Den Devine Sessions - Talking Music
Den Devine Sessions is a podcast that brings the magic of live music to life, recorded in the vibrant atmosphere of the Gold Coast’s iconic Den Devine. Each episode dives deep into the stories, inspirations, and journeys of talented artists, followed by unforgettable live performances that showcase their artistry. Whether you’re a music lover, a curious soul, or someone who craves authentic creative moments, this podcast offers a front-row seat to the sounds and stories that define the local and global music scene. 🎙️🎶
Den Devine Sessions - Talking Music
🎙️ Den Devine Sessions | Ep 14: Talking Music with Jacob Lee 🎶
🎙️ Den Devine Sessions | Ep 14: Talking Music with Jacob Lee 🎶
What does it really take to carve out a sustainable, independent career in music? In this special episode of Den Devine Sessions, we sit down with Jacob Lee—a prolific Australian singer-songwriter and entrepreneur who’s reached hundreds of millions of streams while staying completely independent.
From busking on the Gold Coast to building an international fanbase and launching his own philosophical music universe called Lowly Land, Jacob Lee opens up about purpose, consistency, creative control, and the emotional weight of songwriting.
This isn’t just another artist interview—it’s a deep, raw, and inspiring conversation for anyone serious about art, impact, and long-term growth.
đź“– CHAPTERS:
0:00 – Meeting Jacob Lee: A Musician’s Journey
17:06 – Finding Your Musical Purpose Early
32:39 – Writing From Empathy: Creating Stories Through Music
52:09 – Building An Independent Career Without Industry Gatekeepers
1:07:04 – YouTube Strategy: How Jacob Built His Following
1:23:24 – Touring Life: From Rehearsals To Meet-And-Greets
1:38:40 – Lowly Land: Creating A Universe For Music
1:55:07 – Industry Advice For Emerging Artists
2:13:03 – Q&A With Fans And Future Projects
🎧 In This Episode, Jacob Talks About:
✅ How empathy fuels his songwriting, even when he hasn’t lived the stories himself.
âś… The meaning behind Lowly Land, and how it represents our internal battles between light and darkness.
âś… The realities of touring, rehearsals, burnout, and rebuilding.
✅ His advice for artists trying to make it on their own: “You’re probably not working hard enough.”
âś… The YouTube strategy that helped him grow his audience globally.
“I want to create a library of lyrics that, when I’m 80 years old, there’s a song for every difficult topic someone might face.” – Jacob Lee
If you’re an artist, entrepreneur, or anyone walking the independent path, this episode is a blueprint.
🎶 Follow Jacob Lee:
•Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1tqysapcCh1lWEAc9dIFpa
•Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacobleemusic/
•YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JacobLeeMusic
•Website: https://www.jacoblee.com.au/
🎙️ Keep Up with Den Devine Sessions:
•Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dendevinesessions
•Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Den-Devine-Sessions/61561374826176/
•TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dendevinesessions
đź’ˇ VemYou LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/vemyou
📢 Drop a 💬 in the comments if Jacob’s story inspired you. Let us know who you’d love to see next on Den Devine Sessions.
#DenDevineSessions #JacobLee #LowlyLand #IndependentArtist #EmpatheticSongwriting #MusicPodcast #ArtistAdvice #GoldCoastMusic #SongwriterJourney
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And it's so, it's easy. It's so easy to fall back into that if you're not deliberately, every single day, setting up your environment and your life to not fall into it because it's almost like what's good lovely people, welcome to another episode of Dendervine Sessions.
Speaker 2:This is recorded live from Dendervine, a music venue right here in Broadbeach, gold Coast, australia. I'm your host, joseph Brown, a musician, a creator and a passionate advocate for all things music, with years of experience on the stage and behind the scenes. I'm here to bring you stories from the heart of the music industry. Whether you're an upcoming musician, a seasoned pro or a dedicated music fan, this podcast is for you. Let's get into the episode.
Speaker 1:It's Dandy Vine time, dandy Vine, dandy Vine, let's get into the episode. It's Den Divine Time, den Divine, den Divine.
Speaker 2:Den Divine Time. This podcast is brought to you by VEMU Rethinking Live Music. Ladies and gentlemen, good people of the world, welcome to Dendervine Sessions episode. I think this will be number 13. And we are here to talk about the music industry. We get right into the details and really follow people's journeys on what it takes to be a musician in the industry. Of course there's lots of musicians at home and all that sort of stuff. This podcast is about really getting real and raw on the industry and some of those topics around it and also getting to know the musician and all that sort of stuff. I'm very blessed and very lucky to be here with an amazing guest, someone who I remember we met I think over 10 years ago at an open mic night at Pacific Pines. And all these years later, here we are here right at Dendervine in Broadbeach, gold Coast, australia. I'm here with Jacob Lee. How are you bro?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well, bro. How are you?
Speaker 2:welcome, man oh we're doing that one. Let's do it both same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm good man yourself what's going on, bro, feeling happy I've not done a pod in a hot minute and the fact that we can also stream this through my channel is great.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone out there yeah.
Speaker 1:Everyone who's watching on YouTube. On my channel, we speak on the daily, so it's nice to do this in a different setting with Joseph. So, yeah, hyped Should be fun, yeah man, thank, be fun.
Speaker 2:yeah, man, thank you for coming through and, uh, I think when I bumped into you I'd lost track of time due to just being a parent and a dad. I was like I haven't seen you, like did you come back like a couple months again? You were like, nah, man, it was months and months and months ago, so you were over in europe. How, talking through there, man, like like what was that tour?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was fantastic, as always.
Speaker 1:This was the biggest tour I've done over there, yeah, and I think we did 20 something shows all the way through europe, did a whole bunch in the uk and I've just got to say like every single time that we go to romania it's just and people know this, like who followed my stuff for a while like romania just has the biggest reception for my music, which I still don't really understand why or how.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure one of my songs, probably Demons, did well on the over there and people in my stuff. So it's like the greatest reception. It's like, apart from having my children born, like the best memories are made in that city and that country, but apart from that, like we had this was the first time that I took my kids on tour and Nikki, my partner, on tour. We went on tour together years and years ago for one of my first European runs, but ever since then it's just been me and Luke who comes and plays guitar and runs production on stage, but this time I brought the fam nice and they were in the tour bus with me.
Speaker 1:At the end we got to go to finland and do some snowboarding and I got to. You know, show the boys how to do tobogganing, because they'd barely ever seen snow. So just a wholesome sentimental experience, both from a professional standpoint, but also the ability to take my family to like the other side of the world and show my kids especially what I actually do, even though they're probably still too young to understand it. I brought Luca and Malachi up on stage a couple of times and they were just like why are these people here? Why are they like staring at me? But no, very wholesome, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's such a like. That's what I love diving deep into this, and thank you everyone for joining from Jacob Lee's page. We're going to get to know each other as well. But, yeah, we'll do a Q&A at the end and so throw your questions in. We've got Dan, who's on the production there. He who's on the production there, he's going to be monitoring this. So I just thought I would mention this nice and early. So anyone that's got any questions, dan's going to be there. He'll try his best to answer on behalf of Jacob where he can. Where he can't, he'll probably just shoot a little. You know he's got a mic, so he's going to just sit there and throw it through to us, hey everyone.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I love that. Like you know, we're with you now and you know probably a lot of people that are just sort of starting to follow you. That's today, that's 2025. And you know, people don't know the journey it takes to get to that right as a musician, to have people know your, your story, your lyrics and the music and they're singing along with you and you got your kids there and you got all these people coming just for your story as a musician and I love that. That's where we are in 2025. Where I want to take it back to is where it all began and that inception of the seed, I guess, where music was like, wow, I really love this thing. I don't know what it is yet you know and and go into those details because it's a journey. You know we grow as artists, so take me back to that, that, that seed, if you can remember it I can.
Speaker 1:I don't exactly know where the seed itself came from, I would say, if I was to try and figure out the exact pinpoint it's. I watched my dad play music when I grew up. He's a musician, he's a bass player. He's been on stages his whole life. He still is on stages quite frequently, primarily playing bass. Sometimes he'll sing and play acoustic guitar well, electric as well and he's insanely talented far more talented on the guitar and bass than I'll ever be.
Speaker 1:But watching him rehearse in the house constantly and really dive in and like he would make sure he rehearsed endlessly so every single show was as perfect as it could be, I would say subconsciously it was just a part of my upbringing because music was always in the house. But then I did take a bit of a different route. I would say like singing is, I would say, my dad's kind of secondary or third love within music. It's mostly bass, but I just love to sing, since I can remember, like I cannot remember a time in my life where I wasn't singing, even if it was just humming around the house or whatever.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what that meant, but I just always sung and as I grew up, that was one passion. And then writing was another passion, where my friends would be out doing other stuff and I would just want to sit by myself and write short stories and it wasn't even lyrics yet Like I would come up with anything with any image I saw or painting I saw or any sort of random inspiration. I would craft just the most wacky, weird story and just show my parents. I never published them. I remember I had a blog way back in the day when blogs were the primary source of marketing and I would put them there but barely promote them. And as both of those passions grew, it eventually formed together to become lyrics where I would be singing my stories, and I think I'm very lucky in that.
Speaker 1:I found my passion and I found my purpose early. It didn't take me long to know exactly what I wanted out of my life and even though there's been a lot of complexity and you know many, many, many ups and downs in developing the career that I have, there's also been an element of simplicity in knowing. You know from the age of 10 or so that this is what I've wanted to do and I've tried various other things along the way and I've burnt out every time and come back to this. So it's been reinforced as I've grown older that writing songs, writing lyrics and performing those songs and making videos for those songs is literally all I want to do. It's just all I've done for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's, I guess, one of the purposes that we want to get out of this podcast. You know, I'm a believer. We're definitely going to get into conversations, which is great, but I love hearing that it's a reoccurring story through all the other episodes of for most of us, it's our purpose on why we're on earth. You know, like a doctor, they've called to become a doctor and you know construction. You know those people. That's driving diggers. They were playing with diggers as kids.
Speaker 2:You know making this and for us, as musicians and creatives, it's our calling. It's like it's almost like a godly calling. Where you're called. This is what I'm meant to do on earth. You know, and I guess that's what this podcast is all about is about creating that expectation in society of like this isn't just a hobby, it's not just a side project. It's like this is't just a hobby, it's not just a side project, it's like this is what we're here to do, you know. So I love that because it's it's a reoccurring topic. It's it's amazing man. And you know, when we we first met on, I remember it was an open mic.
Speaker 1:So where was that along your career, of you developing as an artist Near the beginning, like I'd been doing music a long time prior to that? But I don't think I'd even released a song at that point, or maybe I just released my first one and I was just taking any opportunity I could play anywhere. And you know, you remember what that place was like. It was very small, very chill, like people would be in and out for their food and they would just host an open mic a week. I chill, like people would be in and out for their food and they would just host an open mic a week, I think. And I just jumped up and played a lot of covers because I didn't have many songs back then and I'm pretty sure, if I do remember correctly, that I played my first song, chariot, there, and I didn't, even though I knew I wanted music as my career. There was a massive element of naivety in knowing how to get there, like I had no guidance of like this is what you do to become a successful artist. So I was just kind of throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick and like back then I was like maybe, if I play this open mic in pack pines. That'll be the thing. That'll be the thing that gets me there. So I was singing wherever.
Speaker 1:But as time rolled on, and even when I did like the Voice and stuff like that way back in the day, I started to realize that oh okay, there's a lot more structure to this, there's a lot more beyond the music that is going to bolster my career and make it a significant, impactful thing, instead of just me singing somewhere and hoping, like that's the moment that something cracks because it's pretty rare, especially where we live like for that to happen.
Speaker 1:You know we're not in the middle of LA somewhere where someone's going to be hanging around. So you know, I wouldn't say I had much of an idea for how my career was going to progress back then, but I did know at that point that I had to write songs. I had to find a way to release them. I didn't even know how yet and luckily I was always even now but back then obsessed with YouTube. I always felt like YouTube was a really significant avenue for me to not only gather exposure and build a community but also make money, and I had been releasing covers on YouTube ever since, like middle school.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Like, I've been on that platform for a long, long time, so you understand it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I could start to see more people commenting and the views increasing and like then YouTube was like okay, you can become a partner. Now it's like what does that mean and that's how you can earn a living off of YouTube? And um, it was like okay, something is happening. And I'm getting like emails from these random people in America now who are like I've seen you on this video. I'm like okay, so this is, this is being broadcast further than just my hometown or Australia.
Speaker 1:And it sounds funny when you say this stuff now cause it's obvious, but back then, especially cause social media was like still newish yeah uh, I just had no idea yeah I was just like I'm just gonna put stuff out online, put stuff out in the real world, and if someone sees it or if it looks like it's heading in the right direction, I'm just going to take that as a signal to continue down that trajectory for sure, and along the way, like you said, it's um obvious now, but when you're pioneering I guess you know that pathway you would have had a few wars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, plenty, so many. I mean one of the biggest wars, I would say, is learning who to let in and really making sure you make the right decision, because if you let the wrong people in, despite their initial intentions, it could drastically slow you down and really turn things off for you for a period of time. Until you gather up that momentum again, I found that my music was doing the best when this is going to sound rough and I don't think this is the case for most artists, but I'm just going to speak from my perspective.
Speaker 1:My music was doing the best when I let nobody in, no one from the industry, barely anyone from my intimate circle. It was just me releasing things, putting them out there, and it felt super authentic, which it still does. But as you grow up as an artist and you think, okay, maybe I do need more of a team which is true, you do need a team.
Speaker 2:Um, but they're just passengers. You've got to remain the driver.
Speaker 1:You do, and I think there's a difference between a creative team and a professional, like industry based team, and if you can find the right people in the industry, congrats.
