Jay Bragg

Broadway looks like a dream from the sidewalk, but the reality is closer to a high-speed stress test. We sit down with Nashville performer and “View From Nashville” creator Jay Bragg to get honest about what’s happening on Lower Broadway right now, why tourism shifts are rattling working players, and how new entertainment districts could stretch an already thin scene even further. Jay breaks down why Broadway can be an elite boot camp for stagecraft while still becoming a trap that quietly rewires artists into tip-driven cover machines.

We also zoom out to the country music industry and the future of Music Row. Labels don’t break stars the way they used to, TikTok and social media momentum act like prerequisites, and signing a deal can feel less like validation and more like taking on a bank loan with strings attached. Jay shares why independence can be the smarter path when you know your definition of success, keep overhead low, and build skills that let you steer your own career instead of handing the wheel to someone else.

Then we tackle the hard topic: AI music. From Suno-assisted “work tapes” to producers replacing session parts, we talk about what gets disrupted, what still counts as ethical tool use, and why trust with fans is so fragile. Jay also explains how getting knocked off a long-running Broadway gig pushed him to create New Vaudeville, a modern reboot of a family lineage that AI can’t replicate.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review if it helps you see Nashville and the music business differently. What part of today’s industry feels most broken to you right now?

Episode Links

• Jay Bragg: https://www.jaybragg.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Jay Bragg

Jay Franze 0:24

Here's your host, Jay Franzi and Tiffany Mason. And we are coming at you live. I am Jay Franzi, and uh with me tonight, uh Margaret to my Hawkeye, my beautiful co-host, Miss Tiffany Mason.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Good evening, Jay.

Jay Franze 0:43

If you are new to the show, this is your source for the latest news, reviews, and interviews. And if you would like to join in, comment, or fire off any questions, please head over to jayfranzie.com. All right, my friend, tonight we have a very special guest with us. We actually have the Wizard of Whimsy hailing from the great state of Tennessee. We have Jay Bragg. Jay, my friend. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I wish I had some whimsical, my like whimsical whistle to play for you. So thank you. It's good to be here. We'll have to start all over now. I can certainly go get it. I have a vast array of whimsical items here. Nice.

Jay Franze 1:24

Well, I don't want to waste any time. We only have four hours tonight, so let's go ahead and just jump right into it. It's like a Rogan interview. Yeah. We do what we can.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Okay.

Jay Franze 1:34

I want to know your take on what's going on down in Broadway these days.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

I just hit an episode today of my my series View from Nashville. When I first moved into town, those were the gigs that I got. Uh sort of playing Broadway quite a bit. And yeah, I have a lot of a lot of things to say about Broadway, but I think it'd be it could be a really great thing for it's like a great boot camp. But hearing the word on the street and talking to a lot of friends down there, and people are pretty stressed out with kind of the trends going on. People are losing gigs, tourism is down. People who kind of put all their eggs in the basket of Lower Broadway kind of being a career more than just being gigs that they can play to supplement with other things that they do are really kind of uh freaking out at the moment. It's an interesting time. There's a lot of changes down there, and I think it's it's a kind of a bellwether to perhaps what might be on the horizon for Nashville as development continues with different entertainment districts coming in. You have uh entertainment district, uh the Nashville Yards, which is nearing completion, and then the huge decade-long project on the East Bank. So there's gonna be two tourist districts that are brand spanking new that are gonna be pulling what is already from what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing, a scene that is spread very thin with too many stages and not enough people to fill them and to earn a living for the people that do earn a living down there.

Jay Franze 3:14

Well, you mentioned a couple of things in there. I want to make sure we touch on one, you said the pitfalls. So can you tell us what some of the pitfalls are?

