Vibes Drop In

Wax

• Santa Cruz Vibes Media, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Cardboard boxes on the floor, a flight to catch, and a guitar that still knows the way to a cliffside bench—that’s where our conversation with Wax begins. We jump straight into the touring sprint behind Lifetime Achievement Award and zoom out to the bigger, messier story of how an artist stays steady through constant work, pain, and adversity. The Stutz framework becomes a recurring touchstone, not as self-help theater but as a workable playbook for anyone trying to make real things in an unpredictable world.

Wax opens up about the early days of raw, camcorder YouTube—when authenticity traveled farther than polish—and how that momentum led to a major label deal, big rooms, and bigger expectations. He walks us through the creative paralysis that comes from chasing a “radio hit,” the manager drama that drained time and money, and the surreal twist when Def Jam dropped him and he released Rosana the next day, igniting European charts and a whirlwind of festival highs. Through it all, he holds onto the practice that matters most: returning to the same bench at Sunset Cliffs, letting choruses arrive like weather, and building verses with care until the song holds.

We also go deep on sobriety. Wax shares how twelve-packs once fueled every session, why he got honest seven years ago, and how recovery changed the job without dimming the joy. Fatherhood reframes old lyrics; humor becomes a pressure valve that lets him face heavy topics without flinching. Onstage, he leans into crowd work, classic cuts, acoustic moments, and the kind of spontaneity that makes a room feel like a living room. If you’re chasing creative longevity, this is a grounded, generous map: accept the grind, use humor to cut through the hard parts, and find your hour of joy to power the rest.

If this conversation hits, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves honest music stories, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.

Vibes :

Vides drop in. Wax, how are you doing, brother? I'm doing good. Brian, how are you? I'm doing good, man. Hey, is that excited? You kind of sounds like kind of was looking, talk to your manager. Uh looks like you got a little bit of California, Canada, ending up in Colorado coming up in your life a little bit. Uh supporting with the album came out in May, right?

Wax:

Yeah, the album came out in May, May 30th, Lifetime Achievement Award. And uh, you know, it's been out for a while now, torn all over the place, Canada, the Midwest. We already did the East Coast and Southern California. So now we're doing Northern California, Seattle, Portland, all kinds of different places.

Vibes :

Sick. Yeah, the the let's the my thing is let's start right there. I mean, I I'm gonna rewind this. We'll reverse engineer this conversation, and we'll kind of get back to the dude that you were before sort of, you know, you got onto the scene. You know, for me, lifetime achievement, um, you know, clearly, you know, there's there's some meaning in that title, but I think I want to get more to the human side of it. Like after all this time, now it's 2025, we've been through so much, the world, yourself, your career. What was the process on this exact record and what kind of headspace are you in right now? Uh the process on this album was uh Hey, I'm doing this interview right now.

Wax:

Could you make it is it possible to No, it's okay. It's okay.

Vibes :

It's some real shit right there. That's that's real life right there.

Wax:

I like that. Well, it's speaking of real life. I mean, like, if you can see, like I'm in the pro you can't really tell from this it's the wrong angle, but like right now I'm in the process of packing up stuff to go to Canada and figuring out what I gotta and I have to ship stuff to every city I'm going to in Canada because of all the flights, and then I have to uh ship stuff to the Midwest for the Midwest tour. And um right now a lot of that stuff is I have to handle myself because no matter I have a manager and a tour manager and all this stuff, but they can't come to my house and and get the stuff out of my garage and send it. You know what I mean?

Vibes :

They can't do that, but they can't do that. Is that your art behind you? What's that art behind you?

Wax:

That's me, that's a depiction of me and my friend who is now passed, who who produced a lot of music with me, EOM. But uh that's that's not and that's not something I made.

Vibes :

I wouldn't be able to make that. That that's actually that's a good backdrop for it. And so you're right. Eventually, I think in the world we live in, there's a dude out there in the world, his name's Stutz. He did a documentary with Jonah Hill over COVID, and he talks about like all the other bullshit we go through. There's one thing we'll never get away from. Three things. He's he's a therapist, and he says, can't get away from constant work, pain, and adversity. And he doesn't even say that in a negative way. What he says is those are things that we need to handle on a daily basis. We have to have it in our playbook, you know. Uh, in and I'm even talking about your situation in that room right now, a tour, eventually it does come down to you.

