American Hustle

Episode 5 - Steve Durr's American Hustle

• Austin Moody • Season 1 • Episode 5

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A bell tower that sings back, a church that keeps its soul, and a veteran studio designer who swears the mix starts with the human voice. We sit down with Steve Durr—builder of 2,200 rooms for artists, arenas, and raceways—to trace a career defined by emotion, integrity, and rooms people never want to leave. What unfolds is a raw, funny, and practical masterclass on vibe-first design and creative resilience.

Steve opens with Austin: preserving an 1890s Black Gospel church by building a protective facade and turning the bell tower into a living echo chamber. It’s a case study in honoring history without sacrificing innovation, and a reminder that spaces remember what they’ve held. From there, we talk shop: why great sound starts with vocals, why headphone mixes should mirror the control room, and why soundcheck is a poor proxy for the energy of a show. He shares how Pro Tools disrupted the studio business, how live sound re-centered the mission, and why no one buys a ticket to hear a PA—they come to feel something real.

The conversation widens into life and legacy. We dig into the host’s pandemic pivot from touring to a pressure washing business that unexpectedly amplified confidence and artistic freedom. Steve counters old-school studio dogma with a human standard: build for safety, comfort, and light; reject clients who poison the room; treat the headliner and the janitor the same. He credits mentors, celebrates albums sequenced as stories, and challenges us to keep an open ear for new music without clinging to nostalgia. The takeaway is simple and hard: start with the voice, protect the vibe, show up early, and do the unglamorous work that makes great art possible.

If this conversation lit a spark, share it with someone who needs the nudge. Follow the show, subscribe, and join our newsletter at AmericanHustle.com. We’re building a community that chooses substance over noise—come be part of it.


Credits

Host: Austin Moody

Guest: Steve Durr

Videography & Edit: Zack Knudsen

Graphic Design: Zack Knudsen

Executive Production: Mid Century Western

Creative Direction: Brandon Carswell

Recorded On-Location in Nashville, TN

Off Script And Into Life Lessons

SPEAKER_00

You know those conversations that start one place and end somewhere completely different? That's this one. Steve Dore has built over 2,000 rooms for artists, corporations, stadiums, raceways, and then some. But what happened in this episode wasn't about design. It was about life experience, about watching greatness up close and what time teaches you. We went off script, and I think you'll be glad we did. This is American Hustle. Steve Dore. That's me. Thanks for being on the American Hustle. You know, man, I'm really grateful. Thank you. So what's been going on? You just got back from Austin doing some studio stuff down there?

Echo Chambers And This Old House

SPEAKER_01

I actually have like five, four really amazing projects going on there. And um I I've been going to Austin since the 80s and doing studios, and and uh the stuff I'm doing now is really, really um unbelievably cool. One of them is um uh it's in an old uh 1890s church, uh Black Gospel Church. And it's one of the most amazing acoustical environments I ever walked in in my life. And so, a long story short is I it it's we we built a facade over the building to get this to have sound thing, but we wanted to leave the legacy wood, the legacy floors, and all these things in place. And so um the contractor took all the wood out, put it in a place, and saved it. And then uh we built this facade over the top. So it looks exactly the same, but but it's uh thing. So the longest short story is that the guy that owns it, I said, man, you know, we really ought to have some kind of like, I don't know, way to save this, you know, archive what we're doing. Because I've never done anything on this level of trying to maintain the actual acoustic and the energy in that room because there's so many people that went crazy. They lost their whole, you know, emotional experience in that church since 1890. And he said, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, We need to document this somehow. And he goes, Well, who's gonna own the rights? And I said, Well, it's yours. You're gonna own the rights. So about two weeks later, I get a call from this is uh Dave Johnson, and I'm with uh this old house, and uh we're gonna meet you in Austin next week, and you're gonna be on television. I went, Oh, okay. So I called this friend of mine. I go, hey man, you don't believe this, but I'm gonna be on this old house. He goes, Wow, that's really cool. You're gonna do the audio? So no, no, I'm gonna be the talent. He goes, Oh yeah, I'm sure they know what they're doing. So Austin for me is a gift. It always has been. I love it there. Dang. This old house. This old house, yeah. Gosh, that's like one of my dream jobs. Well, you can come on down next week and get on with me. I've been shooting. Um it it's been on the air for 45 years.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That is super cool, man. I don't know if I'm supposed to tell anybody, but yeah, no, well, it's okay. I've told everybody, so you might as well know too.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, yeah. You're the you're the fifth interview, so no, but it's such a gift.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's like you can't be serious, you know? And so I've dropped a couple of F-bombs and we've had to edit shit out, but I'm it's fine.