Why “Getting Discovered” Is Over

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I think on Lower Broadway, you kind of have everything you need to know about the entertainment business from booking your own gigs, putting a band together, thinking on your feet, working a crowd, working a crowd, like one of the hardest things to do is figuring out how to enter entertain a crowd that has no idea who you are. You know, they're not there to see you, they're just there to be entertained. And if you can't do that, you're not gonna keep your gig, you're not gonna get any gigs. That's like kind of part and parcel of the job as a front person for side men. It is Olympian level performance. I mean, you're playing four hours straight without a break. A lot of these guys are playing two, three, sometimes four a day up to 12 hours or more without a break, with not much to eat, under conditions where, you know, as the night progresses, you're dealing with more drunkenness, and there's all kinds of variables that come that come with this. That you really have to be on your feet, you have to kind of keep your wits about you. You're gonna be disappointed multiple different ways. And it's a hustle, it is an absolute hustle. Uh, and if you can keep your composure and keep your endurance up, it can make you into it. Like I said, it's it's like a it's like a boot camp or you know, a navy SEAL training of the entertainment industry. So, I mean, as much as I push back on the system of Broadway, oftentimes being to the benefit of the bar owners way more than the musicians. And that is really one of my thesis with my with my editorials. But I think if you can get down there, do a couple of years of service down there, you will come out of there a much better musician. You'll you'll learn how to read charts, you'll learn how to play with musicians that you just met, you'll learn how to play songs that you don't even know, but you have to use your ears and really listen to the people on stage to get cues. It is a crash course in entertainment on all facets. So those are some of the really great things that you can learn down there.

Jay Franze 5:40

Well, back in the day, and I mean, long before my time in Nashville, people would go to Broadway with the hope of being discovered. Right. And then my time in Nashville, people are going with the hopes of being discovered with no chance of being discovered.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Right.

Jay Franze 5:55

And now I don't know what the hope is. I mean, are they still hoping to get discovered?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I mean, that that is part of one of my main thesis, is is that it's not going to happen. The way that uh most people are going down there not to be discovered, or if they are, they are misreading on where the culture is at this point and and where you know your chances of of getting discovered and climbing up some kind of a ladder within the industry, the ceiling is that gig, it's that bar that you're playing, and it's that crowd. It's it doesn't lead to bigger, better things. There once was a time that it did, but now I think actually it's the opposite. So if you're a if you're a serious artist and you go down there and it's one thing to play a few gigs here and there, play it, you know, Roberts is is kind of what one of these places that's kind of exempt from a lot of the things that I'm saying that that are pitfalls, because that place I think never let go of its original intent and its integrity and preserving something remarkable about Nashville culture. But outside of that place, and you know, maybe Layla's, there's a few other places, but I think in general, if you if you're uh an artist, a songwriter, and you go down there and little by little you are going to have to change who you are and develop in a way that optimizes for the tip jug, optimizes for whatever the audience wants to hear. And your job is to sell alcohol. You know, your entertainment is like the vehicle to sell alcohol because that's how the bar makes money. And little by little it it reprograms your entire brain. So I've seen a lot of, I've seen, I know a lot of friends who before they started playing on Lower Broadway, they were recording records of their own original material, going on tour, really doing the artist thing. And then they kind of took the quote unquote low-hanging fruit, and they realized, man, this is a lot easier to make a couple hundred bucks for four hours, get to sleep in my own bed. I don't have to go on the road. Maybe I'll do this. This will help support my record. And then little by little by little, you get kind of more engulfed in that scene, doing more gigs, playing longer shifts, longer days, longer weeks. And then there becomes a point that you're A, you're exhausted to do that thing that you moved to Nashville to do, which was what makes you different. You know, what wherever uh most most of the musicians that come here were a big fish in a small pond, and they had something really special in their hometown. And coming to Nashville was this, you know, this big leap of faith in their creative and professional life. And you know, you see that quickly dissolve because of the pressures of of being of conforming to this system that all it's the only intention is to move liquor sales, you know, and it re it rewires your brain and and you just give up the plot, you lose the plot of your dream. Nobody moved to Nashville to to to sell to push covers on Broadway for tips. Yeah, nobody, I mean, nobody moved here for that. So I think with with some of my thought leadership, I I'm digging into some of the context, some of the conversations, some of the advice that I've gathered through 10 years in town and kind of giving some ideas and starting some conversations that I wish I was privy to before I moved into town, because I would have probably made some different choices.

Jay Franze 10:04

Well, I worked on the other side of the glass. I worked in the recording studios. I was an engineer and a producer for some time, and I got a chance to work with a lot of the big players, and the people on Broadway it was never considered serious, it was considered more like the wedding band. Right. And to me, you might gain experience playing and learn how to control a crowd or learn how to win over a crowd, but you're not making any progress to what a solo artist would want to do, meeting the right people, getting in the studio, writing songs. So is there any other benefit to playing on Broadway outside of that experience?