Wax:

It does. What do you say?

Vibes :

Constant work, pain, and adversity? It's it's it his thing is it's dude, you've got to watch it. I I suggest it to everybody. It's S T U T Z, Jonah Hill's therapist. They recorded all their sessions through COVID, and he'd been doing, he's like 70 something years old, he'd been doing it forever. And what he finally realized is he was being more kind of reactive than proactive. And so what he started doing with his clients like 15, 20 years ago, was only working on them creating a playbook to handle constant work. And he says it's just the human condition, the world we live in. You're gonna, you know, however you look at it, constant work is a human condition. It's part of what we do. And that goes back to the beginning of the species. Hunter-gatherers, you know, we stop moving and all these things. Um, adversity. And he talks about that like personal, he talks about that in relationships, business, all of these things. It's a daily thing you're gonna deal with. You might miss a stoplight, adversity, you might not get a gig. Something, things that you need to deal with. And the last one is pain, and it's a broad scope that he talks about. Pain can be um it can be physical, it can be mental, it can be pain that you see in the world, politics, all of these things. And it's it's just changed his life where he started kind of, you know, helping people out to kind of create like, you know, get on the treadmill and figure out how do you handle that on a daily basis, because then he says it unlocks everything. If you're not, you know, if you basically can handle those three things, it's um so right now I guess you're dealing with a little bit of the uh the pain of moving boxes, the adversity of getting your shit in boxes, and the constant work of going on tour. It all you can eventually bring it in, you know?

Wax:

The life life, life being constant work really hits home for me because it seems like uh it's it's but it's funny, with success just adds more stuff to your plate and more line items to your to-do lists. Me and my brother joke that when uh when I when you die, you should have your your stuff you didn't do yet on your to-do list written on your tombstone, you know. Because it seems like life is just like trying to get all these things done. And then all those things you're going through, those three things, the pain, the verse, adversity, and the constant work, it's like you need to have that going on for the majority of the time because the my the minority of the time is the is the opposite of pain is joy. The opposite of constant work is relaxation, and the opposite of adversity is comfort, I suppose. And even if you can feel an hour of those a day, it makes all the other ones worth it.

Vibes :

That's exactly that's exactly. And that's so funny. It's like question five on my list of like six I was gonna ask you is, and we'll just stay right there because it's theirs. I think, you know, I'm a lingering fan of yours. I think everybody ran into that song in you know, I think it was mid-twos on YouTube. Um, you know, um uh, you know, we we've run into your music. It's sort of as part of like the zeitgeist and things like that. But then as I was starting to listen to more of your catalog um leading up to this, I realized I lot I know a lot more songs than I thought is, you know, for one. And the other one is you seem to have this conversation is very interesting because you go from the deepest introspective shit to completely, you know, like I think stream of consciousness, we're fucking around, we're gonna basically get a camera, and I'm just gonna I you know I love that that part of of what you've done is there's a playfulness to it, but then you you're not afraid to get serious.

Wax:

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's kind of how life is, right? It's kind of like if you write from a place of truth, you're gonna kind of cover all the bases of human life, which is like like we just said, the pain, the joy, and really like kind of like the ability to laugh at it all, too, is kind of the only thing that gets us by, so that's why there's so much comedy and humor in it, too, because you know, you can write a silly song about being an alcoholic or a serious song about being an alcoholic. I just say that because that's kind of my experience, and a lot of my music is about that. But um they can come from they can come from a joke or you know, a st stand-up comedy and a political speech are kind of the same thing. They are. There's just one one is one is serious and one is making humor of it. You know what I mean? It's kind of like that.

Vibes :

I call it equal standing. I think a lot of times we have this conversation and in a weird way, they're they're very different, you know, you know, different ways to get to the same bench, and sometimes but they do have equal standing in the world. And I do think you're right. I think that you know, humor sometimes is a shortcut or basically a toll pass to uh basically cut through whether it be pain or things like that that you're going through. I always use humor very counterintuitively. You know, sometimes I'll use some humor with friends in the worst moment, and it's exactly what was needed right then. You know, it's it's not it's not the obvious thing, but it's the way to go. Um but go a little bit deeper. We'll stay right there as far as your process. Are you stream of when you write and when you create, are you writing in the mood you're in, or are you writing with like some kind of an um I do do you see it as like a movie script or a book, or what's your process?

