Ep. 13: James Quigley | The Danger Den Podcast w/ Danger Foley @SXSW

In this episode, we welcome James Quigley, a visionary leader and creative entrepreneur, for a powerful conversation about resilience, purpose, and the pursuit of meaningful work. From his journey in business and community-building to his philosophy on embracing challenges, James shares insights that inspire growth, authenticity, and connection.

What you’ll hear in this episode:
James’s story and early influences
Building purpose-driven businesses and communities
Lessons in resilience and transformation
Insights on leadership, creativity, and living with intention

Stay connected:
Follow James Quigley @jamespquigley

Connect with The Danger Den:
Website: https://www.thedangerden.com
Instagram: @dangerdenco
YouTube: @TheDangerDenCO

Transcript

0:05

am Danger Foley. And this is the Danger Den podcast we are at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And I am here with James Quigley, one of my favorite people and just the master of connection. He lives in Austin and I'm just so happy to have you. Thank you for being here. Thank you. You have been recognized as someone who is truly masterful at putting on a good party, on bringing people together in a way that is really organic and so needed. What goes into that? And how did you first get into. Yeah, that's a that's a honor first off. So thank you for, for for acknowledging that I appreciate that. You know, when it comes to culture, I want to say it relates to my time growing up in New York City and growing up in the 80s, growing up in the 90s and my family just being really into music and park culture. Right. So park culture was, just taking out your speakers, taking out your instruments, and just hanging out at the park. Right. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and, my family was, right in the Williamsburg projects. And so there was 49 parks that people would just go out to. And I just grew up around that. And I saw that, and I saw the impact that it had on people's lives, where I think it was right around my parents’ time where New York was pretty segregated for a long time. Like. And when I say segregated, it was like Puerto Ricans on one side, Italians on the other, Irish cats themselves. Right, it was based on blocks and around late 70s was when everyone just started partying. Right, everyone just started coming together, and then the 80s hit New York City. So that was where I really like got my like experience from my mom and my dad, were just huge hosts. Right. They were kind of like the two people in their like their sibling groups, where they were the first people to have an apartment to themselves. And so they always just threw the maddest fucking parties. Right? And so here I was, just run around and when it was time for James to go to bed, I would just get taken to my grandmother's house down the block. So I had that. And I grew up around that. And so when it came time to getting an opportunity to do that for Austin, all I was recreating was what I had at my grandmother's house or my parent's house. You know, my grandmother's house. Was it was a place where, like, everyone from the neighborhood would just come to. And she would cook Sunday meatballs, and it would just bring in, like, all of my uncles and my aunt’s friends and everybody would just kind of come out and hang out on the stoops. And so I'm like unconsciously, honestly built like just started doing that out of a pure need for just wanting a home again. And so, yeah, that's what it started from. I personally feel that hosting should be like the sixth love language because it is just something so different about just the all encompassing nature of being the space for someone to exhale. Have you ever heard the book the Art of Gathering? Yeah, yeah, I love it. Me too. That’s a fantastic book. It is such a deeper look at what it takes to bring people together on a deeper capacity, and it's a recipe to do so. I think that if you are interested in connecting on a deeper level with friends or just having a deeper intention to, even if it's a meeting for work or a coffee meeting, there's a real opportunity to make it really potent. Yeah. What would you say your recipe is for The Gathering? Like the Art of Gathering Jame’s recipe? So the first word there, right. The art that is so important, right. Like you see today, everything is just manufactured because someone saw someone else doing something and it worked. And it's like, oh, I'll do that too. However, when someone creates something, they're going through the struggles of it. They're going through, okay, whatever. Whatever you saw worked that probably didn't work right away. Right? There was probably like 4 to 5 iterations of something that got them there. Or as, you know, putting events together sometimes it's a mistake that ends up working out really freaking well. Totally. You're like, Holy crap, I had no idea that was gonna work. Yeah, and it's all art. Yeah, right. Whether you're a canvas artist, whether you're a music artist. Great art is born through struggle. Great art is born through challenges. the