Mike & Kristen Share Truth Behind Creative Survival in Art & Music

Mike Ryan (Singer Songwriter for the Town Heroes) and Kristen Herrington, (owner of Togetherland Art Gallery) are an inspiring artistic couple who share insights on navigating the evolving media landscape while staying true to their artistic vision.

Their recently rebranded podcast called MAKE IT is out now, and already is features prominent artists in Atlantic Canada such as Jimmy Rankin and Classified. Not to mention their back catalog of 159 episodes with countless interesting Atlantic Canadians. 

We loved our chat with Mike and Kristen and we hope you do also. In Nova Scotia this summer?  Visit Togetherland Art Gallery in Ingramport on your way to Hubbards on the St. Margaret's Bay Road for exhibitions, workshops and even open mic Nights. Also, don't sleep on one of the greatest bands in Halifax right now, The Town Heroes, with their latest 2024 album Singin,' well worth some attention. 

Don't miss our always fun 10 Questions round where we talk about one of Mikes most meaningful songs called Hercules, which is also shared for your listening pleasure at the end of this episode. 

Huge thanks to North Brewing who let us pop by to record this episode! Cheers!

#afternoonpint #arts #entrepreneurship 

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

Meeting Mike and Kristen

Speaker 1 0:14

Cheers, cheers, cheers. Everybody, gotta get you. I missed you. Perfect, there you go.

Speaker 3 0:20

Welcome to the Afternoon Fight. I'm Mike Dobin, I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have with us today?

Speaker 1 0:25

I am Mike Ryan, member of the musical group the Town Heroes, co-host of the podcast Make it with Mike and Kristen yeah, lifelong creative person.

Speaker 4 0:37

And I am Kristen Harrington, outnumbered by the M names, but happy to be here the other half of Mike and Kristen and owner of Togetherland Art Gallery and lots of past lives behind me.

Speaker 3 0:50

Well, guys, it's a pleasure to meet you both, yeah.

Speaker 5 0:52

Yeah, so I mean.

Speaker 3 0:53

I've been a fan of your podcast, and I mean of the Town Heroes, obviously, thank you. And when I knew you were coming on, I got to do a little bit of research right. So I learned about Togetherland, which was you know. Really I love the name and I love the idea about that and we'll get into that in a little bit, but I guess the first, the big news that you guys got going on right now is this podcast. So you did 159 episodes. Then all of a sudden you said, hey, I'm going to stop for a minute. We're going to kind of recalibrate, change the name, change the direction a little bit. So maybe the people that might not have heard of the Mike and Kristen show that ran for 159 episodes tell us a little bit about that show, guys, and about this new venture that you're on.

Speaker 1 1:34

Yeah, it's funny. When we decided to take the I'm doing quotes break, everyone just assumes like we're stepping away from it. But we actually had to work like twice as hard, put in twice the time behind the scenes to actually bring this rebrand to life. And mike and kristin was just both of us I'm mike, that's kristin and we interviewed creative people, interesting people, just kind of people from Nova Scotia. All our interviews were done in person and one thing we learned from doing all those episodes and chatting with other people on podcasts, going to conferences, is that it's good to have a really specific niche, like everyone just says niche down, niche down.

Speaker 1 2:22

And we were covering a pretty wide area of topics Like creativity was always a big one, but it's kind of like that was your home right With Mike and Kristen.

Speaker 3 2:32

It always did kind of seem to go inward into arts and stuff. I mean our creative people and spirits.

Speaker 1 2:41

Yeah, it definitely did. But there was also we'd have I don't know just people who we thought were interesting. Yeah, and that's we love that. But just from all this stuff we're learning, we realize we have to just be more specific in what we're trying to put out there, what even just our elevator pitch like when we would run into people at conferences they're like what's your podcast?

Speaker 1 3:03

like mike and chris. Well, we interview people from nova scotia and we just like it was never streamlined. So the whole, I guess, point of the rebrand was to streamline that and have it more narrowed down. Really focus on creativity, the artistic side of things and the name Make it. It's about actually creating things, making things.

Speaker 3 3:27

Like making it yourself.

Speaker 1 3:28

And, yeah, what is making it? What is success to someone? Because that comes up with every person. We could ask you guys what's success with your podcast? What would it mean to make it for you? So for us, we, we, we thought we, we almost went in about eight different directions, like yeah we had a different name, a different idea.

Speaker 3 3:49

We just will pull the trigger multiple times cool, cool like kristin, so like you guys went, and then you guys went down to SXS South by Southwest SXXW right.

Speaker 4 3:58

Yes, yeah, you got it.

Speaker 3 4:00

And like so how did your podcast get down in there, like what's the story behind that? Because I thought it was super interesting. I always thought of that as like where all the best rock bands go and stuff like that. So a podcast down there is pretty cool.

Speaker 4 4:12

It is that as well.

Speaker 3 4:13

Yeah.

Speaker 4 4:13

And South by Southwest was founded on the music industry essentially, and has since expanded into all kinds of creative industries, podcasts being one of them, because, as you know, it's one of the top media platforms and, like listenership throughout North America in particular, has skyrocketed over the last few years. So South by South West actually introduced what they call a podcast stream, which meant they brought in a number of speakers that specialized in that area, which meant they brought in a number of speakers that specialized in that area. So we applied for funding and were successful to help support the show go down to Austin in 2024 and 2025. And we took in information from all of the experts so they would cover things like data and statistics that we could then come back and use to our advantage.

Speaker 3 4:56

Were you guys doing that already like data, statistics stuff?

Speaker 4 5:00

Yeah, I mean you monitor how the show is going, but I also try not to get too caught up in that.

Speaker 1 5:05

We're not really big numbers people.

Speaker 4 5:07

Yeah. You just make it quote unquote and just kind of put it out there and see, we make it what we want to do really, but to like Mike was describing, we consistently heard two things One was niching down and the other was the importance of the video component Right, which we weren't doing with the Mike and Kristen show.

Speaker 5 5:26

Are you doing video now?

Speaker 4 5:27

So we have since adopted the video component. We're on YouTube now and people love that, For whatever reason. They like to see our faces.

Speaker 3 5:36

It's the same thing. It's like my bane.

Speaker 2 5:37

I really don't want to do it, and I feel like we're going to get forced into doing that at some point yeah, I, I, I want to like stay away from video, just because I for me, just how I kind of envision this is like, well, first of all, I listen to podcasts when I'm driving yeah, I'll never watch your podcast, but I will listen.

Speaker 3 5:54

Right, and we were that way too, which is part of of the resistance.

Speaker 4 5:58

This isn't how we consume podcasts, but apparently YouTube is king now more so than any other listening stream.

Speaker 2 6:06

No, you're right. And my other thing is how I envision us. You're listening to us. You don't necessarily need to see us. You sit down, maybe pour yourself a drink or a tea and just listen. It's almost like you're listening to the conversation at the table next to you, and that's how I really wanted this to be consumed. Fly in the wall, yeah, yeah. So it's like going in there as soon as that camera's going to be on me. I'm going to be like, oh man, I'm twitching weird or something along those lines. Right?

Speaker 4 6:33

I don't know.

Speaker 3 6:43

No, now I get that. We extensively had that discussion because I think everyone, even if they're getting their photograph taken, kind of turns into this statue version of themselves. You posture a little different Right now. I'm relaxed and I'm slouching and I just you know it's not such a more relaxed vibe on audio for me, I know.

Speaker 1 6:53

We'll see how it goes. It's like we're learning as we're going. Neither of us are big video people, but you figure it out as you're going. But an episode I was editing today. I'm looking back and I'm like I'm pouring sweats in it tonight. I'm releasing this to the world tomorrow.

Speaker 4 7:11

Exactly.

Speaker 1 7:12

There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 4 7:13

There's one with a mic stand basically through the guest's face for the entire episode.

Speaker 1 7:18

But you get used to we decide our first. We had our first interview back yeah and we decided we weren't doing video. Actually because we were in a very small space there's hardly any room and, like right before they came, like do you want to just try it? Like I almost are you allowed to curse on?

Speaker 3 7:37

it. Yeah, yes, yeah so do. We said fuck it, let's go for it.

Speaker 1 7:40

And so we just used our phones. We set up our current phones and an old phone. We kept it around at different angles trying to figure out what looked good. Threw on some retro 60s filters after the fact what software. Did you use Final Cut Pro? Okay, cool, I do editing for social media stuff.

Speaker 3 8:04

I wanted to explore Riverside because I heard that was really good for podcasting, but I haven't yet I just downloaded it and I'm afraid to start using it.

Speaker 1 8:13

I think it's supposed to be awesome. Yeah, if you don't have the other programs yourself.

Speaker 3 8:20

I tried it and I took one of our podcasts and I plugged it in and this is one we did on video because it was on zoom. Yeah, and I said, you know, whenever you hear like an um or an r, a blip or whatever you know, just edit that out and use their ai christ, I mean because we're maritimers.

Speaker 2 8:34

It took about you know almost the entire conversation episode 40 minutes. Wow, how an hour. Episode 40 minutes. I was like, wow, how did that, get 15 minutes long I thought we talked about a lot more stuff.

Speaker 3 8:44

But, no, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 8:46

You were talking about. So this is the funny thing is, you guys are talking about the two things that you learned from taking away from going to these trips, which we'll talk more about as well, but just for anyone listening, because you're talking about video and then you're talking about niching down. Yeah, also another thing we don't do- yeah, we're doing everything. We're like behind you guys, doing all the things that you know.

Speaker 3 9:03

You just corrected you've got your niche, already our niche is the pub being in the pub and we got to plug where we're at, because we always forget to do that. Yes we're at one of my favorite breweries, like generally favorite breweries. So so north um matt, I wanted to do a rant because I thought malternate reality was gone. It's the number six beer on the board.

Speaker 2 9:22

Matt's drinking it now I'm drinking it because it's one of my favorite beers.

Speaker 3 9:25

It's our favorite beers and like I mean, what's weird about it is matt's like a really I would say you know, upper scale beer enthusiast and I'm just like it tastes good, like, I'm just kind of like, but this is the beer that we agree on, is the best beer. Right, the multi-tribe, that's an excellent plug.

Speaker 4 9:42

Yeah this place actually, so every year we do a podcast party and all the guests. From that I'll say season. But like that year of interviews, we invite to a party and our first year we had it catered and and North was our, I guess, like sponsor of sorts.

Speaker 1 9:58

Well, we had a buddy, Chris, who worked at the Dartmouth one.

Speaker 5 10:01

Hey, we can give you a deal. Yeah, hook this up.

Speaker 1 10:03

So we just bought, like I don't know, $500 worth of booze from here.

Speaker 4 10:07

That was nice. Everyone got very drunk at the party and the Dartmouth.

Speaker 3 10:10

One got the yeah, yeah speech on it now too.

Speaker 4 10:12

Yes, which is dope.