Wax:

It's it's kind of different from song to song. I think especially in music, you know, some of some take take take this for example. Take a rap song that has a chorus, and maybe the chorus is simple, everybody can sing along to this chorus, and then the verse could be constructed in a way where you want this to be intricate, uh skillful, clever, and all this stuff. So my point is the the chorus you probab that probably just came to me while I was walking down the street. It's almost like like the universe or God or whatever kind of gives you this chorus. That's the simple part of it. The meat and potatoes. Yeah. But then the rest of it, sometimes, especially especially if you're trying if you're doing like a if you're doing like a rap song that's like a a detailed story, that can almost feel more like doing a college paper or something. That's much more from the brain and less from the heart. But long long story short, I it's it's it's a completely different process for for every song. On this new album, a lot of the process was just me sitting. I have this place in San Diego right by the on Sunset Cliffs, uh in O near Ocean Beach in San Diego, where like I just sit on this bench. I've been sitting on the same bench for 20 years. It's like my spot I go to, and I bring my guitar, and then I I kind of just write whatever comes, and then every time I go there, I craft what I was working on last time, you know. And now a lot of this album is that. And so it's which makes it more of a mellow album, you know.

Vibes :

Yeah, and I I saw you there before we got on, and even in the middle here, the I'm interested as a father. I think of my life in like these little chapters of you know, my life, my life with Stacy, my life with the kids. And then the big thing is it's not just that you become this responsible parent, you're doing all these different things, but your view of the world changes and your emotions change. Even when you hear a lyric, or you might have watched a movie before you had kids and you just kind of like, you know, you know, went through it without a certain emotion. Now you watch it with kids and you might cry. You know, it's like it's like there's something that happens. Is has that clearly made its way? I was listening to a little bit of the album, has it made its way into your process a little bit? Like the you know, being a father.

Wax:

I mean, to be to be honest with you, it has, but most of that album was was pre-My kid's not even two yet. So she's my only kid. So most of that album was actually written pre-child. Now the performing of the songs, it's interesting that you said that because there's certain songs, even my past songs, that I might hear differently now from the perspective of being a father. You know, some some things that I used to say might sound more irresponsible, some things that I used to say might make me more emotional. You know what I mean? Like you're kind of a different human being once you have that the fatherhood chip in your trivial pursuit circle, you know what I'm saying?

Vibes :

Like that's the second fucking time that's come up today. I just had a sales meeting for vibes, and I was with this young bar owner, and I said, you know, it's really that trivial pursuit kind of thing, you know, it's like with your marketing thing, and she had no idea what I was talking about, dude. Was she younger? She was younger, she's like in her 20s, and I'm saying, like, I'm like, it's you know, it I'm just being all connected. I'm like, you know, it's like trivial pursuits like you know, when you're filling those little slices of the pie, marketing's that way. And she's looking at me like, what are you talking about, dude? And side deck do it. But here's the thing this is the I'm gonna connect you to another interview I did last week as far as what this all means. I think it's more a me thing, me understanding, doing my homework, knowing you're a father now. I was listening for emotions and lyrics and words in those songs to connect you to a father. It didn't even exist in some of that writing. But the bottom line is right that's how we interpret music, right? And I just had John Androsik on um last week from Five for Fighting, the band. And he he had a big, huge American songbook called 100 Years. He did it, I think, 26 years ago. Um, just this sort of guilty pleasure song that's out there in the world. He did Superman, he did 100 years. He wrote that when he was on the up, just signed his deal, was kind of international, kind of, you know, traveling and things like that. Um well, now he's 60. He wrote that song, and one of the lyrics is about being 23 and going through his life, what he thought his life was gonna be. Now he's on that stage singing that same song. The lyrics mean it's a completely different song that he wrote. Do you have a little bit of that in some of your when you go back? Because you've been I mean, you've been cracking at this for twenty twenty-five years. How long now?