Art of Gathering is exactly that, right? Or the art of putting an event together or bringing people together. Number one is identifying what's the purpose of it. Yeah, right. If you don't have an intention, if you're just saying, awe I just want to create community, that's such a fucking buzzword that it has no meaning anymore. Totally. Right. Yeah. It's lost its meaning. You know, the intention behind something isn't to build community. It is to build something. Therefore, allowing the community to have an opportunity to create something for themselves. It's building the town square. That's it. Right? Right. And you're creating all of these all the things we do like having something like a beverage deal. Right. Having something where people can connect on, There are a lot of things at Highbrow that we had there that were just conversation starters. Totally. Snake cage, all of these little things that happen, what they were, they were just. Yes, it looked cool. Yeah. It was it was fucking cool as shit. But what they are. It really was. Are just things that allow people, two strangers to come together, like, what the fuck is that? Right now all of a sudden this thing happens organically. So number one is just being intentional with what actually is the gathering for. Right. What are you trying to do out of there. And what are you trying to make people feel right. all events most events are if it's an event, they're all commercials for something greater. It should all be leading to something, something greater than what it is. Because just throwing an event to just for the sake of throwing an event, that's where you have to identify what's the purpose for it, right? Because there's a difference between a party and there's a difference between an event. So a party or a party actually collaborated by the party goers, right? You're actually in unison with the people who are attending, because think about this. How many, how many clubs have you gone to and these people have spent millions of dollars on this club. And you go there, it's a shitty time. Yeah, yup. Right, it’s a shitty time. Why is it a shitty time? A lot of clubs in Vegas. Anywhere now, right. The club scene is just kind of, like, slowly dwindling. Totally. And it's because there's no opportunity for connection anymore, right? Right. It's a stage elevated. You can't get past a certain point, but you go to some dive bar, you go to some someone's hours. House party. And you're sitting at 4 a.m. in a kitchen. You just you leave. You're like, I had the best time ever. People dancing on the counters at somewhere unexpected. It’s about the people you meet, right? Right. Because if I leave there with like 3 or 4 amazing connections where I just got an opportunity to go out with my friends and we had the best time ever. It doesn't doesn't matter where we are, So a party is co-collaborative with the people that are going to this. An event is more a production. An event is actually you. You are a guest. I’m experiencing. I am the host. Right, I'm experiencing something at an event. If I go to an event, I'm experiencing something. And the event organizers, Their job is to put things together and produce things so that I can have that experience. I can have that feeling, right, whereas a party is just a little bit more casual and so. And collaborative and equal. And that's, that's that's a really cool distinction. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And that's awesome by the way. You know, Austin if you ever if you ever look at some old movies that are pretty cool to Austin, you'll see Austin is this like real cool casual town. You know we were never about these, like larger production, larger than life productions. And as Austin has been shifting, there has been. a bigger push towards the commercialization of events and just a bit more structure and a bit more money behind these things. How has that impacted throwing a party in this town. There's no good or bad right. It's everything is just like, depends. It's different, right? Yeah. It all depends. there's no, like, financial investment anymore. Being being asked of the person attending something. Right. And so there's no exchange of energy there. So sometimes that means that person doesn't necessarily always appreciate the work that's being put out there. Like So now because you have people who have gotten in it because there's no barrier. There's no barrier for entry anymore. It's just, do I have a phone and do I have like do I just want to do something. Because so many people, when a rookie per se comes into a new industry, they don't know they have this imposter syndrome. They they're motivated, they're they're excited, but they don't know. So their first inkling is I don't want to charge for this. And so it diminishes the value of all of the events that do take. We saw this happen in fitness. So in fitness about ten years ago you had and more so in 2020 in the coaching space you had an influx of people who were so excited that they wanted to change what they were doing. They wanted to make an impact in their communities. So they got into the