Speaker 1:I haven't I still haven't found those people, Um, but I am lucky enough that because I've done this so long, I found the best creative team that I could ever hope for people who have skills in areas that I don't or my skills are incredibly limited in. So I have people who can shoot cinematic videos. I have people who can mix and master. I've got session players who kill it on the keyboard, where I'm like novice at it, where I can be like I'm literally going to focus on my voice and my songwriting and coming up with cool conceptual stories for both my songs and my videos. And once I've done my part in that process, I can be like I feel like this needs keys or it needs strings. I'm not going to spend five years, 10 years learning that shit, nor should I have to. So that's why having a team who you can then cast those things off to gives you a professional radio worthy song and also like an incredibly cinematic Netflix kind of video.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know. So I'm lucky in that I've developed a team through a lot of trial and error throughout my life in that regard. But honestly, anytime I've let anyone in from the other side, it's it's completely slowed me down and messed me up and it's I think I've just not been lucky enough yet to find the people who really understand what I'm trying to do. And I think because I I follow my weird creative mentality and my authenticity and my intuition to it's a hundred percent capacity. I know I do. I think a lot of people struggle to see the vision for that because it's not like, oh, he's like this guy yeah he's like this artist and we can kind of put him in this genre.
Speaker 1:If you go through my albums, it's like r&b, folk, electronic.
Speaker 2:It's just like adhd brain yeah uh, and you know, I can see why people there's a nice click, was it a good click? It was really good. Yeah, thanks, boom, both hands as well. It's great, fuck talent. I'll put that in the next song.
Speaker 1:Next song um but I I can see from their perspective because I do try and be empathetic to that situation where they might be like, oh man, I don't know where to put you. Even though you've developed such a solid group of people who follow you and your streams are solid and your views are solid, they're still like I don't know what I can do in this situation, because the next song you write might be like completely different to the one that's, in you know, being released right now.
Speaker 2:So I can, I can understand that to a degree and I want to just quickly, while you're on that topic, um touch base on that, because the industry is quite cookie cutter and if you don't fit the mold which you know, look this, this. This is about evolving the industry, or what I could also say devolving, because when I think about the music industry, when music really hit me, it was through authenticity and through individuality, like we've. You know, we've got three kids at home and they're starting to get their own musical tastes, and me and my wife we love lincoln park, so we've been putting lincoln park on quite a lot, you know, and they like, they watch the in the end music video and they're like what is this? You know? But when you listen to lincoln park and then you listen to corn and then you listen to metallica, they were all individual and that's what I think.
Speaker 2:Somewhere along the line it became easier to just go. Let's just mold them instead of creating this individual profile. Because actually, if you look at all of the big, you know we're still riding on the 90s, right, like the industry still, like when you look at the stadium gigs and everything it's, it's the 90s, they're the ones doing it still, even the big hip-hop artists, even like snoop dogg and all them. Why? It's because of individuality. It's because snoop dogg was snoop dogg. He wasn't trying to be another rapper, he was being authentically him and showing that.
Speaker 2:And that's what I think I love about you is that you're not trying to be the the mold, because you can't be molded, because you've got your own creative story and you've got that, like I, I watched an interview once with um I'm babbling on here, but with um, freddie mercury and they asked him do you write for the people or for yourself? And he goes I don't write for the people. I'll be a slave to the people. I write for myself. Therefore, people can come to my show to experience me as a person. Yep, and that's what I love. Like, like when you were talking about this before. If, like, yeah, you're not going to fit into a mold, which is why, like, the industry needs to update their brain. My click's not as good as yours.
Speaker 1:Update their brain.
Speaker 2:Update their. Um, the business needs to be updated or, like I said at the beginning, like before, it needs to be downgraded. Back to taking Jacob and going wow, I'm going to now put you in front of the people as you are instead of going, oh, I know the the right mold to put you in, which it's like man. So yeah, I just wanted to touch base on that. I think that's great man.
Speaker 1:Man it's. It's like crazy how all of these previous artists were never writing and releasing for an algorithm. It's like that word was barely even around unless you were in tech. But now it's where it's on the tip of our tongues every 30 seconds when you post something. It's like is this going to work in the algorithm?
Speaker 1:And the thing is, you'll never know if it will or it won't, and some of the videos that perform really well, you can try and dissect. But maybe it was just a lucky day, maybe not. Like it's. It's difficult to know and you can go deep into that and I think there is an art to that, but the unfortunate reality is like trends are just the primary aspect of social media now, and if you click on a trend and you dive into that trend, you'll see thousands of people just replicating each other only because they want views. That's the only and they're trying to get views to make money, to build a business, to live a successful life.
Speaker 1:I understand it Like you need to make money. It's, it's a part of like most people are treating this like a business and they should. It's like this weird paradox where I don't actually disagree with what people are doing, but I've been bound by this desire to try and always be the definition of what an artist should be, and that doesn't mean following anyone and that means, exactly as you said, I'm not writing for anybody, like if I feel like coming up with a strange little genre choice today or if I write about something that's absolutely harrowing and tragic, which I do a lot. I've had people, like literally only a few months ago, telling me that the reason certain people aren't interested in working with me is because my songs are too sad and I'm like we would pull Jambi.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, like there's plenty of artists writing cheerful songs, that's great. Go with them. I'm not. The thing is I'm not trying to interject myself into anyone's life, like I I couldn't care less. Like if I can sustain my family and make enough money to keep everyone abundant and we can go and travel and I can take my kids around on tour or not on tour and like there's enough for that, where it's comfortable and we're not concerned, and I'm still able to write authentic, genuine things that might be really uncomfortable for a lot of people. Like that's my happy place. And yes, I want more success. Yes, I want more viewership. I would love more streams and I still wholeheartedly believe that's going to happen. But if it takes me longer to get there because I'm not staring at my screen three hours a day to see what's popping off next that I can copy, then it'll take me longer and that's fine yeah, like it's just, and anyone, anyone watching on that?
Speaker 2:on that note about um is your sad to song? A song's too sad. Sorry, my dyslexic brain sads to songs. Look, anyone who knows jacob out there in the world, um, and if you don't, please go and check him out. He's got plenty of videos, plenty of content. It's, it's easy, jacob lee, it's all there. We'll try and get a ticker at the bottom.
Speaker 2:But if you do know jacob, does it even bother you that his songs are sad? When do you listen, when do you tune into jacob's music? Is it when you're feeling like you need to release that sadness? Chuck it in the comments. Um, we'll try and come to them. We'll try and time stamp this and everything. But yeah, try and yeah, let us know in the comments, because that's a really good thing. It's a good thing to know because your fans are listening in and it's like when we start talking to more and more artists that you know some of the people we speak to on here they've been in the industry for two years or a year and they're a little bit in that like early stage and it's great because you're sort of coming up to that period. It's it's good to know that you're writing sad songs in your authentic and true self and man. I'm the same man like. Sometimes.
Speaker 1:I write and, and it comes up, that's all comes out like it's and the thing is like not all of them are just depressing as hell, but like there are more emotion in it, man the thing that I love, because I could easily be so delusional and my music could be horrific.
Speaker 1:However, throughout this 10-year period of releasing songs, I've had hundreds of millions of people comment on my videos saying it's changed their life, it's saved their life, it's helped them through a situation. It happens 50 times a day minimum through dms and comments, and it's like this shit's working yeah I'm touching so many people, so what bro manager says down the road? I'm just like fuck you, like I don't care yeah like it.
Speaker 1:Like, as I said, and I've never said it that way, I'm going to repeat it because it kind of hit me is I'm not trying to interject my shit into anyone's life. I'm not trying to be a burden on anyone. I'm not trying to hit you up into anyone's life. I'm not trying to be a burden on anyone. I'm not trying to hit you up on email like, hey, man, I'm the guy you want to. I just all I want is my music and my personality, whatever charisma I may have, my own efforts through my own social media and my touring to speak, enough that I'm hitting people at a level that's beyond the surface, and I know that takes time, because I could be taking way more marketing efforts, I could be running way more ads, and not to say that I won't do some of that stuff in the future, cause there's nothing wrong with doing that Like, there's nothing wrong with exposure and publicity, but there's a reason that I've never really asked anyone to follow me or subscribe to me.
Speaker 1:Like at the end of my videos. There's not like hey, if you like this video, make sure you like again. Nothing wrong with it. But I want them to choose to Like. I want them to be so enamored by whatever I just made to be like Jesus, like I need to follow this thing, and that's what I've built over this time where like a million people have or almost a million people have subscribed to me on youtube without me asking them once is that crazy like can you just say that again, say that again and let it sink in well, yeah, almost a million people have subscribed to me on youtube when I've never asked a single soul to to subscribe man and then now say that to the jacob when I first met you.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, oh yeah, it's mental.
Speaker 1:You get goosebumps about it like I'm. I'm not jaded to the fact that this has grown beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I'm also not jaded to the fact that I still feel like I'm only starting, like there's still a ridiculous amount of things that I want to release to the world and I say this on tour on my shows sometimes. But one of my goals when I was really young was to whether it be metaphorical or literal either way create a library of lyrics that someone can go into my catalog and there is a song for the topic they're dealing with. When I'm 80 years old, there's a library of lyrics that has a vast majority of difficult topics that someone can pull from and go shit like someone understands me.
Speaker 1:And if I'm to talk about. You know, like a strength that I have which I know a lot of people like shy away from saying anything they're good at. Like it's I'm. I'm good at empathy and I think that's what's carried into my music. Like I wrote a song recently it's not even out yet which some people in the community have heard that I've put a demo in. It's called this House and it's about a domestic violence situation, about growing up in that house and what it sounds like and what it feels like and where you're sitting and how you're hiding, and it's like the childhood anthem this person has listened to and gone through. I've not experienced that.
Speaker 1:No not at all. I had a beautiful upbringing. My parents are amazing but it's empathy.
Speaker 1:Like you, if you actually sit in the shoes of someone for long enough, you'll, you'll. You can imagine the intricate things they're feeling, without it coming across superficial or cliche, and I think that just comes through a genuine desire to try and understand those situations. So hopefully and I think it does but hopefully those songs continue connecting with people in a way that is a positive influence, because I can also see those songs making them feel worse, because it's not like a lot of these songs I'm writing at the end where there's a happy conclusion. I'm just saying what the scenario is, but I'm glad. Thanks, patty, appreciate you. I don't know where to look, but thanks, paddy, right there.
Speaker 2:Thanks, paddy no, that one, that one, oh, this one.
Speaker 1:Thanks my bad but no, like I think what I'll, just to finish my little rant here is I've had enough evidence of people telling me that it's made a difference when they have no.
Speaker 1:There's no um incentive for them to comment that like no one's lying, like you don't need to comment on my YouTube channel and put a full blown paragraph, or five paragraphs, telling me your story, but they feel compelled to because they can sense the authenticity in it and to me, that's what I want my music to be about. I can't say that's what music should be about as a blanket statement, because there's so many perspectives. A lot of people want to write just to get streams. I'm so cool with that, but I just haven't been able to put myself in that situation where it's like today I'm being scientific about my music and I'm only writing things with a formula that might work better. I might get way more views. I could also sacrifice 50 to 70% of my catalog to get someone in the industry to take all my money but push me up, but I just I don't know, I can't can't do it and and you know that's well.
Speaker 2:I guess that's the beauty of us being able to sit here and talk and letting people know and educating people on how the industry is, because in its current state, it's not about nurturing the uniqueness in individuals and in people, it's about the product and that's all it's about. You know, and before we go too deep, and we go into that because I want to explore a few different areas as an artist, when you go back to those moments of you doing your open mics, doing your covers and everything, what were the covers you were attracted to to sing your open mics, doing your covers and everything, what were the covers you were attracted to to sing at open mics?
Speaker 1:a lot of Ed Sheeran, yeah, um which I assume a lot of acoustic artists like that's probably the primary look, man he's.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why Ed Sheeran's Ed Sheeran, he he's a great lyricist, man like oh, dude, yeah, dude yeah. There's no doubt about it. He's not there by accident.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:His number one hit was about crack. You know that A-Team, yeah yeah, dude, that tells you something.
Speaker 1:He's insane. I've seen him live three times and I do like his older albums more. I don't dislike his newer stuff. But you know you always have like nostalgia for whatever. Um, but it was a lot about Sharon. Um, you know, I tried my hand at some John Mayer because I'm nowhere near that level of guitarist. But I tried my best, um, honestly back then because I don't feel like I really managed to. I didn't, I didn't know what my identity was. It was just anything that anyone would resonate with. So it'd be like Maroon 5 and like all the songs that, like people would know on the radio. Pete Murray, which, like I'm friends with him now, which is crazy to say he's a legendary human. Um, but like all those types of songs, um, I would just play because I was busking on the street in surface paradise for 10 years. So I'm like, how do I get people to stop? And it would just be through popular songs.
Speaker 1:I would throw some originals in when I could, but it was my. My attempts to get people to stop to actually watch was popular songs. And how crazy can I sing? How many like runs and like how high.
Speaker 2:Can I go and like?
Speaker 1:so it was those two variables that I think helped get me to the place where I am now, because now we're talking about busking, it's like my only goal was to be entertaining enough where people would actually stop when they were trying to go shopping or go to the beach or something like that, and I would usually have a pretty decent crowd. So I think that helped me. Now, knowing that, like, okay, these people are actually here for me, it's actually easier because you know they want to see what I have to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and it's that's a development with. We've had a few guests on here and this has been a topic coming up quite a lot is that cover period Cause, while, while, of course, we're going to be talking with your following, we have another audience which is musicians who are wanting to come through the industry, and that's that. That's, that's what we're going to try and touch on a few topics. One is obviously to honor your um, the people here for jacob, which is great. Thank you everyone. Um. The other one, like I said, is to share some of those, that knowledge and that that details about if you're on this journey, like these are. This is some of the real stories. You know, the real, the real things.
Speaker 2:Busking has come up a lot, covers come up a lot.
Speaker 2:People try and skip these steps, but I think that's where you become your own identity. Yep, you know, and I'm the same with you, man, I've done my busking, I've done my years of busking, I loved every moment of it and I think they're really special because you are, like you know, when I think about those times and me as an artist now, like I had this band for 10 years and I've put that band to rest, because I've developed as an artist, I'm not no longer writing that way, yep. So on your journey as you've developed as this artist, I just want to again dig a little bit back into that history. Have you, you know, that empathy that we've spoken about, that was always your personality, or did you develop it through your musician journey? Or was it just a natural part of you? Like, talk to me like when you, before you, even got into music. These emotions and feelings of how your songs have developed and you're developing as an artist, was it always a part of you as a personality?