Speaker 2 10:25

They yeah, that's true too. Yeah, you can just live there. Oh yeah, mattress on the floor, what else do I need? Pizza, pizza and a microphone. Life is good, that's it. So yeah, so I guess kind of rolling along to the um, the niche down. So yeah, yeah, the. If anyone doesn't know that I mean talk a little about what you learned about niching down.

Speaker 1 10:37

Yeah well, we're two very creative people. I've been a musician for 20-ish years. By this point, we wrote a book together, having the podcast Kristen with her gallery, all the different types of art she does paintings, sculptures, furniture All we talk about is just creative stuff. And furniture, all we talk about is just creative stuff. So when we were at this point where we had to figure out what our podcast was going to be and niching down is essentially just finding a very specific topic- you guys are close, though, I think, to that arts world.

Speaker 3 11:14

We're shining a mirror.

Speaker 1 11:16

Even just our name, though your name, the Afternoon Pint like you get a general idea. Are they having a drink in the afternoon? Like it seems like it's fairly clear.

Speaker 2 11:27

Like you know what the hell is Mike and Kristen Day drinking? Is it Michael Jordan?

Speaker 1 11:31

and Kristen Stewart from Twilight together.

Speaker 3 11:35

Oh yeah, mike and Kristen yeah.

Speaker 1 11:37

Like what does Mike and Kristen mean? So we wanted something that I don't know represented what we were actually doing in the name. That's just one aspect that we wanted, and our art for our podcast was originally this awesome picture we love, but it's just us, I don't know, dressed up. We have a cake in front of us. I got a bottle of whiskey in my hand it just doesn't reflect anything to do with what our podcast but it's fun though.

Speaker 3 12:05

I love the way they look. Yeah, like yeah, yeah, but I get it though.

Speaker 1 12:10

Yeah, it's kind of like all these little things have to add up to like if someone quickly looks at your picture here's your name, or whatever reads your bio, they can know in 10 seconds if they want to listen to it.

Speaker 3 12:22

People kind of know what they're getting now with the Make it name. Are you going to?

Speaker 2 12:25

change at all your guests that you reach out, because is it just like a rebrand and still doing the same thing? Or is it like a rebrand and you're like, ah, you know what we might have to cut some of the people that we would normally talk to have in the past, and cut that yeah?

Speaker 4 12:40

yeah, I love this question because it was one of the things that we grappled with is does this mean we have to exclude some guests that we would really love to have on? Some of our favorite guests that we had on mike and kristin had nothing to do with the arts world. Yeah, yeah, with the caveat of saying I think everybody's creative but, their life was not in the arts and entertainment world.

Speaker 4 13:01

So we thought, well, I don't want to let that go, but it made sense. I think this was the topic that not only were we most equipped to talk about, but our network lent itself best to that, and we were kind of organically all along asking people about this concept of making it our success anyways.

Rebranding Their Podcast Journey

Speaker 4 13:20

And it was actually a former guest that pointed this out to us, who had hired us for a live gig, and he had sort of a concept or an angle that he thought maybe we would take. And he's like well, you guys usually ask your guests about what it's like to make it out there in the world. Yeah, we do do that. So it kind of yeah, it was actually really helpful to have a listener or a guest point out to us something that maybe you get lost when you're too close to a project.

Speaker 5 13:45

Right.

Speaker 4 13:46

But I've always liked all along we've kind of done things scrappy and DIY, including now the video, but that's also something we advocate for others to try. I think a lot of people hold themselves back from this type of work because it's imperfect or they fear it could be right so we're like, let's just kind of walk the walk that was a big fear, like I don't know.

Speaker 1 14:08

We both have a little bit of perfectionism in us and we were worried if we try to do the video like it's not going to be perfect and we don't really know what we're doing. But it was kind of like a a big step for us to to just do it, to go ahead, let's learn on the fly, let's figure out all these little details, and it's not going to be the the best looking thing right away.

Speaker 3 14:32

Maybe it never will be probably won't uh, but it's gonna be a new element, new component and essentially just a different way to promote it, different marketing and what I'm learning about and this is nerd talk here again but, yeah, seo, search engine optimization what a cool thing that is huh as, but like, if you think about like the way like youtube works and it backlinks to something else, like the mike and kristin website or uh, or something else about you guys it all starts to kind of feed into like your own little universe, right, yeah, and? And all those links are quite important, right, yeah? And then we didn't have a proper website until, uh, sunday. Like you know, we've been pretty scrappy too. We're like, well, we should probably get a website, yeah, yeah, I mean, we needed to like a website.

Speaker 2 15:17

For sure. I mean, we needed a website, for sure. I mean we had our website-ish where you could go and listen to our episodes, but now we have an actual, proper website, proper site, yeah, but I mean we were kind of forced into that because we got involved in other things. So we're managing kind of an influencer like social media, marketing and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 15:37

Kind of like your site, because I was on it and you guys showed all your services and stuff that you guys can do, which I thought was really unique and and, like you know, there's a lot more to you guys than I podcast right, like there's a lot more what you guys do out there and and and the things that you serve, and now they can kind of really see all the stuff that they can experience with you guys, which is pretty chill right.

Speaker 4 15:55

So that was actually. The original motivation for Mike and Kristen podcast was to give a little clarity to all of these things that we were doing, and we laugh about it now because that meant adding one more thing that we do to bring clarity. But the idea was we'd go on and talk about the book that we wrote or upcoming shows, and it just evolved into the guest interview that we loved and learned from. And yeah, what's your origin story story? Can I ask like, what inspired?

Speaker 3 16:22

you to want to start this show. We've been buddies for 20 years yeah uh, I love radio, matt loves radio, and that was. That was like you know. We were really good friends. Anyways, we're already talking on like almost every day or every second day, right, so it's like the synergies were just there and I wanted to. I bought this gear, jesus. We didn't do nothing with it for a year, it's not in the house.

Speaker 2 16:42

We were testing things out in my. I have a pub in my basement and we were just he brought it over there like once a week. We sat and we were talking about news, we were joking around about stuff, whatever.

Speaker 3 16:52

We wanted to do a politics, show a fight show. We had everything going, except for being nice and bringing people together.

Speaker 5 16:57

We're like well, wait a second.

Speaker 3 16:58

Why don't we just try to be nice, yeah, so we just kind of came up with this idea of like again.

Speaker 2 17:04

It was like Mike kind of researched early on, like, hey, they really say you should do niche or stick to a niche, and I was like, okay, cool, like you know, I like politics and we were talking about subcultures and things like that within the province and kind of learned through all these different groups of people through their food and through their drink and through their business, whatever. And then we also liked entrepreneurs and things like that too. The problem with that is it's just kind of like we were like, oh, we want to do all this. We can't do five podcasts. And then we were just like you know what?

Speaker 4 17:38

Let's just sit down and have a drink with people, break the proverbial liquid bread, yes, and that kind of has allowed you to have anybody on the show you want, like this is your anchor, is this setting? Yeah, it's really cool, we forced ourselves to start.

Speaker 3 17:49

A close friend of ours was our first guest right and he was just opening a coffee shop up in a pandemic and that was a great title for our first episode Coffee shop, you know, startup in a pandemic. And he's, you know, great guy, loved his dad and you know he has a beautiful story to tell. Right, and I think that was the first one.

Speaker 4 18:07

I wondered if either of you worked in politics, because I know you've had a lot of politicians on your show.

Speaker 2 18:12

Yeah, well, sort of.

Speaker 3 18:14

So Matt's been more in the political realm Me zero. So Matt's been more in the political realm Me zero. Right, I'm more in the music-y realm, I'd say Probably arts and crafts community here.

Speaker 2 18:26

Yeah, I ran unsuccessfully five years ago.

Speaker 1 18:30

And I have been. What level of government City?

Speaker 2 18:32

Yeah, I lost by 2%, yeah, so almost won but did not win. And then I've been involved in politics quite a bit. I've been the co-campaign manager on three elections. I've been the riding president two different times of riding so pretty involved in politics. I was 14 years old and said I wanted to be a politician. That dream is now dead. I don't think it's dead.

Speaker 1 19:00

Politicians can start at any age to be a politician. That dream is now dead, but yeah, I don't think it's dead. Politicians can start at any age, though.

Speaker 4 19:03

They can, that's true, I feel like our paths may have crossed in that world, because I was involved in politics for ten years before. I became a full-time artist so that was my whole professional. Like I have a poli-sci degree, worked in the caucus office in a bunch of different departments and I was like that name's familiar, so maybe we've met on the campaign trail.

Speaker 2 19:24

There is a strong probability that, yeah, I have no real party affiliate. I stand behind just good people. So I've voted all three colors. Over the last decade I have helped camp like literally I helped a progressive conservative in the last, like the last provincial election and I helped a federal liberal in the last federal election and people were like dude, make up your mind. But as a poli-sci person you'll see like the spectrums of things that I'm not loyal to a color. I like certain policies and I just happen to think that our provincial government and our current federal government are more aligned policy-wise than ideologies yeah, no, I love that.

Speaker 4 20:10

I think the more apolitical outlook is what maybe we're lacking.

Speaker 3 20:15

I agree, well, well you know, I mean I mirrored Matt Senneman and what he just said about the federal and provincial right, which is odd, right. But yeah, it totally. You should totally go for what's going to do the best you feel is going to do the best for you, your province, where you know not just your app but your neighbor's app, right, stuff like that. We've got to collectively, you know, sometimes not always just pick a team right, Sure and stay there you know Well, good for you.

Speaker 4 21:07

That takes a lot of courage to put your name in the ring.

Speaker 2 21:10

Yeah, it changed me forever Listening to people knocking on their doors and hearing so many different people from so many different struggles. Honestly, I would encourage anyone to do it. It, even if you don't want to run, volunteer for a campaign and knock on doors and hear people what they struggle with. You will never walk away the same person ever again.

Speaker 4 21:33

That's right, yeah I always say I'm also grateful to have a better understanding of the infrastructure that we live in like this is how my taxes are actually used, or this is why a decision takes a really long time at the legislature. Whatever the case might be, just having that understanding has given me more patience and perspective as nova scotian yeah, yeah, no, I agree it's awesome.

Speaker 2 21:55

So yeah, no, that's uh, that's so, that's interesting. I'm sure we this doesn't have to turn into a uh, yeah we'll nerd out after these guys can talk about gear.

Speaker 3 22:03

Yeah, you guys can keep talking about politicians by all means. It sounds fun. I love politicians. Some of them are great I do.

Speaker 2 22:10

I I'm really interested actually. Uh, you guys, so you guys have traveled, like to learn more about this industry. That's something, mike and I've really wanted to do. Um, I mean, it's great that you guys could find some funding. That's something else you may be able to tell us about. But yeah, some of the big takeaways from this talking to different people that are doing this must be inspiring. It must be that you must just gather so much knowledge.

