Major Payne’s Alex Stone 30 Years Later: Steven Martini Breaks Down Hollywood, Filmmaking & Life

In this episode, host Brad Banyas sits down with actor, director, screenwriter, and musician Steven Martini to pull back the curtain on his 30-year journey through Hollywood. Steven shares his entrance into the film industry as Cadet Alex Stone in 90s hit movie Major Payne and breaks down his newest, handmade indie film, Bittersweet, which has just been released in Brazil.

Brad and Steven take a blunt look at the current state of entertainment, discussing the WGA and SAG strikes , the tedious reality of AI tools like LLMs and Suno , and why the world needs the "rebel mentality" and true human connection now more than ever.

About Steven Martini:

Steven Martini is a multi-talented actor, screenwriter, director, and musician who first broke into Hollywood in the mid-1990s, starring as Cadet Alex Stone in the cult classic comedy film Major Payne. Following a prominent role as a rookie undercover cop on the NBC prime-time series Prince Street, he pivoted behind the scenes and channeled his industry earnings into writing his own independent scripts.

In 2026, he released his latest independent feature, Bittersweet, a raw, poignant, and theatrical film based on a real-life legal nightmare that he wrote, produced, edited, and starred in alongside his family.Driven by a signature "rebel mentality" and a dedication to genuine human storytelling, Martini consistently rejects Hollywood boxes and apathologized labels.

Steven Martini on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven_martini/

Steven Martini’s New Film “Bittersweet”: http://bit.ly/4wLqaKE

Transcript

Brad Banyas (00:08)
right, everybody. Welcome back. You're listening to the salt MF GOAT podcast. I'm Brad Banyas I'll be your host today. And today we're with the Steven Martini and we're just excited to have him. So Steven, welcome to the show, brother.

Steven Martini (00:20)
Thank you. Happy to be here. Happy to be here.

Brad Banyas (00:23)
Yeah. So you, I, I followed you. So I'm not going to take every, gonna let you tell your story, but you know, you, you've been acting since you were like in your late teens and you know, kind of landed a role in the Major Payne which is kind of a cult classic, you know, movie. So, you know, take our audience to, know, how, where you're at today and with what you're doing, it's a, it's an amazing story. I don't want to tell it for you.

Steven Martini (00:46)
Well, yeah, thanks. You know, I'm people who might know me from my first film role was as cadet Alex Stone and major pain, which is amazingly somehow 30 years ago now already. And, ⁓ you know, that was in the mid 90s. And that was a totally different world at a different time. ⁓ People, ⁓ people have often asked me how

Brad Banyas (00:54)
Yeah.

Crazy man.

Steven Martini (01:14)
how different it was making movies back then as opposed to now. Yeah, it definitely feels like we're in not only a different millennium, but a different planet. ⁓

Brad Banyas (01:24)
Yeah.

It's, it's, it's a strange place to live. mean, I'm, I'm, I don't know how old you are, but we're probably similar in age and it's, uh, I tell my kids what it was like when we were, you know, their age and like they, they're just like, what, you know, what are you talking about? So

Steven Martini (01:41)
Yeah, well, you know, so, you know, that was my first ⁓ role as an actor, my entrance into the filmmaking world. And, ⁓ you know, since then, I've gone on to do a bunch of different things in various capacities. At some point after a major pain came out, I moved to Los Angeles, as one does, you know, to kind of reach, get a little closer to the dream. And I was, ⁓ you know, I was

Brad Banyas (02:02)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Steven Martini (02:09)
kicking around out here for a while acting in different, you you get smaller roles in TV shows and guest spots on murder she wrote. I did some law and order episode in New York and you know, at some point I was cast on a TV series to play. Do you remember must see TV on Thursday nights, NBC? So there were, there was a show that, I got cast on called Prince Street.

Brad Banyas (02:13)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, do. Yeah, I do remember it.

Steven Martini (02:37)
And it was undercover cops in New York City. And it was the template of the show ER. Do you remember ER, the doctor show? So it was just like a bunch of, you know, semi good looking doctors and you know, the hospital where this is just that, but undercover cops in New York City. And so I played the rookie on that show and, you know, they were hyping it up saying, guys, this is like prime time TV time slot, you know, 10 o'clock on a Thursday night.

Brad Banyas (02:43)
yeah.

Thank

Yeah.

Steven Martini (03:07)
And you know, you get really excited about that. But as you kind of go along, the more you know about the way the onion is peeled in Hollywood, these things kind of take forever. And so like what I thought was just being cast on a TV pilot. Next thing you know, it's still a year later and they recast the show. They reshot some of it. Luckily, I was still on the show and ⁓ and we shot then a whole like season of this TV series.

And at some point the corporations that were controlling it, ⁓ the, network and the studio, they were having their own little business affairs thing going on. And basically the long and the short of it is our prime time Thursday night TV slot was like used as leverage in a, in a poker game of things that was beyond my paper. They were fighting for the members syndication rights on TV. remember you would have its original run and then.

Brad Banyas (03:55)
You

yeah, yep.

Steven Martini (04:05)
Eventually it would go on to cable TV and have hundreds of episodes. And that was where a lot of the money was back then before streaming, was syndication. And so Warner Brothers and NBC were fighting over the syndication rights to Friends and Seinfeld, Remember Man About You, all these shows they were fighting over. Anyway, so our show was kind of a casualty of that because they couldn't agree to points. And they moved our show from Thursday

Brad Banyas (04:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (04:34)
to Friday, and then after Friday we moved to Saturday, and then I don't think we even made it to Sunday. Eventually we just got canceled. And so, you know, this is like my, another big dream come true for me, but now the rug is pulled, you know, luckily they did pay me some good money to work on these episodes as an actor. So even though the episodes didn't all air, I had basically what you would say, ⁓ can I curse on this show?

Brad Banyas (04:38)
All

Yeah.

Thank you.

Oh, I have some fucking lilly.

Steven Martini (05:05)
Okay. Well, you know, I basically had fuck you money, right? So when you have some fuck you money, you're gonna want to do something creative with it, me personally. So anyway, long story short is that that's when I decided to say, I'm just gonna make my own movie, I'm gonna write my own script. And I got together with my brother and my high school best friends. And we just said, let's just make a movie.

And so first principles, as they say, you you can you can figure out how to construct something if you know the main ingredients in the core parts that are important, right? And so I knew I figured out that we could make a movie for like $50,000. And we did. And that was my opening into becoming a screenwriter, basically. And ⁓ I moved behind the scenes. And for years and years, I was writing ⁓

Brad Banyas (05:37)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (05:54)
on staffing on some TV shows and you doing rewrites and stuff. And in Hollywood, all of that stuff is there's a, there's a, especially in the nineties and the two thousands, there was a lot more money being spent upstream of things. You know, as an actor, you're downstream as an actor, you're just waiting for a big log to float by. And if you can jump on it and stay on it, then you're in Hollywood. Everything is upstream and they're spending a lot of money to get those logs out. And so I was able to kind of

Brad Banyas (06:09)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (06:24)
make a good living as a screenwriter behind the scenes and I became a filmmaker and I started making my own stuff. And ⁓ here I am in 2026 and my newest movie, Bittersweet, it just got released now in Brazil. We're hitting the foreign markets now. ⁓ But yeah, so I've spent a lot of time just honing my craft in all the different fields. was a screenwriter,

producer and editor of films and composer of music too. I'm a musician also. And so, yeah, so it's all part and parcel of the same process to me.