SPEAKER_00

So they're doing like documentary style of like building out the studio kind of thing. Yeah. This is not a typical studio. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I took the um bell tower and made it into a live echo chamber, and it's like two stories tall, three stories tall. And I'm John, you Jesus is in that echo chamber. You know?

SPEAKER_03

I'm like, whoa.

SPEAKER_01

It's real it's gonna be uh one of the most profound things I've ever done. And I've done a lot of fun stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

2,200 Rooms And The Racing Years

SPEAKER_01

What have you built? Like 2,000 rooms? You know, I got asked that question um about a month ago because I was doing a uh myself and Zan that works with me. Um we were doing a PowerPoint presentation at NAM, and I and the guy goes, Well, you know, this guy's got 3,000 studios under his belt. And I thought, well, fuck, I don't know. Add them up. So I'm at 2200. So but they're not all studios. Um I was a race car fan, and so um I really love racing, so that was a part of my life. My childhood dream was to work at Indy, and I was there for 10 years as the tech um as the uh whatever you call it, the uh technical guy.

SPEAKER_00

Dang.

SPEAKER_01

I know, no joke.

SPEAKER_00

It was like so you designed the audio around the speedway, or from like the speakers and the stands, or what is that?

Pro Tools Shock And Live Sound Return

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the app the television, the uh radio, the uh uh the all the production part of it, the sound system and uh and the racetrack. I did uh seven NASCAR tracks as well. That's this is when Pro Tools came out because I was make designing studios and then Pro Tools came out. I was like, well, you don't need Pro Tools anymore, you don't need a studio, just put you know, put Pro Tools on a kitchen table and you can make a record anywhere. And so people stopped building the studios. Like, well, okay. And so I grew up doing live sound of down the road with major artists my whole life, and and uh, but I quit doing it when I started doing studios, and and then um when Pro Tools came out, it's like no more studios. It was like really, I mean, I went for a period of, what the hell, you know? I thought it was me, you know, because I mean, you know, I can be offensive sometimes. And so, uh, not really uh but um but in reality it it killed the studio business. Pro Tools did for a while. And so um I went to doing PAs and so it went back to what I had known as a kid. Nobody goes to a concert to hear a sound system, they go to have an emotional experience with that artist. And so I grew up in in that environment. Uh the people I worked with were very kind. Uh I'd build a sound system, some club somewhere, and I'd drag about two in the morning, listen to it, and they'd go, Well, that's real cool, but it I don't hear anything but the sound system. So what are you talking about? I don't hear the band at all. Oh, okay. And so at first I was like every other 17, 18-year-old kid, I am so offended. You know, the PA sounds incredible. Well, that's true. And so after a while, I started, oh, I see what you're talking about. Nobody goes to hear a PA. Yeah. That's what makes me so crazy today.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh go down, go down on uh Broadway, and it's like you see you see those uh hundred million dollar bars they're building, and I was just down at one four stories, beautiful room. Won't name the bar, but it's like you get up to the top level bar, there's two bow sticks in this incredible room, yeah. You know, and it's like you couldn't hear who was playing, yeah. Like, and it was a great artist uh we're listening to. Um we were in the back of the room, couldn't hear it. It's like people don't think about the listening experience, you know. No, they don't. It's like we're here to sell alcohol and that's about it, you know. But everybody in the room's complaining about sound.

SPEAKER_01

That's where the money is, but yeah. Well, I I did a club here in town called 888. Um, and and one of the things that in the older days, uh and the dialogue was in vocals for everything. So the PAs that we worked on in that era of life, vocals, you you lose the vocals, and you don't have anything, you know, except doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. And so everything that we designed was based around vocals. When I do work now, even in the studio, I use dialogue as the place to start with the speakers. Because if you remember back in the landline phone, the frequency response was about 300 to 3K. But if I called you up, I could understand and know immediately who it was by the tonality of your voice. But I had that very band-limited space. And so I start everything out with dialogue and then work on either end because what on either end of that is totally subjective. You know, some people want a lot of high end, somebody wants a lot. But the minute you lose the vocals, you know, nobody really knows what the drums sound like, but they damn sure know I can understand. Is that that speaker again? Yeah. Is there an audio engineer in the house?