The Gig Loss That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, I mean, I think there, you know, you can build a fan base all around the world. Now, there's a caveat to this, and I'll explain that. But because everybody's traveling into Nashville, tourists are coming from all around the world, they happen upon the bar that you're playing, you entertain them, entertain them that night, they have a great time, they follow you on social media or get on your mailing list. And this has happened dozens of times with me. Is they're like, hey, we're having um, you know, we have a a venue in our town. We would love to to host you at at our place. And you can actually book tours based on these connections that you made with these people in a barroom setting. So that can really be good in building up your fan base of people that you would otherwise have never met. Because they're coming to you and then they're going home and telling their friends, I saw this this guy, Jay Bragg, playing at uh AJ's, and we got to get him to play the the local uh bar here in whatever town it is. So that said, what they're expecting you to do is exactly what you what they saw you do on Lower Broadway, which is probably not the show that you're most proud of, that you really want to be touring. And you know, the the life of of getting in in a in a van and and going on the road is you know, it's really, really hard. So when you if you're gonna do it, you certainly want to be delivering a product that really is you, the artist, not you the liquor salesman, right? Oh, that would make sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

What was the tipping point for you where you were like, that's it, I can't, I can't keep this to myself anymore. I hear you saying, you know, like I want to share things that I wish somebody would have shared with me as I was coming to town, but what was it that like you're like, okay, I'm just gonna share unpopular opinion and see where it goes?

New Vaudeville And Family Roots

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, so uh, well, a couple of things. I I had a a weekly uh, well, actually uh uh three times a week at um one of the bars down there that I played every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. And there uh, you know, I played over 700 and over 700 gigs at this one place. You know, started from the beginning. And uh actually, I'll just say it. It was uh AJ's Good Time Bar, went on tour with Alan Jackson, out of the deal. It was a great experience until there was some conversations where I really I was really speaking my mind with management about some things that I really believe in in terms of the culture that that was counter to you know how he uh you know his line of thinking. Some of it was political. This was during some of the COVID uh stuff as well, too. And I remember we got in a disagreement and come to find out uh you know, we really were not aligned politically. And um and I uh just just magically started losing gigs. You know, I lost the the Sunday gig, I lost the Thursday gigs. I was down to the Saturday gig, kept the Saturday gig, had legendary shows, and then played one Saturday and then got a call the next day uh saying, you know, basically we're gonna make some changes and uh you don't have your gig anymore. And this was after seven years of loyal, uh of loyal service and really just doing a perfectly uh a perfect record and just putting on one of the best shows there, helping the business from the ground up. Um and I said, well, you know, there I I it it really, you know, it pissed me off because I thought that they could have handled that with more grace. You know, there's somebody who who has really put their heart and soul into it, somebody who's gone on tour and really been uh an advocate and uh and an ambassador for for Alan and his music. I think the move there is to is to give a bit of an off-ramp, you know, and and say, hey, you know, we're gonna try a few things, you know, you know, so so that was like, and it was at that point that most of my bills were being paid from Broadway music, from Broadway shows, right? So all of a sudden, very unceremoniously and without kind of warning, I had that totally taken away, you know, swept under under my feet. And I said, wait a minute, I have uh I've kind of gotten myself in a bit of a trap by overinvesting into this one circuit. And it was at that point that I really started to diversify and and and in a very big way. I said, I don't want to do things that anyone else are doing because what they're doing, what what a lot of that scene and a lot of other scenes here in Nashville, it's a very categorical town. Like they put you in a in a certain category, and you kind of have to wave that flag of that category and the the versatility, the the versatile artist, uh the full artist who does all these different things and brings, you know, their unusual parts to the to the show, are oftentimes kind of uh you know uh not always welcome. And so I said, you know, the project that I take on now, I want to be the only person doing them. And I want them to come from my upbringing that really nobody else can do. So that's when I started New Vaudeville. How it came about was, you know, I had a very unfortunate situation happen to me that opened my eyes. And through the the year of 2024, I had to really retool and figure out what I can offer this city, what can I offer the entertainment world that, you know, what is the lane that's not occupied that I'm distinctly equipped to do. And so I just went back to my history. My grandparents were vaudeville performers. Vaudeville is like this early form of American entertainment that was a variety show in the in the early 19th, 1900s, 1910, 1920, 1930. And they met in New York City and they were vaudeville performers in that vaudeville circuit. And so my dad has done seasonal vaudeville shows throughout his life. And so I started something called New Vaudeville, which is kind of a reboot of this really old form of entertainment, of variety entertainment. That is like kind of the crown jewels of what I'm working on as a performer, but it is also one of these things that is very unique to who I am and to my story and to my lineage, but it's also something that I'm not sure I would have gotten to that point had I not had been knocked down by an unfortunate uh letting go, so to speak, from my bread and butter gig.