Brad Banyas (07:01)
That's great.

Well, I love it. think, I think that's awesome. I mean, the fact that, you know, I always told my kids, you know, get out and learn, learn the business, right? Don't just think of like what you're doing at that business right now, whether you're in sales or whatever you're doing, like learn the business, like understand the, you know, everything in it. And you've kind of proved that with bittersweet because you, not only, know, you not only produced it, wrote it, I mean, edit it. I mean, you acted in it and that's, that's amazing.

Steven Martini (07:36)
Well, that's the cherry on top to get to act. acting is my first love. I started in this whole crazy game as an actor. so anytime I get to show up and just give 110 % for a role, that's my happy place. ⁓ But as you move behind the scenes, see how your actors are so lucky to even get to that position. It's really just an incredible privilege to have.

Brad Banyas (07:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (08:05)
So anytime I can get in front of the camera and act, ⁓ you know, I'm really happy to do it. but you know, it's a team effort. like, you know, bittersweet I made, I made with my family, you know, I made it with my wife and you know, my kids were there. And so, you know, honestly, my wife was the producer who was the, you know, capital P producer, you know what I mean? As far as like,

Brad Banyas (08:05)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Gabriella,

alright.

Steven Martini (08:31)
organizing

things and making sure everybody was getting paid the right. You need a team of people around you.

Brad Banyas (08:39)
Absolutely. Absolutely. What, what was it? You know, there's a story behind bittersweet. mean, it's kind of, I don't know if it's, it is a hundred percent related to your life, but a lot of that is your story. Right? I mean, isn't that

Steven Martini (08:53)
Well, yeah, at the opening, if you see the beginning, says it's based on a true story. And so that was what definitely inspired this script was, you know, was early on in our relationship, me and my back then she was my girlfriend. My baby mama, as they say, know, I've learned there's an even more compressed term, which is BM. They say you're BM, baby. And so something like that happened to us.

Brad Banyas (08:57)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Good for you.

Steven Martini (09:23)
And it was very innocuous and, you know, innocent. And it was clear that it was a mistake, but ⁓ the cops don't care. They were like, just going, okay, you're in it, buddy. That's it. And so it, as you see in the film, I, you know, I, I tend to find levity and lightness and humor in insane situations. And so I just kept laughing going, my God, if this wasn't so scary and tragic for me, this would be the funniest thing that's ever happened. And so.

Brad Banyas (09:32)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Steven Martini (09:54)
I just kind of opened that, that was the spark for me to go, there's a story here. I never really see a story about this. And then when I, when, know, you have to go through the whole system of, of, you know, social workers and, the court system and the legal system. And, I started to meet lots of other families who were in this. And I started to see that it's like kind of a rite of passage almost for certain, you know, like this underbelly of America, there's all these different families that are caught up in a system.

Brad Banyas (10:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (10:23)
And a lot of them, you know, shouldn't be there, you know, some of them obviously should be. That was the really interesting dichotomy is like the system is in place to try and protect people. Right. That's, that's obvious. And so, but when you're the person who's, you know, wrongly accused, it's, it's, it's a nightmare and you are the enemy. So I immediately said, ⁓ this is a story that I want to tell. I don't really see people telling this story. There were so many men I encountered.

Brad Banyas (10:31)
Okay.

Right.

Yeah. yeah.

Steven Martini (10:52)
that were going through some really horrible things and women too. And I just kept hearing their stories. I kept going, my God, there's something here. And I need to tell, of course as a writer, the hardest thing is to really hone in on your point of view, right? I could tell all these different versions of this story, but my own unique point of view is what I think is the special version. like, I just said, okay, I need to write this and make this happen because...

Brad Banyas (11:00)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (11:19)
It's so theatrical, you know, you go in front of a judge, and you know, and the children's court, it's like you're there in a court with a judge, but there's like Mickey Mouse dolls and stuffed animals on the side and crayon drawings and little kitty chairs. And you're like, this is just too theatrical for me not to want to make into a movie. So that's how I got to

Brad Banyas (11:30)
Thank ⁓

Yeah. Well, I know on,

you know, it's funny as reading about the neurodivergent, you know, that the whole neurodivergency stuff and like, you know, ADHD and autism and all this stuff. know, and I, you know, I grew up, you know, I grew up, I'm a Gen X guy, right? Like none of this stuff, like, you know, I've had ADD, ADHD, ADHD. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a spaz like that my whole life. And it's just like, so, you know, before they,

you know, now they've kind of tried to classify that, it's okay. You know, you don't need to medicate this guy to the point he's just, you know, he's going to be hyperactive. It's the way he is. I've always thought that's interesting how things kind of evolve over time and people kind of label, you know, something that once they thought maybe was, was not a, not a normal thing, but it actually it's, it's very normal, you know, so.

Steven Martini (12:29)
Yeah, well, honestly, I had a hard time with that too, because I was I was undiagnosed my whole life. And, and when I was finally diagnosed, I was like, what you're gonna label me and put me in a box all of a sudden, like that does, I'm not gonna that's does not sit well for me, you know, so I still have a hard time, like fully embracing any kind of label. But when I when but it really opened up my eyes to go, you know, everything started to make sense when I realized

Brad Banyas (12:45)
Yeah.

it.

Steven Martini (12:56)
the different issues people would have with me my whole life, the things they would say to me or yell at me. You know, all of a sudden you think there's something wrong with you. And, you know, I wouldn't say it's something wrong with you, but it's something different. You know, it's just something different that people have now learned to accept under a wider umbrella. You know, I agree. think we should be cautious for labeling anything too much. know, everything gets pathologized. Like it's some kind of sickness now, you know,

Brad Banyas (12:58)
Thank you. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. Well, it's funny because my kids are older now. They're from 35, 32, 28 to 20. And, you know, they've never said anything in some like the other day. Like, I don't know, but one of my kids like, dad, you're definitely, you know, you're definitely 80 DADHD, whatever we've known it your whole life. just, you know, we love you. It you didn't do anything. But like we know, we know, like if you're if I'm talking to you and I'm like, not there, I'm off chasing a butterfly or whatever. They like

Steven Martini (13:52)
Thank

Brad Banyas (13:52)
They like,

just like, they're like, I, we just got used to it. And like before we thought like, well, is he just not, he's not listening to me. He doesn't care what I'm saying, but now it's a joke because I, if I get like, I've had enough of something, you know, the old Irish goodbye, I just leave. Like I just, I just get the hell out and everybody's okay with it now. Like, oh, he's why'd you down the bow? He's fine. He just had enough. He just left. Don't worry about it. It's not personal. Like everyone, it's not personal. So

Steven Martini (14:11)
Hahaha

I love it, man. I'm going to adopt the Irish goodbye from now on. I've I don't have enough Irish in me. got to say I'm probably a little bit too Italian. I stay too long, you know, and I start to get like, I don't even know which way is up and up. You know, at some point you just feel like what the hell is anybody saying anymore?

Brad Banyas (14:24)
⁓ You

Yeah.