No One Comes To Hear A PA

SPEAKER_00

You know, it's funny because it's like when you go and do it. I've only experienced sound from an artist, you know. So well, I actually went to school for audio, you know, with the Did you really? I went to the Art Institute. Did you really? And I went to SAE. Did you know I built a bunch of those? Yeah. Art Institute? I looked at your credits. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-oh. Crazy. But you know what happened?

SPEAKER_01

I spent a lot of money. They threw all their stuff in a dumpster.

unknown

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Crazy thousand millions of dollars of shit in the dumpster. They're also ripping people off. But I mean Austin.

SPEAKER_00

I was one of them. It wasn't me. I got I got out. I went I was there a year and I was in a graphic design class, and the the uh professor I was leaving. We got to know each other, really cool guy. And he said, uh, Austin, what do you want to do? I said, I came here to be an artist. I just this guy came in my high school in East Tennessee and told us about this thing called audio engineering. Yeah you know, my parents wanted me to go to school, and so I was like, Well, I'll just go to audio engineering. But he goes, dude, if you came here to be an artist, you need to get out of here. And so I was like, Well, I want to finish my I want to get a degree in this, sure, but I don't want to spend the next three years here. So I went to SAE, got my associates, uh, you know, spent a lot of money to figure out, you know, I I didn't want to do it for a living, but it it helped me when I got into the studio. I knew what was going on, I knew my way around a soundboard, I knew, you know, but I knew I didn't want to be the guy sitting there clipping everything up. You know, I want to be on the other side of the cloud. No, no, so you're right. And so at a venue, you know, usually it's like, all right, let's let's get the drums, let's get the bass. And so this is the first time I've ever heard somebody say, You start with the dialogue, you start with the voice. Yeah. And that makes total sense. Oh, yeah. Nobody knows what the drums sound like, you know. Or care. Yeah. You know, unless he's way ahead of the beat. Yeah. You know, really, yeah. So that's uh I've never heard that before, but it makes total sense.

Start With The Voice, Always

SPEAKER_01

It it does, um, from the standpoint of what I'm trying to accomplish. Yeah. You know, like um being working with bands and music, uh I a sound check was a joke. As long as all the lines were working, you were fine. That's it, we never sat there and addicted drum sounds. Because there, they go out to do a sound check. There's a whole set of energy, you know, what's going on at home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When they walk out there and the lights are up and there's a crowd there, the energy is completely different. Their drums sound completely, the sounds come from players. It didn't come from where you got the plug-in set, you know? It's players. And so you walk out there with all that energy and all those people looking at you. The the attention of the performance is completely different than it was at Sound Check. A funny story, I did uh Moody Theater in Austin. Oh, I didn't, yeah, Moody Theater. Is that some of your family? I need to play there. Wish it was. It was Austin City Limits moved out of their uh sixth-floor studio in the University of Texas. So 3,500-seat venue, and you're only um about 75 feet from the front of the stage. So the opening night it was Willie and um and the Austin Orchestra. And so at soundcheck, I couldn't hear Willie singing at all. And I'm like panicked, you know. I mean, I'm running around going, every VIP jerk off in the world is gonna be there. Can't hear a word Willie saying, you can see it moving and you kind of catch every other word. So I said the guy, I've known for years that runs the sound, he goes, the fuck he's not singing. He goes, No, he's not singing, he doesn't sing soundcheck. Oh, thank God. I said, would you mind asking him just to sing a couple of words? So he sang, it's like, oh baby, you know. I mean, I was like in a panic. There's no dialogue, you know. I've got five other great stories about that building. It's a gorgeous theater, I'm very proud of it. We don't want to, whatever that uh ward is for theater. And it's it's very cool. But anyway, yeah, you're right, it's dialogue. It's all about the vocals. You know, I got an idea. Let's still fleet with Mac and take the vocals out, you know. That thing is doing that. It's that little Betty S speaker. So we want to know. Before before all the What the hell you want to know?

