears podcast.

John 3:36

Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

Rich 3:39

What a

Justin 3:40

Yes.

Rich 3:40

fellow.

Justin 3:41

What a distinguished fellow. Indeed. Yes.

Rich 3:44

great to have you join us, John. This is great.

John 3:47

Great to be here.

Justin 3:48

yeah, John and I go way

John 3:49

Yeah.

Justin 3:50

So John and I met at Radford University. I was actually a student of John's and so I was in various music technology classes. Notably digital ensemble together, John was the conductor and the leader. ensemble and we spun up a fast friendship outside of the classroom and we've been friends ever since. So we've been friends for, oh my gosh, 20. Five years or

John 4:18

Yeah.

Justin 4:18

like

John 4:19

Yeah. Thereabouts. Yeah.

Justin 4:21

yeah, and we've worked together a lot musically over the years, just doing different projects together. And yeah it's such a joy to have you on this podcast. You've been such a great support. you're one of those 2,500 listeners that Rich talked about, so thank you for supporting us in this endeavor. and yeah, it's great to finally have you on the podcast, so thanks for joining us.

John 4:46

Thanks for having me.

Rich 4:47

met John actually. At your wedding, Justin,

Justin 4:51

Ah, yes.

Rich 4:52

happened to seat us together and it was a perfect match, I must say.

Justin 4:57

Yeah.

Rich 4:57

'cause both John and I are guitarists as well, and we immediately got to the shop talk even at your wedding.

John 5:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin 5:10

it just comes out naturally, right? Like you put those two people together as birds of a feather and they just,

John 5:16

Yeah,

Justin 5:16

do what they

John 5:17

from our table, you could hear talk of like rock and roll and metal guitar and then throat singing, intermittently coming out.

Justin 5:24

yeah, that's right. I remember you guys talking deeply about throat singing.

Rich 5:29

That's right. That's right. I think I offered up a demo,

John 5:32

Yeah.

Rich 5:33

backstage right before the vows were taken. John and I work together a bit now. I help John out with his vocals building the technique, working on stuff that he's recording. And it's a pleasure to have you here. And John, I wanna start off by talking about the space you're in right now. The Blue Room.

John 5:57

Yes.

Rich 5:57

Tell, tell our audience about the Blue Room, what's happening there?

John 6:00

The blue room is my home studio. And so that's where the magic happens here. It is set up primarily for me to work solo, although I can host some other musicians in here for sessions with, maybe vocals or smaller instruments, that aren't a drum kit. So I've got, all of my various amplifiers, instruments, guitars synthesizers, stage, piano, banjo, all the stuff, man effects. And obviously my recording rig. So this is where I do it all, man. It's called The Blue Room as a reference to a favorite film of mine called Blue, about a composer who works. In a blue room to write all of her music.

Rich 6:48

And the room is blue,

John 6:50

Yes. Yeah. And then

Rich 6:52

helps.

John 6:53

funny enough, when we moved into the house, we had to do all kinds of work to fix it up. But when I saw this room, I'm like I think that's the one, because the walls were already blue, we had to repaint it. I painted it a darker blue, but I'm like, that might be a sign. This is my room.

Rich 7:12

Excellent.

Justin 7:12

are there any notable pieces of gear or instruments that have in that studio that our listeners might be interested to, know about?