coaching space, they got into the fitness realm. And so you saw all of these like, free experiences at parks and, at wherever they could do them. But what that does is that actually devalues someone who actually charges for this and makes a living on that. So we're always focused on the people who, oh, you're charging for this? Well, that person also is making a living. That person is also a person in the community that's going to take that money that you're investing, and is going to go, then spend it on another community event or a butcher or whatever. And so we just forget this, like exchange of abundance that is needed for these things to continue. Do you think that we're moving away from, at least socially, the need for that, as opposed to a bartering culture where if people are attending more potlucks and they're doing more free activities where it's not necessarily that you need and granted, I'm, you need money. We all have bills to pay, and that's a thing. But, I mean, do you see opportunities for new innovation coming out of this, or is this just a sad time? You know what I mean? I hope so, because I was actually talking about this yesterday. my parents, you know, grew up in, you know, the 60s and the 70s, and my dad was, you know, kind of involved in, let's say, some wiseguy kind of industries. There was a lot of bartering going back then. Money is not the only exchange of value. So I value your business. Right. Right. You value my business. Totally. And so there was, there was an opportunity there for to be like oh what are you do. You got eggs I got carrots. Right. So that's commerce right. Right. That's commerce. And that's great. And that's value. I think it's healthy because we're now only valuing money. we're not valuing other qualities. I do hope that there is some barter structure. But then, as a society we have to do that as well. Totally. It's a much bigger mission to actually turn the ship. Because then what we end up doing, is we end up feeding the bigger machines. Right? And we don't support the small businesses. Right? Yeah. So you go give all your money to berries, and then you want to go to a free workout in the park, which is great, but berries is getting all your money. And, what happened to the gyms that have been here who have done a fantastic job of the people that are actually your next door neighbors? Why don’t you support that? So I'll give you an example. We'll stay we'll use the fitness term. So there's some amazing gyms in Austin. I mean, these gyms have been here for 15 plus years. You have. people like us, small business owners who love awesome, who love their communities, who put so much effort out now, people. And it's not a knock on run clubs, but it's like, I'm going to go support a run club. All of a sudden now there's a new namebrand studio opening up in town. I'm not going to say their name, but they make sneakers and now they're getting into the fitness realm. And so now everyone's excited to support that. And it's like, wait, you're you're you don't want us. Do you want to support something that is completely faceless? You'll never talk to the owner. There's no connection there, right. And so we're losing that connection to small businesses. And I think in the entertainment section I don't know if you were, if you remember this, but like when you went out the owners were sometimes there and you can talk to an owner of a nightclub, you can talk to the owner of a restaurant. I loved growing up. And like an owner would come out and talk to my family for no reason, like there was no problem. It's just a spot he's proud of. It wants to see how you're liking it. Right. That’s it. And so I think organically, how do we get back to that? I do like that there are things breaking off of people buying these ranches and then bringing in this like communal aspect. I actually think it's healthy. Oh yeah. I think it's great, I think where I just want to see it continue to like, play out is hoping that in the urban environments we can figure that out too. More parties, less events. Yeah yeah yeah for sure. Not everything needs to be a production. Right. Not every friendship needs to have a QR code attached to it. The bigger conversation here is metamorphosis. And we're talking a little bit about that. With the evolution of the culture here in Austin. I want to bring it to you personally because you've had a very big year, and you are a very different person than even when I first met you in 2023. And I mean, that as a huge compliment. I think, you've grown a lot, and it's been an amazing thing to be your friend and to witness it. And so. I appreciate that. Let's start in New York and what it looked like for you to come out here and the, the journey. So, grew up in New York City, grew up in Brooklyn, started to move around, lived in all the burrows, lived in Long Island for a little while. Got an opportunity to take it overseas and moved to Kuwait and opened gyms out there. And so for someone that you grew up in New York, you think the world revolves around New York, right, New Yorkers are very special characters. So I got this opportunity