Speaker 1 22:41

Yeah, there's so many parts of going to something like Southwest or another one Podfest in Orlando, and a big part of it is just the inspiration coming home. Parts of going to something like Southwest or another one Podfest in Orlando, and a big part of it is just the inspiration coming home, like, of course there's numbers and data you're crunching and specific tips and things, but it's also just coming back with that fire underneath you, you're meeting people who get a million downloads a week and they're like making a huge living doing it.

Speaker 3 23:09

Right, and a little cynicism here. Do you think that's possible in Canada or in Nova Scotia, or do?

Speaker 1 23:14

you think you have to be in the right market to get those types of hits, I feel like the right type of podcast. It's possible, Right. But to get those numbers, yeah, you have to have something incredibly unique about you, whether it's your personality, your look whatever the show is, If it's video, otherwise it doesn't matter, right?

Speaker 3 23:33

That's why I stay in the shadows. No, but it still matters, even like I don't know like social media.

Speaker 5 23:39

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 23:40

I hate to say it, but things matter.

Speaker 3 23:43

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 23:44

You look in there and you see someone who just posts a picture of himself. And they're a good-looking person. They have thousands of likes and comments.

Speaker 3 23:54

Yes, he's telling us to hang it up.

Speaker 4 23:59

I'm also wondering where this is going.

Speaker 1 24:04

I'm just saying there's like mastery interviewers and that's their thing. Oh, absolutely. There's people who have the coolest idea imaginable.

Speaker 3 24:13

You geek out when you see a good interviewer. If you're into this stuff like I mean Sean Evans, the Hot Ones guy.

Speaker 2 24:18

I mean Matt, you'd agree, he's fantastic.

Speaker 3 24:20

Every time I watch him ask a question I'm like holy shit. Like you know Just such great question acting Laser focused.

Speaker 2 24:26

He's got it dialed in he's dialed in and he does a lot of research and it's deep research. He's good and it's genuine.

Speaker 3 24:33

Yeah, it feels authentic. It doesn't feel like he's. I've got to talk to this person. He's happy to be there.

Speaker 2 24:45

Yeah, I obviously that's a great concept too, like a really great concept, uh. But to your point also you can also be a really crappy interviewer and, you know, not be super great, and if you're incredibly good looking, you might still get millions of follows.

Speaker 1 24:57

Yeah, or you have just the right people behind you pushing it, or you have some money to back it up. There's different reasons. Anyone who's not good is eventually going to be found out and it's not going to go for a long time. But certain things can get you to a point where maybe other people have to rely on grit and hard work and just pushing through. But I think it's like anything, anything just from playing music so long I've just I just transfer all those, I guess, idea, ideals and skill sets over, like okay, we just gotta stick to it, like that's the longer you do it, the more people you come across right.

Speaker 2 25:37

Yeah, word of mouth spreads. I would imagine that is pretty similar to like, you know, trying to like make it uh in the music industry, like podcasts, it's like how can we get as many people to listen to us as possible? Yeah, cause that's in the end game.

Speaker 4 25:51

Really, yeah, and yeah, I was going to say there's that, but it's also a lot of things that we learn. As far as coming back with this inspiration is tapping into your why and what kind of makes you feel happy in life.

Speaker 4 26:04

And so there's a little bit of I don't want to say disregard, but we don't put as much priority on the downloads and the reach, and of course that matters, maybe at some point from a business strategy or what do we want for this to actually do for us? But the people that have come into our life through this kind of creative work is just immeasurable when it comes to dollars and cents. So we kind of keep that in mind too.

Speaker 3 26:28

So but rick rubin, did you know? Rick rubin world right. So he has a book out right the art of creative or the creative act, both read it like seven times, dude.

Speaker 4 26:37

I listen to it like three, four times. It's really good. I'm addicted to it.

Speaker 3 26:40

I keep listening to it because I only ever really bought one audio book on iTunes, so it's the only book I have on that one on that app. Now I'm listening to audio books on Spotify because they're terrible too right, you get your 15 hours.

Speaker 1 26:52

Yeah, you get your 15 hours in.

Speaker 3 26:55

Oh yeah, so anyways that one book. What was the thing he said there? Sorry, it just escaped me.

Speaker 1 27:01

The thing is, everything Rick Rubin says sounds like the fuck A mic drop so smart so wild.

Speaker 3 27:07

But he's like you don't make the art for them, you make the art for you. And I'm like, damn, that's sick, rick Rubin, I love that. I love the idea of you know you are making it for them, but you're really making it for you. So be honest with yourself. You're making it for you. So be honest with yourself. Right, like you know you're doing it because there was something inside of you that wanted to create this so bad.

Speaker 1 27:27

Yeah, that's true, and you can't be like we can't compare ourselves to the biggest podcasts out there, like it's going to break our hearts every day Like if we think we're just going to release an episode and have the same downloads as whatever. Mel Robbins Joe.

Speaker 3 27:42

Rogan any of those.

Speaker 1 27:44

It's just not what we should be going for.

Speaker 3 27:47

We celebrate the small victories. It's like when we do a really good episode like this one here, we're like oh, that was a good episode, man. Yeah, I like that one. When we're proud of it and we can stand by it. We're just really happy.

Speaker 2 27:58

If anything, if anything is number focused, I actually get a little. The thing that I get most disappointed is is that, like that guest, like such a good guest, had such a great story and I wish more people heard it. Yeah, that's really what I really think the kind of like oh man, like more people should. Everyone should have heard that.

Speaker 3 28:17

Yeah, we'll have some that do really well and some that we think are just going to do awesome and they don't do as well and we're like, oh my God, that was the best episode we ever did.

Speaker 1 28:24

Yeah, right, you know, and in terms of… the good thing about this podcast and our podcast is that these episodes are evergreen right.

Speaker 3 28:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:33

Someone can go back any time and listen to us. Because I'll listen to the Daily, which is a news podcast New York.

Speaker 5 28:40

Times does.

Speaker 3 28:41

And you would never listen it's fresh for three days, yeah, yeah you would never go back and listen to one right or sports ones that are just about the game that happened last night.

Speaker 1 28:50

No one's ever going to listen to those again, but these types of podcasts are going to exist forever and, yeah, any points we're good at every week we focus on this is the guests we have, so let's promote them. And the next week as it goes and keeps going like that right but we're also talking like, hey, any week or any day we can say, hey, this episode we did with matt mays was awesome, check it out like we're we're allowed to do that okay.

Speaker 3 29:21

Yeah, sorry about that. We had a little bit of a battery outage with our high, super good technology here a little power outage a little power outage.

Speaker 4 29:29

Yeah, the candles out exactly yeah, but you were saying about going back into episodes. But and I think there's also as a result of us having this experience you're going to be on our show one day, we hope, or we're going to run into each other at the grocery store and high five or downtown and go for another pint, and this is kind of the joy that doing the show really brings.

Speaker 1 29:52

We've met so many people that are now friends.

Speaker 3 29:56

We had a beer with a premier like me, boy, I mean, I think that's so cool though right, just when you think about that. Yeah, oh yeah, we're going to have I mean, I think that's so cool, though, right, just when you think about that yeah, oh yeah, two premieres, oh, two premieres, mcneil and the Eustace.

Speaker 5 30:07

Yeah, pretty cool thing.

Speaker 3 30:08

And. I got to say dumb jokes, right, I mean that's a real honor yeah.

Speaker 1 30:13

You can look at again downloads and all that, but you can look at the experiences.

Speaker 3 30:18

Oh yeah, that's.

Video Content and Creative Compromises

Speaker 1 30:19

Whatever it is you're doing brings into your life, yep, and same thing with playing music. Like the places I've gone, the people I've met, like I met Kristen from playing music. She's my wife for 10 years now.

Speaker 3 30:32

Amazing.

Speaker 1 30:35

And, of course, if you're trying to make a living off it, you do have to consider the monetary side of things.

Speaker 3 30:42

Well, I was going to ask you about that later in the show. Well, I'll let it get that into you now. So that here. So you guys I mean both artists, you know doing great work on both sides. You know, you're you, you perform at a high level. Both of you do, uh uh, music wise and talent wise, painting wise. You know how, like it must. Bills must be a nightmare, though still, it must still be tough, is it?

Speaker 1 31:03

Yeah, it's not this day and age 2025, with the price of everything going up, people wanting to just enjoy their downtime with Netflix more than going to a show or going to an art show Like it's a tough definitely a tougher time for creative people.

Speaker 3 31:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:47

And we've managed to make things work.

Speaker 3 31:51

And you're both award-winning artists in your own right, like you know, which is crazy, right. But I mean you know you feel like you know accomplished. I get a little upset at the fact that you know we can't have folks be artists in our community and survive, yeah, as well as they deserve, right?

Speaker 4 32:08

so this is something. It's funny that this comes up, because it's something I put thought into this morning that if it did come up yeah how honest I would be about this please, because I. Because I, if I'm being truthful, this is an area that I have struggled with the most, and certainly in 2025, with the word recession floating around. People are not spending luxury dollars on buying artwork they're buying a bag of carrots.

Speaker 1 32:34

They should be, though. Sure, yeah, art's better than food, and I get that, because, like we're in the same boat, like we're in the same boat, we also don't have a ton of disposable income to be spending on things that aren't directly connected to our survival.

Speaker 3 32:46

So you yourself have to be selective. In the art you can sell, whether it's one medium or the next right.

Speaker 4 32:52

Yeah, it's tough. Mike has more I'll say emotional experience with this because he's been a full-time musician for 20 years. I spent 10 years getting my two week paycheck at a high level. So transitioning into being an entrepreneur was very much about lifestyle. I didn't want to do that commute and rush hour anymore and sit in my little beige office in my polyester pants, like I was over it, but it's kind of.

Speaker 4 33:18

I don't want to give the illusion of, I think from the outside. Yes, we have had a lot of success. Uh, we've had a lot of fun, we've met a lot of people, but the finances have always been hard and I don't know if I will ever find peace with that so that's my.

Speaker 3 33:36

I don't want to like no, it's a hard thing to admit, but that's the truth, because I mean, that's what, that's what makes us all from just kind of doing that creative jump. So I mean, matt and I, this is our side hustle right, but you know, I mean, our spouses are supportive now. But if I said that's it, that's it. I'm just going to try to write rap music and do a podcast, Andrew would be like oh no, I do want.

Speaker 4 33:56

No.

Speaker 3 33:56

Nonetheless, yes, you do yeah yeah, but uh, but you know that's. That's the problem, right, like we, you know our passion. Sometimes it's just so hard to know what to do. We live one life, we want to live the best version of it, right, and? And man, I gotta be like that's my biggest fear is like to do this all on my own. Would I just lose, right, like, would I just not make it in any thing and then just eventually have a worse job than I have now? Right, yeah.

Speaker 4 34:25

And we're hosting a show called Make it. Yeah, and I'm over here like oh God, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 34:31

But I mean the other thing is though it's like levels of success and we've talked about that a lot here already like the things that make us feel good. I mean, you know, there's different things In my own mind. I'll never make it, ever, ever.

Speaker 2 34:44

There's no imagining he's super negative.