John 7:22

Perhaps man. In terms of instruments, I guess it depends what. You find interesting. I have a clone of the cloud guitar that Prince played the guitar that was designed by Dave Rusan in Minneapolis in 1984. It's a clone made by the ESP Guitar company probably somewhere between 93 and 95. I don't completely know the history of the instrument, though. I know it came from Japan to North America. Before it landed with me. I've done some work on it, but that's a unique find. I have I have a handmade classical guitar by David Daley is an instrument maker in Sparks, Nevada. That was a really cool find about 25 years ago at a shop in Baltimore. It's a twin of a guitar played by the concert guitarist and composer Andrew York. I have a 1928 tenor banjo. I acquired a couple years ago that is featured on the recording. I'm currently mixing and I have a strandberg saline, which is, if you've ever seen a strandberg, they're an odd shaped guitar. They have a, like a curve on the bottom of the body made, so you can play it sitting down as well as standing up. And I have the saline model, which is, inspired by the original Fender Telecaster has sir pickups and has a really great sound. And that's a fairly recent acquisition that I enjoy playing. I. I'm mostly a Martin guy for acoustic guitars, so I have some various models, some older things I guess mostly older things. And have a 1989 Paul Reed Smith. That's been my workhorse guitar. I. For playing in rock bands. It does a lot of things well, and it shows it, it is battle worn, but it's, it still works. And so that's the overview of guitars I've got. I. I don't have any vintage synthesizers but I've got some more recent things. I have a Arturia Mini Freak which is a really great versatile synth. It may be the most versatile synth for the price point on the market. Does a lot of great things. It's really unique. And uh, you know, I just have other little knickknacks just laying around the studio. Like a lot of people, a lot of my synthesis has gone to software. But I do like the the visceralness of hardware. So I do keep some of those things around.

Rich 9:54

Nice. From the old school

John 9:56

that's right. And I am old school.

Rich 9:59

perhaps, John, if you'd be willing maybe to snap a few photos of some of these guitars, we'd

John 10:05

Sure.

Rich 10:05

the listeners if you're willing, if

John 10:08

be glad to.

Justin 10:08

you can even catch him playing some of them on his YouTube channel, which will of course link in our show notes. So

John 10:15

Yeah.

Justin 10:16

awesome guitars. So it's one thing to hear about them. It's a whole different thing to him perform with them. John, I wanted to talk a bit about your recording life and specifically. Your recent releases that you've had and what our audiences should know about them

John 10:36

Okay,

Justin 10:36

if they featured any amazing producers who reside in the Michigan area.

John 10:44

very good. Perhaps

Rich 10:47

specific

John 10:48

the greater Detroit area in particular.

Justin 10:52

No, joking aside, but yeah, can you talk to us about,'cause you've got a prolific, recording. Catalog of stuff that you've released. But yeah, just curious if you could talk about some of the recent releases you've done.

John 11:04

Absolutely. My most recent release is an EP called The Hidden World. It is mostly acoustic guitar based. It features my acoustic bass songwriting and some of my finger style instrumental tunes. And my acoustic guitar music. I use Altered Tunings. Most of my tunes and songs are in different, they're all in different tunings. Each piece on the record is in a different tuning. All played on the 1973 Martin D 28. There is by design kind of an, an outlier track, a production track that's departs from the other stuff. And I would describe it as a science fiction ballad called, far from You and I. It started out as a duet for piano and vocal with a little bit of synthesizer, and I played it for a certain Detroit area producer. And he immediately just had these ideas and he's Hey, what do you think about collaborating on this? And, having me produce the track. And I'm like, let's do it. And he heard all of these things in that initial listen, that I had just. Wouldn't have thought of. And so he comes back with this beautifully produced track, this gorgeous track of all these soundscapes. And it really fits the whole dramatic thrust of the story of these two characters in the song that can travel through time and can travel to different worlds, but they can never meet each other. And that track is called Far From You. And that is on The Hidden World. I released that late last summer. It's the first and a trilogy of eps. The follow up will be coming out late this spring. And that's gonna be called Second Planet. Mostly the same format, acoustic based with a couple of departures stylistically. Other of note, last year also, I released a full length LP called Parallel Lives which is very different than the Hidden World. It's all I would call it classical adjacent electronic music. The inspiration also came from certain Detroit area. Producer we were talking about just the notion of parallel worlds and how there was this other version of you in this endless array of universes, based on every possible decision you could make. And I started thinking about that and I eventually was thinking what is the sound of those worlds? And I did this record. It was recorded. Conceived entirely in the moment. Each track is the sound of a different parallel life. You're living somewhere else. And so it ranges from mysterious to interesting to maybe even joyous to frightening and foreboding. And that is out there as well. Parallel lives very different than the ep.