to go out there and you want to talk about metamorphosis. You want to talk about overcoming adversity you're now in a completely different culture and also a culture where, like at that time it was 2014, the news that is constantly being inundated for us was like, these people are bad so I got to go out there and experience like a completely different world and be welcomed. it was incredible. But I went through a depression out there. I missed my family. Your homesickness. Yeah. And you also miss like, everything comes down to communication. Relationships come down to communication. Even though we can understand each other language wise, it doesn't mean we understand each other culture wise. Right? I'm a New Yorker. The way we talk. Yeah. Is so different. It’s a different tribe. Yeah. A lot of people don't understand, a lot of people think I’m angry. It’s dialect. Yeah. People think I'm angry. I would get that all the time. They're like, why are you so mad? I'm like, this is just how we talk. Yeah. Right, like Samuel Jackson. This is just how I talk. Yeah. it was a great opportunity for growth out there. And it really challenged me in that way to understand, okay, who am I today and how do I continuously improve this person. And so the growth that I've always placed on that was wanting to be accepted by society all the time. When we're initially doing our growth phases, it's because we've come to some challenge in the road, where someone or something has told us we're not good enough. We need to change your approach, your tone, your mindset. Something is off if you want to do better, you want to be accepted. You need to change. You need to change. Right? And so you go through this throughout your whole life. And then I finally got to a point in my life where I'm old enough, where I was like, I, I'm not doing this for anybody else. I'm doing this purely for me because the world will always tell you, nope, that's not good enough. Somewhere, somewhere along the line, people are going to no no no no no. Yeah, I agree with what you're saying, but your tone is off. I think the people who are the most content with life and who feel the most freedom, are people who actually just are who themselves, unapologetically. And as I've gotten older, I've now shifted that the work that I'm doing is purely for me, to heal me so that my family and my daughter, we can break some generational curses. I do want to make a distinction between, I think, like self-worth and stagnancy and complacency, because for someone to say like, no, I am who I am, like, I love, I love who I am and give up on the desire to grow and change and evolve. That’s a good point. especially in this last six months or so, I would say the amount of change that I have gone through, has been pretty profound. However, I think the difference is in what your point was, is that that change has been to become even more in alignment with who I actually am and to even listen more so to like, you know, fuck what other people think. Truly, this is actually bringing me even closer to what is real. And so that's, I think, the change that we all strive for. But yeah, sometimes it sometimes it's tough to figure it out. I, you know, I love anything that can show me some humility. what I realized is humility will eventually equal wisdom. There's so much freedom. In, in humility there's so much freedom there. Now obviously our egos is needed to sometimes get over challenges and to be like, look at myself in the mirror and be like, fuck yes, you can do this. Oh yeah. Oh of course you can do this. You know, that resiliency thing that we talked about, which I'd love for you to repeat. Yeah, so well, what is resiliency? it's a series of moments in our lives that we've had to overcome some sort of challenge. all formative years are so important for helping us have that resiliency as we get older. Right. And you see that in society now because over the last 20 or 30 years, we just had so much comfort. Yeah, totally. We've had it very easy. We have, right? And I think 2020 was the first time a lot of, you know, as a society, we were all at what the fuck. And that was pretty fucked up. It was. And when you think about it. Keeping everybody inside for a year and a half is going to do some shit. Well, just like, do you know how many people had things that were like, they were so excited about. They were like, right there. And that thing got taken away. Yeah. Right. And so again, so resilience is built through those opportunities. Right. And so the more opportunities that you have to overcome something each time that like, you know that it becomes stronger. It's the muscle memory of jumping over the hurdle. Once you do enough of them it becomes yeah, like it's not that hard. My biggest foundation for resiliency and growth is faith. You know, my my foundation for life is faith. You know, I reconnected my relationship with God back in 2018. I had church package, like most. Grew up in a Catholic church, was an altar boy. I see him, man. You know? Saw some, saw priests do some some shit they were not supposed to do for real. Yeah. Shit, man. Yeah. Yeah, so