Speaker 4 34:47

No, no, that's not negativity at all.

Speaker 5 34:50

It's like I'm a realist.

Speaker 3 34:52

That's what negative people say Okay, so the town heroes.

Speaker 3 34:56

Like perfect thing. You had the perfect pitch night at the best auditorium. You were honored. You played in front of the. You had the perfect pitch night at the best auditorium. You were honored. You played, you played. You know your music got the attention it deserved. A thousand percent, there's a symphony playing behind you. If that was me, I'd be like I don't know man. I don't know if I did it yet, like I don't know if I would even be there at that level right, because it's just not my way I am.

Speaker 1 35:16

I'd probably you might need therapy, oh.

Speaker 5 35:19

I'm working on it.

Speaker 2 35:22

Literally, we could have an awesome episode.

Speaker 3 35:24

It was entertaining, we could talk to the guests and he's like.

Speaker 2 35:27

I don't know, man, I think it was shit, I don't know.

Speaker 3 35:29

It takes my brain a long time to get to a place where I'm okay with a lot of things.

Speaker 4 35:34

Is this? Protecting yourself Only with art.

Speaker 3 35:36

With life, with family, with everything else. I'm totally cool.

Speaker 4 35:49

Like with everything else, I'm totally cool. Like I'm cool as a cucumber I can go. I could sail any storm for work and stuff. Shit don't bother me at all. Zero art is sensitive, so sensitive right. I appreciate that honesty as well and I don't know that everybody has a visual in mind of what achievement or success or quote making it actually looks like, and some people will say I didn't know that this was going to be the moment that made me feel that way until I was in it so you can't even imagine until you're living it.

Speaker 1 36:06

Maybe that'll be you interesting thing uh, about the athletes, because every person, every athlete in the world has a prime where they're at their absolute best right, but no one would ever know that they're in it yeah, like it's your last day, dude.

Speaker 3 36:22

Oh, it's great you?

Speaker 1 36:23

you think you're only going to get better but there's going to be one particular day where every day after that you're worse 100.

Speaker 2 36:30

Yeah, it's I probably talk about this too much, but it's one of my favorite quotes of all time from the office. Second last episode of the office, and uh andy says I wish there was a way that you can know that you're in the good old days before you left.

Speaker 3 36:42

Yeah, it's one of my favorite quotes of all time, 100%.

Speaker 1 36:46

Well, that's all about just living in the moment, right Like being grateful for the things that happen.

Speaker 3 36:50

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:51

Just like we're sitting here. How lucky are we to be sitting here drinking a beer.

Speaker 3 36:56

This is pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 36:57

Like think of geez wars all around the world.

Speaker 2 37:01

Yeah, literally in the brink of World War III, in certain places in this world I saw videos of that plane crash in India.

Speaker 5 37:08

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 37:10

And, like in Halifax, there's homeless people everywhere. People who are working jobs can't afford a house. Like, how lucky are we to be here chatting, having this conversation? You got some cool gear. We got some craft beer 're just living life like.

Speaker 3 37:26

We have to recognize, and that's the plus side and that's the plus side of what you guys do. So we went through the negative, so let's go through the positive again.

Speaker 3 37:33

And just to reiterate, if you're thinking about being an artist yourself if you're still with us and you want to be an artist, I can see both sides of the glass or wherever it works, you know. But yeah, you know, the positivity is you do have one life to live. You might as well appreciate every moment and do the best you can to get through. Yeah, yeah. Is that positive enough Sure.

Speaker 1 37:55

You got it, you nailed it.

Speaker 2 37:57

That's more realistic.

Speaker 1 37:59

I think what you value, as Kristen stated earlier, what you value is really important and knowing your why in you're doing something. Are you doing this to make money? Are you doing this to meet people? Are you doing this to just express yourself, like knowing what it is you value, and then that is intertwined with what is your why is you value, and then that is intertwined with what is your why, and then you can figure out. Well, I'm doing this because I just enjoy hanging out with people yeah then you don't have to worry.

Speaker 1 38:31

Oh okay, then I probably have to have another job on the side to support it. If my biggest thing is I want to meet people, I'll make money somewhere else and maybe this will turn into something profitable, but I think everyone just knowing what it is that matters to them allows you to find the direction that you actually need to go in.

Speaker 3 38:52

Brilliant advice. Yeah, good job, guys. You got through that, you sailed right through that.

Speaker 5 38:57

Oh yeah, Amazing Okay.

Speaker 3 39:01

I got a little bit. I want to kind of talk about you, kind of zero in a little bit, my phone, my notes here, sorry, okay. So I wanted to talk about Togetherland because I think that sounds like a pretty remarkable place. So for people listening, what is Togetherland?

Speaker 4 39:17

Togetherland is my art gallery in Ingramport, which is on your way to Hubbard's on the St Margaret's Bay Road is on your way to Hubbard's on the St Margaret's Bay Road and a few years back I had just put a post out on Facebook thinking I might have a business that would invite me to do like a pop-up over the summer. I wanted a place to sell my art that wasn't in my living room.

Speaker 5 39:37

Let's just kind of move out of the home here.

Speaker 4 39:40

And didn't really know what that would look like, had no expectations but put it out there. And this friend of ours he's a radio host at Cove FM. His name is Steve Gilbert, oh yeah, lives right next door to this old church with a church hall attached to it and he wrote me and said I don't really know if this is what you had in mind, but if you'd like I can connect you with the church people Cool and see what you think. So that's what we did. And as soon as you step into this room, if any of you have been part of a church hall in your upbringing- it was exactly like you might think and remember and smell, and feel Classic church.

Speaker 2 40:15

Everything about it was just like a wave of nostalgia Church hall you know, like where you have the sandwiches, bean dinners.

Speaker 4 40:21

Yeah, so it was that, and it was just this big empty room and we immediately saw potential. So I thought, okay, this isn't what I had in mind, but it's right on the water and it's close to home and I can kind of do whatever I want with it. It was otherwise just being abandoned, and it was only so. I signed the lease on this, and probably three or four days later were when the wildfires came through. And Mike and I were evac. The wildfires came through and Mike and I were evacuated.

Speaker 3 40:48

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 40:48

And we decided let's go live at the church, I guess because it was close to home. Of course we had lots of friends and family offer to put us up, which was very thoughtful. But we wanted that proximity and we took our air mattress and we lived in this just kind of you know, dirty spider webs. Whatever, it was not an art gallery at the time it's a start.

Speaker 4 41:11

We were there for nine days yeah and uh, you know, I I think there's kind of some the story there is like it was our, it was our savior here. We were in a church, you know, and that was the, the birth of togetherland, and so during this time that we were evacuated, we weren't allowed to go home. So I had a bunch of friends delivering things in hopes that I would still be able to open it as a gallery when I had planned.

Speaker 4 41:36

I opened on my birthday on june 9th that year and we're now entering the third season and we've got live concerts and workshops and, of course, yeah it's just kind of become a community hub.

Speaker 3 41:47

So community's just coming in to learn how to paint or see a show.

Speaker 4 41:50

Yeah, yeah mike does open mic nights there on wednesday nights that are you never, know who you're gonna get, and it's just this really anybody can pop down there yeah and is there an admission, or how does that all work?

Speaker 1 42:01

uh, not for open mic. Yeah, it's BYOB, so people can show up, bring a bottle of wine or whatever.

Speaker 3 42:09

Lots of parking. I thought bread because it was a church BYOB.

Speaker 1 42:12

Yeah, lots of people bring a loaf of bread Bring your own body of Christ.

Speaker 2 42:20

Oh, I hope that happens.

Speaker 1 42:21

It's a very very diverse skill set, a group of people, people who have never been on stage, people who have been playing for their whole life.

Speaker 3 42:33

Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 42:35

Yeah, people use it for different reasons.

Speaker 3 42:38

That's traditional music in a sense. I love those pub feelings where you see a bunch of artists or a bunch of different musicians from different places get together and just play. Yeah, just learn how to play jam the whole night so fun to watch yeah, it's really fun to see people have that moment of bravery as well.

Speaker 4 42:53

So for a lot of people that come to the open mic knowing that beginners are welcome, they very much are that make. In some cases they've never been in front of an audience before. Yeah, we had one woman who sat in her car in the parking lot the first night for two hours because she was afraid to even come in and now she performs every week oh, wow so like that is really moving yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 43:13

That's together. Yeah, no, that's a great thing that you can do for people. Right, it truly is together. Land community, it's just such a cool thing.

Speaker 3 43:20

Yeah, that's really important, and so you guys do the live shows too. I was looking at live shows, so painting and singing in the same night music and painting all together.

Speaker 4 43:30

Yeah, we've done some of those.

Speaker 1 43:31

We don't, it's not something we promote heavily or anything. We did a few. We were hired, I guess, by some people. They said, hey, can you play music when you do live painting? And it's always super cool, like I'm just playing my sets, like I would, and kristin's sets up a table and makes a painting and a lot of times it's at a corporate thing, corporate money oh yeah, that's the best money to take so

Speaker 4 43:59

you're just painting some like ceo well, I'm painting my style, but if they ask for that, I'd be happy to, for some reason, just picture some CEO standing there naked for just a time.

Speaker 5 44:13

We will be updating our website immediately.

Speaker 4 44:15

Amazing.

Speaker 2 44:17

We'll do this for a lot of money.

Speaker 1 44:20

If they offer us enough, we'll do that. We're just always looking to diversify.

Speaker 4 44:23

Hey, if you want to pay us to do this, sure we'll do that.

Speaker 5 44:24

Yeah, we're just always looking to diversify.

Speaker 4 44:25

Yeah, these are. Hey, if you want to pay us to do this, well, sure, we'll give it a whirl, and we've done some and you've done live podcasting too.

Speaker 3 44:31

Yeah, custom things like. Yeah, yeah, you did like paint houses, you'd tell people in their houses and cottages and all that kind of stuff. I saw that that was really cool yeah yeah getting into furniture.

Speaker 4 44:42

so I'll I uh take old vintage pieces of furniture and upcycle them, so I'll make my own fabric and just kind of give them a new life.

Speaker 2 44:51

And yeah, we're always kind of dabbling, I suppose. My mother-in-law is a painter and she's worked in a few art galleries and things like that in Quebec City. That's where she lives. So, yeah, she's actually going to be visiting here in three weeks, so we will Send her down. She wants to go to Lunenburg again because she loves Lunenburg.

Speaker 1 45:08

It's on the way, yeah.

Speaker 2 45:08

And that's what I was just thinking.

Speaker 3 45:10

I promise you we will pop down and she's a great artist in her own right. Oh yeah, she paints some amazing stuff.

Speaker 2 45:15

She does some cool stuff. There was one particular painting. I was like, oh, that's so cool. When she put it up, I was like that's so cool. Then she was downsizing and she was looking to give away some of her paintings. She reached out to her daughters and me and everything. So she was like is there any paintings you guys want Before I go to sell them? She was like I'm going to sell them at a discount rate just to kind of get rid of them so I can downsize and everything was like is there anything you?