Rich 14:08

John, I know you're doing a lot of work in the studio, but you also do a lot of live performing what's the scene like out there in Virginia? I.

John 14:16

Where I am is the greater Blacksburg area. It's where I do most of my performing. It's a pretty small scene. It's certainly not anything like you would have in a major metropolitan area. And it might sound crazy to people, but that's what I like about it. Justin mentioned a band I used to play in called Dodo Dash. We were a touring band. And so for the duration of that time, I was traveling a lot to play places. And so I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I'll also say that is a young person's game sleeping on couches and floors. By the time that was or organically coming to a close. I was glad to just be playing music in my community. I'll travel out of it from time to time, but having spent all that time on the road and going to other places, I've just been enjoying being here. And so that's what I do.

Rich 15:12

what are we talking here? Is it small music clubs? Is it bars? What does it comprise

John 15:17

It's all the above. A lot of the venues here are things like wineries, breweries, some restaurants. There are a couple of what I would consider clubs. And those are mainly geared toward, bands, lar larger bands. I have a lot of jam bands come through. It's a big thing in this area. For me I made the decision a couple years ago that I wasn't gonna do as many solo gigs. I'll do. A handful a year for listening audiences, places I can go where people are actually listening and I can do, storytelling and talk, talking about the music and people are listening. I do that, like I said, a handful of times a year. And I.

Rich 16:02

specific venue that hosts that kind of event in that you wanna give a shout out to?

John 16:07

A lot of, sometimes it ends up being a house concert. We also have a venue in Blacksburg called the Odd Fells music Hall which is an old basic, it's an old church. I. Very old church. It's small. And and then for many years, I guess technically it still is a it's an actual meeting of oddfellows, the local order of oddfellows. That's where they meet and they're in charge of maintaining the space. But it is a music venue. It has a stage as a, an area. And it's a nice little spot. It's actually a little gem of a spot in Blacksburg. The issue with playing at, tap rooms and breweries it, it can be an okay gig but you're really just in the background. Especially if you're playing solo acoustic or maybe you're in a duo. I have a piano guitar duo, and we do some of those gigs. It's not really a listening audience. that's a different dynamic, compared to the rock band I play in, talk to Me. It used to be called The Breakfast Club. Wherever we play, it's loud. And so it really demands your attention. There's some larger breweries that we play at that are geared toward that kind of loud thing. We also play, we have a gig every year called Dancing in the Street. It happens in downtown Blacksburg. It's a collaboration with our local theater, and so that's a great just big outdoor stage venue. So we like to gravitate toward gigs like that because community building and is a big thing for us in that band. Festival events like that are things we really try. To gravitate towards. We have another gig coming up late in the summer where we are, oh, I tell people we're opening for Van Halen. The Headliner is a Van Halen tribute band, a well-known one called Jump the Van Halen Experience. So we landed this opening act gig

Rich 17:59

Nice.

John 18:00

little south of here. And yeah we'll be bringing the appropriate period rock music and flamboyancy for that. But yeah, like I said, that, that's a different kind of venue than I would do in the smaller music kind of thing.

Rich 18:12

I do recall recently you had a nice gig opening up for a larger act. I think we were prepping for something. There was something recently that you did.

John 18:25

Yeah, that was back in November. I opened for an artist named Rachel Beman. She is a working musician. She's a signed artist based outta Nashville, Tennessee. She's a well-known artist in the kind of crossover folk bluegrass. Genres. And she's a great songwriter, great fiddle player, great banjo player. And so that, that's her vibe is crossing that over into kind of a folk song, higher energy kind of format. And she was playing at our local theater on a tour, and so I was asked to open for her. And it was a great forum for me to bring a bunch of my new tunes and a couple of interesting covers to a larger audience and the theater. The Lyric Theater has an amazing sound system. Absolutely amazing. It's, I've told people that's probably the best live sound I've ever had My guitar and on my voice. Even the guys in the sound booth were like, what do you got inside those guitars? I can hear like everything you're doing, every touch, every harmonic, every note in the chord. And so that was a really great experience. Thank you for asking.