SPEAKER_00

This guy's the craziest guy in Nashville. You won't he'll outparty you every time. Uh I grew up partying every day. That's what I didn't stop. I didn't. I didn't.

SPEAKER_01

I got a late start. Uh I'm glad you went to school though, because audio school will help you understand whether you're getting bullshitted or not. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's really what education is. You know, it's bullshit. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's very cool. That's very smart. My mother's the same thing. She wanted me to get a degree. You'll never be successful without a degree as well. You know. Yeah. I want to make records. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So before all the studios and everything, I w I want to talk about you as a kid. So you grew up in Baton Rouge?

SPEAKER_01

I actually was born in Memphis.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

Performance Energy Beats Soundcheck

Education, Bullshit Detectors, And Vocals

SPEAKER_01

And um my mother was raised, my mother was from Memphis, and we lived in a compound with um my aunts and my uncles, and everybody lived in this great big house. And my mother thought that was what's going to happen in life, and obviously the generation didn't work that way, but but it was a wonderful place to grow up. My parents were the most supportive. They never argued in front of me. My mother literally took out everything bad in life. She said, you know, when I was a little child, because you'll know enough of it when you get older. And so I didn't know that little Red Riding Hood got eaten by the wolf until I read the story to my kids. What the fuck is this? I didn't know any of that shit, you know? And my mother was very careful. There's good things with that, there's bad things, because they got my ass beat for a lot. What the hell's wrong with you? You know? But um, but at the same time, my parents were a gift. They really were. They were so supportive and so loving. Um, my mother, um, when the Boy Scouts called and said, you know, Mr. Your son just doesn't do anything like anybody else. He doesn't want to wear his uniform. He doesn't want to my mother said, Fine, I'll come get him. I don't want him to be a conformist. And I thought, hmm, what a gift that is, you know. And there was a lot of examples like that. My mother was um unusually uh gifted in that sense. She graduated from Columbia. Uh and yeah, no shit. And so she was obviously very intelligent. My sister got all that, I didn't get any of that. Well, you must have got something. No, no. You don't have to have a sixth grade education to build recording studios, trust me. You just gotta be able to talk to people, you know? Yeah, but you gotta be able to hear too. Well, that's emotion. Everything I hear is emotionally. Everything, everything that happens in your life, it's auditory as an emotional experience. You know? If Allison tells me she loves me, that's a really beautiful emotional experience because you know it's like doesn't have that much. And she that's she's just not a very emotional person. She's an accountant. But if she's standing behind me and she cocks a shotgun, I know she's off her meds, and it's a terrible emotional experience. However, it's still emotional. Everything that happens, I I've worked with Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray, and I could I they had to take me out of the concert, I couldn't stop crying. It was the most amazing. I mean, Liza Minnelli was an unbelievable singer, you know? And and a lot of a lot of shows that I worked in, um, I you know, just I couldn't help it. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be emotional. I don't want to be, I mean, I know all the technical shit, but just like you, you went to school, you so people don't bullshit you. I went to to school, not in in this the formal sense, but I I'm like a sponge to learn everything I can about how this shit works. So I can figure out how to make it emotional, how to make you want to be here. You build studios, you want to build one that nobody wants to leave. They want to be there. 80% of creativity is providing an environment that cultivates that experience. The other 20% comes from the talent. But if you're in a dentist's office, it's really hard to make a record, you know? And so that's why the lights and the and the smells and all and the vibe is everything. When we start a studio project, we have like 13 going on right now. We start a studio project, it's all about the vibe. None to do with anything else, you know? If you're an artist, you want to be someplace you feel comfortable. Most of all you feel safe. Yeah. You know? And that's hard to do in this world because of the internet, that's a whole nother set of safety. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So being in the business as long as you've been doing this, um have you held has there have you held on to that emotional factor the whole time, or is there times where you went through things that your soul got kind of hardened and then you came back out of it? Or have you been able just to maintain that the openness to the emotion that's in the room? Does that make sense? Yeah. What I'm talking about is like as an artist before I really got into the business, I I had mo more emotion than I've ever had, more creativity. And I got in situations in the industry where it was almost beat out of me. And then after those phases, I had to work back and get that emotion back. That makes sense. You know?