Speaker 5 45:45

want. I was like I want the trudeau weed one.

Speaker 2 45:46

So it's a picture like when it first got legalized. She painted this picture of like trudeau holding the big joint, like I'll have to show it to you, but it's like I was like yeah, I want that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 45:55

It's so cool because it's it's it's the end of the draft one. Was there a draft one? Uh, there is a draft. Yeah, it's in my son's room. I remember that it's a cool thing. Yeah, it's in my son's room. That one's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 46:04

Yeah.

Togetherland Art Gallery's Origin Story

Speaker 2 46:05

She does some things that are very like, that are abstract, but she also does some things that you know are like detailed I don't know the word for it, but like, actually, like, look like the thing they're supposed to look like.

Speaker 4 46:17

But even within that, I'm curious how you would answer the question of what attracts you to artwork. Is it just a feeling, or are you?

Speaker 2 46:27

looking for it. Yeah, it's a feeling that's how you would make that decision. Sometimes I'm very much like I like things to look like they're supposed to, kind of thing. The struggle I get and as an artist, you can maybe educate me on this but the thing is when I look at something and I'm like my three-year-old could paint that and it's like that's ten thousand dollars, and I'm like I don't understand that. That I struggle with right, sure, because my three-year-old like when, especially when his grandmother's in like they'll do some painting. We have a couple really big paintings that she'd worked with him to do and everything and I'm like, yeah, that looks like the same that I see in art galleries.

Speaker 4 47:05

So I'm kind of like you know, maybe we should just pop this up, you should be selling a three-year-old art, then I should be selling a story for 10 grand and see what happens right, but so that I don't get.

Speaker 2 47:15

But sometimes I do see something that's really abstract and I'm like, oh, that looks really fucking cool. Though, like really, there was one that I saw at an art gallery that she was there, that I, she, she. I was like I'm looking up at it and I was staring. And she caught me staring at it and she was like do you know what that is? I was like, yeah, it's a really zoomed in like painting of the red line on a hockey rink. And she was like, yeah, you got that's exactly what it was. You could just see the circle of like the point and then the red line and everything. And she's like, yeah, that's exactly what it is. She's like not everyone knows it. Right off I was like well, I can see clearly the white was kind of a bluey white. That thing was selling for $18,000.

Speaker 5 47:58

And I was like no way.

Speaker 2 48:00

I think I can do that. I don't get it. Please explain Wow.

Speaker 5 48:08

Explain to me why some art?

Speaker 4 48:09

Just a light conversation over an afternoon pint here.

Speaker 3 48:13

Why does some art, don't art?

Speaker 4 48:15

I can only speak for myself, I suppose, but how I would answer that question is that I think art that you might feel that way about is about the concept. So I'm going to give a couple of examples to explain what I mean in that.

Speaker 4 48:29

I wish I could remember this artist's name, because I've referenced this before on our show, how he was. He was given, uh, I think, sixty thousand dollars. He was commissioned to do this piece for a gallery and he showed up and it was just his, his piece, his quote-unquote piece, was just an empty space, like he didn't even bring a canvas. There was nothing on it.

Speaker 4 48:49

I saw an article on this Right and his concept was he called it take the money and run. Yes, and so it was his idea, essentially, that he sold for 60 grand, so he actually didn't even physically have something for you to buy.

Speaker 2 49:05

Yep, but he gave you a certificate, right, maybe? I believe I read there was something yeah, you got a certificate of authenticity that you owned this nothing. Right that you owned this nothing For $60,000.

Speaker 4 49:17

And. I don't know for the right buyer. Maybe they like being able to tell that story, Maybe they like the sort of philosophical way of looking at that. Like that's, that's how I might think about that. I know what you're saying, how there are paintings that look like a three-year-old could do it, and and I think that artists would probably say, well, do it then and see if it turns out the same.

Speaker 4 49:39

But yeah, and there was another artist I remember us seeing in Seattle and the painting painting was just blue. It was just a blue canvas, again worth probably millions of dollars yeah but I later learned this was a blue, that he invented that particular color okay, so I don't know jay-z blue, jay-z blue, jay-z blue.

Speaker 2 49:58

yeah, yeah, no, I get that. I mean art is a lot of the concept, I mean because there's like living art and all that stuff too right, so I struggle with it. There's also the fact that there's a lot of money laundering, so you should try that.

Speaker 4 50:14

Yes, I am doing.

Speaker 5 50:15

Yeah, church Perfect Best place to do it, man, best place to do it.

Speaker 3 50:20

The money laundering.

Speaker 2 50:21

I was actually reading an article about this recently, about how billionaires hide money through art. It's crazy. It's like they buy something for like $10 million and then they basically hide it away and then it goes up in price, kind of thing, and then they resell it. I just washed a bunch of money.

Speaker 5 50:38

Brilliant it is brilliant.

Speaker 3 50:40

Thanks. That was Matt's mobster tips for tonight.

Speaker 4 50:44

We did just talk about diversifying, just joking.

Speaker 2 50:48

Clearly I'm not doing it, all right.

Speaker 3 50:52

So, mike, I want to talk a bit about you, yeah, award-winning songwriter, studio owner right. You know you're truly a town favorite. You've won, like the coast, so many times over for for being one of the best bands in halifax. Right, you're your top list? Yeah, I've been listening to your music. I'm now a genuine fan, which is cool, and I fell into it very honestly. I was playing music in the kitchen one night, playing your latest album yeah and and the 13 year old.

Speaker 2 51:21

She said your music was cool right, so you're basically Taylor Swift now. Yeah, yeah, you're there.

Speaker 3 51:29

She just started playing guitar too, so she was actually hearing the music a little differently than before, and she's like no, that's pretty good, like she said, which is like the highest compliment you can get.

Speaker 1 51:39

It means a lot.

Speaker 3 51:41

So what was I going to ask? I mean, I guess, for you, one of my things particularly listening to your latest album, sorry, the name of your latest album was Singing, singing, yeah, singing Okay, yeah, no G. That album in particular, I think, is kind of the easiest, most tap-worthy album you've made. These songs are very accessible, very easy to listen to. I mean, you know radio getting on radio, getting getting more publicity, so more people hear these music. Because I I think that that this is some really good stuff, some easily digestible music. I mean, what, are there challenges on getting it on the radio stations here in halifax or yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 52:25

Uh. Well, I'm competing against every other musician and artist that's ever put out a song essentially yeah uh, so nowadays, every single day, there's 120 000 songs released on spotify. Really well every day like in the 70s I think it was like around 12 000 a year. Wow, like that's and this is. This is partially because people can record much, uh, more cheaply. People have home studios and like there's there's.

Speaker 1 52:56

There's obviously a huge difference between someone going to the studio spending thousands of dollars and someone just whatever setting up a mic and playing a song and releasing that, but it does give the opportunity for every single person in the world. If they want to release something, they can and that's great in lots of ways, like we have access to to put out music, to show our videos to people, to create any type of content we want and put it out to the world. But so does everybody else.

Speaker 1 53:29

So we're and I don't look at it like well, I'm in competition with them, but that is the reality yeah um, so it's, it's, uh, it's a kind of a double-edged sword where, yeah, we have the access to do that, but so does everybody else. Right Back to radio. Radio, isn't that?

Speaker 5 53:50

big a thing anymore. It's not the end all be all end all.

Speaker 1 53:52

Some people focus on it more than others. Some younger people probably don't even know what radio is to be honest. You have to pick what's relevant to you and try to go in that direction. Yeah, Because at one point in time there's a very specific model of this is how you exist as an artist. As you record your music, you go on tour for X amount of time you get a label da-da-da-da-da.

Speaker 1 54:17

Yeah, you do all these specific steps and now there's no real model that exists. So everybody's just trying to figure things out on the fly, and you can tell what the latest trends are in two seconds, even in podcasting right everyone puts their clips on youtube with the, the captions like that's if you put a video up without captions, you're like crazy now right yeah, it does.

Speaker 1 54:43

I don't know, trends just come and go and I try to not do the trends like I don't want to follow what other people are doing. But sometimes you, it's inevitable that you're going to go down those paths. And you look at someone like neil young. He's someone who always went against the trends and had a lot of success. Then you look at other artists who would have followed exactly what the template is in the current moment and became massive through that. And I guess it all comes back to what is your? Why? Again, what are you valuing? Why are you doing this as a career? Or is it a career? Is it a hobby? And what do you want to accomplish from this? And sure, I'd love to be on radios around the country in the world yeah that would mean so many other things have grown to right achieve success.

Speaker 1 55:35

Like anyone you hear, if someone's on the radio here, they're probably not playing the radio because no one listens to radio anymore, yeah. Or listen to a spotify playlist, yeah. But if you're driving the car and you turn on your radio and you hear a song and that band isn't from the area you're in, like they are probably massively successful, because if a band from iowa is on the radio here, that means that they're probably on the radio everywhere right, yeah, they would have likely a lot of streams, likely a lot but streams likely a lot of fans.

Speaker 3 56:07

But it used to be so much more with the CRTC. But I found the CRTC. You'd hear some Canadian artists but you would hear kind of a. And this is just perception from the radio. I'm not a big radio listener either being transparent here.

Speaker 2 56:19

Yeah, I'm not either.

Speaker 3 56:20

But I spend a lot more time with Spotify, Yep, but when you do plug on the radio, you know you're hearing Nickelback. You're hearing a lot of those traditional, tragically hip. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of them I like most of these bands but you know you're still hearing the same old same and you're just like what's this? It's true, why am I not hearing newer artists that are in my hometown or in Toronto or anywhere across Canada, as much as I'm hearing that great hit that was 20 years ago or 30 years past?

Speaker 2 56:51

I wonder about that, and you can probably speak to it better than I could, because I wonder could radio really reinvent themselves by going more local, as opposed to just playing the same thing I can hear on Spotify?

Speaker 1 57:03

I think there are stations that are more local and they're having a tough time. Yeah, it's just. There's so many other ways to consume. Yeah, at one point that was the only way you could hear something was whether if you own the CD or vinyl or tape, or you turn the radio on and they happen to play it.

Speaker 5 57:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1 57:22

Now we have access to that music all the time. Even talk radio CBC has some really cool shows, but I can go find a podcast that's trying to be very similar to that, exactly to what I want to hear and connect my phone through Bluetooth as soon as I get in the car and listen to that on the drive, which is bittersweet because I saw you out.

Speaker 3 57:46

Obviously because car and listen to that on the drive, yeah, which is bittersweet because you know I sought you out. Obviously because you know I knew you were coming on the show. I said I've seen these guys before, so I checked out your album. I really enjoyed it, right, you know, and that's what sucks now, though, in a sense, because we do get siloed, right, and this is what you. So when I'm introduced to new music on my Spotify playlist, even it's just sending me more of what I've already kind of heard or they know is going to keep me listening. They're somewhat afraid to send me things that you know might be from left field or might be not from what I'm already listening to, Right, so it's a weird thing for artists right now. I just don't know how it's going to keep going.