and I've, I carried that guilt around for a long time, knowing I was I was groomed by a priest, and my friends, we're not as lucky as I was because that never actually quite happened to me. I was, I had, I had, I was molested in other areas, but not by this particular priest, whereas friends of mine aren't so lucky. But I carried that around and I didn’t tell anybody because I grew up that way. Whatever you see, what have you here, you just never talk about it, right? You don't rat. Right? And especially when Cath, in the Catholic Church, you were the fear that they just put in you of the fear of God, the fear of everything and the respect and, just high stature of a priest and of a nun. I mean, I grew up in Catholic school as well, and I was obviously fortunately blessed to, you know, have have respectful and honorable teachers. As far as I knew. But, yeah, the fear and the guilt and the shame is, deep. Right! So that's where a lot of us turned away from God. Totally. That's right. And that’s where that religious baggage comes into play. But, you know, religion is just man's interpretation of God. Totally. That's all it is. And yeah, it's just humans. It's not. It's not God that did this. It's humans. And I would say intentional interpretation of God. Well sometimes, right? I mean, sometimes and sometimes you do have people who are just taught. Right? And I think that's I think that's where we're living at. Some people think like there are like people behind the scenes pulling the strings. Everyone is just doing what they were taught. So they really feel they're doing what is best. whether it's inherently evil or good for the good people. Actually, I really believe people's intentions like this is for the best because this is the way I was taught this is going to work out. And so that's where resiliency, faith and in his grace, grace is huge. And that's something that we are also because I really believe because of the rise of the internet and everything being so filtered, and perfect. And we're afraid of being canceled and afraid of looking like we don't know what we're doing because we're not going to get the job. We're not going to get the friend. We're not going to get the partner. So we. The fear of the hypothetical. Yeah, so we have to be perfect. But grace is so important to give to ourselves because the more grace we give to ourselves, the more grace we give to others. And then it just is this sicular thing. Also, if I gossip about someone or I judged them, or someone's doing like a cool new concept or a cool new event, and I start talking shit about them, guess who I'm really talking shit about me, right? It's me. So having grace for others and having grace for ourselves is so important. It's so important because there's no way you're everyone's going to fall. What the degrees are is very different, but everyone's going to have some challenges in their life, and you're going to hit a wall at some point when you hit that wall. If you don't have faith in yourself and in something greater than yourself to pull you out of that, and you think it's all about you, you think you're the only one that's going to do that. Good luck. It's gonna be hard to get out of that. It's going to be really, really hard, right? Because then it's all about you, and you're in this all alone. And then the forgiveness part, just having forgiveness, understanding. Like I'm just a human man. Like we're all having this, like, wild human experience. And the moment. Are you familiar with, Matthew McConaughey's, greenlights? Yes. I haven't read it, but I know everybody says. The audiobook. The audiobook is like. Let him serenade you for eight hours. It’s, it’s McConaughey. You know, It’s McConaughey man, you must all really love this guy down here. He could read anything and be like, oh, that's so cool. Oh, James has a crush on Matthew McConaughey. I mean who doesn’t. From his all right, all right, all right. So in one part of his book, he's he's talking about he went off. He had experienced all that, like, like quick success, all of a sudden. Right. It was like it just completely threw him off. It can fuck your brain up. It warps you. It warps your whole sense of reality. So he talks about how he goes off to some like, like a monastery, right? He's sitting with budas or some monks, and he's talking with a brother, and they're just walking in the woods, and he's talking and he's just sharing his heart. He's like experiencing, and he's crying. And then he stops, right? And, the monk just kind of pauses. He doesn't say anything. And he turns to him he goes, me too. In that moment, Matthew is just like balls. And he's like, oh my God, he never. He just felt so. Seen. Seen and recognized as like, oh my God, him. Like, we're just having this. We're all just sharing this human experience together. And so that resiliency, butt end that we have that muscle that we grow. Man it starts with faith starts with faith in ourselves to know, like, okay, this is just part of the game. And can I believe in something greater than myself that actually loves me enough to pull me out of this? Right. Second