Wax:

Yeah, a long time. I started making music when I was a little kid, and I'm in I'm in my mid-40s now. Yeah. So I mean basically 30 years, but professionally almost 20. I I haven't had a job, job and I haven't had a real job in sixteen. Sixteen years I've been do been able to barely, barely get by with this. It has its it's it has its own it's a roller coaster with that, but I haven't had to have a job since sixteen years.

Vibes :

Do the words mean something different to you now as you sing them and perform them?

Wax:

Yeah, they the words definitely mean something na different now, especially songs that I was at a different place in my life in my twenties, maybe songs about just I have one song called Out of My Mind that just is about uh the idea that rather than rather than focusing on the pain that I'm in, I'd just rather get effed up. You know what I'm saying? Which is I think a very common thing. But now now I would I still sing the song live, and um I was saying before we got cut off that when I do a sh when I do a live show and I'm doing an old song, especially when there's a bunch of people at the show that have have been with me that long, I kind of look at it like I'm doing the show for them. So I'm attaching to their nostalgia and their teenage years and their college years, whenever they were listening to the song, and it's more like we're all together looking back in time. So no matter how I feel about it, I I almost disconnect from the lyrics in a way and just kind of tap into the emotion. What's interesting to me is people that listen to my people that listen to to my music that are 15 years younger than me, they'll be like, Yeah, I listened to your music in middle school and I liked it, but now I understand it, you know? Because they'll they'll get to the age I was when I wrote it and felt that way, you know. That's what's cool about music, it's it sticks around. All recorded art. I mean, you know, you can go to the Louvre and look at a painting. This this is from a 800 years ago, it's still there. You know, you're long gone or whatever. It's cool that somebody else can experience how how they want to experience it and when they want to experience it.

Vibes :

Did it come out of left field? Because it looking at your career by the the available media, new crack, and all these different things that kind of happened, those are just simple tipping points. But I guess the question isn't so much what the world says happened to you. That you were basically in a band, you broke off, you had this moment. I think you and your brother got that camera and kind of created new crack. And it I don't know if that was as big a moment for you as it looked from the outside in as far as your career was what was what was the what was your view of your career at that point and did did that video have the effect that it looks like it did in the world?

Wax:

Yeah, I think so. That new the new crack one was a big one for me because not only was it uh an introduction of me to a lot of different people, especially you have to consider at that time like YouTube was new. There wasn't a lot of other people. Exactly. You know what I mean? It was a it was a new thing. So uh but not only did it introduce me to a lot of people, but it introduced it introduced me to the idea that you can use the internet in that way to circulate your own uh to circulate yourself. Because before that I come kind I was in a band for many years, and uh we come from the old school where you tour and you find people one person at a time and hopefully they'll tell their friends and you sell them a CD. You put them on your mailing list, which might actually have their address where you send a postcard to, to the you know what I mean? Like just old school stuff, right?

Vibes :

No, I mean that's exactly it. I think it's funny though. I look back on that video the other day when I knew we were doing this, and there's this um I use that word the second type. I think you you you touched into something before YouTube was YouTube, where now that kind of content you did in New Crack is sort of the raw organic shit that's working right now again. It like went into this real kind of stylized world for a while, right? Like people were sort of MTVing YouTube sort of at the beginning. They didn't know what to do with it. But the fact that you did that video that way, and I think there's even some shout-outs at the end, it's it just felt real camcordery, real kind of raw. Um, and it was you just flowing, which I think is just that you know, for me in that genre, that ability, it's one thing to be able to put all those words together. And I I gotta say this with all due respect to people that do and don't make it. There's those that can do it, and it feels like a natural kind of conversation you're having with them when they're rapping, you know, the way you kind of like isolate certain, you know, words and things like that, and they're and it just comes off as you're not trying too hard. And I think that's my biggest compliment when I listen to all your music, is it does it never feels like, and it may be different from your process, but it doesn't feel like you're trying too hard, and that's easy on the ears. Even if you're sort of like in some of your lyrics, even if you're sort of rebelling, even if you're sort of like starting some shit, it's easy on my ears when I listen to it.