Justin 19:33

sorry if I missed this and I blocked out for a second. Have we talked about how John used study voice with Rich? Did we talk about that at

John 19:43

Rich mentioned it at the top, just briefly.

Justin 19:45

All right.

John 19:46

I.

Justin 19:46

Yeah, I just, I was just reflecting on that and like I said before, I've known John for a long time and just. I wanted to highlight these two fine gentlemen as musicians and the great work they've done because voice in the hands of Rich has become this beautiful instrument, and I think Rich, you've done an incredible job of shaping this bass, this beautiful bass voice that John has, and it's just been amazing. Like I'm the outsider looking in. To this collaboration between the two of you. And so I've heard John's voice for over 20 years and in the recent years he's been working with you, it's just become this very beautiful very strong, powerful thing that, you know I think is amazing and. It's been so great to work on different projects with you, John. Like right now we're working on some Depeche Mode covers and that voice of yours is just, sits so beautifully in the work that we're doing in those songs. So I just, I wanted to take a moment and highlight that. It's been awesome.

Rich 20:48

Thank you. Yeah,

John 20:49

Thank you.

Rich 20:49

honor us and it's always nice to be able to work with a fine instrument and especially a more rare instrument, right? The bass voice is a little more of a rare thing. Always a fun thing to

Justin 21:04

yes.

Rich 21:04

a base.

John 21:05

I thank you all for saying so. I'm really grateful rich for being able to work with you these past, I guess it's been around three years.

Rich 21:14

Oh man.

John 21:14

I. Yeah, and that doesn't seem that long.

Rich 21:17

Yeah.

John 21:17

but yeah, it's made a huge difference in my life and my focus and just really embracing, the superpower of having a low voice pretty much lower than everyone else.

Justin 21:30

Yes,

Rich 21:31

That's awesome. Yeah, you gotta embrace what you have

John 21:34

Yeah, it's true. It's absolutely true. And I shared with Rich, when we were getting started, that was a frustration I had in years past is that I couldn't sing a lot of other things out there that I wish I could, singers that I admired my voice just wouldn't do it. And the kind of discouragement just prevented me from really going there. And it took time to realize that, you. That is a superpower. You know what you have doesn't have to be what someone else has. Sure. You can't sing as high as them, but you sure can get under them. And there are things you can do with your voice, that they can't do. that's been a really great experience for me really fulfilling and I'm really grateful for that. And the continued journey.

Rich 22:22

absolutely. Thanks.

Justin 22:23

I think that's such a important like philosophical mindset that you instill rich is like really embrace what you have because I think as humans, we often look outside of ourselves to see all these amazing things happening and we long for those things or we wish we could. Do certain things that others can do that we so admire all the while ignoring this amazing gift that we have, whatever that is, be it a bass voice or, a certain talent or other skill. But yeah, I know, like just having known you John, there's a lot of singers that I know you, you love and listen to that are definitely not bass.

John 23:04

Yeah.

Justin 23:04

like Getty

John 23:06

Yeah.

Justin 23:06

Rush or Bono from

John 23:08

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin 23:09

all of those guys have really high voices. And so yeah, I just, I love your voice and it just provides something just so and beautiful and yeah, I think everybody has their version. Of that. And we, we try to wax philosophical on this podcast from time to time, and I think that's our moment today is just embrace what you have because nobody else is you and nobody else has that special quality. Which is a great segue into our next topic. About ai?

Rich 23:42

Oh God. God,

John 23:44

Again.

Rich 23:45

so well.

Justin 23:47

No, but it's true. It's like in the, in this era of ai, I think now more than ever we need to embrace that philosophy that. Each of us has something unique and special to bring to our musical creations. But John as you've surely heard on this podcast

John 24:05

Yeah.

Justin 24:06

we've talked about, AI a good bit. And as somebody who's been plugged into music technology over the past, 30 plus years, really curious to get your take on it. What are the pros and cons as you see it?

John 24:19

Wow, that's a big question. So per,

Justin 24:22

any

John 24:23

well,

Rich 24:26

There are

Justin 24:26

There are.