Journalism Mindset And Honest Culture

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Are people believing you or are you getting support from it? I know I've seen a little pushback, but also are people thanking you?

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Most most people are thanking me um for, you know, I think what what I'm saying, I'm saying things that people have been talking about for a very long time. And and most do not, most are not in a situation where they can very publicly go on record and and say these things. I I also have a journalism background, it's what I went to college for. So kind of investigative journalism is uh, you know, it is part of what I love to do. And so I've kind of you know used my 10 years of experience and kind of come up with a format where I take a um a subject, and Nashville is kind of like my laboratory, you know, in in the micro, it's about what's happening in Nashville, but in the macro, it speaks to a larger part of American culture right now in where we are. Oftentimes, Nashville is like the canary in the coal mine. Things that are happening here might suggest where things you know, what might be you know happening in say uh Los Angeles in in five years or something like that, you know. So in the micro, I'm examining some of the things that are going on here. Like I did one on just the affordability of town, which is is really, really difficult. A lot of my friends, you know, they're just stuck in the renting cycle. And even in my short 10 years of being in town, uh, has gotten a lot more expensive. I currently still rent, and you know, affording affording a home, like affording a home here is is really challenging. So that's the the micro, but the macro, this is the talk of the nation, you know, the the affordability crisis. So a lot of the viewers that are watching my view from Nashville are not even music adjacent people, they're they're just culturally aware people because I'm speaking to something that we all feel in different parts of the culture. I'm just using the example of the music industry in Nashville to kind of prove a larger point, or or not even prove it, but just to ask the right questions and spark some certain debates. I I really did not expect these episodes to to find such an audience. But you know, I do, I do, I'm interested in in, you know, who's viewing them. And it is people from from all over the place that the algorithm, the algorithm is feeding my pieces to a lot of people who do not know me. I've only I'm on episode 10 and I've stacked up probably uh you know well over 200,000 views of this brand new thing, probably uh two 2,000 new followers on on Instagram. And what's going on is the the algorithm is just feeding it to people, and they're sharing it and resharing it. And and I think I think what it is, is that right now, again, in the macro, uh people are just like so sick of being lied to, and there's a lot of grifting going on, and a lot of dishonesty, and people lying and pandering. And I think people are so sick of it, and and and they're really checked out of like mainstream media, they're just not. Believing it, they're not buying it, they think it, you know, it's there's an agenda there. So the culture are there, people are looking for voices that seem to be honest, that seem to not have an agenda, that seem not to be doing it for, say, the attention rather than just informational, like informing, trying to learn and and understand the culture better. People are are really hungry for truthful voices. And the data backs that up of what people are listening to right now, podcasts are are more listened to than music at this point. Podcasts have have superseded music in terms of what people are are are listening to. And that tells me that I mean, I hate, I hate that actually. I mean, I'm a musician, I love music. I listen to, you know, uh, I listen to music every day. I make music. I my whole life has been about making music, but the numbers don't lie. And I think people are looking for honest voices that they can believe in, and I can help them make sense of a very complicated and turbulent culture that we're living in.

Jay Franze 23:13

One of the things you keep going back to is the honesty and how you're perceived with your opinions. So we talk about the Nashville culture, but do you think it's the culture of New England that you bring down that allows you to be honest in a southern town?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes, sir. Absolutely, man. I mean, um, I'm used to uh, as you would know, like people in New England really, some might say we're abrasive, uh, you know, and there's probably some truth to that, but but we really don't sugarcoat it. We kind of come right out and say exactly how we feel. You know, I think I would rather be honest and have you say, you know, well, screw you, than kind of sugarcoat it and mince my words. You know, the mincing of the world words, kind of uh kind of keeping the peace uh on the surface is much more baked into southern culture than what I'm used to.