Wax:

That's awesome. I take that I take that as a uh real compliment, man. Thank you.

Vibes :

Yeah, I think it's it's part of the it's part of where it is. So then then you blow up a little bit, right? And and you blow up, or at least you get the scene and people are hearing it, and then you kind of go through this little tell me a little bit about that window after you blow up, and I think Def Jam was in there a little bit, right? And so you you you quote unquote make it, right? In in in in your own vision. What was that time like? And then I think that was not you weren't there for the longest period, and you have some thoughts on that, right?

Wax:

Yeah, well it was an interesting period. I got you know, I got the thing, especially back then, the thing that everybody talks about since you're a kid, the record deal. You get it, you gotta get signed, get signed, get a deal, get signed. You know, that's what everybody says. You know? So I so I did. I got signed, I got a I got a good amount of money. Uh it was interesting because really really when you get signed, the work is only beginning. Like for every artist that you you've heard of that got signed, there's a hundred artists that got signed just like they did, but you never heard of them. Like there's it's almost like that's yeah, like the the analogy in sports would be you know, for every player in the NBA, you how many of them are stars, you know? Like they might have made it to that level, but or shit, who how many of the how many people play in Europe that you never heard of? That's actually a better that's it. You know what I'm saying?

Vibes :

That's a better analogy.

Wax:

Yeah, because you that's exactly what they didn't quite get there, you know. But uh but when when I got when I got there, you know, ever there was a lot of high hopes, and it was kind of crazy because at that time I had some I had two managers at that time, and I got into a thing where they'd hated they didn't like each other, and I fired one of them, but it was illegal, and then it became this whole thing where all of us are kind of fighting over money that doesn't exist yet, and it ended up being a thing where I spent most of my money on lawyers trying to deal with that situation, and then it never came to fruition. You know, I never I never got that like I never got that that big song that that uh you that they wanted me to have, you know. Ironically, like right when they dropped me, like literally the day after they dropped me, I dropped this I put out this music video that went viral, and then I got I had a hit song with another uh a song that it went it was a hit in Europe, and that was a crazy time too. And I got I got another record deal, but it was a European is this before or after like Rosanna? That is Rosanna. That is Rosanna. The day the day after I got dropped from Def Jam, I put out Rosanna's music video.

Vibes :

Such a sick Sean song.

Wax:

Thanks, man. And then that's that song that song blew up because I I got a record deal off that song in Europe, and that became like the number one song on the pop charts in a couple countries over there, which was a really, really interesting experience. But that even after all that, you know, I became a kind of a one-hit wonder over there. And uh I did I had a great time. I did a bunch of big festivals over there. I toured over there. They and it was like it was cool because it was like high-level touring where they put you in the penthouse suite and all that, you know what I mean? But uh but yeah, then after after that, I kind of just you know, since then I've been kind of low-key doing my thing as an artist. There's a lot of people that like me, but it's like not a lot, lot, but it's enough, you know what I mean?

Vibes :

And uh Oh, it's it's it's enough. I mean, it again, it's it here we go again back to stutz. It's you're in I don't know. Here's the thing. We always fill up that cup no matter what level it is, and it is gonna be that stutz thing. It is that constant work. You know, like you know, like the way you're doing it right now is constant work. If that would have gone a different way, there's still the administration, you know. I forget the money. I think about it, you would have had this team, you would have had this bird, you know, it all comes with eventually. We have to be sort of stoked with what we're putting out. There's this uh book I read all the time, and you know, he kind of it's another philosopher, but he lands on a thing. All we're here for a very short period of time is to express ourselves. I mean, and it comes in so many different fashions. Like we're here for a short period of time, and when it's all said and done, we're just you know, we're here to express this life that we're living right now. Yours comes through this fashion and things like that, but it's um now at the top of that, the the top of that peak there, um adversity, did did you have moments where you feel like this will never go away? This is the new new. Did you um did you did you party a little too much? Did you what was the adversity in that? Or was too much kind of went back to the work.