Speaker 1:I would say so. I would also give a lot of kudos to my parents.
Speaker 1:Like they're both wildly empathetic people and if I'd ever done anything when I was younger that was misaligned with their view of how I should treat people, and if I'd ever done anything when I was younger that wasn't that was misaligned with their view of how how I should treat people, they let me know, like straight off the bat, and so I think I learned just through, like bouncing off the walls and them telling me like you don't do that, like this is how you, you know you're kind to people, you say thank you. You'll you say, please, like you use your manners, just like general shit, shit. You should be taught as a kid. Yeah, um, so I would love to say it's, it's a natural thing, but I, I imagine, say I had a completely different family dynamic. Would that be the case? I don't know? Um, so I'm just going to give that one to my parents and I don't remember a time where that hasn't been a primary, like a forethought in my head, like when I was writing these short stories, even prior, prior to lyrics, like they were very much about the. It's always kind of like a sorrowful, sad story. Unfortunately, I don't know why I'm more called to that, but it would be about what they feel in these desolate times and what they're doing to work through that, beyond all the odds that they might be going through.
Speaker 1:And I could pull that just from an image, like I would. Google images was where I going through and I could pull that just from an image, like I would. Google images was where I would go and I would just type in like like a sketch of a bird or sketch of someone out at sea, like whatever, and it would be either a photo or a sketch of something that I found cool and interesting. And then I would write pages and pages of this story that is just kind of conjured up and it was always about, like the existential nature of what they were thinking. And I'm sure if I went back to those stories they'd be horribly written because I was so young when I was doing them, but it was always that. That hasn't changed an inkling from then to now. Like, anytime that I write anything, it tends to usually be about the existential nature of someone going through something insanely difficult. Sometimes they make it through and sometimes they don't, but it just depends where the story goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I think that's the reality of life Like not not everything is always super happy and not everything ends in the most glorious way. And I remember when I was going through my angsty teenage years and feelings like woe is me for no reason at all, Like I would listen to those songs and they would make me feel better.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the songs had no happy ending, but I would feel better. It's like I was just sitting with. I was sitting in it with someone and I was like gosh, it's not just me feeling this shit. And when you're older you realize other people feel it, but when you're younger it's like it's just me, like I'm the only one that feels this. No one else has been through this, but music is what, like, has allowed me to realize that. No, there are people who have experienced it, and not only that, they've found a way to articulate that and they're literally talking to me indirectly through the songs. So I think, think I just wanted to do that for other people.
Speaker 2:I guess, yeah, and that's what I love about music is people think it's so strange, right, like? I've been in a reggae band and I've also been in the audience of a heavy metal band. I've met reggae artists and I've met heavy metal artists and the common misconception is that you're going to meet these reggae artists and I've met heavy metal artists, and the common misconception is is that you're going to meet these reggae people and they're going to be all loving and all that. They're quite aggressive. And you'd think, oh, the heavy metal people are going to be all aggressive, they're quite loving, and I'm like you know it's, that's the power of music.
Speaker 2:You know, the other day we, like I said earlier, I've got three kids. We jump in. Music is a big part of my life, so I want to bring back to my kids because they're in my experience and you know the kids were just like my nerves. I was on my last nerve with the kids. We jumped in and they're like I'm feeling the blood boil. We jumped in and they're like I'm feeling the blood boil and instead of like reacting to them, I just put on what I put on, like slipknot or something like this, really loud, and you know, three minutes into the drive, everyone was peaceful okay turn the music down and they were like and it was just peace.
Speaker 2:And I I was like that's crazy, you know what I mean. Like sometimes you just need that, what the thing that you need, like when you're sad. Sometimes you just need that sad song to let that sadness out. Yep, you know, and if you're too much in either one, you can sort of overindulge in that emotion. But the right amount, man, and that's what I said, man, like musicians, we're like soul doctors, we're like emotional doctors, yeah, and that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I think there's a very delicate, intricate balance to that kind of stuff, where no one on this pod, no one is telling you to sit in. A woe is me just like depressed state, like I'm trying to get out of those states as quickly as I can, like I'm not trying to be unhappy, but also in those times, if you're only trying to listen to music, they're like it's gonna be okay, like you're just like it feels contrived sometimes it's like that toxic, toxic positivity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess so Like, and the thing is everyone is different, so what I'm saying may not resonate. Someone might need that injection of positivity. It makes sense to feel better. Of course, other people might need to feel like they're not alone and someone relates to their situation so they can go okay, this person got through it.
Speaker 1:Ideally I can too, like we all live very different experiences in our heads, I would say, regardless of all of our similarities. So what works for me when I'm feeling low is not going to be the same as you or somebody else. But I kind of love that because, you know, I've tried to make my music as interpretable as possible, where it's just vague enough that a vast majority of people can listen to it and put themselves in that situation. There are some songs which are far more specific, but the majority of them, I think it's more talking about the feeling and the concept rather than this person went through this and this and this and this, and it's like a timeline of what a singular person has gone through. I think the ambiguity of music and the interpretation of music is what's so cool about it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's. You know, when you're sort of growing up, you hear a song and you listen to it again five years later, listen to it again another five years later. It has these three separate meanings. You know Some of the songs you thought were all about having fun and that you find out actually it wasn't. You know, and I love this as a cover artist, you know I write originals but to keep me going and alive I've got to do the cover games and I've grown a relationship with these covers and I'm like, wow, some of these songs I just thought were this are completely not Yep, and I think TikTok and social media has done a really good role in this, because there's always those videos where it's like they slow the song down and they take one part and they go. This was what that meant. Like a great example. Is that the middle?
Speaker 2:hey, you know the song, it just takes some time you know the song yeah yeah, and as a fast song it's like high energy and everything like this, and I sing that slow in my set because it's actually quite a sad song, you know, and I've, I've just, yeah, I really appreciate what you're saying about, about interpretation and about that interpretation for you when you wrote it.
Speaker 1:It might be for someone else a completely different interpretation yeah, that's why I don't usually say why or why I wrote the songs or what they're about. Sometimes, like if you're on a stream and you're chatting for a while and it comes up and you go OK, this is my interpretation of what I wrote, but usually I'll just. When someone asks me what a song is about for me, I'm usually just like I actually kind of don't want to say, just want you to you to feel it, because maybe my interpretation, being the artist that wrote it, is going to actually jeopardize how you see that song, because now you think this is the way that I should think about the song, when it shouldn't be that way yeah, and I wrote a song called breadcrumbs years ago, which is.
Speaker 1:I am going to say what it's about on the podcast, but it's about it's from the perspective of a young child who's been kidnapped and what they are thinking within the room that they're in in this house, but with the majority of people not knowing that. Some people get that from it and other people get adoption stories, or maybe their parents weren't there and they had somebody else, or and it's related to all of them, even though for me that song is very specific about a certain topic. You didn't give me the hook line. Um, I know it's related to all of them, even though for me that song is very specific about a certain topic.
Speaker 2:Can you give me the hook line? I know it's not going to be the whole story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's Mom and Dad. Did you ever search for me? I swear when they think I'm asleep. I hear you on their TV screens. Keep calling out my name, because it helps me see your face If I could let you know I'm okay. Wow, cause it helps me see your face If I could let you know I'm okay.
Speaker 2:Wow, and I can hear that, yeah, adoption Orphans kidnapped.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes you'll just take one line from a song and that's everything, and you might actually tune out the rest because that line hit you so hard.
Speaker 1:So, for example, the mom and dad, did you ever search for me, could be anything you know, like to do with childhood memories, but if you're really diving into the lyrics, I swear, when they think I'm asleep, I hear you on their tv screens is a much more specific lyric, because in my mind that's my parents are on the news and these people are listening to them on the news trying to find me. You know, um, but I don't know. I think it's really cool when people can just be like okay, this line resonates with me, this line resonates with me and I love the melodies of the rest of the song and I'm just going to take what I need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And and what was your first song?
Speaker 1:that I released, or that you, let's go released. Yep. Chariot is my first song that I released and that's written about Nikki, who I'm still with today. We have two kids together, um, but that was the first song that I put out that was directly about her, only a few months after we'd met, and it was just like how I felt and love story and like young romance and all that kind of thing. And, uh, I'm very lucky in that my very first song did well and it, and what does did well mean for you?
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't even know what Spotify was. I'd I'd I'd heard of it when it came out, but I never looked it up. Like again, I was just focusing on YouTube, as I kind of am now, but I had released that song and I was about to release my first EP, which had another three songs plus Chariot as the first single, and a manager in Melbourne heard Chariot and liked it and wanted me to come to Melbourne to meet with him. So I caught a flight and I went to Melbourne and I met with him and it was weird because he kind of told me like I'm interested in what you're doing, but you're also not ready. I was like well, that was an expensive plane ticket, wasn't it? He said, like cause I showed him the EP and he's like I like all of this, but you're very young and you need some more. You know you need some more experience on the board, like go hard, play shows, and that's my advice for you.
Speaker 2:And I was like okay, so off I went and it was fine.
Speaker 1:I didn't expect anything from it, but what he did tell me. He spoke about Spotify and he also spoke about what you earn from Spotify per million streams which, by the way, it was a lot more back then. They've stripped it down now. Uh, so I went home, I looked on Spotify and I had 50,000 streams which back then, to me, never looking at Spotify, I was like how on earth does it have so many streams?
Speaker 1:Like to me, that's not a big deal now, but back then I was like this is like going crazy, like this is viral and that put me on the war path to figuring out how to grow Spotify and how to get my songs, you know, in in the right algorithms and everything like that. And back then there were loopholes, like I did all the things to get my music streamed. Now it's. It feels like a lot of those loopholes are pretty shut and closed, but back then I was yeah, I was doing everything I could to get them in Spotify editorials and on popular user generated Spotify playlists and I found that the user generated Spotify playlists just like you, and me creating a playlist, but it has a following, because people like their music taste was really easy and it got me a shitload of streams.
Speaker 1:And then Spotify and the algorithm was like this guy's popular and just threw me an editorial after editorial after editorial and I was just all over the place and that helped me grow a lot quicker than I would have otherwise. So that meeting even though I didn't end up signing with this guy, was impactful because he put me onto Spotify before it became what it is today.
Speaker 1:And before the algorithms were so sophisticated that it was so hard to get any sort of love from that platform, because Spotify is run by the major labels now and maybe it was back then, but it was still less sophisticated so you could find ways through as an independent artist. But nowadays, unless you have a prominent moment happening on TikTok or YouTube, unless it's like hitting somewhere else, spotify won't even look at you and pitching is only good for release radar in my opinion. Yeah, like it's. It's just so convoluted now and there's so many partnerships now like you thinking you just press the little pitch button on Spotify for artists is going to get you on an editorial Like good luck, my friend.
Speaker 1:Like it's not impossible, nothing's impossible. But back in the day, just like any platform, say you get on TikTok early or you get on YouTube early, like I did, like I was on YouTube early, not TikTok, um God, you have an opportunity early, not tiktok, um god, you have an opportunity. Like if I was jumping on right now, I would be a lot more confused, like I know what I would do, but everyone else is doing it where you know. 10 years ago I felt like I was only competing against musicians and artists. Now I'm competing against everyone for attention right it's not just musicians anymore, you know so
Speaker 2:it's a different game and talk me through your journey, through um your releases. Obviously, what was the one of the songs you've, it's like, used for weddings like a lot of weddings now, right like?
Speaker 1:yeah, it went crazy. Yeah, it's got 110 million views, I think now.
Speaker 2:Which is crazy. It's crazy, I know it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm not jaded to it either. It's fucking insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is Absolutely. And did you like, was that a plan? Did you know that inside of, inside of you, that that was going to be how it would play out? Like was it sort of that was the concept for that song, or was it just again back to like, were you just writing, putting it out there, or was it understanding how everything works?
Speaker 1:Uh, it's a mixture of both. That was the very last song I added to philosophy the album. The album's called philosophy and I only wrote it because my mom asked me to write a wedding song for my brother because he was getting married. So I wrote a wedding song and when I brought it to Matt who was producing the song, um, he was kind of like, yeah, it's okay. And I was like, oh, I like it.
Speaker 1:I've got like a sentimental attachment to it, like I just want to put it on, like it's a nice romantic song, and we just produced the whole thing in a day because I had no experience producing back then. So it was like I would write everything like this on the acoustic guitar and then I would take it to them to produce because I had I couldn't even press a button on Pro Tools back then. So, finish that, put it out. And I think the years of releasing so frequently made that moment a fruitful one, because I had built so much momentum already and a few of my songs were already doing quite well that, for whatever reason that song I guess just being so romantic and so appropriate for weddings it just went off like there was no PR strategy, there was no ads, I think it was. If that was released on its own, with no previous career, say that was my first single.
Speaker 1:I don't think it would have hit as hard, but I had a little bit of momentum back then yeah so I think that was just the catalyst for that particular one going hard and so some of the building blocks.
Speaker 2:Um, just to get a bit more specific in some of those details, when you're saying you were releasing so much, what was your release schedule?
Speaker 1:as frequently as possible. Uh, these days not this year, because I'm spending a bit of time just like writing a whole bunch and focusing on music videos but last year I was trying to put a song out every three weeks. That was the goal by the end of, or maybe by like halfway through this year. Onward I would like to have a song every two weeks, but back then it would be lucky if I could get a song out a month, which is still okay. So I'd get a song about every month or every five, six weeks, depending on like how long the production took and who was available to work on the music. But what I think helped is the song would come out. I'd have a music video released at the exact same time, so the music video kind of bolstered the release. Then I would release a lyric video like a week after or less, uh, which I would still be in. It wasn't just like a visualizer, like we would go and shoot another music video and put lyrics on it and then I would release the official audio, which was just the artwork, and then I would put out a not a behind the scenes a live session. So we would go and rerecord the thing acoustic and I would do that for every single song, simultaneously reaching out to as many YouTube blogs as I could. They're still prominent ish today, but back then, like you could get millions of views on those things, so I would hit up anyone. Like you know, um, I'm trying to think, uh, like you know, suicide sheep, he's more electronic, um.