Music Row Shifts And Label Power

Jay Franze 24:16

So one of the things I'm curious about is music row is almost non-existent any longer. It's becoming high-rises and condos and so on. So, what do you think the industry itself is gonna be like? Not just the tourist areas, but the industry itself.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Well, I think the industry is struggling to to to mint you know new stars. I mean, the the old paradigm is is dead, where you know you could have radio prop up your your your next star that you're kind of lining up to be part of that part of your cast of that uh era. So, you know, I think a lot of the industry, the labels are scratching their head because the old playbook just doesn't work anymore. So they're looking to TikTok and they're looking, you know, who's breaking on social media? Like you can't even get a you probably can't even get a meeting with a record label without going viral on TikTok or or social media first. Like that is kind of the you know, that that's a prerequisite. So I think I think it's more of a bottom-up than top-down operation. Whereas before, you know, the big dogs controlled everything. And if you were lucky enough to get into that system, you were golden. And it was a monoculture because they they pushed out everything to radio, and uh, we were all reading from the same book, we were all listening to the same thing. There was only if you're into country music, there's a couple of country stations maybe in your town, one maybe, probably one. And so you knew all the new all the records that are coming out. Now that's completely fractured. Where you know, we're in a playlist culture, country music, you know, this the whole debate about you know what's country and what's not. You know, people still love to debate that question, you know, is Morgan Wallen, you know, that's not country or this and that and the next thing. And and um, you know, uh I don't I think that is a fruitless conversation. It you know, it really um who's who's to say, I mean, you know, country music is uh whatever fans of the genre are listening to at that at that time, but the industry is just shrinking in general from from what I can tell. Like you said, music row is is now a residential. It's go actually going back. It used to be residential before it was music row, and now you go down there and it's more homes, more homes again.

Jay Franze 27:06

We talk about record labels a lot on the show, and we talk about them being more of in the form of a bank. So yeah, record labels are there to give money and to give assistance. And I mean, I don't think development is a hundred percent dead from a record label. I think it's getting pretty close, but I don't think it's a hundred percent dead. But I think the majority purpose of a record label these days is they're a bank and they provide a loan. So, like you said, they looked at TikTok for somebody who already has a following, so that way they can capitalize on that following, they can give that person a loan. But the problem I see with doing that is that person doesn't need the loan at that point, right? So, can you talk about that for a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

To your to your point, Jay, is is if you have a following on, you know, if you have multi-million uh, you know, followers and and and views on on your TikTok for your music, uh, you really uh you know you own the cards, like you have the leverage, and you don't you really don't even need the labels anymore. I remember, I mean, you know, it wasn't long ago, like people would say, you know, are you signed? Like that was the mark of success. Are you signed to a label? And now more often, it's like getting signed to a label is is it oftentimes, you know, you can be, it can it can actually stifle your career because they're not you know quite ready. They don't know quite what what to do with you. And and they also you have a bit of a chokehold on what you can and cannot do with work you can and cannot take. So, you know, it's never been, and I think it's exciting. I think it's never been a better time to be an independent artist and to really have your hands firmly on the grip of your career and and and harness it and and curate it in the way that feels true to yourself. And you don't need the big bank loan from the from from the uh label.

Jay Franze 29:10

Well, I agree, and I think if you take that big bank loan, you're bound to now go bankrupt because you're not making enough money to support yourself.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Also, too, I mean, and you probably know stories like this, Jay, is like say you don't do great, the the the label drops you. Now you're in a situation, I mean, this is demoralizing to some people. Some people never recover from that. They have to they have to take such a step back. They were, you know, once, you know, on a tour bus and playing sold-out shows, and now they're picking up scraps at uh, you know, Joey Bag of Donuts uh Bar and Grill, you know. So it's it's uh it's man, it's a it's a hard industry, but it's better to, I think, that incremental growth, think of it as the long game, incremental each, each day, each week, each month, you know, you're just kind of inching a little bit closer to uh you know to to where you want to be. But you have to like know where you want to go. You have to have a have a have the vision of what what is success, what a success looks like. And that's different from every individual has a different definition of what success is.

Jay Franze 30:28

Well, I think too that there's a chance that as an independent artist, is a good chance that you're making more money than you would be making working for a label, and that you could actually make a living. I don't know. Have you ever heard of the band Cersei?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

I have heard of the name, yeah.