is just grace. You know, forgiveness of yourself could not agree more. I had an ex, a very vivid. It made perfect sense in my head. But this visual of a pendulum swinging in terms of the capacity for emotion and capacity for experience, where in one of the hardest times in my life, after, losing a friend to suicide and, you know, having my own really dark chapter and all of these things, I was crying in a friend's shower. I had this visualization of a pendulum swinging, and it was so high on the negative emotion side where I was like, I don't know if I could hurt any more than I'm hurting in this moment. And, thank you so much for your vulnerability. I'll offer the same and say that, after my friend's passing, that option just fully went off the table for me because I just saw the destruction that it left behind. And I was like, well, oh, my God. Like, I can never put my family and my friends and the people that I care about through that. Right But sitting there thinking about this pendulum and having it hit the new high level on this side, it was this complete understanding of the capacity for them, the appreciation and the gratitude and relief that is possible from the opposite, swing, which has happened many times. And as you get more comfortable with those swings, you at least for me, it was something where I've learned to really appreciate the really hard times. Yeah. Because there's the recognition that something bigger than us that I have come to find has compassion. Right. And I wouldn't consider myself religious at all. I'm smart enough to know that I know nothing, and there seem to be things that are happening in life that feel just bigger. But recognizing that there's so much potency and growth in that hard, horrible swing to the side that. I have a question for you as an artist now. When you have those moments when you have that lowest of low moment. Where you’re like I can never go back to that. How is that affected you in your music and in your art? I have tried. I have three songs that I haven't released yet. I think, that's kind of standing on the ledge of that precipice of sharing your, your things with the world. I actually technically have six songs, that I haven't released, and it's it's, I've noticed that in what I have written and what I've actually gotten to the mastering phase, it's the attempt to convey, the translation of, like, the pain into something bigger. And so I would say it's impacted my art tremendously. I haven't quite built up the confidence yet to like, let the world see it. And I'm really excited to, but it's just really it's a scary thing. It is, but what I've realized throughout my life and thank you for sharing that, because, you know, my childhood was it wasn't normal looking back on it. my best friend committed suicide. My parents got divorced. My dad, you know, was highly addicted to drugs. And was involved in a life of crime. And and these things just led to a spiral of me. And so I can relate to having some, some family struggles. But what I realized about art, so art is actually every person is an artist, right? Our creator is creating through each and every one of us. Art is the human's ability to take their pain, to take their struggle, to take everything that they're experiencing in life beautiful and ugly, and be able to just manifest it into something that they can share. So whether you're painting something on a canvas, coloring in a coloring book, making music, putting together a gathering. Right. It’s art that you're taking something, you're taking something that has made you feel a certain way. And now you're just kind of like re shifting that energy and you're putting it out there. And so Rick Rubin, have you read his book. Yes I have. Okay. Right. And he's just like man like put it out there. Right. Doesn't need to be perfect. Doesn’t need to be perfect because actually and that's so that's what made Highbrow so cool was me and Chip had no inkling of making this thing like. Pristine. Yeah. Not at all. Never. It was just like his mindset was like, I bought this property. I got to pay the bills with it. I'm just going to put a social club. I went in there I was like, okay, he's my client. I'm going to help him out. That's all it was in the beginning. And then we had this cool place to hang out, just the two of us like, dude. Should we just invite some friends over and it started with a playlist and cooler. And again it was just two guys that were like two different walks of life. Two guys with mustaches. Yeah. Right. He always had a better mustache. And so it was just two guys that like had two different views of life points. Right? He was life of the party. Party never ends. I'm work hard, play hard. And so you saw that come out of Highbrow.. That's our art right. And so now if you copy something and you only look at the surface, you only maybe go one level deep, you get to you miss all that. Totally. And that's where things become caricatures of themselves. Right. That's where something becomes poppy. It's a shell. Right? Right. That's where like commercialism comes from. It's like this hip hop. Yeah. Let's