Absolutely. I'm not Irish either, but I just, adopted the, I thanks a kudos to the Irish for the Irish. Goodbye. It's the greatest thing. It's saved me a shit ton of time, a lot of stress, a lot of having to deal with people. So kudos to the Irish out there. I'm not Irish either, but I adopted the Irish goodbye. So it's, it's the best, it's the best thing the Irish have ever done. No, no offense fellows, but, uh, but anyways, that's what it was. It like,

You know, know your wife's an actress and obviously a producer. You know, what, what, what was it like, like filming this, like with your wife and your fan, like.

Steven Martini (15:13)
man.

First of all, everybody said, you know, was making a movie is is is an adventure unto itself. It's like going to war. You know, it's it's it's it's a mission to another planet and everything that can go wrong will go wrong. And so everybody who was, you know, the professional sort of consensus was, dude, do not work with your wife. You're going to go nuts. You're going to kill each other like

Brad Banyas (15:27)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (15:43)
have to sit and get her notes about my script. But honestly, I just said, you know what, I don't think this movie is going to get made any other way. I think this is our story and we have to lean into it. And you know, when you lean into things in life that you know, that scare you, you you you surprise yourself by the results, because honestly, it really just made us stronger. And it was ⁓ honestly an incredible situation for us to work together. We got to

Brad Banyas (15:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

and

Yeah, that's

awesome.

Steven Martini (16:11)
know each

other, you know, a little bit more. And, and, ⁓ we really both enhanced the project, you know, as much as, as we could, we all, brought our souls to the piece, you know? Yeah. There were some things that I had to listen to some notes and some suggestions. I had a nod along to it go, okay, yeah, let me think about that. And I couldn't quite escape them in my usual way of I couldn't Irish goodbye the, ⁓ the suggestion and ignore them.

Brad Banyas (16:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (16:39)
Next thing you know,

a few months later, I'm being reminded of that one thing that I needed to change. And she got me to change.

Brad Banyas (16:44)
⁓ well, hey, man,

they, can't, you know, I always say, Hey, you know, quit bringing up old shit. Like that was like 30 years ago. Let it go. mean, you know, so you, they're going to hold onto it, brother. So the old shit is old shit is painful. have more old shit brought up than I do new stuff. So, ⁓ and I've been married 35 years. So, I mean, it's long time.

Steven Martini (16:53)
Yeah.

Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?

What was

It's an interesting thing because trauma or whatever, for lack of a better word is, you know, it lives inside the body, right? Like our, our so much stuff stored in our fat cells, right? And our muscles, so like, we're all swept away by these emotions, you know, of these narratives of our lives, basically, and the narratives store in our body somewhere. So like, it's definitely something to be reckoned with, and we should have a healthy way to like,

Brad Banyas (17:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (17:37)
to, you know, to live with it and heal it. But yeah, I don't think I don't think I think now we're in a place where like everything is traumatic and so much stuff is easily holding people back when we really just need to lean in.

Brad Banyas (17:41)
Yep.

Absolutely. Yeah. This quote we had, was like, ⁓ yesterday's dead. Tomorrow's a ghost, you know, live your life today. And I don't know why that saying like sat with me, but like, it's, it's so, you know, there's a lot of tragic, terrible things happen to people, but like, like it's almost cathartic, like helping even move on from stuff. You know, I mean, you, sit there and I see people just delve on stuff that like, you know, it's, you know, that sucked. It was terrible. was

you know, horrible, but like, you know, it's okay to let it go was doing was doing bittersweet cathartic for you in some ways.

Steven Martini (18:28)
Yeah,

100 million percent. Because like, yeah, oh my God. Yeah, because you know, you go through something like that. And it's like, even if it's a mistake, you know, even like in our situation, it's like, oh, this is clear, like even the lawyers and the cops and the judge, like it was it was taken care of very quickly. It was resolved, you know, like in a couple of months. But you still have to go through like the whole process of, of the, you know, the

Brad Banyas (18:41)
Thank

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Martini (18:54)
going to the groups of the therapy groups and the men and the women's groups and stuff and you're still showing up for other people. And that's when I was really seeing their stories, how much worse they were, you know, it's almost like, you know, and you're like, wow, I'm really lucky to be here and have my, you know, point of view on this. And, you know, but this was like something that I really said, I have to do this for other people, you know, and I've been contacted by other people who are like, thank you for making this movie. You know, they want to show it to their kids and their friends. And so

Brad Banyas (19:00)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (19:24)
You know, again, that's why we do this.

Brad Banyas (19:26)
That's awesome. It reminds me of that movie, anger management. You remember anything? They pull some guy that is really, just, it's kind of a joke at the end. They were teasing him, but I mean, the point of it is, like, I'm not, I'm not angry. But then get to the point of someone tells you you're angry enough. Well, guess what? You're going to get pissed off. I mean, you're going to be, you're going to become angry because you keep telling me I'm angry and I'm not angry, but, that maybe just cracked me up. No, I've had, I've had several things. So

Steven Martini (19:30)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Well, that's.

That's the but that's you know that's what they call I mean I would call it creative alchemy you know it's alchemy how do you turn that thing that horrible traumatic feeling that you have inside of you that's squeezing you how do you turn that into something that's you know that that's you know for lack of a better word beautiful you know how do you how do you turn that into something that's life-affirming as opposed to you know life just denying and wanting you to just you know run away and die how do you turn that and that's always been

Brad Banyas (19:58)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (20:22)
You know, that's what always pulled me into being an artistic creative person. And but but the thing is you really have to sit with that. Trump that depression that that horrible feeling and you have to know how to like kind of work with it and please it out without wallowing in it because I think what we're touching upon is a lot of people could wallow in this stuff forever and then it really holds you back.

Brad Banyas (20:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, and also, I mean, if you, you know, if you get caught in the court system, even like he said, like you get caught in the court system, you're in it, you know, I mean, it, you're in it. And I've seen it. I've personally had someone that got arrested for something that was ludicrous, like a dog at large, like a ticket and booked and whatever. And the, the, things that happened beyond that, like where you're like, what?

Steven Martini (20:55)
You're in it.

Brad Banyas (21:10)
What the hell is going on? What are you talking about? Well, yeah. What the hell are you in here for? Why the dog at large? Like, like your dog got out of the yard. Yeah. mean, shit like that, but I always tell me like, man, stay out. If you can stay out of it, stay out of it. Cause once you're in it, there's no, just there. It's very hard to just staying until you get that, that putting from the judge where someone maybe uses some logic, common sense.

Steven Martini (21:11)
⁓ my god.

Yeah.

Brad Banyas (21:35)
Cause you're treated just like whoever, whoever maybe should be there. You're going to be treated the same way as they are. And it's a, it's a brutal thing. I've seen it happen to friends. It's a brutal thing.

Steven Martini (21:44)
Yeah, and you better hope that judge is in a good mood today. You know, you hope they like the lunch in the cafeteria because you know what? You know how they're going to go.

Brad Banyas (21:48)
Yeah.

my God. So, I mean, I also like, but you guys also, like I saw that with your smart teeny, right? Your production and your business, you guys are doing some like other work. I don't know if that's, you had some pretty big customers that you guys do outside of what you're doing with your own filmmaking, but like, so you're, you're still from that side doing that work, right? To, to other.

to other commercial companies. Is that correct? Yeah.