SPEAKER_01

I I think that's impossible not to happen. But some people recover faster than others. And I don't mean that in the least sense of arrogance, but I do think it goes back to my mother. Um my ex-wife divorced me because her therapist said, you know, there's something wrong with somebody's happy all the time, you know? And so I think I bounce back. Even at my age, I can party all night long and bounce back real quick. Not as bad, no, you can't be able to do it. Not as good as I used to, but yeah. Yeah, it was yeah, yeah. I grew up in a crazy place. New Orleans is crazy. I I lived in Memphis, I moved to Biloxi, graduated from Biloxi High School, worked on a deep sea fishing boat uh in in off summer, and then when I went to college for two years, which was I can really play cards and shoot pool. And um, and and I worked on a fishing boat. So that what a dream job is that, you know? And so I was out on a boat every morning fishing.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, life's a bitch. Sounds awesome, though. It was really unbelievable. You know what's crazy? Do you Irma Thomas is?

SPEAKER_00

No.

Emotion As The North Star

SPEAKER_01

Irma Thomas played in um this is 1966 when I graduated from high school, and she played my graduation in Biloxi. She's still singing and playing her ass off in New Orleans. I'm like, holy shit. She's unbelievable, unbelievable artist. Wow. She was real famous on the Gulf Coast. Biloxi at that point was um Is where you want to go? I talked to you for about a week now. Yeah, go. Okay. So Biloxi at that point was another city run by the mafia. And so there's a in downtown Biloxi was a Biloxi Hotel, and in the bottom of it was a pool hall. And women couldn't go in the pool hall. So my mother'd stand at the door and go, Steve Durr, if you're in there, you better come out. She's screaming across the thing. But in the pool hall, there was obviously only a men's room and didn't have a silo door. You opened that doors, go to the bathroom. There's a door in there, you opened up as a fucking gambler casino, huge gambler casino, everything you could think of, like Vegas in the bottom of a Luxe Hotel. And so there were all these pinball machines. I broke all the blood levels in my hands because you get all little five balls in a row and win 25 cents a thing. I mean, God, it was just the greatest place in the world. You were old enough to get your money to the counter and tall enough you could buy liquor. You could drive around drunk as shit. I drove a dragster, like a fucking real life dragster with a friend of mine. And I sat behind him, and it literally was a dragster. I'm not, I'm talking no windshield, I mean a little short-ass windshield and a bucket thing. And and we were just wow down the street in that goddamn drive. I'm not kidding it all. 327, just pipes sticking up. You know, I don't I don't know how I'm here. I've I've literally started writing down um uh the the reasons that uh that the the Lord's kept me here for some reason because I'm about I'm up on about a number 11. I should be dead. Isn't that crazy? It was really frightening too when I started. Thinking back, ooh that really happened. Yeah. You know, God. Some crazy stories. Some Biloxi, I moved to um to Baton Rouge. And and that's where I started. I started working with bands in Biloxi. Yeah. And then I moved to Baton Rouge and and uh uh and and started working in a studio and we made records and had too much fun and then we started opening nightclubs and then it got to be way too much fun. Um and then in New Orleans it was just like uh we'd start out on Thursday and we'd go to sleep on Sunday night and it'd start off on Thursday. That's true. Never went to sleep, danced all night, Gunga Den, Tipotinas, the warehouse. It was just it was just a constant draw.

SPEAKER_00

So what what was your first studio you worked on?

SPEAKER_01

Oh Deep South Recording. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

In in and how'd you get how'd you how'd you get into the studio world?

Vibe First Studio Design

SPEAKER_01

Um my nickname was Stereo. Nobody really knew how to find me, you know. So who did that? I don't know. Some guy named Stereo, I don't know who he really is. And so I was doing a lot of live sound and people were really impressed with it, and they said, Well, come to the studio. So I did, and next thing you know, I was the chief engineer at the studio and fixing shit and everything else.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, you just uh uh learned it on your own? Oh yeah, for sure.

unknown

Yeah.