John 24:27

even good clarification. So personally I don't use much of it. Just me personally. Of course, again, as we established earlier, I'm very old school. But from where I'm sitting I think there's certainly uses of it, that can be useful for people. I don't feel like it's a replacement for a real musician AI can't think like a person. AI can't miss. Another person. AI doesn't have the depth of emotion or sensibility that a person does, and that's where songs come from. You can compose to an algorithm really effectively, but it doesn't have the same emotional gravity. I. I think I shared with one or maybe both of you a while back. Last year a friend had sent me a YouTube video of this band basically doing, this novelty song. I. And I went to the YouTube channel and that's, there's all these different artists on there doing these, novelty songs and all these different genres. There's swing, like early 20th century, like Western Swing. There's like a punk song. There's all these different songs and. As I listened to them, they all have this sameness. In fact, they have basically the same chord progression, the same bridge, the same everything, all the way down to the same vocal inflection. And it dawns on me that these aren't real bands. This is all ai. It was it was a little unnerving at how real it sounded on the surface. And it was only, listening, to several of them with a trained ear that I was able to tell, I don't think this is real. And it left me feeling we just hollow because this, these aren't real people doing this. This isn't a real person telling this story as silly as it is. And for me, that completely changes the experience. And I'm, it's not something I'm really into at all. I don't think it's a replacement for people sharing stories and ideas through music that they, write that they conceive of. So I suppose the other side of that is the usefulness of ai. If you are a composer or a producer and AI can render a track for you that you. An instrument you don't play, right? So maybe you can mock up something so that you know what it sounds like and it sounds better than a synthesized woodwinds or something. But EEE even at that, if you have the money, you can buy the Spitfire audio libraries that sound just like it. And maybe ai, will. We'll mitigate that, the cost of things like that's just speculation on my part. But yeah I see some facility of it in a production sense. Ultimately though, it's just, it's not a replacement for a person. I.

Justin 27:35

Yeah. You know what's interesting is I think AI provide utility in tangential ways, so as you both know, I am a huge industrial electronic music fan and, and and creator. And one of the sort of hallmarks of industrial music is sampling dialogue or snippets from movies. It's just sort of, it creates sort of an aesthetic and a vibe. And help convey the heart and message of the song. so I got curious over the past few days and I'm like, it takes a lot of time to sit down and watch movies and find these various bits of dialogue. And I thought, I wonder if AI could help me find this. And so just for fun, I put in a prompt into an AI engine and was like, Hey, I'm an electronic industrial musician. I wanna sample the movie Scanners, which is a 1981 kind of sci-fi horror movie which is, ripe for industrial musicians to sample. And I asked it for bits of dialogue I could sample and timestamps that I could look at. And it was able to give me those and it was able to tell me like, here are some things, here's why you would wanna sample them. Here are some techniques you could apply like vocoders and bit crushers and other effects I could potentially use, and I'm like, this is cool, like I like when AI can save me time.

John 28:59

that saves a lot.

Rich 29:00

of time right

John 29:00

Yeah.

Justin 29:01

that to me is really cool. And so it's it's interesting to be like to use AI kind of as an assistant. So like in a classical setting, you might wanna listen to certain pieces. Certain early 20th century composers, for example, in a very specific way. Hey I'm looking for. certain pieces that sound like stravinsky's, rite of spring. Give me a list of other pieces I could listen to and specific excerpts and it'll probably be able almost definitely we'll be able to get that for you. there's utility there, like you said, John, like facility and utility that it can provide. But I think this notion of replacing the musician is foolhardy at best.

Rich 29:45

about to get foolhardy. See, I'm a, I guess I'm a bit more doom and gloom in this topic. The thing about it is I ask my students,'cause I teach people of all age ranges and whatnot, I ask my younger students who's your favorite singer? I. And they don't really have a favorite singer. I'm like what's your favorite song? I don't really have a favorite song, and this is not their fault.

John 30:09

Think that they're bomb

Rich 30:11

with stuff and they just

John 30:13

take.