Jay Franze 30:45

They're from upstate New York, and it's a duo now. And that duo, husband-wife duo, they travel playing acoustic shows, and they travel all around the country, and they're gone for months and months at a time. And they make much more money touring on their own and doing everything themselves than they ever would having a record deal. So I think I believe it. There's definitely that opportunity for independent artists to make a living. It might not be playing in front of you know arena crowds and doing sold-out shows like that, but you're still making more money than those people playing in the arena crowds. So it's a trade-off. It's like what's more important to you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

And and you know, low ever low overhead, and honestly, like just simplicity. That I think one of the keys to happiness is if you can simplify your life, you're you're much more bound to sleep better at night, I think. You know, so there's a lot of complexities to uh to uh I mean my fiance, she's in the music business on the music management side of things, so she sees a lot of the financial side of these artists, and it is very, very, very complex. And you know, there's a lot of stress involved, and and you know, you have big overhead like that, there's a lot to handle at once, and uh you have to have a team to do it, and that costs a lot of money. The the best thing you can do is figure out how to do all these things on your own so that at a point where it really does start to scale, you can at least be a good delegator and oversee the management of your own career, having done it yourself, rather than the other way where you kind of don't know anything, and then you're more malleable to the people that you've signed on with, that they can kind of manipulate you, not what would be good for the longevity of your career, but oftentimes what will be good for the short-term exploitation of you for themselves, and then send you out to dry. I mean, this happens in the country music industry a lot, and and and especially amongst women, um, you know, it's it's it can be it can be a pretty sad tale.

Endorsements And Protecting Trust

Jay Franze 33:04

Well, I saw one of your editorials about endorsement deals, which I thought was kind of a unique take. Can you talk to us about your feeling on endorsement deals?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's several different kinds of endorsement deals, and I think some of them can really benefit you if it's a product that you use that it feels aligned with with who you are. The thing that that we're trying to do as artists is build trust with our audience. That's the most important thing. And to build trust, you have to be somebody of integrity and character. And again, we're seeing so many people that are void of integrity in in our culture that are just doing whatever it takes for personal enrichment. So it takes, you know, decades to build up that trust. It only takes one dumb endorsement deal to completely lose it. And I mean, I use the example of Luke Bryan. I mean, he is at this point the poster boy of uh taking endorsement deals that are really truly not aligned with what his brand or where his brand started out. You know, now he's doing Waymo stuff. I mean, I you know, I I he'll probably be on a Cialis commercial tomorrow or something, you know. But but actually that might be on brand for him.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

I was gonna say, you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

He is he's getting up there at age. I'm reaching for buttons now. No, but but I I think so I I had uh Suno uh approach me and offer me an endorsement, and I didn't think for a second that I was gonna take it because it is not aligned with my brand is all about to beat the algorithm, to beat AI, you have to be, you have to be, you know, an absolute individual that is unpredictable, that is completely unique, one of one. And to align myself with a company that is making all of music to the algorithm and predictable and you, you know, pattern recognition, like that would have been, you know, I would have I would have completely lost my audience, you know. I would have lost my credibility, I would have had to kick my own ass, you know. I mean, that's just not it's not what you know, you have to practice what you preach.

AI Song Tools And What They Replace

Jay Franze 35:47

Well, on that note though, yeah, what are your feelings about the writers in Nashville using Suno to put their songs together?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

I mean, I I did a whole piece on this one too. Country music was of all the popular genres, AI is being used the most in in uh the country music genre, and uh both in terms of production and and writing. And I think it's no surprise because it's the most formulaic of the genres. Have you ever heard the Bo Burnham parody pandering? Uh it's it's you should check it out, but it it basically just kind of lists exactly what you have to put together to make a country song. And you know, some of it is ridiculous, but a lot of it rings true. And you know, when you have a genre that is really kind of systemized and standardized and made any everything into a kind of a formula as your product, well, here comes AI, which is what it does is pattern recognition. So country music, it was primed to be disrupted or primed to be integrated with AI because that's what AI does, it's pattern recognition.