Wax:

First of all, the the main adverse this is all set in a backdrop of alcoholism, you know. I uh since I was young, I drank a lot, and when I had this deal, I was drinking more than ever. Just you know, every day I drank a 12 pack of beer. That's that was how I got down. And whenever I went to the studio, that's I was like that was like a necessary like you know, in the morning you go to the liquor store. Like that I thought that that was an unnecessary part of the process. And basically, it's basically long story short, it's this when I was with uh Def Jam, the the goal was for me to create a hit song for the radio, right? So I would go into the studio, sometimes with people that were like, you know, well-known producers and songwriters and things like that. And for I was I was having a good time for a few months, but then when I started to give them music and I kind of got rejected or like this isn't right, this isn't it, this isn't, you know what I'm saying? So then you start to question yourself. Then you start to and the only thing you really have is the only thing you have is a songwriter, a musician or producer, whatever it is, what you create is just your opinion. You know, I think this is good. That's like what you said about expressing yourself, you're expressing what you feel is good. It's just it's all it really is is is an opinion, is an opinion. So if your opinion is constantly questioned, and you're trying to kind of and you're trying, you know, they gave me a deal. I'm trying to satisfy them as well, not just myself. Uh eventually you get paralyzed, you get creatively paralyzed, and that happened, that definitely happened to me. I you know, it's I would I would I would do a week of sessions and come out with nothing, you know, and it's and I would I would be super, super, super sad. Like I'd be at hotel rooms just like calling my brother literally crying. Like I was really, really, really depressed at that time, which is really why uh the main reason why I ended up not working out.

Vibes :

The um and it's funny because and again, this is the classic artist question. In the in the rubble of all of that, you know, past the times where you had those bad weeks, those emotions and sometimes clearly talking to you right now, you had this um you had a clarity moment because it it sure seems like you're you're you're straight and sober right now. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it seems like have you been able to kind of vanquish that demon a little bit or where are you at?

Wax:

Yeah, I'm seven years off off booze, haven't drank in seven years, and after a few years, I kind of thanks, man. After a few after a few years, after after I went through all the like the periods that they tell you about that that are true, like a year before in the first two years, like all the emotions or whatever that you're trying to suppress, I guess, like kind of come back up. And for me, that like that also coincided with COVID, and I went through a rough patch with that, but I never went back to drinking and and uh now I wouldn't now I couldn't even imagine uh doing that and try and trying uh like it's hard enough to do all the stuff that I'm doing now without that. Like throwing that ratchet into the mix would be crazy for me. For me personally, you know.

Vibes :

But um Yeah, and then you get the tether. I I call them tethers, and your kid's a tether now, and I was uh if anything, I was more I I just got lucky. Everybody's built a little differently, but I was more on the binge side of it, you know, which was just a regular occurrence. But you throw one, two, three kids into the mix, and you know, first minute you sort of get in those calm open waters, you're like, I don't think I'm gonna do that again. You know, and we're we're lucky because our addiction of choice, if that's the case, is one that you can you can you know steady the ship a little bit there. Um and it goes, did you get some eventual good lyrics and work out of that though? That the did you finally get squeeze some juice out of that hard time?

Wax:

Yeah, I think so. Like on on paper? Yeah, I think so. I mean I think that a lot of the uh a lot of the stuff on my new album, the one I'm touring on, Lifetime Achievement Award, is uh is kind of a reflection of that. It's kind of like you know, I have a song called Shit I Used to Do on there, which is just where I'm at now and where I used to be. And um Yeah, I I uh I I def I definitely have have put some of that into writing. I can't think of exactly some other ones on the album where I talk about that.

Vibes :

But no, just it's over it's more yeah, it's more just like I think it's more like I gotta imagine for somebody like you, we all do different things, but when it's all said and done, I gotta imagine for you, whether it be that sp that bench that you go to, whether it be that guitar, whether it be pencil on paper, that's a little bit of therapy for yourself, right? On some level when it's going good.