Steven Martini (22:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, we're,

yeah, that's, you know, that, that right now we're, opening up like a, uh, an advertising arm kind of speak of the production company. Um, because that stuff, you know, ads are what makes so much more money nowadays. And I guess they always did, but you know, they're just so much shorter and they can, you know, they have a purpose to sell something, you know, the film business itself, as you probably know, it's, it's getting harder and harder to

Brad Banyas (22:35)
Yeah. Right.

Steven Martini (22:49)
to keep, you know, to keep spending a lot of money as it usually costs to make these things, you know. So there's got to be other ways to supplement.

Brad Banyas (22:53)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. And it's, I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's, kind of depressing something. So we're, we're in Atlanta, Georgia, you know, Trilla studios is not far from us, South of Atlanta. And, you know, a lot, a lot of that where they've got a huge campus, whatever, lot of, a lot of people kind of have moved to Europe, you know, so they, lost a lot of good people that were in the movie industry in all aspects of the movie industry, you know, that, that are now, you know, had to look for something else to do. So

Steven Martini (23:25)
It's a shame too, because Atlanta was like the East Coast LA for a long time. It's like, wow, they're really doing stuff over there.

Brad Banyas (23:31)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's still big, but I mean, it's impacted. You're talking about cost cutting and all that. But, you know, with streaming and, you know, all the different ways, I mean, now AI, I'm just curious. I hate everyone talks about AI. I absolutely hate it. you know, just like from someone like yourself, who's a director actor, you know, all these things that you do. ⁓ I'm just curious how you feel about that because you've been in the industry since the 90s. Like, what's your feel on the way they're doing AI and

doing productions with that and talking about ⁓ all AI movies, like no actors, anything. How do you feel about that? Not to draw you into that shit, but I'm just curious since I have you on the.

Steven Martini (24:13)
Well, I mean, I've you know, I've I was on strike a couple of years ago with the WGA and SAG. And so like I got a real kind of eye opening ⁓ view as to what's going on. ⁓ It's, you know, at first, you know, yeah, I was very the ick factor of the whole thing was almost too hard for me to even deal with, especially with the tech companies pumping out, you know, the social media stuff is like people are getting paid to just

Brad Banyas (24:36)
Right.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (24:43)
pump and dump this AI slop on people. know, while I'm sitting here trying to promote, promote my like handmade human independent film, I'm struggling to get any, you know, you know, any eyeballs or even the paid apps and pay meta and pay billionaires to promote my movie, you know, the painting on Musk and these apps. And it's like these AI things are coming out just like easy peasy. Just like, you know, they're

Brad Banyas (24:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (25:10)
they're urinating down into the stream. ⁓ You know, so it's tough, dude, it's tough. I, you know, like, I've looked more into it as an artist, like, I'm not gonna, I'm not the type of person who's gonna wants to like, tell other artists what kind of tools they can use, you know, and like, so like that I feel very like, yeah, I don't want to tell people what to do. I just know how it makes me.

Brad Banyas (25:13)
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (25:37)
how it makes me feel, know, you know that being said, like as a screenwriter, you know, I've written scripts that, and I pour my heart into that, like, you know, even if I got paid for them, let's say like at some point they're in a draw, nobody sees them as a movie. And it's like, you know, as a, as filmmaker, it's heartbreaking. Cause you're like, wow, that that's a baby that still hasn't been born. It's just like laying there in this weird limbo. So like,

Brad Banyas (25:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (26:04)
I could easily see how it's irresistible for people to say, okay, if I can just upload my PDF script and sit there and make an AI version of my movie, like, like, who am I to say that that's a wrong thing to do for somebody like that? I understand that's like, you know, you need to see your vision from here to get onto the screen. Like that's part of the parcel of what you need to do. Um, so like it's, it's hard for me to like, now, now that I see

Brad Banyas (26:12)
I'm going take a break.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (26:32)
How tedious the work is too, because I've talked to some people and I've I've dabbled with even just using some of the LLM and the image stuff like it's tedious work. You have to constantly keep it in check. It's like riding a rodeo, a Bronco. It's like it's not going to do shit for you. So it's like my initial assessment of saying, they're not artists. They're not doing work. It's not fully true. Like they have to sit in front of a computer and do tedious shit for hours and hours. So like

Brad Banyas (26:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (27:01)
That stuff I understand. like, you know, again, it's a, try to be the glass half full about this stuff. You know, it's kind of how you choose to be charitable or not. I'd like to believe that we are, you know, we grew up embedded in a technological world, you know, from cinema, which is my thing and movies is technology to tell stories. I'd like to believe that this is just another tool and a part of technology that's going to be able to enhance ⁓ the storytelling process, at least for my thing.

Brad Banyas (27:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Steven Martini (27:32)
But you know that being said it scares me to death about all the jobs it's going to ruin you know and outside of the film industry you know besides actors and writers like I'm worried about truck drivers you know like truck drivers are like I know what they're doing their skin their eyeballs with these AI machines and it's like. It's scary you know so like.

Brad Banyas (27:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

The cyborgs. ⁓ well, I think, see, I see a trend. I believe in it's, and I were talking about before, like, you know, what, what the hell are we doing here? What is all this stuff? What's the McMaster shooting while we're here? I think, you know, true storytelling and real people talking like we're talking and, know, getting the facial expressions, getting the reactions, getting the laughter, getting all that. I think.

I think people who can still harness that effective communication skills and being able to tell stories and be genuine about it. I think that's going to come back and be in real high demand. Like, so even, even some of the smaller movies that come out or some of these producers that are making kind of short films, I think you'll see a lot of success in like what you're doing with bittersweet. I think you're going to see a lot of success in that because I think people are going to get tired of bullshit. That's not real.

You know, that's, that's not real because you can tell certain things that aren't real. don't care how good AI gets you. You can tell, you can feel someone when they're real or feel the emotion or see the emotion. So I'm kind of optimistic, like from that perspective. So I don't know. I could be wrong.

Steven Martini (29:02)
I got you. Yeah,

you're right. that that you're optimistic from the human perspective. I agree with that. I guess the scariest part is like, you know, who's in control of the button? And like, you know, do we want these tech pro billionaires to really have all of this control over what we do? And like I said, I'm already paying these billionaires to promote my little movie that I made, like, imagine if I had to pay them to even just make the movie, you know, like it's, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy.

Brad Banyas (29:17)
No.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, the

good news is which that hasn't hit is ⁓ that you may be able to vibe code something, but on the back end, all the, all the tokenization and what they're trying to do kind of turn it into electricity, you know, access to all this stuff is going to be very expensive. So that's getting ready to come and hit the market. And the next year you'll, you'll see a lot of people backing off some of this.

AI this, AI that. So that's good news. And I don't know why I got off on that. I really don't care. I just wanted your perspective, like how you felt, you know, as someone who is a screenwriter, director, actor, just, just curious. Cause we're in the music space right now with some other stuff and, um, you know, everybody's

Steven Martini (30:09)
Well, mean,

I do. I can tell you this. I, you know, I can sit and record my little acoustic guitar on my voice memo and I can write a three minute song that sounds, you know, a little bit janky, janky. But like, if you fed that into Suno, you can make it, you know, a 1920s jazz swing standard with like, you know, a chorus of a falsetto barit. And like, all of a sudden the whole thing is like printed out for you.

Brad Banyas (30:30)
Thank

Yeah.