Speaker 5 58:30

And earlier we talked about podcasting. Like you have to have something going for.

Speaker 1 58:33

You have to be an amazing interviewer, you have to look a certain way, whatever, yeah. Yeah, he was probably more so in the music industry. Yeah, um, if you're just an absolute exceptional talent, you're going to rise no matter the top yeah yeah, um, if you have a bunch of a label with a bunch of money backing you, like that's gonna help you, like you're independent. We are now yeah we've been on different labels at different times. With our last two albums, we released ourselves cool but it's, yeah, it's definitely connections help.

Speaker 1 59:04

And again, anyone you're hearing on the radio someone's spending tens of thousands of dollars to get that music out there, right, like if we want to get. Still today there's a person called a radio tracker. They promote your music to stations and get it played.

Speaker 5 59:24

And you can do that yourself.

Speaker 1 59:25

But I'm not going to have a connection with whatever 400 radio stations.

Speaker 3 59:29

I'll know they want to play our song on the radio. Remember how hard I tried math.

Speaker 2 59:33

I knew someone who worked at the radio and I went to them.

Speaker 5 59:35

We wrote a funny little Christmas song and we sang it.

Speaker 3 59:39

It was terrible. Was this your?

Speaker 5 59:40

rap debut.

Speaker 3 59:41

No, no, the rap debut came like 15 years ago. This was in our Christmas special. This is for the podcast. We sang a Christmas song.

Speaker 2 59:48

Mike wrote it and we sang it and then we released it as part of our Christmas special. And I actually know someone who's fairly well into a particular large radio network and I actually help her with a lot of things for the year for fundraising. I'm like, don't hurt her, I help her out all the time. We said half those people do we did send to a bunch of people. But I went directly to her and everything and she was like I will take this up the chain, we'll do it and everything. I was like alright, cool. And then she came back she was like I'm sorry, I tried All right, we suck.

Speaker 5 1:00:19

Well, you should have spent $15,000 on a radio show.

Speaker 1 1:00:23

Oh, is that all $15,000.

Speaker 3 1:00:27

I could have got that song down there.

Speaker 4 1:00:28

And then you'll get .003 cents back per stream on Spotify.

Speaker 2 1:00:32

Right, I love that we did put it up on Spotify.

Speaker 3 1:00:34

So here's the other thing. So I'm a guy who loves music. I love when I find something new, it really makes me happy on and then jump to the next independent guy. As long as I got their permission to play it, you don't need permission to play if it's independent music.

Speaker 1 1:00:57

Yeah, yeah, I don't think on any like radio format. You wouldn't, because they're supposed to be getting paid on the back end of that.

Speaker 3 1:01:05

Yeah, because I always thought like a podcast, like mixtape, would be cool. Right, so say you did a mixtape podcasting might be a little different.

Speaker 1 1:01:11

Yeah, uh, you, because I I hear I listen to podcasts. Yeah, and if that person's on a label oh yeah they often won't play it. But if they're independent, that person will just say oh yeah, play it. Yeah, but if they're independent, that person will just say oh yeah, play it, but otherwise you're going through multiple channels and they might be like well, give us a hundred bucks.

Speaker 3 1:01:29

This podcast itself will get flagged for the music that's playing in the background, probably.

Speaker 1 1:01:32

Because I thought about that. You just got to keep talking, so it never gets on there.

Speaker 4 1:01:38

Yeah, cool. Do you want to get into radio? Is that something you've thought?

Speaker 1 1:01:42

about. Another radio is that something you thought about another hobby, yeah, I mean, eventually this is kind of a version of that. This is this is what I wanted to do was like a talk radio type thing, so so, yeah, this is totally modern radio, like radio if radio wants to exist, it has to adapt in some way.

Speaker 2 1:01:57

Like 100.

Speaker 3 1:01:58

I agree with you there, yeah it's, uh, it's dying like drastically it is right, and you know what, I love old radio still like. I like 90, was it 95, 7 or 97 5 or whatever, yeah yeah, listening to the.

The Music Industry's Evolving Landscape

Speaker 2 1:02:10

The callers call in and complain about the, the current events and usually they're about nine years old that. But honestly it's like the same 10 callers bitching about the same stuff and I just got so over it I enjoy it but you can do, you can do that essentially exact same premise on like a YouTube live or something.

Speaker 1 1:02:26

Like give out your phone number it's the same with music Like you used to have to have a label. Who would pay the whatever $80,000 to go into one of the eight studios in the country.

Speaker 3 1:02:38

Producers, engineers used to be like to make a record that sounds as good as yours you probably would have needed the entire A massive team behind it.

Speaker 1 1:02:47

You either had to come from money or have the label doing it, but it's the same. With radio you could make a radio show. This is a radio show essentially, for however much you paid for that Zoom recorder a couple hundred bucks and the mics a thousand-ish bucks you can make a radio show that sounds as good as what people in the 70s essentially could do, but they had to have a huge station, all this technology that the average person couldn't record 100 so the advancements in technology are allowing these things to happen, but it is killing off other mediums but then you also have, like the other flip side of it to radio.

Speaker 2 1:03:26

You have the Seaside FM.

Speaker 3 1:03:29

Oh yeah, I love Seaside FM. I think it's such a brilliant station in its own right. I think it's great. I don't listen to it.

Speaker 2 1:03:35

But I do think it's great because I think that having community radio that can give community local voices I think is fantastic. Again, I just don't listen to it because when I'm driving first of all, either driving with a three-year-old- doesn't want to listen to that.

Speaker 3 1:03:46

Their antenna won't get to you anyways, out where we're at. I don't think their antenna gets that far Seaside. Yeah it does, does it? Yeah? Is that where you used to pass? I can listen to it now. Oh, yeah, I can listen to it at home. My uncle, who lives five minutes from all he listens to oh, I keep telling, like you know, turn that off every once in a while, put in the afternoon pint. That's the uncle that I told you not to get the address 100, okay, but yeah, like I think it's great.

Speaker 2 1:04:13

I mean I just like said I don't listen to because I have a three-year-old. He's like play radioactive for the hundredth time. You know, pretty fly for a white guy. You know my kid likes a lot of that good taste in music oh no, I have. We got for his third birthday. We got him a karaoke machine because he likes to sing like. I have video of him singing superman's dead on his third birthday.

Speaker 4 1:04:34

He loves it, he's born. He's born artist.

Speaker 2 1:04:36

Well we'll see, but we'll see. I I would love for that right, but uh, but this is the thing is like. I love the fact that this community radio exists.

Speaker 5 1:04:45

And.

Speaker 2 1:04:46

I often wonder if that's the way it should really be going. Instead of these big conglomerates that are playing, I can hear If you turn on Q104, it's like, oh great. I can hear Thunderstruck for the 15,000th time, kind of thing. Or your music can be played on Seaside and really thrown it out to someone.

Speaker 1 1:05:05

For sure, those community stations are awesome Cold FM, which you referenced earlier same idea. They are amazing, but all this comes down to money, like anything.

Speaker 2 1:05:13

They have to work hard.

Speaker 1 1:05:14

How are they? Most of the people who work there are volunteers, yep. How are they making their money? They're doing fundraising through the year.

Speaker 1 1:05:26

Yeah they're doing their 50-50s and all that other stuff right. So I love those stations and they are amazing to have and to promote. We chat with those stations all the time, in different capacities, but it's a challenge for them to exist because advertising is down Like it's just yeah, it's just hard for them. Advertising is down, it's just hard for them. But I hope they can adapt, like I said earlier, and find a new home, a new way to exist, a new way to thrive, because they are great voices for people who want to add something to the community.

Speaker 4 1:06:01

It seems like all traditional media formats are kind of struggling now.

Speaker 5 1:06:06

Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 1:06:06

You know, television, radio, whatever. Yet I'm thinking back to when Trump was first elected and the viewership of CBC just skyrocketed as they were releasing details on the tariffs, like it happened again, and so I think in a time of crisis, we actually rely on those old favorites for media. We trust them.

Speaker 3 1:06:29

They're the place that everybody goes, and so there's also this risk in us abandoning that format altogether and not kind of lending our support when times are tough, because who are we going to trust Two podcasters talking to a politician?

Speaker 4 1:06:41

Because, you know, at the end of the day, people are drinking yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:45

People are.

Speaker 3 1:06:46

they're literally drinking but not only that. Like you know, you have to respect journalists. Uh, I mean my brother's graduated master's concordia. He's going to have very different questions and conversations with a premier than I would right you know on a high level. He's going to know the right questions to ask. He's going to be. They're going to lean into stuff differently and they're going to want to really get some tough answers right.

Speaker 4 1:07:09

But both are important. I actually back to. I don't want to make this all about politics but, I think it's so important to give those members of parliament who are only known for their political roles a little bit of humanity.

Speaker 5 1:07:23

Let's really learn about who this person is that's representing?

Speaker 3 1:07:27

other people. Yeah, but you're right, it becomes lost as soon as that. Both are important, but you don't want to kill one for the other. Sure, it's almost like you need to have that yin and yang or whatever right. Like both are so valuable, right, and so I don't know what you do with that.

Speaker 2 1:07:42

No, I think we try to your point. I think we try to get like, when we bring a politician on, we actually kind of tell them, like let's not talk policy, let's not talk about who's better than who. Like just tell us your story, why'd you get into it?

Speaker 4 1:07:54

Yeah, give them a little bit of a break and see them as a person, agreed, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:08:08

Because I do think we's we, we treat, you know, our politicians really unfairly sometimes, where it's like, just because you're a politician, I can say horrible things about you and like wish death on you simply because you are a different color than politically, than someone else may be. And I'm not saying that there's not some really bad politicians out there, I'm not saying that there's some really dangerous politicians out there there are, right. But I think it's one of those things where we have to be really careful about like the things that we're willing to say and potentially almost act on, because I think that speaks a lot about you as a person. Right, it's like, oh, you know, someone says like trudeau, wow, someone should like drag him out in the street and shoot him. And it's like really like, really kind of thing, like yeah, but still a person.

Speaker 4 1:08:47

Yeah, we behave that way towards celebrities at times you're right they're just kind of these arbitrary people out there. We forget that they have feelings. We treat.

Speaker 2 1:08:55

We treat others like each other like that all the time on social media, because it's someone who's not a real human. They're just a name and a screen somewhere, not here in front of me, right? So I think that's it's someone who's not a real human. They're just a name and a screen somewhere, not here in front of me. So I think it's that disconnect. I'd love to see if 90% of the people who say those horrible things could stare Trudeau in the face and say those exact same things Some of them probably could but I bet you a lot of them would get pretty shy pretty quick yeah.

Speaker 4 1:09:23

I agree.

Speaker 5 1:09:24

Trudeau would knock them out anyway.