Speaker 1:But there's all these channels which feature music and they have like millions of subscribers and I would reach out to them and develop relationships with them and if one of them featured me, I would use that in the next batch of emails to be like hey, I'm Jacob Lee and I was featured in this and this is my brand new song. And if they say Majestic Casual was another one, if I was featured in Majestic Casual, then Cloud Kid, another blog, might be like oh, I know them, they're cool, he must be legit, I'll feature him. They would feature me. Next to email batch hey, I've been featured in Cloud Kid and Majestic Casual. And I would just have a long list of I've been featured in this and this and this and this and this, and I would get millions of views off of my channel from these other people. That would funnel into mine. And it was the consistency of releases and also the pushing on the YouTube's um additional third party channels that got my channel upward back then.
Speaker 2:So man, it's, it's a big job. People got to understand this. There's nothing coming easy and you're fully independent, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Like just this is all you Amazing. I would just sit on the couch and just spend days on emails, just emailing, and I would never be a copy and paste, because I feel like you can just sniff that out when you copy and paste shit. So I would be going into their channels looking at what they've done, what they've recently posted, saying I love it. I'm like man, I love this thing that you've done. Like God, your taste in music is so good. I think my song would provide your audience value. Instead of going, please feature my song, like you know, begging them, it would be like no, I've seen what you do and I really think that your audience would like my stuff. And that was a way to kind of convince them to be like okay, we'll give this a shot. And after a while there was so many people featuring my stuff that it was just easy. After that, like I could just hit up anyone really on YouTube and be like hey, like I've been featured like 50 times now, um, this is my new single.
Speaker 1:And they'd respond pretty quickly because they likely had already seen my stuff, because all those blogs follow each other and they're like oh, jacob's hitting me up for sure you know.
Speaker 2:And how is the um youtube now, obviously compared to when you were starting off? Like what do you think some of the biggest complications for someone just starting to enter the the youtube game today? I think the game is and what would you do if you were releasing from scratch today?
Speaker 1:I still think and this is contrary to most people's opinion I think long form is still necessary. Most artists don't want to do it because they think they'll get minus 10 views, which they very well may at the beginning. Shorts are going to be a better bet for you, and what I've found is I've actually discovered plenty of YouTube people, youtubers, whatever through TikTok and Instagram. So they've been taking what they do on YouTube, repurposing it for the TikTok algorithm or the TikTok audience, and if they're funny or talented or whatever, if they're good, then I'll want to go see them somewhere else. And usually, unless you're just independently a TikTok creator or just an Instagram creator, most creators want to build a career on YouTube because you actually get money there, like sponsorships on these other platforms are cool and you might get paid a lot, but YouTube, like you could make for 20,000 views you might make like $500, 20,000 views is fuck all.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Like you know like, and you don't get that on these other platforms. Maybe in the States there's different policies, cause I've heard that you might get paid for TikTok views over there in some regard, but in Australia it's a different kind of situation. Like, I've looked to a pretty severe extent to see if I could get paid for Instagram and TikTok views and I just it just doesn't happen here.
Speaker 2:It's like branding partners and all that sort of stuff on TikTok.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the alternative would be affiliates, sponsorships, if you can use.
Speaker 1:You know we don't have TikTok shop here, but if you were selling products and you had the access to that, you would use TikTok shop, which is an incredibly profound way to make money, because it's so easy just to like look at the product that they're putting in the video and you just buy it right then and there there's plenty of ways that these platforms have allowed you to make money. So we live in a beautiful time where you can get subscriptions on Instagram, you can get subscriptions on TikTok, you can get gifts when you go live, and that happens on youtube too. Like you can't say that these platforms aren't trying to provide ways for us to make money, um, but I don't know, in my opinion, maybe I'm maybe I'm biased because I've been on it for so long, but if you can build your funnel toward youtube, like, you're inevitably going to have a more sustainable business, you know and through, through those early releases, like like chariot was your first release, which I know you've said that you've done really well on your first one.
Speaker 2:Was it? Was it a consistent thing, or did you still have to build up other songs or did you, you know, did you have to build your subscribers? Was there a good conversion rate from streamers, listeners, listeners to becoming subscribers, to becoming fans and anyone out there listening? Were you there? Were you there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, were you there at the beginning? Were you there at the beginning? Are you OG?
Speaker 2:Are you OG and did you just subscribe straight away? Anyone listening? Did you just like listen and go? Damn, this is the one. And just boom subscribe. Let us know, yeah, let us know in the comments.
Speaker 1:I want to know, I want to know, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:So specifically, what was the question there? How was the?
Speaker 1:conversion rate, conversion yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and from each release was it a consistent growth or was it a valleys and mountains, valleys and mountains, like it?
Speaker 1:was that for sure, yeah full-on dips, like you'd release songs that like there's a song that I probably guaranteed the majority of my audience has never heard called so wrong and it's just shit. It's just a bad song that I thought was good back then and it did nothing. And so, even if you have an audience, if you release a bad song, it's not going to back then and it did nothing. And so, even if you have an audience, if you release a bad song, it's not going to get you know much traction, unless you're like pop, a level where everyone listens to you regardless and they might not like it still.
Speaker 2:Ghost writers and all that you know. Let's say, 20 ghost writers writing your songs for you.
Speaker 1:For sure, like there's always variables to it, but I did notice decent conversions both ways. So if my stuff was going hard on Spotify, I would have comments on YouTube saying, oh my gosh, I just discovered this on Spotify YouTube. Simultaneously, if a video started killing it, that song on Spotify started going up too. You can't see comments on Spotify, but I could see the same trajectory Similarly now with TikTok. If I have a viral video on TikTok, my Spotify goes psycho. It's like people just funnel over there where I'll get comments on YouTube going oh who's here? From TikTok and they'll get a bunch of likes. So there is some conversion there too, but it was more of a Spotify conversion from TikTok. I wouldn't say I've done anything massive on Instagram. I've never really had a crazy moment on Instagram, so I can't really say what the conversion looks like, but they all do connect in some way.
Speaker 2:And so that's good to know. So you can….
Speaker 1:So I've got some answers here.
Speaker 2:So, tandy, I subscribed the first time I listened to the first song I heard in 2014.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, oh, fancy that You're the one person on planet earth that loves that song. Oh man, I actually haven't listened to it in years. Maybe I'd have a different description of it, but yeah, that's probably the only song in my catalog. I'm like I could do without everything else. I'm like this is a part of the journey, like've, improved, whatever. Yeah, that one's just like. But if you like it, I don't want to kill it for you. Keep liking it.
Speaker 2:it's not, don't think, because I'm not a huge fan, but you shouldn't like it man I, I watched um, I don't know if anyone saw that this interview, but the metallica, nothing else matters how he didn't actually want to put that in he's like this is a horrible song, but then it went really well, right.
Speaker 1:This is nothing else matters, like it's a ballad that's the thing like and that's that's what's so cool is the songs that I've released thinking are going to kill it don't, and the ones that I'm just like I still love it. I wrote this thing, but it's like I don't think it's a single fucking goes crazy and I'm like, okay, like that just shows I've got no idea.
Speaker 2:No, I don't, I have no clue and I have heard that more than once again from a few different artists and, um, yeah, they're like this is going to be a flop and it's not.
Speaker 1:And they're like this is going to be a banger and it's a flop yep, you have no idea like, and you can have your own preferences, which you always will as an artist, but the market and the the consumer will determine what's cool yeah, and again I want to come out because I know you guys are all watching here, um, and I.
Speaker 2:This is great because I can talk to you. I don't know which camera you're on right now. I can talk to you for from a, from an objective point, with jacob here, um, if you could summarize jacob into a category of music, what would you do? What would what would it be for you?
Speaker 1:so yeah, let us know in the comments dude, maybe there's a second uh round for that song maybe you were so wrong I think I might be. I still, I'm still not a fan. I remember when I when I wrote it, I was loving it. I was like this is sick, and then just just moved on moved on from that one yeah, but the audience will probably just say depression, pop, hopefully, hopefully, not actually. I hope there's some optimism in my music. Really I do.
Speaker 2:Pop the depression yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's awesome as so, youtube's obviously a journey and it's good for us as well. We're obviously we're a new podcast, so we're we're working our way through the YouTube world as as a as a pretty new podcast and, um, yeah, it's a, it's a man, it's full on. You know, you gotta, we release every week, and that that schedule was. The only time we didn't release in a week was cyclone alfred, because we lost power for eight days and I'm like, and my, I was about to put my computer and go to the library and my wife's like, like, every week, at least every week, I'm in the library with my whole production you know that's great.
Speaker 1:I love the hustle yeah, man.
Speaker 2:So that's good. That's good insight for um people that are tuning in and starting off on this journey, because youtube is it's it's a widely known form of income for creatives, if you know how to do it. So another thing is your product or your content also is high, high quality. It's amazing. Over the years we might not have crossed paths, because we've been on our own journey and all that sort of stuff, and I love how we just reconnected two weeks ago and here we are. I've always been there and seen. I love that. I'm just that person, man.
Speaker 2:This is sort of my purpose, as much as I love music. Anyway, we'll get into my thing later but I've always been this watcher and just supporter in the background and your content has always been just high quality, like audio, the cinematic feel, the storytelling. You know you just got that right, like really, really bang on. And I think that's another thing that needs to be mentioned on this journey as well is you need good quality products. Surely YouTube recognises high quality and low quality. Like it's like a phenomenon to make income on a random crappy video. Like that's not like a common thing, that's a phenomenon. Most people who do make things like it's high quality content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think people love a crispy video. There is there's an ulterior kind of perspective here too, though, where, on the short form side of things, the more relatable the better. So in my opinion, like what I've, what I need to get better at is allowing myself to put out lower quality stuff. Not for a music video. In my opinion, that should always be like top notch, at least for my stuff. I just it's. I've just got a barrier. I need to crack that barrier, because it's like it might be holding me back to some degree where everything needs to be so pristine, but a lot of the stuff that goes really well on tiktok and shorts is just filmed with the phone barely edited.
Speaker 1:it's got like in platform captions on it and people can relate to that way more because it feels real. It's not like so, like crazy edited. That you're like. You know there's this kind of like sheet in that. You're like. You know there's this kind of like sheet in between you and the creator. So there is room for both 100%. And if you spoke to my friend, sean, who's an incredible cinematographer, like all of the short form stuff he does and the stuff he does for clients, he will do everything in his power to make it lower quality, because it just goes better Like and that's not a blanket statement you might release something that's so crisp and it might kill Like it's very difficult to know what's going to work. So, trying everything is good, oh God, no, not the Red Bull. The Red Bull's gone, oh well.
Speaker 2:This is not sponsored by Red Bull, by the way.
Speaker 1:I'll just lick it up later. My apologies, but yes, there's always going to be there's always going to be room for both, and, um, that's something I need to get better at. Instead of thinking every single thing with a short reel, tiktok, youtube needs to be just like top 100%. Um, allowing some lower quality stuff in is the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to clean this up in real time. Clean this up in real time, hey it had to spill at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like simmered into the table, it's like acid.
Speaker 2:Your subconscious is just like get out of here, man.
Speaker 1:Get out of here. It's like please stop consuming this poison.
Speaker 2:Don't quote me anyone out there, but we talked about just having a joke about vodka red bull and I remember a while ago I met a, um, a surgeon neurosurgeon actually and I I had this one moment to talk with a neurosurgeon like on a personal basis. So tell me, tell me one thing, and he's like like vodka Red Bulls.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Get that out of your system.
Speaker 1:Oh, out of the system. Out of the system.
Speaker 2:And he was like it burns just like pin, mark holes through your kidney injury. Like it's just like a they like put them on a light and there's just thousands of holes. So every drink is just like an acid reaction.
Speaker 1:So if you're yeah, public service announcement. Public service announcement stop with the uh combination of vodka and red bull is red bull by itself.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know, man, I don't. I'm not a doctor. I'm getting holes through my kidneys right now, I don't know, man, this is just from a random conversation. Um, I could be completely wrong. It could be, could. I don't know, you know.
Speaker 1:But oh yeah, this is sugar-free, I'm safe. Yeah, it says, vitalizes body and mind. So do we believe what they put on the front? Oh no, I doubt it. 3.5 health star rating that's surprising. That's more than I thought. I'm owning the Red Bull yes, I am.
Speaker 2:I'm just having a joke. It's not sponsored by red bull, no, it's sponsored by water.
Speaker 1:We wish yeah, right yeah, be more cash on the table yeah, they make good music stuff, man, like, they're like red bull yeah, true, I think they sponsored fkj or something like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, sweet, crazy ass.
Speaker 1:All right, this is clean yeah, all fixed back on track back to dan, and where were we so?
Speaker 2:um is so when your buddy sean does that, the videography is, are you talking specifically for youtube that he's still doing that like? Is he still doing that lower quality, trying to create that for youtubers or specifically for reels and stories and that sort of stuff?
Speaker 1:it's more of a short form thing short form, short format okay, cool yeah like if I'm analyzing what I'm watching on youtube on a day-to-day well man, like even 100, I could confidently say is pretty high quality, like it's a well-shot podcast like this or um, a really decent music video, or like it's usually like filmed nicely yeah but if I'm, if I am scrolling through social media on the vertical side of things, um, if it's entertaining, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, which is actually cool because it's less effort and you can literally just like. I've seen so many artists videos go viral with selfie cam and they're just doing this because it's like they're actually right there with you to a degree. There's not like a whole bunch of color grading and editing and like cool captions. And I'm speaking fully out my ass right now because I do the cool color grading and the captions and stuff, because I finish a video and I'm like, oh, this could look so much cooler.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can't help myself. So I understand that that's a barrier. Creatively, I need to get beyond where it's like just allow normal shit to go out there, because it's probably going to work better and your career is going to move quicker because you're not getting in your own way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know what man Like. It's also a part of the authenticity to your own self as well, because you are the creator, you know, and it can be created how you see it, you know, like if you imagine the sistine chapel, like what if he wanted to dumb that down? It's sort of like, well, as the creator, you've got the vision. Now maybe your next vision is this new, authentic, lower quality, personal thing, you know, because maybe you've done everything you were meant to do with that, that high quality content. It's again developing as an artist, developing as a person, like your songs and all this sort of things, these sort of creativity and these moments and these things that you're creating over the time you, you have to develop anyway yeah, I think, at the end of the day, the question you've got to ask is, like, what identity am I trying to put forward?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what am I? We spoke about this a bit prior. But, like, am I trying to be a human centric artist or a character centric artist? Like, do I want people just to know me or do I want to convey something deeper that can act as the beacon or the catalyst for like an idea and what am I trying to put forward?