Steven Martini (30:38)
in like 30 seconds. I like as a musician, I don't even know like what like, you know, that's just you call that like a production is it just that's a producing machine. I don't know. Is that just? What is that?

Brad Banyas (30:41)
That's great.

⁓

That's magic, man. It's got that crazy magic. Well, I don't know, but like, would you give, you know, where you're at, you've had a great career, you're doing things and just still just killing it. And I love it. Like, what would you tell someone that was wanting to get in, starting as an actor today in 2026? Like, what would your advice be to them?

Steven Martini (31:19)
as an actor, you know, it's, you know, it's funny because my, I see my kids are getting into it and, ⁓ and I love, know, like once you get bit by the bug of acting, you know, and, and creativity, it's, you know, it's almost like it's a sickness and a curse, you know, it's like, it's, it's all you want to do. So if like you're an actor and you're not working, you're going to be miserable. You know, like that's, that's the first thing that I know firsthand. If you, if you're not working, it's,

Brad Banyas (31:21)
Yeah.

You

And.

Steven Martini (31:49)
It sucks so bad. So like whatever you gotta do, you gotta you gotta find ways to keep working. Honestly, my best times as an actor is when I you know, I got involved in a theater company in LA and I was surrounded by other actors and writers and performers and comedians and ⁓ and we all like just fed each other and supported each other and like if you could find that kind of group of people who are like minded and and.

Brad Banyas (32:06)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (32:16)
end with a work ethic who want to actually perform and do stuff like that's your best bet, you know, and then on top of that, if you can find some kind of a social media outlet where like you can build a fan base now, because that's clearly what everybody that's all they really want to support is people who show up with their own fans. So it's a little bit daunting. It's a little bit daunting, honestly, but if if you have that itch and you have that thing, you know, anything I say is not going to stop you, you know, so like,

Brad Banyas (32:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

⁓ absolutely.

Steven Martini (32:46)
So people who just want

Brad Banyas (32:47)
Absolutely.

Steven Martini (32:48)
to do it are just going to keep doing it. But definitely, definitely know that it's not what it was as far as like people. Most, a lot of people I know definitely worry about where the next paycheck is coming from. You got to have a side hustle and you got to be able to live like maybe with low overhead or a little bit frugally in order to be able to like, you know, stay afloat until you get like a a big, you know, goose egg of a roll on something that keeps paying you.

Brad Banyas (32:50)
Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's good advice. So now I'm looking back. I mean, you obviously have that passion for acting, but do you like the directing side too? mean, is that because you kind of get to see everything and kind of control what would you say is your most favorite thing right now that you're doing that you're just like, well, I love this right now. I mean, obviously you love the acting side, but

Steven Martini (33:41)
You know, it's it's all part of the same thing for me. It's like whatever gets the thing done. You know, like if I have to, you know, like I love playing music. I play music. I have a band and stuff like we couldn't afford to pay, you know, a composer a lot of money. So like I guess I'll do some of the music myself, you know, so it's like you kind of just kind of have to do things ⁓ just to do them. It's all part of the same thing and it feeds it. But I guess like, you know, I don't know directing directing is

Brad Banyas (33:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (34:09)
I direct to protect the script. Cause if I write the script, the minute in Hollywood, if you hand your script off to somebody, it's going to go through a million different iterations. And by the time they're shooting it on set, you know, you're lucky if it's even your, you know, your baby anymore. So like I'm the director, at least I have the control to say, okay, if anything, I'm just going to make sure that this script is at least, you know, given it's, it's due on the screen. I'm going to protect it. I'm not going to let.

Brad Banyas (34:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (34:39)
all the chaos of production destroy that, you know, that pure thing that I started with. like directing in that sense is almost a protective ⁓ role, you know, for the writer. And, again, writing, I love because you get to play every single role, you know, you get to all the characters I get to act as. ⁓ But at the end of the day, you know, like in bittersweet, when I got to get up and stand in front of the camera and do the scene,

Brad Banyas (34:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

All

Steven Martini (35:07)
That to me is my like, get to, now I get to live. know, everything else is kind of like waiting to be alive.

Brad Banyas (35:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited to see it. it's so now where can people go and watch? know it was on Tubi. What like where else can they go and see Bittersweet?

Steven Martini (35:26)
⁓ I

think it's not a bunch of different streamers, those are the ones if you look up, guess I can send the link from the distribution company. ⁓

Brad Banyas (35:32)
Yeah. We'll

put it in. We'll put all that in the notes so people can see it and get to it. ⁓

Steven Martini (35:42)
Yeah.

And so, but honestly doing that, like you said, doing all those roles really gave me the confidence that the next thing that I do, I can pull it off. And that's why I said, okay, I started looking around after bittersweet and I said, okay, what kind of a story do people want to see? And so, you know, I went to tick tock and I started talking to my fans on tick tock and they're big, obviously huge major pain fans. And so I decided that, you know what, after 30 years, I finally

Brad Banyas (36:08)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (36:12)
figured out a great story of how to bring Alex Stone back 30 years later for major. Open the major pain verse back the way that Cobra Kai brought the karate kid verse back in a way that's like the world needs these stories now because you know everything that's going on with the military and with soldiers, they constantly. Contact me and tell me they thank me how it's so great to be able to laugh.

Brad Banyas (36:18)
that'd be awesome.

Steven Martini (36:40)
You know when they're going through hell and they quote major pain all the time. So I got a great story about my character you know having to have retired from the military and returning back home and running into some old green boys again what could possibly go wrong.

Brad Banyas (36:41)
Yeah.

F

Yeah,

that's awesome. So like any timeline on that or just.

Steven Martini (37:00)
I wrote the script and so now I have to do all the due diligence that I'm doing to try and get everything together, which is, you know, it's a lot of moving parts. ⁓ Like I could just go out and make the movie, like I said, but but this particular film, since it's based on major pain, there's a copyright IP for it that, you know, in order to do it legally, you have to go through Universal Studios, basically. So Universal needs to understand that there's

Brad Banyas (37:21)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (37:29)
audience and a demand to bring this thing back because it's a great story. It is the only one of the only sequels from the 90s that legacy movies that has got nothing in the eight all the other ones to remake in them. They're rebooting them. You know, they're bringing up the sequels. think the Adam Sandler movies that house party movies, you know, like this. Why not major pain?

Brad Banyas (37:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓ the

⁓

Steven Martini (38:00)
It is, but

honestly, if I didn't have a great story that I was like, dude, there's a great story about a soldier returning home and, you know, and running into his old buddies and everything could possibly go wrong does. And I was like, that's a great story. So like I wrote the script and honestly, if if universal, you know, doesn't kind of see the light, like the potential of what bringing back the entire pain verse like Cobra Kai, I'm going to find a way to just make that movie. And I have to change the names, you know.

Brad Banyas (38:30)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (38:31)
I don't think I could use the same Alex Stone. I'm trying to figure out the legal details of that. you know, again, it's just, it's all kind of like, well, I say I'm going to do something and then everything's going to come in my way and try and stop me.

Brad Banyas (38:40)
All right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think that's great. I mean, that's that's life there, right? You know, I you if you want something like I know it's cliche and everybody says that, but like you really do have to like push it, pull it up to it, whatever to make it happen. It's like pulling tea sometimes to make your dreams come true or, you know, your ideas come true. I mean, it's it's it's not easy. So you got to be in it.

Steven Martini (39:00)
Yep.