Jay Franze 37:12

Right. So Suno is great at recognizing the pattern and putting these things together, but what about the efficacy of the writers using it to craft their lyrics, or then the producers who are using it to put maybe an extra fiddle part on a song rather than hiring that musician?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, I mean, it sucks. I I mean it I think it it really's putting musicians out of work, people who have real talent and and and uh studied their whole entire life to have those gigs and to do those sessions. It's cheating in in a lot of ways. So I I have a Suno account, and what I've done with it is I've fed in a few full songs and had it uh arrange certain things for like full like uh horn sections, like a rain, like how would the song sound with a full horn section? Because I'm getting ready to do a swing project, and so that it helps guy, yeah. That's our next new vaudeville is um uh swinging in new vaudeville, which is from the 3rd of July. Yeah, so as I'm doing my kind of uh you know arrangement work, it's nice to be able to hear what one of my compositions would sound with a horn section behind it, and that can help inform who I hire for the session and how we perform these certain songs. I think that is a I think that is a good way of using it. You you're just using it as a tool to produce something that's very much 100% a human delivered product, right? But if you were if you if you're just saying, you know, write a write a write a country song uh you know about uh peanut allergies or something like that, and and it'll spit you out something, and and you know, um it's short circuiting the whole process. But I don't know, I I really don't know. The cat's out of the bag, people are are gonna use it. The cat's out was out of the bag with auto-tune, and people were using that. Everybody was up in arms about auto-tune, and and now you know it's it's it's just part of the game for a lot of pop artists to use that.

Jay Franze 39:34

Well, in Nashville, you had all these songwriters who hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of songwriters, they're not all writing hits, they're just all writing songs, album cuts and stuff. Yeah, they're hoping to get something, right? But with Suno, they can craft a hit pretty easily. And I think that's the difference, is you're talking about from a songwriter's point of view, right? You sit down with a tool, you can use their multi-track version, you can put things in, you can layer things, you get the ideas, but you're creating the chord changes, you're creating the lyrics, you're creating the song. I think the writers these days are not doing that, they're using ChatGPT or whatever else to help them do the lyrics, and then they feed it into Suno, and they just press go and it comes out with what sounds like a hit song.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Is it really gonna resonate? Is is the question. I mean, some of it does. And my dad was very fooled by this AI artist. I mean, I told him, I said, Dad, this is an AI artist. He's like, No, uh, I saw him, uh, I saw a video of him on America's Got Talent. Yeah, I know what's what you're talking about. Do you know who I'm talking about? This old this old guy was. It was an amazing song.

Jay Franze 40:49

Yeah, he was making people cry.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

And we well, yeah, that's what my dad says. I mean, everybody in the audience was crying. Simon Cowell was tearing up, and I'm like, Dad, it it was it's AI. All of that was AI. And it, I mean, his his mind was just blown, he couldn't believe it. I had to send him an article, but he's like, I don't know how I feel about this because the song moved him really touched my heart, right? So I don't know how I feel about that. I I don't like it, but if it moved him in a way, like he told me when he first heard it, he's like, Jay, I want you to play the song at my funeral. I mean, that's an important piece, right? So that's a hard thing to wrestle with as a songwriter.

Jay Franze 41:34

I used to work in Nashville with songwriters, and we would craft songs and we'd work on them for hours. With Suno, it's done in in seconds, not even minutes. I know, it's it's unbelievable. It's absolutely insane. And it sounds good. I mean, you can't argue with the quality that's coming out of it.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

It's one objective is like listenability. So they're using all the tricks of what's you know, what's the most listenable hooky thing you could possibly do. And you know, yeah, it's a powerful piece of technology, massively disruptive, I feel for like especially like uh guys who made a live living recording demos in this town. I mean, there is zero work for them now, which is insane. Yeah, I mean it's it's a lot of people are are are uh it's disrupting you know their livelihoods, and that's that's a that's a drag, but also streaming disrupted the CD and and you know the the DVD disrupted VHS and and no other put people out of work. No, um but you know, I mean AI is going to put people out of work like we've never seen before.

Jay Franze 42:49

Well, I think it's crazy when writers are showing up to A-level sessions in Nashville with Suno tracks and saying, Yeah, here's my work tape.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Yeah, I mean, and even artists, there was a Kenny Chesney went into the studio with a with a sumo suno recording, and and the whole session was trying to replicate exactly these sounds.

Jay Franze 43:12

That's because the writer gets so used to hearing the Suno version, yeah, they don't want to be open-minded when they go in the studio anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Suits, Confidence, And Stagecraft

SPEAKER_02 43:22

One of the things I just kind of on a on a funny side note wanted to bring up is you're always looking very dapper. So is that to go with the vaudeville theme? Is that just who you are? Are you wishing you hadn't done that and you just want to show up in a hoodie now?