Speaker 2:Now we're here Talk me through this.
Speaker 1:Man, I wish I. I feel like I should know, like I pop out answer to be honest. But it feels like I'm a bit of a hybrid and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe you should just make a call, but like what I put out there is or a bad thing, maybe you should just make a call, but like what I put out there is me a hundred percent. However I'm, I'm putting out ideas that are far more existential than what I think about on a day to day, like we're all just regular humans at the end of the day and we're just living our lives and being parents and just like experiencing things and making jokes and whatever.
Speaker 1:But what I'm speaking about in my music is so rarely about me that it feels like I'm adopting this idea of this, this individual who can deeply understand everyone, which is impossible. I can't, but maybe the character character can, and I can do my best to put that forth because, like we've said, like barely any of my songs are about me, like there's a very small portion of my songs that are about my experience through life. You know, like I said about the domestic violence song or the kidnapping song or um schizophrenia like I'm talking about schizophrenia in some music and like I've never experienced any. Or the kidnapping song, or schizophrenia Like I'm talking about schizophrenia in some music and like I've never experienced any of that. Nor have I known anyone who's really gone through it, like with the domestic violence thing. I do know people, unfortunately, who've been through something similar to that or have been through that, but again, I wasn't in that room, so I don't know. I'm not ever showing up online here or on my streams or in my videos as someone else.
Speaker 1:No, you're, you but the concepts that I carry forward are definitely inspired by wanting to be more of like this, like understanding, compassionate, empathetic, mystical character, you know. So I guess that's why I say I'm a hybrid.
Speaker 2:Let's bring it back to your following that's tuned in here. Is Jacob mystical? Do you feel that mysticism?
Speaker 1:Probably not. I'm probably doing a really bad job.
Speaker 2:Are we breaking the illusion?
Speaker 1:I've actually it's funny I've not really spoken about that per se on my on my streams, cause those who are here have probably joined some of my streams in the past, but I like diving into this type of stuff this topic Cause it's, it's it's difficult to get here, but I think through long form, like with someone else else, you do get here you do, yeah, like look where we started, look where we are and look where we can go.
Speaker 2:It's that's the beauty, that's the beauty of it, right, like we always try and have a purpose on this podcast, um, to try and keep it in line, uh, and, and that's the great thing about it, like having a bit of a purpose, yep, purpose, yep, hey without the horn I need the horn and the rainbow tail.
Speaker 1:And life. Hey, all right, thanks, friends so what I'm trying to convey must be working to a degree, and it's funny, we can turn the lighting down, yeah.
Speaker 1:Make it even more mystical, I'll put on a wizard hat or something. But the thing is like there's I don't think there's anything inauthentic with trying to convey yourself as something, uh, as long as a lot of your, your own uh, I want to say like personality and your own like truth is injected into it. You know, like all of us think about potential, of what we can be, and we're all striving to be that, and maybe, if I was to put it in a different way, I'm trying to act as my potential would, like, the full version of what I could one day be like, that deeply understanding, like wise character which I know I'm not. But if I can try and embody that to the best of my ability, then I'm moving toward that, both professionally and personally, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the other thing as well is that, like, as artists, we tend to have a responsibility as well, and that's so. So you've got to like. You know, you've got this mysticism, this character like you're talking about versus who you are. But the other thing that you've got to shine the light on is, as artists and musicians, we have a responsibility. Sometimes I feel a deep responsibility, like when I'm writing. I want to write for the voices who are not being heard, and you know, I'm very similar I I try and write a happy song and I just throw my phone against the wall. I'm like what is that?
Speaker 2:that's horrible it's it's harder to write happier concepts because they feel so cliche sometimes exactly, but then that's the that's the other genius of happy songwriters is that they're tapping into that emotion totally, and that's what's beautiful about this, this journey, and um, so I wanted to like just, I guess, support what you're saying it from a more responsibility, dynamic, right like off. You have this responsibility that you might feel that I have to speak for these people who don't have a voice out in the world, and that's that's sometimes, in its own thing, absolutely authentic and not being a character, in being the muse. That's what muses are like. Our job is to speak Like you look at all the biggest, bob Marley, all the Bobs you know, amazing, right, and their job was to speak. Like Bob Marley, all the Bobs you know, amazing, right, and their job was to speak Like Bob Marley was to speak for oppression. And John Lennon, you know there's a responsibility in our artistry to speak for the silent voices that don't have a voice.
Speaker 1:Yep, there's nothing better when you do get people coming up to you on tour and they can pinpoint a song or a lyric or a verse and say, like I literally went through this exact scenario and again, like I said earlier, I felt like no one understood or cared. But I found this song and it made me literally, like people say it saved them to some degree, and I always say that it didn't. I say that you did, and my song might've been the soundtrack to it, but they found the strength through whatever means they found, and if that's my song or not either way to carry on.
Speaker 1:But isn't it beautiful to be able to live in a, in a career and a passion that helps people so much and so indirectly, like I'm just sitting in my house in my little studio and coming up with things that I think might relate to someone and then, if it does well enough, you have hundreds of millions of people saying, like, like this is genuinely, like made a significant impact to my experience here. It's like fuck, like what else? What I don't, I can't think of. Like what else would? I don't know, I can't think of anything else that I would want to do. You know, and I think that's probably what actors feel, because they can do that through movies. I think that's what people who dance dancers feel, because they can move their bodies in a way that really impacts people with the right music to it. Like that's what art, at the end of the day, is. You're creating something that genuinely to it. Like that's what art, at the end of the day, is. You're creating something that genuinely, they didn't do a video clip with a dancer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done a couple, yeah, yeah yeah, and I would love to do more. I do that every now and then. It's been a couple of years since I've done that last, but there's certain songs which I feel like really suit, yeah, choreography. So finding, finding those people is always really fun and they show me what they've come up with and I'm always just like holy shit, this is so beautiful, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, this is the importance, right. It's like we're seeing venues a lot closing down and struggling, so we're losing places for people to perform in the real world In Australia. I don't know people who are listening around the world, but I think every country is going through their own problems. But from a music industry perspective, we are seeing quite a lot of difficulties for artists to express. We're seeing quite a lot of difficulties for people who don't fit the mould to get out of work in a nine-to-five in order to live their purpose, and I think that's like what I want to bring the conversation back to is you've gone from this journey developing this online persona and this online profile. Now you've built this online persona and you've got to now go out there and perform it. You've been to europe um, how there? And perform it. You've been to Europe Um, how much times have you toured, like over that 10 year period? When was your first tour? Talk me through this.
Speaker 1:First tour probably would have been around six or seven years ago. Yeah, and I did some stuff in America as well.
Speaker 2:uh, which wasn't so much. You're like sorry to cut you off on that man. Um, and I did some stuff in America as well, which wasn't so good. Did you find most of your like sorry to cut you off on that man Were? Most of your profile offshore. Yes, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Australia has always been a harder one to crack. Not that I've really tried like, especially when Triple J. I don't think it's as big now, but when it was like a really big thing it still is to a degree. I just never submitted.
Speaker 2:I, it still is to a degree. Um, I just never submitted, I never really tried to get on. You know, it's just the stench that's.
Speaker 1:It's been in the room for a long time, that triple j oh, bro, it's like every single australian artist feels like that's the only avenue, and maybe it is.
Speaker 2:But and maybe that's the problem exactly, exactly like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like does the, does the radio curator like you enough or like your friends enough if you're in the group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, I knew I'd cut you off on that, but yeah, let people know. So that's good. So, yeah, back to your, back to your tour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the touring.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So yeah, I did it with Nikki I think it was either Nikki or Kevin, who's a cinematographer of mine. The first time pretty sure it was Nikki. Uh, and yeah, we just went around on public transport and like which was a mission? Uh, because we didn't realize how crazy that would be trying to get to so many countries just on trains and buses and ubers and whatever. Uh, but that was the first one.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, I've done multiple since had to can a few of them throughout COVID, but that's when I did more of like the online no tour tour kind of thing and I had people tune in for that. Um, but yeah, I mean, if, in regards to touring, I would say it's still a very important thing for an artist, because seeing someone in person cannot be beaten and as much as you try and have an intimate friendship with people online which is possible, and I think I've, I've done that quite well uh, when you're seeing someone in person, you can see their eyes and them resonating with you on stage. Then you do meet and greets and, like it's just superior, it always will be it is, and so for that.
Speaker 2:So I want to go back to that US first tour. What did you do on shore here in Australia? How much work did you put in while you're here, before you left the country, and when you land? How much more work to execute? Not the basic stuff, not just like arriving, not the basic stuff, not just like arriving, but like what I'm talking about here is, one place is not. They've not bought their tickets. You've got to tell them, hey guys, like I've got a few tickets, they've all that. You know these sort of areas and these components. But yeah, so Australia, what's the work before you leave? And then the work, because we're talking about execution here, executing a really good tour. So I want to go from that first tour. So, yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1:For sure. I mean, there's just a ridiculous amount of rehearsals before you leave and identifying what the set list is. Also, having enough songs off the set list for if people ask for something, or in the meet and greet, if someone comes up to you and says they want a specific song. If you feel like you want to, you remember how to play it, because there's a lot of the time you'll write something, record it and move on and you just forget how to play it. So just being more aware of of that kind of thing and being prepared in advance. But honestly, it's rehearsals, whether that be solo and you're figuring out your own set with a loop station or an SPD SX or you have your playback rig with Ableton, or if I'm going with Luke, who pretty much runs Ableton on tour with me, he'll also play a bit of synth, spd and guitar. He just has like a spaceship on stage and we'll rehearse a whole bunch. I'll be promoting the tickets for ideally at minimum three months in advance. It's nice if you have a bit more time, but usually it's about three months, three and a half months, and I'll be running ads for those. Everything else is always organic, but if I'm really trying to pinpoint a location. It has to be ads. So I'll be running ads and making videos for each of those territories, like what's up, bucharest? I'm on my way, like I'm coming in a few months there's only this many tickets left to come through and you're just running multiple versions of those ads as long as you can, with whatever budget you have available.
Speaker 1:Ideally, you sell out quickly. That's the plan. Sometimes you don't. It depends on the territory. You know you'll have everything packed. You've got to get a carne sorted, which is a document proving that you're not selling your equipment overseas. So I need to pretty much list out my guitar, my guitar strings, the camera. I'm taking the battery and like everything, yeah, and all the value of it. So every time you go through border to border, they're stamping that and checking everything to be like, yep, you've still got it all. It's so tedious.
Speaker 1:It's the worst, but you need to do that for a lot of international touring, um, and that's quite expensive, sadly. Then you're on tour and my priority is rest. You know, uh, if there's still a few tickets left for various venues like or various you know, like Germany, for example, doesn't sell as well for me, I've got to push harder for Germany. So I'll continue promoting Germany, for example, throughout the other shows and using footage from those shows to kind of make it look more sick. And once I'm off stage and I've done a meet and greet, which is usually everyone, usually everyone, uh, and that usually makes me really sick after a while because I'm sleeping a lot less.
Speaker 1:um, so you know, I had almost a thousand people in Romania come to my show and I met everyone wow after the show I just jumped off stage and went to the merch desk and, like, met as many people as I could.
Speaker 2:That's amazing and that takes hours and hours and hours and you want to meet them as well. You want to be like present as well. You don't want to be like hey, hey, hey, hey, you want to be. How are you like talking with?
Speaker 1:every individual person deepening that contact, deepening that connection which, for the people at the back of the line, they're just like, bro, like can you hurry up, can you speed it up? Um, but you know, know, a lot of the time with those meet and greets, the venue's like, hey, man, we have to close, like there's a curfew, uh, and they kick you out. Um, dan will yell at you exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he knows, he knows exactly. Well, that's good to know.
Speaker 1:Next tour I'll be right here um, but they'll usually come to you and they'll. They'll be like hey, man, like we've asked you three times, like you have have to leave. I was like, okay, so then we'll pretty much take everything and everyone out to the street and just keep going. So even if it's raining, which is a lot of the time over in Europe, we just hang out on the street with a massive crowd of people. You play in the street as well, and it's beautiful. And once everyone's gone, if I'm with Luke luckily he's packed everything up Um, because what else is he going to do in that time when I'm speaking to people? Uh, but if not, once that's done, I'll go and pack up or I'll just rip everything off, like without even rolling leads because I need to get out of the venue, and just like chuck it somewhere for a period of time and then after that you jump in the tour bus and sleep for as long as you physically can, otherwise you're going to die.
Speaker 1:so I'll sleep until probably 2 pm, maybe even 3 pm if I can and you're talking like finishing up what like midnight one after everything.
Speaker 2:No, it could be way later than that.
Speaker 1:It could be like even on the bigger shows like that, it could be like 3, 30, maybe even four like you just people want to stay and they want to chat and they'll wait. Usually on the smaller shows you'll run through it a bit quicker and you might you know, you might get out at 1 am if you're lucky, and yeah, I'll just sleep as long as I can. The thing about tour is, luckily I've been to europe and uk enough where I've seen a lot of places.
Speaker 1:But when you're doing it that way, you don't get the chance to see much of the countries you're in because you're sleeping for work yep, and then once you, when you wake up, you're almost at the venue, so you sound check and you eat something and you just do it again. But by the time you play 30 shows and you're doing that every time like I'm I'm overdosing on vitamin c, like I'm taking vitamins, magnesium, armor force, like all the different things to make sure I'm okay. Um, you'll still inevitably start getting sick and that's just a part of it, like it's exhaustion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I and I probably wouldn't if I didn't meet so many people like even though I love it and I'm never not going to do that like shaking everyone's hands, someone is going to be sick in that room Probably. You know, it's a part of our job, it's part of it and I would never change it. But if I didn't do that and I only did say paid meet and greets which I've done a few times before I would be asleep a lot quicker, I'd probably not get sick as much and the rest of the shows would be a lot easier. But I find the meet and greets way more fun than the shows. I love the shows, of course, but meeting people and hearing about their first experience with the song of mine or if it's helped them, or like sometimes they'll bring you gifts and they're like they've painted you or something, and I keep them all in my studio like that is what I've, I've, I do music for.