You

Brad Banyas (39:12)
All you kids out there, if you want

Steven Martini (39:13)
got it?

Brad Banyas (39:14)
to do something, you got to be in it. ⁓

Steven Martini (39:17)
Right, and I can

say this, know, it's an old Buddhist piece of wisdom. know, they say the Buddhism, one of the first tenets of Buddhism is that everything is impermanent, right? Nothing stays forever, you know? And we suffer because we want to hold on to things that are no longer there. And what I'll say to that is the only real antidote to that is consistency.

Brad Banyas (39:30)
Yeah.

That's true.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (39:46)
You know things aren't permanent, but you can be consistent and you can keep banging your head against the wall and you know and eventually the wall breaks and you know you see the light. You just have to know that that the old the other saying is, know how many times can you do something over and over again and expect different results. So.

Brad Banyas (39:51)
Thank

Yeah.

Yeah. Definition of insanity, you know, doing the same thing

over and over again and expecting different results. Well, it's not.

Steven Martini (40:10)
Right. you just got to

know that if you consistency kind of, you know, that's the only drawback of consistency is the, the slight risk of insanity, but you know, it's worth it in the end because we're all fricking insane anyway.

Brad Banyas (40:22)
I

was just going to tell you. when people say, you know, someone said, well, they're crazy. I said, look, we're all crazy. It's just a scale. Are you, are you a two crazy or are you an eight crazy, but everybody's crazy. So, ⁓ it's okay. It's some of them up top the 10 point and moving over to 20, but, ⁓ it just is what it is. You know,

Steven Martini (40:36)
Yep. Yep.

I mean, it's yeah, I don't know, you know, it's wild now what's going on out there, you know, but I think, you know, the best we can do is just, know, again, you get your core group of people who are around you that you know, love and trust, you know, and, and keep on going.

Brad Banyas (40:58)
Yeah, well, those are those are good words. Well, I mean, I'm excited ⁓ to watch it. I need to watch it. And we are grateful to have you on. And, you know, obviously, ⁓ I love what you're doing. I love I love the honesty and what you're doing. I love the the realness of it, you know, I mean, and that's kind of what.

Steven Martini (41:17)
That's all you have these days. Everything

else seems so fake and full of shit. It's like, what the fuck else are we going to do?

Brad Banyas (41:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, more people need to call bullshit on it. They don't need to just walk along. I I think the group or the mass, everybody wants to think that they're doing the right thing because everyone else is doing it. You know, don't, don't, don't follow. Don't follow everybody off the cliff. Right? I mean, you know, think for yourself. So, ⁓ no cotton mouth Kings out there from LA, you know, the cotton mouth Kings, don't you ever heard of those guys? Yeah. Think for yourself. I love that song. So

Steven Martini (41:41)
Jesus, please. ⁓

Hell yeah. Yep.

Great, great.

Brad Banyas (41:50)
I always wonder why

did these guys not make it big, but I think every other song there's about marijuana and smoking pot. So I was like, that's probably why they, why they never really went mainstream, but call out to the cotton mouth Kings out there, man. Good job. So.

Steven Martini (42:02)
Yeah, you know,

it's interesting because you say that because it's like there's so so much division out there now and it's like, you know, when I made bittersweet and when you watch the movie, you could see how, this could easily be man versus woman, left versus right. This is going to become a political issue now. And like I think in everybody else's hands, it would have been that. But the whole time I'm like, no, I don't want to do he said she said, I don't want to do this red, blue bullshit. That's not my thing. You know, like I'm going to

Brad Banyas (42:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

in.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Martini (42:32)
I'm going to thread a needle and a thread a needle and weave a tapestry that's going to tell a story and bittersweet when you see bittersweet, you're to go, this is is funny and yet sad and tragic, but yet full of heart. And like you can tell great stories without getting into some political diatribe or hitting people over the head with things. Even the autism aspect of it, of the film.

Brad Banyas (42:36)
Yeah.

Thank you. ⁓

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Steven Martini (43:02)
You know, like, like with me, I'm not somebody who wants to be put in a box. It's not a movie about a guy discovering his autistic superpowers. You know, it's just part of the tapestry and part of the storytelling of how he's reacting to things. So for me, as an artist, it's way more important to just be more honest and true to that, to the story and the characters you're telling than it is to some like ideology that you have, the way you think the world should be or something, you know.

Brad Banyas (43:06)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven Martini (43:29)
Maybe other people get off on that, for me personally, I only care about the character and what they have to go through to get what they want. like I said, what?

Brad Banyas (43:35)
Yeah.

And it's first.

I was just saying, I didn't mean to interrupt you. was like, yes, perspective, right? I mean, just look at something for perspective. Like just don't don't don't think too much about it. Just look at something for perspective. I agree 100%. I I think I think sometimes the divisiveness is actually structured. It's intentionally a system is doing that on purpose and people just need to wake up.

Steven Martini (43:46)
effective.

Brad Banyas (44:06)
and just say, Hey, man, we're all pretty much the same. Pretty, pretty much you may have a couple different beliefs or whatever, we're all pretty much the same. And everybody has, you know, something going on. And if you can learn the perspective and understand the perspective and just look at it, you know, as not no filter on it just for what it is. I don't know.

Steven Martini (44:07)
It is.

right

and just and just deal with it and do it you know it's like yes, I know a big thing I get nowadays that people fans always contact me about major pain is everybody says do they can never make major pain today, I got everybody flip out and like she know that they're not wrong like this like I totally agree with that point of view but again as an artist I'm like that only makes me want to do it more it's like such a more of a challenge.

Brad Banyas (44:45)
Yeah.

More.

Steven Martini (44:53)
you're challenged

Brad Banyas (44:53)
Yeah.

Steven Martini (44:54)
to push the envelope and be like, no, you know what, we can do this. We can do this in a way that people will get what the hell we're doing, you know?

Brad Banyas (45:02)
Yeah.

It's more like, it's more like, you know, the rebel mentality. I mean, not just, you're not just doing, doing it to be different. It's doing it because it's real. Right. Most people I know that were like label. All these guys are rebels or these guys, they really weren't, they were just, they were just being themselves. They weren't, they really didn't care. They were just doing what they thought of what they were driven to do. And like, I don't know. I, need the rebel kind of fuck it mentality more.

Steven Martini (45:11)
Yeah, exactly.

Right.

Brad Banyas (45:28)
I mean, it's been, it's been watered down. It's been pushed down. It's time for people to step up and just, Hey, if you want to say that, just say it. It's okay. Just get over it. It'll be all right. So.

Steven Martini (45:29)
What the?

That's what I get into in major stone because Alex Stone is now back coming back. You he finds the old leather jacket in his garage and realizes I was the rebel. I'm a fucking rebel bro. Like like what is I'm not like midlife crisis retiring from the military. So it's it's a great opener. It's a great way in. I'm really excited.

Brad Banyas (45:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

I'm excited. Well, whatever we can do to help and promote that we love you're part of the you're part of the salty MF family now. So McBastard's clan. Welcome to the McBastards. But I love it. I love it. I love the genuineness and I just wish people would be more genuine and just, know, don't be so sensitive about shit. It's going to be okay. We all have shit happen to us. It's not fun to reminisce on or, you know, relive but it's it is who we are. It's our fabric. It's what we're, you know,

Steven Martini (46:07)
Hell yeah, dude.