Rich 30:13

it a la carte as it comes.

John 30:16

So I think

Rich 30:17

with

John 30:18

what you were talking about,

Rich 30:19

with

John 30:19

ai.

Rich 30:19

being able to sift things down, I think eventually it, I could see it going the route of, alright, AI make me this kind of song. I want this kind of song. I. With

John 30:32

Kind of,

Rich 30:32

voice. And then it could be like,

John 30:34

I don't like that.

Rich 30:34

singer. Give me one that, gimme a different kind of voice and kind of sculpting it and crafting it, crafting the content on the spot, tailored to the moment and getting used to that kind of thing, especially with everything being on demand, everything being easy. to get nowadays and short attention span,

John 30:55

I dunno,

Rich 30:56

I don't know. It

John 30:57

be a thing.

Rich 30:58

'cause

John 30:58

Also we're to

Rich 30:59

used to

John 30:59

listening to

Rich 31:00

live

John 31:01

sounds

Rich 31:02

and we grew up at an era where we would buy the album and listen to it 50 times and get used to it. We would go to

John 31:08

Shows.

Rich 31:09

I think now a lot more online stuff is, kind of promoted and the go-to with regard to seeing musicians and it's immediate. so I could see it maybe going this route with music listening.

Justin 31:24

Yeah, I think we're already there in a certain regard, and the technology's there, I should say culturally, it, it could be shifting in that direction. But yeah, going to an AI engine and prompting it to create a song for you within seconds is a reality. I. And I think what you described rich of people not really having favorite songs or musicians is a result of the social media climate we live in, where people are inundated with content. necessarily, art, Those are different things. And

John 31:51

Yeah.

Justin 31:51

music as an art form. And so because we grew up in a more, I would say, eclectic slower feed of music and artists, we were able to appreciate them and relate to them. And that's why we have favorite songs and favorite artists. The younger generations growing up, it's like a fire hose of stuff and there's no way they can slow down enough to actually. Focus on a particular artist or a song because it's so fast and furious and yeah, I think AI's not doing that any favors, It's just making it faster and faster and easier and easier. And that has consequences, good or

John 32:31

here to stay.

Justin 32:32

Yeah.

Rich 32:32

here to stay. It's gonna keep un unfolding. The Pandora's box is opened and we'll just see. We will just get to witness it unfold.

Justin 32:42

Yes.

John 32:43

Yeah.

Rich 32:43

I.

John 32:44

Some, something I would add is that, as humans, we are only capable of processing so much. There's a headroom as to what we can really hear and see and understand. And as Justin was alluding to, and you too rich, it's like a fire hose of information. Even if we're just looking at music, let alone. Everything else, this media that people are more or less assaulted with people of all ages. You can selectively choose though how much of that you want to intake. And I think you know that large yes. May ultimately. Backfire in a way in that, we may scale back to something more that we can process at some point. It's nice to have things like Apple music, that you can literally find almost any recording at the same time. It's so voluminous. It's really impossible to browse. You have to know exactly what you're going for. And, I had a masterclass with a composer when I was in college, in music school. And I, when I think about this, I remember something he said Justin mentioned him at the top of the hour composer named Jean Boer from France, known mostly as a vocal composer, but, I asked him in the class, what do you think about, the burgeoning use of computers and music production and performance? And he predicted that eventually they would do it all. This is 30 years ago. But as long as they were musicians who wanted to play together and make music together, that was something that he didn't think. We predict that would ever stop. If we unplug from the commerciality for a moment and just think about that, we are always going to be here. And I do think this large s we were talking about is unsustainable. Eventually I just feel like that's something that's going to give there. At some point people will wanna see live musicians that want to have something they can tangibly hold and play. So there's my additional 2 cents.

Rich 34:57

I'm rooting for you guys. I want it to go that way, take things in a different direction here, John, whenever we have a guest on the show, we like to do a lightning round of questions. ready?

John 35:12

I'm ready.