take hip hop. Take the soul out of it was like born in the parks, born on the corners of New York City. Born out of struggle. Now look at it today. Right. Because what tends to happen is if you don't go beneath the surface, if you don't, if you don't see true to yourself, if you're just copycatting something without really understanding what went into that, then it becomes a caricature of itself eventually. if you're an artist out there, all great art is born from all the beauty that you have, all the ugliness that you've experienced. I was saying this the other day. I saw Moonage Daydream by David Bowie. Have you ever watch that. It’s awesome. he talks about his life. He talks about, you know, growing up in England and, you know, getting to where he's gotten to. And you don't get a David Bowie without what he experienced with the struggles in his life. Right? You don't get this like beautiful art that has been created by whether it's a music artist, whether it's been by some painter, whether it's been by a movie producer with someone that built a car, you don't get that art without someone experiencing something that challenged them in their life. And now that has actually had the courage enough to express it, and put it out there for other people to experience. that's where it gets complicated, because beautiful art comes from pain. But also being especially in the now, the hospitality space, the art of space. Myself, nightlife, all of the things. Beauty comes from pain. But watching artists suffer hurts my heart so badly. And so to see how artists are, kind of used and abused and thrown to the side, more often than not. That's essentially why the Danger Den came to be is because that element of the transfer is so important. The transfer of energy between the artist and the. Yeah. You know it’s. And the party hosts that just the gathering and going back to what you were saying about church and having that community for me, that's a show. Yeah. It's tricky right. Because we live in a world where we talked about there should be some exchange of value. Right. You made something. There should be some exchange of value. I believe in abundance. However not all art needs to be monetized. Exactly. Just like not everything needs to be monetized. Right. Totally. Not, you know, not every friendship needs to have a transaction. You know, like the one thing about Austin that happened after 2020, I would meet people, we’d hang out, have a great time. They'd be like, dude, we should hang out again for sure. And I get a QR code come to my guest, you know, come to my events. That's like, okay, not everything needs to turn into a transaction, right? There needs to be kind of a balance there. So you're feeling like people are asking you to. It's more of a culture of if you want to hang out with me, come to my event and pay 50 bucks to hang out with me, kind of a thing. Right. Versus just like, why can't we chill in your backyard? Yeah, what happened to that? You know, and I think we all eventually figured that out for ourselves. We're like, it's cool. It's this is great. And then all of a sudden I'm like, want something a little bit with a little bit more soul. A little more heart. The next thing that I really want to create, and I learn this with Highbrow, and I learned with the gyms as well, is Unfortunately you are up against progress, capitalism without guidelines and values loses it. Unfortunately, I'm a capitalist, but I believe in conscious capitalism. You need values. You need guidelines, or else you just. Throw your money away, right? Flies off the fucking rails, right, right. But it becomes these big corporations if you don't have, you know, some sort of some sort of shared value structure to it, anchored to authenticity. And so for true art, whether it's music or, you know, structures or anything that's being built by artists and people who want to do things, I feel a sense of responsibility now being the age that I am and the experiences that I've had, my way of giving back is creating a place, right. I'm going to take on the man, so to speak. I'm dealing with the city to get the permits, to understand zoning, to understand all the things that I need to do as a venue so that I can let these artists have a place that they can create. So I feel this sense of responsibility and I think if we can just make a paradigm shift as, like, once we get to a, like what does a business do for a community? I want to be an asset, right? I don't want my neighbors hating me. I don't want my neighbors saying fuck that place. I don't want another event space. No, I want my neighbors to be like, I love that place. I want to host, you know, an open house for if you live within a ten block radius, come on down, you know, let's have a cookout, hang out, meet each other. Bringing the New York parks to Austin. Exactly. But, I feel that's what we've lost. That's why businesses don't get the loyalty from the people that live there. And that's why the people that live there don't feel the loyalty back. It's a two way street, right? So I want to be able to stand in the fire line of bureaucracy. I want