Brad Banyas (46:27)
what makes you who you are today, you know, be grateful for those things because that's what makes you be the person you become.

Steven Martini (46:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting when you say be grateful. It's like it's such an interesting. You have to really find that there's almost a trick like you have to allow yourself to find gratitude in your body to like, you know, relax and feel like forgiveness and peace and stuff. So it's like. People don't necessarily know how to even find the gratitude inside themselves, so like that's I think we have to kind of start doing that, you know.

Brad Banyas (46:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I had an old friend of mine. said, uh, you woke up today and I was like, yes, sir. And he goes, we'll be grateful. Like, you know, he's like, you know, it's, it's, we're all going and one of my buddies, like, Hey, we, may not, we may not all been born equal, but we sure as hell die equal. So, uh, that was an interesting comment.

Steven Martini (47:19)
Right. And it's, it's

so interesting because it's like, that's, you know, now that we're older, right? It's like that stuff just hits you and you just wake like the real shit. Just, it just naturally gets like, go, Oh, you wake up one day and it's like, everybody was trying to force it down your throat for most of your life. And that doesn't really work. You know, like, and as, as a dad now, I'm constantly dealing with that. I'm like, Whoa, I realized that you can't just

Brad Banyas (47:27)
Yeah.

Heh.

Steven Martini (47:45)
shove things down people's throats and tell them to do stuff and command them. It's like it's really you know they have to come to it on their own.

Brad Banyas (47:47)
Yeah.

And that's painful as a parent, you know, your parent, I'm a parent. It's painful as a parent because you, you do most of the time they might be where the parent might be. Right. I'm not saying they're right all the time, but it's because I tell people, I lived that. That's why I'm telling you this, not because I'm telling you it's right or wrong or whatever. I'm just telling you, I did a lot of dumb shit and it's, it's, it's not going to be good if you do the same dumb shit. So you try to, you try to control it and you can't, you're right. You just gotta come to the, come to the terms. That's why I think your kids get to be out 20.

26, 27, they start coming back and like, shit, like you were like you were right. You're like, well, you just had to you had to find out on your own. And it's just what it is. Thirty five, thirty two, twenty eight and twenty.

Steven Martini (48:31)
How old are your kids now?

Wow, dude. All right, man. My kids are only 10 and 11. So I'm just like, I don't even know. I don't even know what's going on.

Brad Banyas (48:39)
Yeah.

Oh, you're, you're, well,

they still, they're still listening to you right now. You're going to get into like 14, 15, 16. They come back around. I think 23 is when they came back around, uh, to, know, where they could stand you or you could stand them, but it's all good times. I, uh, I'd do it a thousand times again. I, I think the greatest gift to man is, that a guy can give man is, uh, as a kid, as a son or daughter. So,

It makes you really understand what real love is. I mean, you can love your wife or your girlfriend or whatever, boyfriend, whatever it is. But you you have that kid, you get that genetics in there. It's a true thing. So I think that's why it's so painful. It's so painful to watch them, you know, go through hard times.

Steven Martini (49:28)
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. ⁓ I, yeah, before I had kids, I had no idea. And now that I have kids, you know, it's like, you know, I don't think you really know anything until you have kids. Like, you don't even the deeply spiritual people, like if you're like a high holy person and you don't have, you can talk about consciousness and spirit and all this stuff. But if you don't have a, this perfect growing conscious being in front of you every day, like you don't know what the fuck you're talking.

Brad Banyas (49:40)
Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I told my son, said, and you know, people get mad about it, but I said, you're not a man until you have a child and you have to take care of that child. And I don't mean that like, you know, you're not a man, not physically strong, or I don't mean that, but you're not really true. Your manhood happens when you have to be responsible for another human being.

Steven Martini (49:58)
They will teach you, right?

It's true.

Brad Banyas (50:25)
Besides yourself, it's a whole, whole different level. Like it, you, it's hard to explain and people get mad and piss off. Well, how could you say that? Well, I don't want to have kids. I'm not saying that you want to have kids or don't want to have kids. I don't care. I'm not judging you. I'm just telling you, you're not a true man until that kid comes and you have to be responsible for that human being. And even my older, one of my older sons has two, two daughters. And he was like, you know what? You used to say that to me and I never, never, like, I didn't understand what you were saying. He said, but you know what?

That is so true. Like, I'm a different person now. I'm ⁓ totally different. I'm like, yeah, it's life changing, man.

Steven Martini (51:04)
Yeah, you know, I guess you can see people who are still unable to let go of what they were before, you know, and it kind of, it definitely, there's a lot of, ⁓ Friction that that causes in people's lives. If you can't let that go, you know, and that's what we're talking about holding onto that past or that image or ideas that you have. But when that kid is, that kid does not care about, you know, your sob stories about where you came from, he just wants to eat.

Brad Banyas (51:11)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

They often don't like to hear your old stories and because they don't really it's not the person they know you know you frame your wife your husband or your kids they frame who you are to them but it's interesting when you get you and I are in all kinds of topics you like these guys really went all over the place but ⁓ like they don't realize until you get older they're like ⁓ shit dad's like a real person

Like he, he's a person. He's not just my dad. Like he, he has a life. He did stuff. He likes up. And so you kind of get framed into this, you know, bottle of what you are, your dad, you do this, you do these things. But when they get of an age, they start to say, shit, like you're just, you're just a regular dude. Like everyone else, like absolutely. You you figure that out.

Steven Martini (52:17)
I think that's like one of the, you know, again, to be blessed, grateful and things that you have in life. Like I'm, I think I'm really happy to, you know, be able to say that, like, I, I love my parents. Like I would be friends with my parents, you know, like I'd be friends with my dad and my mom. Like I think they're cool people. They're smart. They're nice. They're, you know, it's like, I respect them, you know,

Brad Banyas (52:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well that, yeah, that's a sponsored by mother's day. ⁓ was, that was our ad mom. Love you. ⁓ but yeah, that, no, I agree, man. It's, I'm very, I was blessed. I think it's another divisive statement. I'm not going to go on to this cause you and I'll go on two hours on that stuff, but you know, just like, you know, telling your kids to move away, you got to be independent. You're like, it kind of

Steven Martini (52:42)
And Mother's Day is coming up, so make sure everybody's reminded to call their mother on Mother's Day.

You

Brad Banyas (53:08)
I'm not a big believer in breaking a family unit. Like families should be close.

Steven Martini (53:11)
I agree man, I'm fucking, I

agree. I don't know how I live so far from my family right now. They're all on the East coast. I'm like, why did you let me come to California? You know, like, why did you say, yeah, go child? I was like, too far.

Brad Banyas (53:19)
⁓ I'll tell you funny.

So my daughter, she moved to San Francisco. This has probably been four or five years ago, but she's back now. But, at, at her wedding, when I was kind of given the thing and her, her, her husband now, granny's great guy, but he got a job in San Francisco. He was from Atlanta. So he took my daughter to Georgia and I said, you know, the worst thing that a father from Georgia wants to hear.

His daughter's moving to California. so it was a, it was a big joke, but she, she did good. It was good to them. So, but it's all good. Yeah, she did. She came back. So they had an unfortunate. Yeah. Well, an unfortunate and that was dead COVID man. And they were down, you know, kind of in that financial district. Everyone got locked down. It's no fun living in a 600 square foot.