SPEAKER_01 43:37

No, so uh a couple of things. I I was wearing a three piece suit when I was five years old. I'm singing Frank Sinatra suit for my friend's parents. So I was always a really kind of like uh dapper theatrical kid.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

But you know, I I also Um, somebody once said, you always get to look better than your audience in terms of uh your attire. Uh, and I've always adhered to that rule. So I always try to look my best. I always try to look unique and just, you know, I come from a lineage of tailors as well, too, from Italy. And so I grew up with like the gentleman always looking nice and dressing up well. But, you know, this year in January, I said, you know, I feel more confident when I'm in a suit and I get more accomplished. So I said, because most of my mornings are, you know, spent here after I get my morning chores done, then I do my like my office hours, my bookings, my writing, and after I walk the dog and make my coffee, I put on a suit, regardless. Like I could be I'm not going anywhere, just working at home, and I get more accomplished. There's actually a really fascinating study where they took doctors and they they were practicing on a dummy, doing surgery on a dummy, okay? But they were they were recording the nuances of of how well they did. And one set was dressed in you know, bum-around clothes, hoodies, and whatnot. And then the others was dressed in surgical lab outfits. And the ones in the surgical lab outfits actually perform quite a bit better on those surgeries. So there really is something neurological about kind of dressing for success. But but for me, so it's part of it is that, but part of it is just like kind of an homage to my vaudevillian roots. Uh and I, you know, I just I just love I have a nice collection of suits.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

So well, you're always looking sharp.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Well, thank you so much. I'm sorry, I didn't. I'm I'm I'm bumming tonight. I just have this uh lousy shirt.

Gratitude, Hospice Music, Closing

Jay Franze 46:06

I'd fire you if we had the right button. All right, sir. Well, we've reached the top of the hour, but before we let you go, we'd like to give you an opportunity to thank somebody who's supported you along the way or may work behind the scenes. Is there anybody that you'd like to thank?

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Oh, yes, I would love to thank my father, who uh really taught me everything I know about not only the music business and being an entertainer, but also just being a man and somebody who lives their life in service of others. And my dad, my dad is in his mid-80s and he still performs you know, three times a week in nursing homes uh down in Tampa. He still has the fire, he's still learning new material all the time and tweaking his setless and working on his seasonal shows, Cancer Survivor. He always makes it to our uh a lot of our new vaudeville shows, but also just going to his nursing home gigs, a quick story. You know, when he got cancer, and he's he's survived cancer at this point, he's cancer free, but you know, there was a point that we didn't know, and uh I said, Dad, how can I carry on your legacy? And he said, Uh uh, I need you to pick up my he calls it a ministry with senior citizens. And uh, and so he says, I want you to bring your music to seniors and lift their spirits because they really need it. And that's when I started volunteering for hospice care patients, which I still do, which is awesome. And that kind of really changed doing doing hospice care volunteer work and and bringing my music to those folks on their last chapter, it was a life-changing experience and kind of reinformed what it is that I do and why I do it. Really the why, like, why am I doing this? And it's more of like it's more like the empathy of making dreams come true for the people in your audience, uplifting them, making them more joyful, more happy, more together, feeling in more community. That's ultimately the job that my vocation, the most important part of my of my work. And I get that from my dad. So he's who I'd like to thank.

Jay Franze 48:37

There you go. Couldn't have picked a better thing to end on. All right, folks. Well, we have done it. We've reached the top of the hour, which does mean we have reached the end of the show. And if you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend and Miss Tiffany, if you have not.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Tell two.

Jay Franze 48:50

Tell two. You can reach out to both of us, you can reach out to all three of us over at jfrenzy.com. We will be happy to keep this and any other conversation going. Jay, my friend, we cannot thank you enough for being here. It's been an absolute pleasure. Put my Red Sox hat on, go socks. It's about time. You're about to get kicked off for good, sir. We would like to leave the final words to you.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And uh, I really, really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for doing what you guys are doing and and just asking the questions and having these conversations. This is the most important thing, it's just having these conversations. This is something that AI is never going to be able to do. That's exactly what we're doing. So we're reading the algorithm. So, all right, folks. On that note, thank you guys.

Jay Franze 49:39

Have a good night.