to shake their hand. I want to be an asset, and an ally to them too, I want them to know. Yeah, I want to be an ally to the city. Right. But at the same time, I know they're going to push back on some of the things that the artists want to do, and that’s fucking As artists have to push the boundaries, you have to push against the rules. It’s the only way we figure out where we're going to be as a society, right, is you got to push the rules a little bit. You got to push those boundaries. Fuck, we pushed them a lot of the old Highbrow Right. So I realized where that line was. I was like, okay, that's a little far. Got it, got it. Let’s bring it in a little bit. Total degenerates. Yeah, right. Let’s bring it in a little bit, let’s play by the rules. Let's run towards, you know, regulation but be able to still understand that artists that are going to come there, they're going to need to push that boundary. I want to be the person that stands for them and stands with them to be like, push it. Okay, you fucked up. You know what i mean, alright, cool, I got you, you know, we're good. Right. And also at the same time, I want the neighbors and the community to feel like this is their place, that they can they can have these exchanges with the different parties. They can have this exchanges with each other. It's a home away from home, right? You don't want to be at the club, but you also know when to go home right away. Totally right. So like, I want to have this place. Awesome. What would you say your bigger mission is like? The underlying what is James here to do that changes? Yeah. You know, it depends. What is it right now? Right now what's the mission at hand? Family tell me more. Yeah. So as I've gotten older you tend to want life to get a little bit smaller. You tend to really focus on what matters most. And to me, I have a daughter and I want to be everything for her that my father could not be for me If you don't feel like you're worthy of being a parent sometimes, then you don't parent just because you don't feel like you deserve to be that person's parent. You don't know what the fuck to do, but who does? there's no strict guidelines of being a good parent, right? Every person is different. Every culture is different. So I wanted to throw that page out. And although I don't have it all figured out right, I want to be a good dad. And that's that's like my number one thing is be a good man. So I could be a good dad so that I can be a good son. So I could be a good brother. So I could be a good friend. So number one, that's my number one mission is me to understand me as best as I can so that I can give the best to the world that I can do. Then after that, everything else comes out for that. It used to be reversed my whole life, and that's what society tells us. Like. Have a good job, have the money, have the girls, have the right get all the things out there. Right. So then eventually I can be the best in here. But it's the opposite. It's be here. And then when you're in here, everything comes from that. So my number one mission now, if I can just, you know, put that flat is be a good man so I can be a good father and be good for my family. And is there anything like, what's one thing that you would say to the general public? Don't skip over being good in order to be great. Greatness is just doing things consistently enough for you to have an opportunity and blessings. Right. Eventually you're you're good enough for a long time. You do the basics really well. That's it. You know, if we can get back to something that I hold dear to my heart. It's just we all know what we really need to do, It's just doing the basics really, really well. Being good long enough that you catch that opportunity to be great. Every time I get the chance to talk with you, it's always a deep chat, whether it's in the late in the wee wee hours of the morning after a good party, or on the Danger Den podcast, which feels frickin crazy. You didn't. This wasn't even a twinkle when we first met. I know. Which is so cool, it’s so cool, so cool. I'm honored to have you here, and thank you. By the way. Thank you to our friends at Brez. Cheers. Yeah. Okay. Yes. By the way, we met breeze through James. James made that introduction. So . Yeah, Ilyana, I mean, we met at we met in Dallas at J. Paul's, afterparty and I was, I was working that, that event and she was working that event, and we were just talking and we jumped into deep conversations. And I was like, you would be best friends with my dear friend Allison. Yeah. And sure enough you guys are. And here we are. She's actually in the next room, and we have some kind of folks waiting for us to go and hang out and relax. So we're going to get back to it. But thank you so much for watching The Danger Den. This is James Quigley. I'm Danger Foley. and by the way, I do want to take this opportunity to say thank you to my amazing team who has been here with me all week, making the show go on and hosting artists, while they've been in and out of South By. So it has been such an epic week. And, yeah, we're just getting started. So yeah. Till next time. Cheers.