Rich 35:14

So we're gonna ask you a series of questions and just give us the first thing that comes to mind. What is one piece of advice you would give an up and coming musician that wants to get ahead and get their music heard?

John 35:29

I would say don't worry about where other people are or what other people can do. I would be concerned about developing yourself, your voice, your superpowers. That is the most important thing you can do. Don't judge yourself by comparing. To others that really dissuades a lot of people unnecessarily. If this is something you want to do in whatever capacity, focus on developing yourself.

Justin 35:59

What was your most memorable gig?

John 36:02

Memorable gig. I had a couple gigs as an undergrad that are pretty memorable to me, like my senior recital, which should be hopefully memorable. Was a hallmark for me because I did things that were so radically unexpected by the music school there. I did my classical repertoire, which was very eclectic. But I also did music by King Crimson and Joe Settrini which was total left field for that time. But I remember feeling. Really elated at being able to do that and bring that to a packed house audience who may have not heard it before. Something else that's memorable, and this is personal for me, but my rock band, when we were performing as the Breakfast Club, in our early years, our format was that we did themed shows that were tributes to a certain artist or band. So the whole show was music by that artist, and it typically included the performance of an entire album. And in the winter of 2017, we played to a standing room only club. They were, I'm pretty sure they were way over fire capacity. But we played Prince's entire Purple Rain Album, prince and the Revolution's entire Purple Rain album. And so for me that was a dreams come true moment. people drove from all over. We had people coming from over an hour away it was really meaningful. There were actually people there crying and it just felt really great to do. And so that's something I'll always remember.

Rich 37:41

Awesome.

Justin 37:42

that's amazing.

John 37:43

Yeah.

Rich 37:44

What's one piece of equipment you couldn't live without? I.

John 37:48

I don't think I could live without the piano. That sounds crazy. Probably coming from a guitar player. But I, the piano was actually my first instrument. It, if I had to lose everything else, I could do it all with a piano and pencil and manuscript paper.

Justin 38:07

what is your Desert Island album? So you're stuck on a desert island and what is that one album that you must have with

John 38:14

Wow. Okay. I would've to say Michael Hedges. Ariel Boundaries record from 1984. It is regarded as the best acoustic guitar album ever recorded, ever produced, and it has some of his absolute best work on it. Huge impact on me and it's all instrumental.

Rich 38:37

Excellent.

Justin 38:38

We'll link in

John 38:39

Okay,

Justin 38:40

notes

John 38:40

cool.

Justin 38:40

can check'em out. Thanks for sharing.

Rich 38:42

let's say you're not making music. you prefer to be doing

John 38:45

I am an avid runner and cyclist. I generally like to do things outdoors. I like to be out in the woods. It's my place I go to reset have me meditative time. So you can find me doing that a lot. My wife Sherry and I love to make food together. It's something we've done. Since we were together from the first. And that's a big part of our lives. And so you can find me doing those things. Reading, I'm a big reader. I spend at least an hour a day reading.

Justin 39:19

And last, but certainly not least, John, what do you hope that listeners will walk away with after listening to your music?

John 39:26

I hope that the stories somehow impact them. The stories told in the songs, maybe the way the songs are written and the harmonies I hope, will take them to a place a contemplative place or maybe it will remind them of something that will enhance their lives. because at the end of the day, we are all about telling stories to each other and sharing stories, whatever they may be. And so that's my ultimate goal with music.

Justin 39:58

Yeah. Amazing. And each of us has a unique story to tell. So yeah, I

John 40:03

Yeah.

Justin 40:03

that's that's an important thing to remember. So John, thank you so much for joining us. It's been such a joy to have. Such a dear friend on the show and somebody with such a storied musical career and with so many great experiences, and thank you so much for taking the time out to, to share some more about yourself and your background and your perspective on music as a whole.

Rich 40:30

Yeah, John, thanks. And we will share links to all of your music and your YouTube channel. Thanks for joining us.

John 40:38

It has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you all. Thank you for having me

Justin 40:58

Until next time, everyone, thank you for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode. Bye for now.

Rich 41:05

Bye.