Speaker 2:So that's crazy, man. I'm loving this man. I'm loving hearing these um, as much as probably everyone is hearing this these amazing stories and, and I think, just get into like, show who you are as a person you know outside of the, the persona you know, and, um, we touched a little bit on the lowly lowly land lowly land.
Speaker 2:I, it was low, it was there, um lowly land. So I feel like it's an appropriate time to start bringing that into the conversation, the lowly lands, because, yeah, I'd like to know more about that. I'm sure everyone would. Yeah, I might be last late to the party. Everyone's like well, only lads, we know all about it people on the youtube stream have definitely.
Speaker 1:They definitely are aware of it. Um, my record label used to be called philosophical records and it was that for a very long time, uh, but I never was fully sold on the name. Um, and I wanted something a little bit more specific. And, if I'm really to dive into this without making it full blown thing, with us talking about Persona, when I was thinking about this, this like wise, mysterious character that you know, I feel like is really cool in this, like almost like anime kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Um, not that it had a name, but I always liked the name lowly lyricist, and I use that for a few things in the past, just like little things that were semi tied to the music, semi weren't, and I just thought it was a cool like interesting name that probably everyone else thinks lame, but I thought it was cool. And as I kind of continued on just with my career and whatnot, uh, it eventually turned into creating a world, uh, around the music and like trying to see how successfully I could create this environment that people exist within when they're listening to these songs and it that will just depend on the consumer as to whether they just want to hear the song and enjoy the song great, or if they really love what I do and want to dive into this like created world.
Speaker 1:So it was called Lowly Land and I changed my record label to Lowly Land Records. I've got a clothing brand coming called Lowly Land as well and I've been talking to those on stream about that for a fair while now, where I'm creating like street wear with like really intricate designs that I would want to wear.
Speaker 1:Um, that can become a standalone thing simultaneously but, the reason that it's actually called that beyond the lyricist idea is because I have always been so obsessed with the idea of moving beyond the lower, lowly self and this part of us that in my view, we all have two voices. Sometimes we're hella motivated and we don't give in to temptation and everything's sweet and we really lock in. And other times we fall off and we do give in to temptation, we do dumb shit and then we feel shame about whatever we've done. All of us go through that. I go through it every single day and that is lowly land. So the slogan is exit lowly land at all costs. That's the idea where I want to hopefully, through my music and the things I talk about and the way that I am through life, help motivate and inspire people to remove themselves as much as possible from that lower self to hopefully start to embody and build habits in the higher self who is actually productive and compassionate and just a good person in society at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:So I guess that's kind of like a brief analysis of why it's called that, where it stemmed from, and I also just think it looks really cool on shirts and banners and like the way that it's all been written and the graphics I've had made up. I just I like the idea of creating this universe that stuff can sit within and those who followed for a while it's become quite a thing where, you know, even the community is called team lowly land.
Speaker 2:so yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So it's almost like a space to help people develop and, you know, grow as people to get out of that. I love that man. I love that. It's a really, really, and, and you so are you. When you're in that space, what are the different components that you do to be able to keep that feeding that land, that lowly lands like? What are some of the stuff that you?
Speaker 1:like to remove myself from it, almost like because that's the whole idea, even though it's called that, like you don't want to sit within that because that's actually the shitty spot. Yeah, I called it that as a reminder of what you're trying to escape per se, but for me it's and this is pretty obvious but it's just more reflection and allowing yourself to reflect more frequently and with kids that's harder because you just feel like you've got less time. But whether that be meditation or journaling or any sort of reflection where you literally just have a moment to sit in silence, I feel like that's the best moment for your intuition to kick in and speak to you and say you know, this is what we should be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right and like in those moments you can try and figure out a way to sort your environment to be conducive to positive actions, instead of allowing all the bullshit to just consume you when you're not actually taking a second to put those things in place For me at least, like, say, I'm speaking about my house or where I live, or where we live in our houses like you can do so much in that environment to make sure that you're not slipping up frequently and doing shit that you know you shouldn't be doing, and whether that be like productivity or like drinking too much or even like porn or whatever, like all that shit is like it, it sucks the life from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know if I can, you know, create art and a concept and even clothing. That signifies the and also acknowledges the attempt of moving beyond the clutches, cause I don't know if everyone feels it as hard as me, but like I feel like the lower self is just pulling me back, freak all the time, every day, multiple times a day, to not be productive and like not actually move toward the potential. I know I can be and maybe because I've been so in tune with who I want to be, I'm also so, in tune with how shocking I could be and from an existential viewpoint, how I don't want to say bad or evil or whatever, but I can see both paths. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Man it does. And on that topic we're going to go off the music talk right now because I'm interested in this. You know you talk about lower self and higher self. Do you think there's external forces at play?
Speaker 1:External forces. In which sense?
Speaker 2:Well, like you've got the fear of God state, it's a big conversation in the music industry and I think, in spirituality and in the world of of god and devils and demons and angels and all of these sort of things. Because you know porn, for example, it's pretty accessible, right like it's, you know, you could just pull it up. My wife's from Turkey. I was in Turkey a couple of years ago and the conversation came up of casinos and of porn and all. I don't know where it came from, but I was just talking with their family and porn's like completely prohibited in Turkey, and so was casinos, no casinos.
Speaker 2:And since they, when they had the casinos, there was huge suicide rates because they'd lose all their money and then kill themselves, which is people do this. And since they dropped the casinos, this happened less and less and less and less. So what I what I guess I'm getting at is there's obviously like a um external forces that can play on this lower and higher self. You know there's people that I don't know manipulate maybe, like sit there and puppeteer these sort of emotions when you see this comparisons, people in this comparative society that we're in, where they're constantly comparing themselves, and then you know all of these sort of things. So yeah, I just wanted to ask from your point of view, like, do you think there's external forces or you think it's purely within ourselves?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I definitely do believe in frequency and vibration. Like, I've had many experiences in my life where maybe I'm sitting on like a higher frequency kind of energy and things are coming to me left, right and center and other times everything else is going wrong. But I can't really speak on the realms of like a spirituality kind of sense. I think everyone's got their own opinion on that. I'm not religious per se. I am spiritual Like I do want to believe there's something out there. My answer has always been I don't feel smart enough to make a choice. Um, like who am I to say what's correct? Like, with my limited experience in life, it just doesn't make any sense to me to be like I'm putting my faith here because my perspective is this big, yeah, and there's so much else going on and people living in different upbringings and cultures, and it's like how could I ever?
Speaker 1:I just don't think I'm ever going to get to that point but say, for example, with you know, speaking about porn and lower frequency things, I think a lot of the time for people it's just a coping mechanism to deal with the struggles of everyday life and the suffering that we all feel every day to certain extents and it's like God, like I just need.
Speaker 1:I just need something could be alcohol, drugs, any sort of quick fix to make me feel better, even though it always makes you feel worse. You actually don't care in the moment because you're going to have a brief moment of relief. So I think you can consciously choose to sit at a higher frequency. And again, I think that comes back to reflection and really good habits, and then you might be less likely to fall into those types of things once you have developed the habits to stop doing that. But whether it be only based on like where you're at on a vibrational level, or if you're literally just trying to cope and just like manage your way through but you could say coping is a low frequency thing- like that could be like a low frequency, a state that you're in um and it's so it's easy.
Speaker 1:It's so easy to fall back into that if you're not deliberately, every single day, setting up your environment and your life to not fall into it Because it's almost like that's the natural state, Like that's so much easier, and I guess that's why you say you're falling into it rather than climbing up out of it, Like there's more effort in climbing out of it and that's why there's so much more.
Speaker 1:It feels so much more noble and that's why there's so much more. It feels so much more noble and like you deserve certain things when you've put the effort to actually kill those temptations and diminish them and and and remove them from your experience. And some people are more prone to fall into addiction than others and whatnot. And I think I'm pretty lucky that I don't have an addictive personality as far as I'm aware. Maybe if I was to stop drinking caffeine I would find a completely different scenario there, but it's difficult for me to say that there's spirituality at play. I know that a lot of religious people would say that it is like the devil or whatever, trying to pull you down or something. But again, that could be true.
Speaker 2:It also may not be true. We just don't know enough about it right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't matter how much I read either, it doesn't matter how much I study and look into the history, like, yeah it just, it just seems like such a massive question. I don't, I don't believe and this could be a self-limiting thing but I just don't believe I have the intellect to make a call.
Speaker 2:So I mean that's a huge like it's a humble thing to say. You know it's a constant place of humility to be able to accept, like some things maybe we're not meant to know. You know, like do I need to know how that TV works? Like I don't really need to know.
Speaker 2:I just need to know how to turn it on and off, you know, for example, like I think that's, you know. Yeah, no, that's fair enough, man, that's fair. I was just wanting to go a bit off topic here, but I think it's still on topic.
Speaker 1:No, I love it. I think it's a really cool combo to have, and what's good about this type of conversation is everyone's going to think differently about it. And that's kind of what brings in an interesting dialogue.
Speaker 2:It also brings in conflict, as we all know with those types of combos Religion and then spiritual and all these sort of things. You know it's like your three big no dinner talk. Totally, but like on a podcast like this, where dialogue is the purpose.
Speaker 1:I think it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, having it brought up at a family dinner, I'm like get me out of here please. Not that that really happens with combos with our families. So I'm pretty lucky, I think.
Speaker 2:And why don't we bring it back to the people listening in? What do you think? What do you think is at play? Do you think there's people puppeteering all of these emotions, conveniently putting accessible ways to be on a low vibration, like it's? I don't know. I don't know. This is the question you know, but it's. You know, lowly lands, that's what it's about. I'd love to serve the purpose of lowly lands while we're here, like it's. It's, you know, lowly lands, that's what it's about, which I'd love to serve the purpose of lowly lands while we're here, like it's like, let's serve that purpose. Let's help people get out of that and think about things on how to protect themselves. You know, like you've got to protect yourself from. You know these things, yeah, man, and health.
Speaker 1:Yep, like the way that I like to put it in. Probably one of the more simple ways is just choosing conscious action over compulsive action. Compulsion is always just like I need something. Now I like I'm just doing whatever you can to feel better. It's like there's no thought, it's all instinctual.
Speaker 1:But conscious is always more calculated, and that's why I bring up environment and your setting and the people you're around, because I think you can exist in a reality where it's incredibly infrequent that you fall back into that shit. I just I really do think that, but that it is quite difficult, especially when you get older and you've developed bad habits too. But I think if you're surrounding yourself with people who are also simultaneously trying to do the same thing, and all of those temptations in your household or on your phone, or like in the cabinet with your alcohol, like all of that is eradicated. It's like what I'm going to do, like it's I'm making it so much harder to do those things because they could easily be very accessible, but I can deliberately make that very difficult to find and by the time you end up going through certain barriers to get it, it's like the craving's gone and you're like sweet, I did it.
Speaker 2:Like I've beaten it again.
Speaker 1:And then that's one step toward developing a habit where it doesn't even plague you anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a big part of developing as a person and working your way through it. Yeah, most things are coping mechanisms that you see, you know you go through it. I'm like you, like I don't have thankfully, again, it is a thankful thing, it's a big thing I've got gratitude for is I'm much of an addictive personality. I'm just self-aware, like I know, when I'm using whatever could be just drinking, could be smoking or whatever it is. Like you know, I become self-aware when I'm relying on that thing to relieve this other thing. I'm like, oh, here we go again.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think that's a part of it, as well as understanding your own personality, understanding your own self and, like you said, meditating, being with yourself, getting to know yourself and getting to love those demons inside of you because, at the end of the day, man, like they're in you and you know I don't mean the physical, religious kind of demons, I mean I'm talking about the demons could be like thoughts or could be an experience or whatever, like everyone's going to interpret what that means. But I think you have to sit with your shadows While people do the light work.
Speaker 1:It's the shadows that you've got to really work on right more than anything else I think there's heaps of strength in the negative emotions and if you can pull upon them in a positive way, hell yeah, that's like there's almost feel, as I mean, that's maybe like going even back to, like writing sad music, like there's to me there's so much depth and intricacy and power within frustration and anger and sadness and all these different things and it's so easy to get swept up in them in a negative sense. But if you can kind of harness that and use that in a productive way, like especially anger, if you can harness the the, the rage and the anger inside of you to do something good, like what better fuel is there?
Speaker 1:yeah like, instead of letting it consume you and doing something stupid like punching a hole in the wall, you know like there are ways to direct the energy yeah you know and like that's not. It's a lot easier said than done, but it is possible for sure well.
Speaker 2:One example is this exact podcast. For me, it was me frustrated at the industry and, instead of being reactive of like finding these like leeches, that's stopping the growth of artists within the industry because that's how I feel I was constantly hitting these brick walls and I was like what's going on? And it was just the industry was pissing me off. Like the industry, right. Like I'm not talking about music, I'm talking about the gatekeepers off the industry that determine whether I get a career or not. This was pissing me off and it was driving me crazy and I was getting angry and I was like you know, they were late with paying me, or I wouldn't, or they'd be like, oh, we found the new agent for this venue and then suddenly you're irrelevant because you're not mates with that person. Anyway, I was getting all this anger and I just it's alchemy, right. Like that's what alchemy is right.