Speaker 1 1:09:26

He would, I always laugh with a lot of the people who would say that Trudeau would actually beat you in a fight. Seriously, no, that's true, so yeah.

Speaker 5 1:09:36

I mean.

Speaker 2 1:09:37

But it's those things. But I mean the funny thing about when you were talking about the money right, and how the traditional, how that changes. I find it so interesting that Coca-Cola or Pepsi or whatever Budweiser they'll spend $30, $40 million on a 30-second ad for the Super Bowl and I get it, 100 million people watch it. And I get it, 100 million people watch it. But as a consumer I am not watching that and going like I saw Coke for 30 seconds, so now I have to go out and buy 10 liters of Coke. You could take that $40 million, probably spend I don't know like 25% of it and hit up every local podcast, radio station, radio station, whatever. Give them a fraction of that money.

Speaker 3 1:10:29

They're doing that now mcdonald's literally doing that now with nano influencers yes, so they just had, in the us, a chicken finger right, and what they did is, instead of paying for a big advertising bill, they paid like a fraction of it and they paid all these essentially young people with less than 500 followers to do a review of their new chicken strip yes, what happened is once everybody saw those 500 followers to it, what did everybody else do? Oh shit, I gotta do that video it's a trend now, so now hundreds of thousands of people.

Speaker 3 1:10:59

It was their fastest selling product off the shelves, day one, yeah needs to have just read about that last week. It's just phenomenal.

Speaker 2 1:11:06

Right, that's the thing. There's some untraditional ways that we should go about things Not just slap your name on the Super Bowl Right. Go out there. People consume with their eyes.

Speaker 3 1:11:16

Maybe that's the new way forward for artists too.

Speaker 3 1:11:18

Maybe, I mean, you know, a nano artist or a micro artist type of solution where it's like there's no art better than the art that's in front of you, like I mean, whether it's music or it's paintings or whatever, it's a, it's a thing that lives and breathes in front of you. That's the most, yeah, the most pleasant experience right, it's better than anything you can hear on the radio is to go see sure right, and I like the idea of targeting those with this a smaller following, I think yeah I don't know, I should speak for myself on this, but I think the influencer culture is getting a little bit I don't know untrustworthy, especially when it comes to advertising.

Speaker 4 1:11:51

We know these people are just getting free shit or getting paid to say that this is awesome.

Speaker 3 1:11:57

And then you're trying to measure up to that person who has all this money to make themselves look amazing and do all this stuff. It's not, that's not.

Speaker 2 1:12:06

And I mean we and we manage it like a content creator, slash influence or whatever, and I I think a big reason why we were willing to kind of partner with him and take him on is, yes, obviously, when you're paid to say something is great, you're paid to something to say something's great, and I think you gotta be honest about that. Um, but what I like, what our guy does, is it's in four minutes in four minutes.

Speaker 2 1:12:32

He does like it's almost like a four minute tv show. Yeah, he goes in, he'll like go sometimes behind the in the kitchen he'll make the thing and then eat it, or like he does some humor with it and things like that, and he edits really nicely and it goes together. And people have actually been saying like, like, this needs to be a TV. You guys, you need to be like doing this as a TV show, almost like, you know, like the Food Network or whatever. Somebody feed Phil, it's kind of like that, but just in really bite-sized consumable amounts type of thing, and at the same time people are going to look at it and they're going to go. Oh geez, those matzo sticks look amazing. Maybe I'll go to that restaurant because this guy made me laugh and those look great, kind of thing right?

Speaker 3 1:13:12

No, steve does a great thing.

Speaker 2 1:13:13

He does a great thing.

Speaker 3 1:13:14

I mean he's skippy. In my opinion he's artistic. He has an approach where he goes in a restaurant, he breaks down walls, he breaks down barriers. He has a video that went really well where he's experimenting eating Lebanese food, where the Lebanese guy said next to him telling him how to eat it correctly.

Speaker 4 1:13:31

Oh, that's fun, but that's authentic. That's a real thing. That's happening. He's not getting paid to do it.

Speaker 3 1:13:39

There's no fakeness. I don't think Steve wears makeup. Maybe if he's listening he'll correct me. Does he wear makeup? I'm his cameraman. There you go, and his makeup artist. Yeah, so anyway, I would do it way more hilarious if I was.

Speaker 2 1:13:53

I think people just need to. I think companies need to see that and support local people, right, like that type of stuff. Maybe sponsoring, like sponsoring your band, like that's something that should be. Something that people could really do is, like, you know, really kind of throwing support behind it and having bands kind of almost be sponsored and saying like, hey, you know, thanks to these folks or whatever, right, uh, and even in the art world and things like that, getting involved in that stuff, they can do so much. Uh, instead of funneling all that money to the top and giving a boatload of money spread it out, you could spend less and hit more people, or maybe not more people, but at least more targeted people, because I'm not going to buy a Pepsi. I don't like Pepsi, so you can spend $40 million on that, I'm just not going to consume it, no matter how good it looks on screen or whatever, right, no matter how good it looks on screen or whatever, right?

Speaker 1 1:14:45

Yeah, I think that's kind of starting with podcasts as well, where people are reaching out to smaller ones and sponsoring those, and I feel like a lot of things are going to change in the next few years.

Speaker 3 1:14:59

Yeah, look at us, We've got a couple sponsors right. Like you know, small businesses you guys do too. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 1:15:06

And it's a good way to promote them as well, just like we are with the north brewing today like that's another way of just kind of yeah it's authentic.

Speaker 3 1:15:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly, you're awesome all right, matt, I think we got to get to our 10 questions, my friend, yes yeah, because we probably ran on a little long today, but that's okay, we're having a lot of fun here, we know how to talk.

Speaker 5 1:15:27

You certainly do, but that's what we love.

Speaker 3 1:15:30

So we do 10 questions on this show. They're just silly questions Some of them. These ones kind of go into you guys a little bit. So, Matt, I'm going to get you to read. I'll read the Kristen questions because my question has Okay, I'll read the question questions and you do the other ones.

Speaker 2 1:15:46

Okay.

Speaker 3 1:15:47

All right. So, Kristen, your new podcast rebrand, Make it. What do you hope that listeners get out of the show?

Speaker 4 1:15:56

I hope that they make it. I hope that they live a life of success and achievement and take away a little learning.

Speaker 3 1:16:05

Very good, that was what we call a softball. I'm just joking, just joking, good answer.

Speaker 2 1:16:13

Alright, mike, would you be open to record a rap remix of your song Words for Days with hip-hop sensation Mike Tobin?

Speaker 1 1:16:25

It kind of has a lyrical rap vibe to it. It totally does. It's on point.

Speaker 3 1:16:31

I think it came on after Ghostface Killer in my truck after I was playing your music for a few days. I was playing your music for a few days, I think.

Speaker 1 1:16:36

I've introduced a song before. It's a picture of if Tupac grew up in Cape Breton in the 90s and his father was a coal miner.

Speaker 3 1:16:51

There you go. It's a perfect song. I love it. I would love to do that with you, so this collaboration is now on the record. I'm going to start working on it and I'm going to hit you up, man, when I've got a verse ready to go, okay, okay, give me a few weeks.

Speaker 2 1:17:01

You guys can work on that. Yeah, we're going to work on a painting or a policy paper.

Speaker 4 1:17:05

It sounds like there you go. Yeah, We'll paint a policy paper All right.

Speaker 3 1:17:12

Question number three over to you, oh Kristen. What is the purpose of suffering? I'm asking I really need to know.

Speaker 4 1:17:23

Okay, so I'm not as funny as Mike and I'm not even going to try to go in that way. I have some funny things coming to mind, but the purpose of suffering is growth. You come out the other side having learned something about yourself, and then you're tougher to take on the new suffering that life brings you.

Speaker 3 1:17:40

Breezed right through that. Good job, cheers Okay.

Speaker 1 1:17:45

Would any of the Rocky movies exist without suffering?

Speaker 3 1:17:48

Absolutely. Absolutely not, we need suffering. We need suffering.

Speaker 2 1:17:52

I do know that through Rocky V I suffered.

Speaker 1 1:17:58

Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad it was the worst of the first five, but yeah all right.

Speaker 2 1:18:05

Question number four to me yeah, so pretend you're a zookeeper. Yeah, you are tasked with a difficult choice of providing refuge to only one of two animals. Yeah, a lion and a penguin. Which one would you have to choose to live, and why?

Speaker 1 1:18:20

Penguins are cuter he didn't hesitate. They shuffle around like little teddy bears, they. And one of the best documentaries ever was what was it called?

Speaker 4 1:18:35

March of the Penguins.

Speaker 3 1:18:35

March of the Penguins, read by Morgan Freeman yeah, right, or.

Speaker 4 1:18:39

Happy Feet, which were you thinking? No, march of the penguins. March of the penguins. Ray red by morgan freeman yeah right. Or happy feet, which were you thinking?

Speaker 1 1:18:45

lions. Have you know they survived at the top of the food chain for so long, so the rain is over, yeah if I had to pick, it's easy go penguins go penguins.

Speaker 3 1:18:55

That was easy. They're not a practice.

Speaker 1 1:18:56

Lions kill other things penguins, so I guess penguins kill fish. They're both killers.

Speaker 3 1:19:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:02

I'll still pick penguin.

Speaker 3 1:19:05

Good answer.

Speaker 2 1:19:06

Question five.

Speaker 3 1:19:06

Okay, as a painter, there must be one thing, kristen, that is frustrating or difficult to paint, and you refuse to do it. What's that one thing you never want to paint?

Speaker 2 1:19:20

Portraits of politicians.

Speaker 4 1:19:21

Despite that being my next collaboration.

Speaker 5 1:19:23

I'll learn.

The Value of Community and Authenticity

Speaker 4 1:19:24

I'll go through the suffering.

Speaker 3 1:19:26

I think CEOs I think the next corporate event. If you just painted the CEO and just did it you know real raw looking, you know angry looking and just presented it to them at the end, that'd be brilliant. I'd love that.

Speaker 2 1:19:41

Just paint them all as Mr Burns Variations. All right question number six. So, mike, who is a musician, dead or alive, that you would love to perform alongside with, and why?

Speaker 1 1:19:51

Jimi Hendrix, oh there you go.

Speaker 2 1:19:52

Oh, cool answer, jimi is just well.

Speaker 1 1:19:55

I don't think there's anyone more legendary than Jimi. It's like what he accomplished in 27 years and just the the lore off him, like everything he did was kind of like a movie scene so you think he's?

Speaker 2 1:20:13

do you think he's the goat in terms of guitarists?

Speaker 1 1:20:16

yeah, there's lots of people who can play as well as him, but in terms of just feel and what, what he was at the time, that's came. I think he's the goat for sure yeah awesome yeah awesome answer.

Speaker 3 1:20:28

Okay, kristen, your book, you and me traveled misadventures and love around the world. Is there an event that's happened since the book was published that you think deserves being in the book, like if there was a second edition? Can you think of a quick story that you can share?