Wax:

Dude, I I mean I was I was just t I was just telling somebody, right? I'm doing all this, I'm doing all this touring right now, and I I have a lot of musician friends that are like, I need to be on stage. I I need to be on stage. That's the only way I can express myself. I'm not like that. I love I love performing, I love hamming it up, but that's the time that the time the whole reason I do this is because of that that moment on the bench that I told you about. I my best mo my best moments my best moments, the thing, the reason that I'm in my mid-40s and still make music is not because of anything that happens in front of other people, it's not because of anything that happens in a studio. Well, in a studio, yes, I take that back. That was but it's the writing, the writing and recording and stuff that really is what does it for me. I I do enjoy the performance as well, and I've I've developed into a uh a good performer and whatnot. But like that's if I would like when I do a performance, I I'm getting on stage and saying, here's the things that I wrote. To me to be in a cover band would do nothing for me, basically. You know what I'm saying? Like this That's exactly right. And no, if you if that's what you do, that cool. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. We all like different things, but for me, the the moment that I have the most joy with music is the I'm actually with nobody but myself. It it's a 100% therapy and a meditative process that helps me work through all of it, you know. And that's why I think a lot of people relate to it because I'm just saying how how what I'm going through and and and every we're all human beings, we kind of s go through the same shit, you know.

Vibes :

That's it, dude. And I think it's it goes back to that thing we talked about a few minutes ago, which is it it's really a good place in life. If you somehow can realize that the bench in that example has equal standing to when you're here in a few weeks on stage at the catalyst working the crowd a little bit, I think what you're saying, and maybe just a quiet moment on a Saturday morning with your kid, they all have equal standing.

Wax:

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Vibes :

Yeah. It's heavy. So for the so many of our are demographic right now, um, what can they expect? You know, we're eventually selling tickets here, we're kind of going through that and getting people down the catalyst. Like, you know, what is a wax show? What can they expect when they when they you know click yes and they're gonna go see the show? What are they gonna see?

Wax:

I supp I suppose I should have a higher uh a high like I should talk more highly of my own performing uh when I'm trying to sell tickets to the show. I I I I love don't get I love doing it. I love performing and I I always make yeah, like I said, to for me the performance is not about me. The performance is about the people who are there. So I try to heavily involve the crowd. I ask people names. I used to do stand-up comedy, so I I kind of have a vibe in between in between songs where you know I'm doing what some people would call crowd work, and I try to I try to involve the crowd as much as possible. You know, so uh I have my uh DJ Hoppe will be there. He's a world-class uh hip hop DJ and music producer. I play I do some classic, like two turntables and a microphone rap stuff. I bring I also have a guitar and I do a set a section of the set where I kind of you know take it take it to that bench where we're talking about and just play some solo acoustic stuff and um I try to I try to mix the energy up a little bit and I always play uh I always try to play the people the people that have been with me for a long time that want to hear some of the old quote unquote classics. I always try to play as many of those as I can. I even take requests sometimes, you know. I'm not I'm not scared of stuff like that. It's very it's very on the fly. Which you can do if you have a there's a what's that? Yeah, have you played the catalyst before? Have you played the catalyst? I have. I played the small room and the big room. And this we're doing the small room this time.

Vibes :

Atrium. The atrium, yeah. Atrium. I love the atrium. Just saw Landon McNamara there. And you know, if I had my we saw offspring there in the big room, and even even it doesn't matter. For me, local being born and raised just going back to when I went in high school to concerts, it's always atrium for me, you know, because it's so intimate, it's so rad, and and you can the catalyst is a great venue, but man, that open room is um Very difficult because it's it's a difficult concert to be, you know, you know, in the crowd at the catalyst unless you're up top a little bit. But the atrium, for me, that's the spot, you know, like when I hear concerts there, I'm going. So well, I'm psyched. I gotta get boogie in here. Is there anything else? I guess we'll I'll throw all the handles in here. We've got all the stuff for the we're gonna throw it up on our TV network. We're gonna put it in um, you know, all over the place for you and and see what we can do over a few weeks here. But this was amazing, dude. I just blew through my other interview, it was so good. So um that was awesome. This was great. I I can't uh I think yeah, and I think we'll definitely be there. We're gonna come check out the show because I think it'll be uh it'll be rad to kind of like after I always love after doing these interviews, kind of seeing it translate on the stage.

Wax:

Yeah, comb through, say what's up, and uh anybody you know, tell them. Tell all your friends, tell your family, tell your enemies, whoever. You know, let's get some people in there. Thanks, brother. All right, thank you so much, Brian. That was awesome.