Speaker 2:It's like taking that poison and turning it into an antidote. It's like a snake bite. It's the same thing that kills you. It's the same thing that saves you. Snake bite, it's the same thing that kills you, is the same thing that saves you. And understanding that off like going. Well, I can bang my head against that, or I can channel it into exactly what this is off like. Let's just talk about it with other musicians. Yep, now it's productive. Now, all that anger, that's what drives me. Because it is anger that drives me, I'm really angry at the industry. It drives me to. Instead of using it as a destructive energy, I'll use it as a productive energy.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, man, I feel that like I've had very little good experiences with the music industry and I've had so many people, regardless of kind of like things that I might have done or views I've got or what, and maybe like I shouldn't even feel like that's a part of it, like they can make that call regardless of where I think I am. But whenever I get various emails or phone calls where they're like nah, you're not it Like, nah, we're sweet, like we didn't get it, and it's just like I'm pretty good at absorbing that and just going okay and just moving on. But like there's always going to be a subconscious part of you as a human being who's like oh, again like and so being able to use that as, honestly, one of the best fuels that most people use to get successful as fuck you energy, all of you wrong. Like it's going to be so fun and honestly quite easy, I feel, and when all of you come running at the end of the day, that's going to be glorious. I can't wait. I can't wait.
Speaker 1:And like I've written songs about that. I've written a song, Black Sheep and Black Sheep Part Two, which is about the industry, and it talks about pretty much that exact concept and it's really like this abrasiveive, aggressive kind of music with the lyrics which is pretty out of the ordinary for me. But it was kind of just my outlet, I think, of all of these years of my fan base and audience obsessed and loving all this music and feeling something from it, to this complete polarizing view of you are nowhere near good enough. It's like, how do I mentally like, how do I understand this when there are hundreds of millions of people out there saying that this has changed their life and I again, I'm not incentivizing them to say that, because the internet's honest as hell.
Speaker 2:It's the one thing about the internet.
Speaker 1:You know like they're going to tell you instantly if you're full of shit, and I'm lucky that I never get hate comments versus the, especially the australian industry, just going like nah, it's like okay, like I'm just gonna go over here with the people who understand what I'm doing and not try and prove myself to you anymore, because I know for a fact that this is working and I'm sustaining my whole family off of it, like there is people listening, people watching and I'm getting paid to live my life and make more music and more videos, regardless of your opinion, because I'm not in your cool kid club, because that's what the Australian music industry is.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:It is and no one wants to say it. No one's comfortable saying it. It's like if you're not in the cool kid club is and no one wants to say it. No one's comfortable saying it. It's like if you're not in the cool kid club, like I've got plenty of friends who were in that club.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could easily go to the parties they go to and mingle with them and probably end up in that same situation. But whenever I've tried that years ago, it just felt so contrived, like we were saying before, and the peacocking and the superiority and I just wanted to die.
Speaker 1:I was like I hate this so much and I just can't fake it, like I'm not gonna lie, like there was there's a few times where I've tried to fake it just to see, but I couldn't, like I had to leave because it's just so bullshit and I can only imagine what that looks like higher up man, you'll bang on, and this is a topic again that I love that's come out because we're both dads, we're dads.
Speaker 2:I've got to say that one more time. We're dads. It means I'm going to add on to that. We're not just dads, we're husbands, we're partners. So this is not just a word, this is a responsibility to that. We're not just dads, we're husbands, we're partners. So this is not just a word, this is a responsibility to that. It means on Fridays to Sunday, as a musician, for me I'm gigging. Monday to Friday. I need to be home, I need to be helping my wife to make sure she's handling the load, because it's hard being a mum. So I've got to be a husband and then I've got to be a dad, which means that I barely have energy to go and fake at some random event. I'm like that's the way it is. I can't do that. So I'm like well, I'm doomed. I can't become a musician now. Why? Because I can't go into those rooms in order for me to create the connections. So therefore, I'm doomed. I'm forever stuck as a cover artist because I can't do what I have to do.
Speaker 1:And how bullshit is that? And that's what I'm saying, man. But luckily like I, really even though it is slower and harder to not sell your damn soul, because that's why that phrase is so popular, cause I feel like it's accurate, whether that's a spiritual thing or not, it's just like an accuracy thing on all levels Totally. Yeah, You're like you're giving up a part of yourself to reach material levels of success and fame even.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry man no, but like I think, even though I'm not where I want to be yet, I think I'm an example of like you don't. You don't need to like, like I'm not one to really enjoy talking about numbers, but in this situation, it's like I think there's like almost 350 million views on the channel and like 250 million streams on just on Spotify, and not including everything else, and I didn't have to suck any dicks not a single one. So I think it's possible.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good.
Speaker 1:That's pretty good, like there's a lot of room for me to go and there's a lot of success I want to achieve that I am yet to reach. So perhaps there will be a ceiling that I reach one day, but I don't believe so. I think that your brain is the only ceiling you know so yeah, that's man, and you know back to that.
Speaker 2:You've. You got me man, you got me me. I got to get that yeah.
Speaker 1:Get that vivid image out of you Get that vivid image out of my head.
Speaker 2:Look, that's the thing, man. That's what I love about these sort of content, these sort of concepts of having a podcast. You can open this dialogue and you know you've got to know, jacob that the sentiment is shared between everyone. We're out here and that's what I love. I'm like I can't be the only one who's thinking this, and then I go and talk to another person and I'm like see, it's not, we're held back, this industry's held back. There's only ever been, there's always been, a gatekeeper. We need to remove these gatekeepers, man, because I feel like, as as the music industry, it should be way way more just, abundant, and not just financially, I mean through opportunities, I mean through connection, through how much venues there's like 5 000 or 3 000 venues in australia alone that that has been held back from these.
Speaker 2:It's like greed, right, like when you take the religious aspect out, we're talking about selling your soul to the devil, right? Or selling your soul. Take the religious aspect out and let's look at the characteristics. Like greed, like we know, those seven sins, right? Greed, lust, anger, all these things here. These are some of the foundations that make up. When people start selling their soul is when they're faced with that opportunity of greed. Hey, I'm going to make all your dreams come true. All you got to do is suck that dick right, like these sort of moments, you know like that's where, where they that sort of sell your soul to the devil.
Speaker 2:That's where the that's where that plays on. It plays on that weakness within you. So you compromise, you compromise, and then you compromise and a little piece of you you might give the nail, and then I'm going to give this. I want to give my finger now, I'm going to give my hand now, I'm going to give my arm now, and then eventually you look in the mirror and you go who the freaking hell am I? Who am I? Um, if you, I've brought this lyric up a few times because I've noticed it, but, um, there's a song by Mac Miller and even he talks about in in one of his songs. He's like I wish I had a took, taken a simpler route instead of having demons that's as big as my house, like Shiva's thinking about that, because this is weeks, I think, even like maybe a year. I don't know anyone who follows Mac Miller. You tell us in the comments, but it was pretty close to before he committed suicide.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And this is great to hear that you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that, you just have to have a bit of knowledge. And we'll get into details about what we're developing as an app, the FEMU app, which is to empower independent artists. We've got certain rules and restrictions. We don't want to work with labels like big labels. I mean, we want to work with independent artists and it's tools, it's tools, it's tools. That's all you need is the tools Like tools.
Speaker 1:If you give tools, the industry can be a much better place For sure, I think on this topic, if you're going up against I don't want to say an enemy, but something as massive as the monopoly that is the music industry, if you're an independent artist, I still believe it's possible, but I also don't think many independent artists are realizing how relentless you need to be. You need to think about like, let's say, let's use the word enemy for now yeah, and that means a great word like that summarizes david and goliath situation.
Speaker 1:You need to be like, utterly ruthless and consistent and not to say that I'm killing it every time with that either. Like there are times I fall off where I'm just like god, I'm exhausted and you don't do the thing you said you would do, and that's like the lowly land concept again. But man, I speak to so many artists that are on the come up and and even when I talk about my strategies, about how I think they could go about getting some attention, like the eyes are just glazing over. They're like, nah, it can't be that much work. It's like, fuck man, what do you? What do you? What do you think it is going to be? Like, how many artists are trying to get there? And you're going up against major label artists too, who do have that backing and who aren't shelved and who are actually getting the resources from these people.
Speaker 1:Like you need to be creating these strategies where you can be so damn consistent with music and short form and long form and alternative versions and shows, and you can't be doing all of that yourself. So finding your own team. I'm not going to say whether that's in industry or out of industry, because everyone has different experiences. We can't just say it's all bad because it's not. Once you find those people who you can rely on and you can bring into your ecosystem, then you start to create actual systems to have things coming out all the time that are high quality in the way of like entertaining.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about like 4k versus 1080p. Yeah, like that is so important, and if you are an artist watching this, you're probably not working hard enough. Watching that show on the weekend is actually hurting you and again, I'm not. I'm not of this Like I'm talking to myself here too. So I think that's just one thing that people need to realize if they're trying to genuinely make it in this career.
Speaker 1:It's like you need to be so damn consistent and create some sustainable way of being on constantly, and even if that means you aren't on constantly, but you've developed something last month that has stockpiled the content for you and you've scheduled it all, so you're still present Even if you're taking a break. You just have to be really conscious and thoughtful about all of this stuff, cause most people including myself I'm always a part of this is you'll go so hard for three months. You'll see some actual progress, cause you're like man, I'm being full on and then you take three months off because you just burnt out and then all of that is just redundant and rewinds and you've got to kind of start again with maybe a few extra fans. It's difficult.
Speaker 2:Man and there's definitely like. One thing I've noticed is there's a big essence of naivety. Big essence of naivety, a lot of people are naive of how really serious this industry is like.
Speaker 2:This industry breaks people. It absolutely destroys lives. It absolutely destroys like man. I've heard the stories over and over and over again. I've had thousands of dollars taken from my band, from managers that I led into my ecosystem and you know, I'm like, wow, I've. I've run events that have failed and left me in debt to paying all these people back. I've done that because I took the risk, you know, but that risk didn't pay out. Therefore, I'm left like it's. It's it's. That risk didn't pay out. Therefore, I'm left like it's. It's, it's man, that's it's hard industry. It's a tough industry. Right like it's. And yeah, you're right, people need to understand how serious it is to step into this industry and that's why you only do it if you're obsessed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if you're only doing this because you want fame, like how long are you going to hang on for if you don't actually this because you want fame? Like, how long are you going to hang on for if you don't actually love it? Like I said in the previous part of this um chat, like I have tried other things simultaneously with music, like well, this could be like an additional adventure or whatever. That's kind of like semi-attached but also not, and my passion wasn't fully in it and it might have lasted maximum six months before I was like I despise this thing. But music for me and my subjective experience has. I could do it all day, every day, endlessly, and never feel tired, apart from needing to sleep. But it doesn't burn me out mentally. It's just so exciting every single day and that, to me, is the indication that I found my purpose it's like that's.
Speaker 1:I've tried so many other things and they've all fucked me up yeah this is this doesn't. I could do it for the rest of my life yeah so if you're trying to jump into this industry and you're like on the fence, have a bit more of a thought before you jump in, to see whether you can learn to love it as much as you need to, or if you're never going to and you find something else, because it takes takes some time it takes time and you and you've got to have skin in the game.
Speaker 2:You've got to really understand, like, how, yeah, how much time and energy this takes. I I like love it's a funny word love when you love the concept, love the industry, love, music, love, love, love, love. Everyone uses the word love, but for me, love is like boxing's. I've always seen love as boxing. It's like you've got to love boxing in order to get punched in the head you've got to love it like I don't love it.
Speaker 2:If someone punched me in the head, I'm like, I'm out, like you know what I mean, yeah, and you've got to love it. To make it to the 12th round, you've got to have a heart, you've got to have stamina and that's how you've got to see that metaphor with what you do in life, like with outside of music. You know anything you love. You've got to take the hits you're gonna get. You know I don't want to be cliche, rocky here, but it's gonna beat you down. You know like it's, it's gonna do that. Like the music industry's gonna beat you down. You know I don't want to be cliche, rocky here, but it's gonna beat you down.
Speaker 2:You know, like it's, it's gonna do that like the music industry is gonna beat you down. You know it's going to have. You're gonna end up bruised. You're gonna end up lost a whole lot. You're gonna lose before you gain. But then there's gonna be a moment where it clicks and it'll flow back right and I think sharing those experiences is a life hack yeah especially like, say, for example, with ai and everything kind of coming forth and everything is so pristine and perfect and easily generated.
Speaker 1:If you have a horrible experience or you're feeling rough or you know not to like not to say, you should be naming names of whoever's done it to you, because defamation's a thing. Um, but we don't, we don't need that, uh. But being honest and authentic and real with your audience is like, in my opinion, a life hack, because most people are too afraid to do that. It's like no, here's my highlight reel because I'm amazing. And how much can someone connect with you in that sense? Like, not really. They might love what you do and your art still might be cool, but if you're, you know not to say, you're going on like a stream or making a video and just like crying. I don't know, maybe, if you want to do that, fine, but like having a real dialogue, like a real human being with your audience, they're going to want to support you so much more, because when you do see success and you're doing these crazy shows, they've followed you when you posted that one YouTube video of going. None of this is working.
Speaker 1:And I've tried so much shit and I just can't figure this out. I'm obviously not going to stop, but I just I've tried this for years now and nothing's working. And the people who are watching that when they see you performing for like 5,000 people one day, they're going to just be obsessed with the fact that you're someone who literally had that hero's journey. It's just the greatest.
Speaker 1:So, like we should never be scared to share some of our more real even like negative thoughts online If you're not if you're not doing it just to like, gather sympathy, like if you're just trying to share your experiences because people can tell. If you're just like, please comment something that makes me happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly just like. Please comment something that makes me happy. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, man, we've covered some like awesome topics. I've really I don't know man, like I really like enjoyed. This has been a really nice wholesome discussion, wholesome conversation, me too yeah, yeah, we've really and like and it's funny because, you know, as as I've developed through all of the episodes, you know my first episode, I had the iPad here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had my little notes and my little sections. Oh, section C.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, jacob, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been a crazy journey as the podcast and some of the discussions that we've gone through they've naturally gone that way because I was in my head you know that iPad's now in my brain and I was just sitting there going we've covered that. We've covered that. We've covered that.
Speaker 2:We've covered that I'm like, wow, like this is, you know, and it's evolved.