Speaker 5 1:20:42

so many do you know?

Speaker 4 1:20:44

there's millions.

Speaker 1 1:20:44

I'm trying to think what's one? Yeah?

Speaker 5 1:20:46

what's one anyone yeah we had.

Speaker 4 1:20:48

Uh. So mike and I went to a artist residency in columbia a couple of years ago. I would say pretty much every day of that month could be a book uh but, but we, uh, we would walk into town, which is like eight kilometers. We were in the middle of absolute nowhere, columbia and by the time you would reach the town you'd have a pack of wild dogs with you.

Speaker 1 1:21:13

Wow, like friendly wild, yeah, friendly wild dogs but, like.

Speaker 4 1:21:17

And so there was this one that had a cardboard neck brace with a phone number on it, so we called him neck brace, of course, and this dog followed us everywhere in all the businesses, like we went to get lunch and this dog, so everybody just thought neck brace was, was our dog, uh, but we didn't end up coming home with with any permanently we had like it's.

Speaker 1 1:21:37

We love animals and we, unfortunately the residency said do not bring any animals back. Like that was a one.

Speaker 4 1:21:45

A rule Like the one rule.

Speaker 1 1:21:47

So when we were leaving we actually had to be like, mean to the dogs, Like shoo, get away.

Speaker 4 1:21:51

But every day we'd come home with 10 wild dogs. And that was the rule of what not to do there. But yeah, that would make for a good you and me story.

Speaker 1 1:22:00

There's lots of yeah, the tarantula, the near-death experience on the airplane in Austin.

Speaker 3 1:22:05

I hope you guys are keeping notes to put out a second book. Yeah, I think a sequel is in the making.

Speaker 4 1:22:10

I hadn't even thought about that but thank you Cool.

Speaker 2 1:22:14

I think the last two. Are they for both? No, we've got question number eight. We're not done yet.

Speaker 3 1:22:18

Oh no, but I think these ones are for everybody oh yeah, but we're not there yet. Oh, not there yet. I'm sorry, I have question number eight. I'm slow.

Speaker 2 1:22:24

Yeah. So, Mike, you have an amazing catalog of music. What is one of your most treasured songs that warms your heart when folks tell you that it resonates with?

Speaker 1 1:22:35

I have a song called Hercules that I wrote for my father. He's someone who works out west, or worked out west in Fort McMurray back and forth, and the song's about him waiting for this particular job to come through and it doesn't, and he's heartbroken.

Speaker 1 1:22:50

Anyway every time I play that someone comes up afterwards who you wouldn't expect to come up to you and they're like oh man, I was bawling tears after hearing that. It just reminds me of my own father, so that one always strikes a chord with someone when I play it. So I think that would be.

Speaker 2 1:23:11

That makes sense. I think people can relate a lot to just the hard work that people go into. Everyone has love songs and things like that. Never can relate to that stuff. But there's uh, yeah, there's some songs that just hit to that hard work. The one that always kind of like that I have a particular soft spot is uh, um, uh. Name of the song christy moore. It's uh ordinary man. Okay, I don't know if you know it, but ordinary man, christy moore. Uh, was, it's just a song that you listen to and you're just kind of like, yeah, everyone can sort of relate to that. You work 30 years and next thing you know you get laid off and the fat cats are smoking cigars meanwhile. I'm on the EI line, kind of thing.

Speaker 1 1:23:54

Yeah, it's kind of the same concept as that really.

Speaker 4 1:23:57

I love that question. I don't know if anybody's asked you that before.

Speaker 1 1:23:59

Yeah, yeah, good question, we've got to talk. We're going to get Declan McKenna's song in the mic here. Oh yeah, there you go, oh we've got to talk closer.

Speaker 2 1:24:08

So okay, Question number nine.

Speaker 3 1:24:12

This is for both. This is kind of both of you, such as Togetherland Art Gallery and Mike, your work as an author, singer, songwriter proves your dedication in expressing the importance of the arts. Okay, what is something you would like to see that could help more artists live a creative and affordable life? I mean, is there anything you guys think that would just help with that?

Speaker 4 1:24:34

Universal basic income.

Speaker 1 1:24:36

I think well, AI. Well, we should tell everyone right now this podcast is 100 ai, oh yeah yeah, we're not actually here but in I don't know, I think in the very near future like a very high percent of the jobs are going to be fucked oh yeah, I believe that, uh, it's gonna change. I don't know what's gonna happen with music, with film like uh? And these are just artistic things like think of a law, any call center right?

Speaker 1 1:25:06

yeah, like you know, um, so many, uh, and eventually like truck drivers. Like I know, there was a guy two elections ago in america, andrew, yang was campaigning on. When trucks are driven by AI, the whole US economy is going to basically collapse. After, I think, the military, the second biggest job in America is truck driving.

Speaker 3 1:25:32

Right.

Speaker 1 1:25:33

He's like a picture of all those jobs that are instantly gone, like what happens. But anyway, I think AI is is gonna screw up a lot of shit and I think uh, you know, some version of universal basic income would be, will almost be needed at that point, I think. I think it's needed now right, yeah, to be honest, like if there's people who are working jobs and still can't afford groceries right it's uh yeah, I mean and not a small amount of people.

Speaker 3 1:25:59

Right, if we're realistic, there's a quite a few people that can't afford groceries right now, some of them with with college degrees and good jobs right out of college or even been at it for 10 years right, yeah, and some of them in our health care system, right, some of them the most important things that we have, you know, still can't, still can't afford.

Speaker 1 1:26:16

So I think, with that, with ubi, every single person has to get it. It's not just poor people or just people like, because then no one can complain like someone makes 10 million dollars. They get their 1200 a month. Whatever, it's not a big amount. Some people give it back to charity. Whatever, some people will use it as a vacation.

Speaker 1 1:26:37

Let it be up to the whatever, yeah, uh, but every single person has to get it, and I've I've heard bernie sanders, multiple people talk about whatever you put this little tax on the, the uh wall street trades and it funds it anyway. That doesn't matter no, there are ways you can do it, and love the idea um yeah I think that's one way for sure.

Speaker 3 1:27:01

Do you mirror that or you have something different in mind?

Speaker 4 1:27:04

I think back to our conversation with rick rubin, who would encourage you to create for your audience. That at some point becomes a challenge for artists even successful ones almost ironically, probably more of the successful ones because you lose a little bit of that newness and freedom Because now there's an expectation placed on you. I think something like UBI takes that pressure off so that you can more so create from a pure place, rather than necessity.

Speaker 1 1:27:31

A little more wiggle room for freedom. Yeah, it's like if you have a trust fund, it's easier to be an artist. Yeah, yeah, if you've got that. Fu money you, it's easier to be an artist.

Speaker 3 1:27:39

Yeah, yeah, if you've got that FU money, you can kind of do whatever you want, yeah.

Speaker 5 1:27:43

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:27:44

Yeah, I get that Cool, Great answers. So the last question, last question.

Speaker 2 1:27:48

So yeah, so this is the question we ask everybody. All of our guests get this last question and it's for both of you, so you can both give us this. So what is one piece of advice that you have been given in your life that you would like to?

Speaker 4 1:28:00

give to us and our listeners I want to think about this because I I think that's important.

Speaker 4 1:28:11

Uh, a good friend of mine and former podcast guest, and someone that likely a lot of your listeners might know, nancy regan, has given me the advice to not worry what your neighbors think would be the way that she put it I think we often get caught up in the perception of what others might think of our lives or, in our case, our art, and that can really influence your emotion and your work, and she has been such a great role model to me in living her life in a way that is true to her, and I think the more you behave that way, the more you might inspire or give permission to others to show up in a little bit more of a relaxed way that's awesome.

Speaker 4 1:28:51

Let's cheers to nancy reagan yeah, always, always, she was a great guest all right.

Speaker 3 1:28:59

And then, uh, mike, do you have one for us too?

Speaker 1 1:29:02

I can't remember who told me this, but someone I think it was my aunt or uncle, when they were graduating university. This, like I don't know big wig was the guest speaker. I can't remember who it was and they were, like, known being really philosophical and incredibly wise and they got up to the mic to deliver their convocation speech and they just said buy a good mattress and walked away.

Speaker 1 1:29:36

And then I think some people were pissed. Oh, I thought I was gonna hear more. Uh, but I don't know. You think about what you sleep on every night. You're spending the third of your life on this particular, in this particular place. You should probably get something that's comfortable that doesn't hurt your body. Yeah, you know you don't want to be waking up with any kinks, any injuries that you obtain in your sleep.

Advice for Creative Living

Speaker 2 1:30:02

So I think it's pretty good advice. To be honest, More important as you get older too, yeah, being at the age where you put your back out.

Speaker 4 1:30:08

if you sneeze, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 1:30:13

That's actually really good, great advice.

Speaker 3 1:30:15

First time I got that one First time. I've ever heard anything like that that's good.

Speaker 1 1:30:18

I've got to get the details on who said it and all that Well that was perfection.

Speaker 3 1:30:22

guys, Thank you so much for coming to hang out with us.

Speaker 4 1:30:25

We really appreciate it. This was so fun. You guys Thanks for having us, Maybe we can do it again, you'll be on the make it.

Speaker 1 1:30:33

Have you on ours you know you have to be in the process of trying, oh okay okay, cool, all right, guys cheers working my hands and heart andile with big, strong arms going on a minute he can explain the Ukraine crisis.

Speaker 5 1:31:05

Chopper core would tell you clearly what life is working out west in Fort Max and traveling back and forth. It's hard on the man who's waiting on a call For a promised name. I hope the bastards don't call so he's poor for a while. There's politics. No matter what you do, it's all who you know, not what you prove. I'm going right ahead. Open new doors. You don't worry about the fuckers in the union, no more. For what it's worth, I think you're doing good. Dad. I'm proud of you and I'm certainly glad to call you my father and tell who I know that you're killing some working work demands clothes.

Speaker 5 1:32:01

If I knew God, I would ask for a raise Trade in this winter for some summer days. If I knew Allah, I would call him a favor, show me the way and I'll call him my savior. If I knew Jesus, I would learn some tricks Walking on water, making wine for kicks. If I knew people, we wouldn't have to worry no more. I'll probably make more money if I didn't curse and swear, saying about blue eyes and pretty long blonde hair, use words like baby and lines like love me too, but that's all for singers With no mud in their shoes. I don't care about money, but I like some dough. So dad don't have to work Out west no more. Mom can retire. I'll put my niece through school, buy my brother's new car, take my girl to Peru.

Speaker 5 1:33:27

If I knew God, I would ask for a raise. Trade in his winter for some summer days. If I knew Allah, I would call him a favor, show me the way and I'll call you my savior. If I knew Jesus, I'd learn some tricks Walking on water, making wine for kicks. If I knew people, we wouldn't have to worry no more. We saw new the right people. We wouldn't have to worry no more. We saw new the right people. We wouldn't have to worry no more. We saw new the right people. We would have to worry no more.