Steven Martini (53:59)
Did she move back yet? ⁓ Like everybody else.

Brad Banyas (54:14)
You know, loft and you can't go outside or do anything. So I'm sad for him because San Francisco is, you know, it's pretty place. but anyways.

Steven Martini (54:23)
Dude, were

shooting, we had to stop shooting our movie because of COVID bittersweet. was in middle of a, you know, production shooting that thing. And it was crazy, dude. It's wild how we all had to just buck up and, you know, pull everything together.

Brad Banyas (54:26)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, good news is you made it. We made it. So it wasn't, it wasn't like a, world didn't end, but they, they definitely tried to put it to a stop. But, well I anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. We are brands called salty. I'm sitting in something called McBastard studio. I don't give a shit, but thanks for the war. Thanks for the warning, you know, have a nice day, sir. But, ⁓ anyways, yeah. One of the, one of those deals. Well,

Steven Martini (54:40)
Yep.

or they tried to convince us, they tried to convince us it was Mugabea.

Brad Banyas (55:05)
If you were gonna, if you were gonna, you're gonna close, I'm gonna give you this opportunity, like, you know, just anything you want to say to our audience, you know, we're a mix of all kinds of musicians, artists, fighters, athletes. We got a, we got a, we got a good group of what I think is the melting pot, right? The melting pot of the U.S., so.

Steven Martini (55:25)
All I gotta say is stay salty.

Brad Banyas (55:30)
That's trademarked by another company. hey, he said it. We didn't. He said it. We're going to have Warner Brothers and everyone else. Yeah, think it's salt life. Ours is the attitude wears well. The attitude. Yeah. Where people ask, I'm like,

Steven Martini (55:32)
Okay. Is that really? See copyright, man. Copyright. ⁓

Alright, the attitude wears well. I like that.

Brad Banyas (55:52)
You know, they say, well, how, cause we have apparel and stuff like that. Like, how's the, how's the apparel business? I'm like, we're not in the apparel business. Well, how's the music? I'm like, we're not really in the music business. Like, what are you in? I'm like, we're in the attitude business. We're trying to get people to be them damn selves and just be whatever you be, whatever you are. If you're greedy, independent, just, just consume it, accept it and be it. You know, that's what we're trying to do. So I wanted fuck. Yeah. But that was taken too.

Steven Martini (56:14)
Fuck yeah, man. I love it. I am all about that. I am on board with this man. That is

Brad Banyas (56:21)
That would have been my first choice.

Steven Martini (56:27)
I love it dude

attitude you're right man attitude is is is the that's great because the attitude is is that's how you get your angle of approach without any time you walk into a room your attitude is the first thing that kind of shows up that's great man I love it.

Brad Banyas (56:41)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

As my dad said, you can be anything you want son, just don't be an asshole. So I I thought that was pretty good advice from the old man. So

Steven Martini (56:54)
And is he still around?

Brad Banyas (56:56)
Nah, he passed a while back. All my parents are gone now, but they were awesome. They were good people, man.

Steven Martini (57:03)
And how often, I

I find myself thinking about my grandparents a lot. Like how often are you like, fuck, wish they were here every day.

Brad Banyas (57:08)
Yeah.

Every day, Every

day. Every day, man. My dad was my best friend, my mentor. We started our business, I told you before, though, my business together. was the greatest gift. My mom was just ⁓ the sweetest. My mom was like an earthly angel. mean, I don't think I ever heard her say a cuss word, never. Well, she did. Where is her voice? Maybe once or twice, but. ⁓

They were just like good human beings, man. Just really, and I think of that and I'm very, like I'm grateful and lucky for that, because I know some parents aren't good parents. I mean, it's way it is. But ⁓ yeah, they shaped my life 100%, 100%.

Steven Martini (57:52)
and they were

able to be grandparents for your kids.

Brad Banyas (57:56)
I, ⁓ yeah, absolutely. So that, you know, they, ⁓ they'd been around and they were, they were awesome gramps. So they got to have four grandchildren and, my grandchildren loved them. I my kids loved them and, still talk about them and, ⁓ they were, they were very close. They, they valued time with you, like always as kids with us and with my, my kids. I mean, they valued the time and I would, you know, I'm not giving parenting advice to people, but you know, kids don't, kids don't necessarily care what the hell you do for work.

Steven Martini (58:04)
Thanks.

Brad Banyas (58:26)
They don't really typically care whether they got the best bicycle on the block or whatever. If you just love them and spend time with them. I mean, that's what my kids have said. Hey, they genuinely spend time with us. you young parents coming up, it's important.

Steven Martini (58:38)
That's kind of the big.

Yeah, and that's kind of the big the big wake up call that you don't understand until you have kids is like all the things you think you are like you thought you were cool, he thought you were like successful you thought you were smart like they look like not they just want you to love him and you know like that's it. It's so much simpler than anybody thinks.

Brad Banyas (58:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. My, my, no. So, you know, being in the technology space coming up forever, it's no one likes technology, by the way, only people like that knowledge or people in technology. But my youngest kid, like they have no idea what the hell I did. So my youngest kid, the first, ⁓ his kindergarten, his teacher called me to say, dad, you know, come it's dad day. Will you come say what you're going to do? Right. Whatever. And so the teacher calls me and she says, Hey, I know this is kind of a touchy subject for you, but, ⁓ you know,

Steven Martini (59:12)
What?

Brad Banyas (59:30)
we'd like you to come in for, you know, dad day and tell what you do, but I know you can't tell what you do. And I said, what are you talking about? And she goes, I go, I'm in this software business, have a software business. She goes, oh yeah, right, right, whatever. And I'm like, she goes, it's okay. And so I still was trying to figure out like what, what the hell's going on? Like, well, my kid had told her that I was a spy. Cause he had no idea what the hell, he didn't know what the hell the idea of technology is. So this.

Steven Martini (59:59)
Software.

Brad Banyas (1:00:00)
That

lady, never, Steven, I never convinced her. Like I said, I'm going to tell you. And so, yeah, so I'm in there after my speech. we do this for, you know, we do software or whatever. And after I'm leaving and she just winked at me and I was like, lady, I'm not a spy. Yeah, absolutely.

Steven Martini (1:00:04)
⁓ You gotta run with that!

⁓ dude, that would be a funny short film, by the way. That's hilarious.

Brad Banyas (1:00:24)
I got

plenty of stories that'd be, I don't know, short films. don't know, lot of people probably couldn't see it, but I got some ideas for you if you want to pass them on after. Well, brother, you've been amazing and you're family to us now. So bittersweet, we're gonna put all that in the notes on where to go, but definitely check out what Steven's doing. He's got a good history back, very talented guy, but he's also gonna come out with that.

Steven Martini (1:00:34)
yeah, yeah, for sure. Definitely.

Brad Banyas (1:00:53)
that new film, is we're getting that thing. We're getting that thing launched. If we, if we gotta, if we gotta pay the social media gods, we're getting that thing launched. So.

Steven Martini (1:01:00)
Yep,

let's do it.

Brad Banyas (1:01:05)
Let's do it, my man. Well, hey, Steven Martini, you're awesome. And just stay on here and I appreciate you coming on the show.

Steven Martini (1:01:12)
Thanks, buddy. Great talking to you.