Speaker 2:The concept of this conversation, of this dialogue, has evolved into just being more of a natural conversation instead of, you know, as long as I bring it back to the industry, which is what I'm trying to do and that's also honoring you as an artist, and, you know, after we finished this conversation, anyone listening at home we are actually going to set up, reset the stage shortly and we're going to, um, obviously, do what we all are here for jacob is tap into the music, which is, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:We're going to do a few, few performances and, you know, sing a few songs, which is going to be great, and then we'll post-produce it and do an official release, so you guys will get that nice, pristine, polished, beautiful video that Jacob is well-known for releasing, which is, you know, I'm going to do it, I'm going to make sure I hit that level. But, you know, before we start wrapping up this conversation, we've got to cover a couple of things. I do like to loosen the load a little bit and and just sort of have a bit of fun, you know, and I I like to ask these really funny not funny, but rapid questions, but um, let's do that.
Speaker 2:So bucket list g uh, red, red rocks how much times red rocks has come up here?
Speaker 1:oh, no way bro yeah mine as well uh-huh, yeah, colorado, that's the place you want to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy yeah, have you had any like I don't know man, like have you had any discussions about what it would take? Like is there, is it a hard one to do?
Speaker 1:I think I would just need to have more evidence of ticket sales in that area. Yeah, so I would need to go back over there and and do some more performances to see how close I would be to actually selling the tickets that would be required yeah, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Do you have a dream?
Speaker 1:collaboration can be with music, can be with producers, can be with um, I would probably say at this point it would be nf the rapper. Have you heard of him?
Speaker 2:no, he's amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna check it out, yeah and then, once you listen to him, you'll you'll see why I like him. Because I think there are even though he raps, there's some similarities in the music, just very like in depth, very like emotional, um real kind of shit. So yeah, I would say that would be a very interesting collab.
Speaker 2:To be honest, yeah, yeah, and writing. Are you a poet? First, music. Second, are you picking up the guitars, doing your chords, and then the songs come in? Is the emotion?
Speaker 1:is it piece by piece, talk to me through your writing when it's acoustic, when I'm only playing with acoustic guitar, it's melodies and lyrics together, usually with tweaks of course, but the concept is usually inspired by the melody and I come up with something simultaneously. When it's through pro tools, if I'm using samples or a keyboard or building the drums first, it's always going to be music first and I'll produce it to a level. Actually, these days I barely produce it. I'll just get like the bare bone chords with maybe a beat and fill it with nothing else and then come up with the lyrics and the melodies and make sure they're cool and then fill everything in around it. Cool and then fill everything in around it.
Speaker 1:Because what I used to do when I first learned production was pretty much like, to the extent that I was capable finish a song before I even started with lyrics and what I realized is I filled the song so much that I couldn't pack anything else in and my melt, my ability to create melodies, was so limited because something else was already doing something yeah so now it's like as bare bones as it can be to leave room for creativity, and once I'm really happy with the melodies, depending on how I'm feeling on the day, I'll either stop and create lyrics for that melody or, if I'm really not feeling lyrics that day, I'll just bolster out the track, because I've already carved out the space for the lyrics will eventually be yeah, that makes sense yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:Does I totally get that? Yeah, uh, and any for anyone coming through the industry. Any misconceptions you want to clear up? You already did clear up a couple of misconceptions, but what do you reckon, man?
Speaker 1:about the music industry. Yeah, I mean. One thing I say, whether it be a misconception or not, is just don't immediately assume when someone tells you you're the next big thing and you're incredible, and you're amazing that they're telling the truth, that they aren't just seeing dollar signs off the back of you. Maybe they do think. Well, they wouldn't say it if they didn't think you were talented and there was some opportunity there. But you need to always be aware of the fact that there could be an ulterior motive and an agenda, and there also very well may not be and you might have found the greatest person to work with amazing. But keep your guard up, not all the way, because you don't want to kill opportunities, but keep it up to a degree where you're keeping yourself safe, because there's a lot of people out here who are going to tell you a lot of shit, especially when you start seeing success that once you do sign with them, they vanish and they're present.
Speaker 2:Here I am saying let's loosen up the load, oh sorry no, that's my fault. I was like man, what am I doing? That was meant to be before we loosen up the load. Yeah, that's my fault. I was like man, what am I doing? That was meant to be before we loosen up the load.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just a word of warning, I guess it's right. That's right. You're right that people should experience, uh or not not experience, but people should be aware of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, for sure, that's my fault. I should have asked that before, but I didn't bring it back down. Yeah, bringing it back down. Now let's bring it back up.
Speaker 1:And if you could do a song with a dead celebrity. Oh gosh, I don't know why Jack Sparrow just came to mind, even though he's not dead.
Speaker 2:Oh man, who, who, who. I'm going to say chester, bennington, lincoln park. Yeah, good one, yeah good pick.
Speaker 1:Lincoln park's been in the forefront of my house man, partly because I really like the band and partly because I know that you love him. I love the band, um, but I mean, their music has always been absolutely insanity, so I think that that would be, very unique, or even, to be honest, mac Miller. Mac Miller I didn't listen to him as much as I probably should have when I was younger, when he was alive.
Speaker 2:I was the same man, like Tiny Desk brought him to me. I was the same. I was like this guy's got some good content. You know really good deep stuff, man. But yeah, two great choices, two great choices. And if you could ask either of them or both of them a question, man, it's tough.
Speaker 1:Oh man, off the top of my head I'm not really sure. What would I ask? What would I ask Mac Miller? If I could ask him a question? It would probably. I think it's easy to ask about more existential stuff. I think his way of songwriting was so unique and impressive. I would love to just know his process and I'd probably ask him more about like what his mentality looks like when he's creating the concepts and the lyrics and the stories that he does, and there very well may even be a video about that that he might have made. I'm not sure, but it would probably be more understanding how he sourced his creativity. I think that'd be really interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be man for sure, for sure. And we're going to go into a Q&A. So we'll start getting people getting ready for that Q&A, because we're here, we're about to, after we do the Q&A, we're going to get the stage ready, like I said before, and start doing some music stuff. So while your questions keep coming, I'll just keep on rolling through with these sort of fun things and Dan will just let me know. If you've got any questions, just throw them down wherever you throw them down into the comments section. But yeah, and so what about your favourite riding spots or anything like that? Do you have any?
Speaker 1:I think I've gotten to a pretty cool point of not really needing one.
Speaker 1:Back in the day I needed to sit in the same spot and I think that was a really like self-limiting belief, but anytime I sat anywhere else.
Speaker 1:If I wasn't, this was back in my parents' house. When I lived with them it would be two spots either in my dad's garage, in our garage, because that was the most isolated place, or the room just off the garage, because that was still pretty isolated and it would always be on a stool and I would always have a laptop there because I would write on in the notes on my laptop or sometimes on my phone. I would always have a laptop there because I would write on in the notes on my laptop or sometimes on my phone. And then when I moved and, you know, grew up a bit and had my own property, I couldn't write in that house for ages and I almost felt like I needed to go back whenever I had a writing day and write at my parents' house. But that's because I'd never written anywhere else. I've moved beyond that now and it kind of doesn't matter, like I'm able to kind of get in that that um frame of mind pretty easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you step into it. It's like a natural thing now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know what you mean, man. I feel you on that one there. And so all of the topics we've gone through, is there anything we've missed out that you feel that you haven't?
Speaker 1:I think we've touched a lot man, technical stuff. Um, if this is kind of going out to more like artists who are just on the come up, like I really just want to emphasize authenticity, you know, and like that doesn't mean that you can't sign with people, it doesn't mean you can't have management, it doesn't mean you can't have connections. You can still be just as authentic, um, but try not to create a character that you're not obsessed with. That wasn't your choice, because if that becomes successful, you're stuck and you have to continue on with that. And if you decide one day to show your true, authentic self, your massive following is going to be so confused and they're just not going to be into it. So, from the very beginning, if you can just maintain your authenticity and really sing and write and create from your soul and your heart, once you see success you'll know that is you people love yeah and that's sick, like it's a great feeling we got a question
Speaker 1:um, can you ever suffered from? Uh, I don't believe in writer's block anymore, but I I would say when I did believe in it, yes, um, the times that I suffered from it was just after finishing a song that I loved. So say, if I bring up breadcrumbs again, I finished that song. I thought it was a great song and I thought the story was really well told. It took me three months to write something else because I was like how am I ever going to come up with anything that cool again in my mind? Um, so I would sit down to write and nothing would come, because the only thing I could think of was I just created, probably, in my opinion, the coolest song of my career.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to do that. Again, it was all a fluke, like everything's a fluke. I don't know what I did, and eventually you get beyond that and you realize that every song is going to be different regardless and you also don't know what goes well, like we said. So I've experienced that a few times where if there's a, if there's a particular song I've written, that I think is leagues above the rest. It's harder for me to write the next one, because there's a part of me going. You can't do that again it was all it was all.
Speaker 1:It was all by accident, you know so yeah, I feel something's just I think you should really write a dark song about algorithms. I probably could. Yeah, I could do something pretty ambiguous. Cryptic is the word I wanted. Cryptic, yeah, yeah, and we both have a question.
Speaker 2:So this is a lot from YouTube. Any goals for another of your songs this year?
Speaker 1:And do you have any lyrics while sleeping? No lyrics while sleeping, sadly. That'd be great, that'd be awesome, to be honest, if I could just wake up with really cool ideas.
Speaker 2:Maybe with AI.
Speaker 1:Just plug it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just plug it in. Just wake up in the morning. Good morning, jacob. Here's your songs you were thinking about last night. Oh man, imagine that that would be sick.
Speaker 1:Dude for an experiment. I tried to create lyrics with ChatGPT and they were all shocking. There's not a single lyric that came out that I was like, oh, that's inspiring, I can use that Like no, it wasn't it. What was the first half half of that question? Uh well, I released nine last year, so if I can beat that, that'd be good. Yeah, and I'm going to really have to speed up my shit to get beyond that. Um, cause I've only released one so far, which is pretty tragic, but I've been. I mean, my focus has kind of pivoted to more like getting these YouTube videos out and kind of bolstering everything that way. Um, but no, if I could, if I could get 10 to 12 songs out this year, I'd be pretty stoked.
Speaker 1:She found out that we're creating which song loads the strongest emotions in you and why. Probably I Still Know you which is a song. It could be interpreted in different ways, but most people interpret it about a miscarriage. And that one was really difficult because I think, with the empathetic approach I take when I'm in the midst of writing that and I'm completely alone and usually sitting in the dark like you're really feeling that concept.
Speaker 1:So that one, I would say primarily, uh, this new one which is called tragic comedy, which I might even sing here. Um, I didn't realize that I was feeling it until I sung it to Nikki, my partner, and like not that I cried while singing it, but I felt like I felt close. Like not that I cried while singing it, but I felt like I felt close, so that, and probably breadcrumbs, because that's such a tragic topic as well, so anything that's just really like touching on real topics that people go through on the day to day. Um, that'll catch me in a pretty severe way when I'm writing it and, uh, and for a musician, you know far more.
Speaker 2:Wow, what is a?
Speaker 1:common mistake you notice a lot of musicians make, probably not realising how quickly things can progress if they just really took it seriously and did some research. Like again, it's crazy how many artists I speak to that think they're working hard but they really aren't outputting anywhere near as much as they should. They think if they release a song, that it's magically going to find its way to people's ears, or if they put a video out there like they feel like they've been shafted if it didn't go viral. It's like you need to orchestrate all of this and it's all on you. So if you're just starting and you're wondering why you're not getting views, it's because you haven't released enough stuff yet and you haven't analyzed that stuff enough to know what worked and what didn't. And even though there is authenticity and a genuine nature of things when you're creating, there is also the other side of marketing and you need to be very analytical in the marketing side of things and, like, say, every single Friday you look at the videos you posted and you see which one got like even slightly more views. Why, why did that get more views? Do the best that you can to figure out why and replicate that next week. Do it again and again, and again and again, and all of a sudden you've you've discovered your own formula for creating things that consistently perform well, that people in the audience love. So I would just say that spending more time reflecting and analyzing your work in the eyes of the audience is how you're going to see a lot more um success, and that doesn't mean that you're writing. Eyes of the audience is how you're going to see a lot more success, and that doesn't mean that you're writing only for the audience, because I think you should still write for you and create for you. But that's one phase, and phase two is okay. How do I get my authenticity out to as many people as possible? And that requires more, you know, staring at statistics and analytics and figuring out what people are liking.
Speaker 1:My last question is I've been trying. I really want to do Asia like so badly. Whenever I look through my stats online in Indonesia, singapore, malaysia, thailand, like all of those near the top for me. So I think it would be really spectacular if I could finally get there. I have no idea what type kind of tickets I would sell, but I do think it would be pretty solid. So, yes, I want to, I'm trying, trying. Yeah, I'd love to. I think we should have to be honest already, but we just haven't. It would be really cool to get him to play bass on one of my songs, and even if he wanted to like sing along or do harmonies with me, I think that would be really cool. So, yes, I would love that awesome, amazing questions.
Speaker 2:Thank you everyone for tuning in and um, you know, if you've joined the journey and wondered why this random guy sitting next to jacob? Because we just talk about the industry and that's, that's our podcast. Talk about the music industry, get to know the musician and you know I appreciate getting to meet you all, um, on this journey. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Uh, jacob, what is your upcoming release schedule?
Speaker 1:looking like you've got some songs coming out yeah, I've got a song called this house coming out next and then I've got a song called tragic comedy after that and I'm in the midst of writing more after that. But I need one more song until I finish this new album and then I'll be starting on album five. So the scheduling is still to be uh, to be determined, because we're still in the midst of mixing and adding various instruments and whatnot to kind of finish off these songs. But my goal, especially if I am trying to get more than nine songs out this year, is to at least get back on schedule with a song every. I mean it's going to have to be every two weeks minimum. So your boy is going to be writing a lot over the next couple of months to make sure that I just have shit loads of music coming. But that's fine, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:So Awesome, so awesome has been absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed this conversation. We really got to dive into some amazing topics, really nice topics actually, like really good for the spirit, good for the soul and good for the music industry. Wow, you couldn't ask for better, could you? Thank you bro thank you, bro, appreciate you man. Yeah, man, thank you. We've done that twice, that's why, that's why that was invented, the whole three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Boom, boom and then the fist bump.
Speaker 2:Just so you could reconcile the first two, so let's just put it all three together. Oh man, absolutely appreciate it, man, thank you.
Speaker 1:You too, thank you.