Staying Open After Industry Bruises

SPEAKER_01

Well, we only had 12 inputs, so it it wasn't like it was a fucking college degree, you know. And and and you go back to uh um when I mix live sound, you don't even know there's a PA, you know? And so I took that same thing into the studio. You never never knew. That's how I got the reputation. When I mixed the PA, you never heard it. You never heard the nobody came to hear a fucking PA. So where'd that come from? I mean, where where did that idea come from? My mentors. When I when I was 16, 17, I was working in a um an auto parts, not not auto parts, a race shop that built race cars. And we take them out and on the street, up and down the street, and and test them because we were going to drag strip or whatever. And that company across the street was um uh a bunch of nerds with hush puppies and um and pin pocket protectors and all this shit. And I had long hair and fucking dragsters. And a guy comes out and he goes, Look, man, my boss put in a bid for a live outdoor concert when there's nonexistent in 68, 69, and and they were just starting to have outdoor concerts. Would you come with us as sort of an interpreter to talk to these musicians? Because I mean, you know, they these guys were total nerds. They were doing chemical plants and everything else. And I said, sure, I'll go. It'll be kind of fun. And so I went. Uh, and and the PA was underneath the stage, a bunch of old Alta boxes and shit like that. And I didn't know anything about it at all, at all. But I could talk to these guys, at least the band would talk to me. I don't remember who it was, I have no idea. I'm sure it was somebody really famous because there were a lot of people there, but I have no clue, never been able to find it out. And so somebody gave me a joint, didn't know what it was, smoked the fucking thing, and man, that was it. No more loud race cars. My mother was so scared I was to have greasy fingers my whole wife, you know, dirty faking else and working on cars. That was it. Never went back, went over and worked for those guys. And so they put me to work in chemical plants, and then we started uh doing big arenas and and LSU stadium and and that kind of stuff. And so I just it just something I fell in love with. Dang. Growing up was was um a gift. Today's a gift, you know. You gotta look at where you are in reality. Everybody's got their shit. We all got it, you know. I mean, I but every day as you can wake up and go out and do something that at least makes you feel better about yourself or something that you feel like you're accomplishing something. I'm really proud of you, man, because I I didn't know who the fuck in the who the fuck's pressure washer, dude. Why is that motherfucker on my Instagram account? You know, I didn't know that was you. You know, I had no idea. I always thought, man, somebody's a great singer, great artist. Well, what are you doing with a pressure washer, you know? And and then you started this. So you gotta be really proud of yourself. As long as it I think as a human, as long as you're accomplishing something, as long as you feel like you're making some progress in your life, you need to shut the fuck up about bitching. That's true, you know, because everybody's got their shit. Nobody out there. I I now everybody wants to complain about everything. Yeah. You know, fuck that shit, you know? I come uh totally.

SPEAKER_00

I get off on Yeah, I mean, you're you're right on the money, man. I mean Well, you gotta be really proud of yourself. You've done really well. Well, I mean, I you know, I didn't move to Nashville to be the pressure washing dude, you know. I moved here to do contributions. If I had to go to Home Depot and get a job, I would. Yeah, exactly. But you know, it's like you know, I moved here in 2010.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And, you know, I think uh I always said I got here 20 years too late, 30 years too late. But in some ways you did. Yeah, but in 2020 it was like, dude, you know, I just finished that record with Mac Down and Muscle Shoals. Yeah. And I mean we were playing that stuff here and and you know, before that, gotten out of a record deal, went and did that m record down a muscle shoals with Mac and Keith in 19, and then in 20, we started shopping that thing around. And I was getting meetings with whoever I wanted to down because it was Mac, right? And uh so I'm like, man, we just made we just made something. And it was like second week of February, 2020.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Biloxi To Baton Rouge: Origin Story

SPEAKER_00

I didn't know it was over. I mean it for that time period, music industry, everything shut down. Yeah, right. And you know, I was like, well, in the meantime, I got some extra time, lost 130 shows overnight. I was a touring guy, that's how I made my money. Remembered my dad would go out on the weekends and make an extra grand or whatever, sure, pressure washing people's driveways and such. And I was like, I I got one, I'm just gonna go out and do some of that, and and went down to Mike Moore's house when he lived here, washed his fence, you know, and uh then 2020 I'd made more money than I'd made in, you know, any year I've done music. I was like, well, I'm just gonna keep this business going. The industry wasn't back, and you know, bought a rig, had a rig built in Salt Lake City, pulled it back, uh and started pressure washing, dude. You know, and I was like, then it got to a point where it was like, okay, now this is going. And originally I did this as a side hustle until music came back, but now this has taken so much of my time, that's when I started to think about scaling. It's like, okay, how do I uh get this to a point where it can run myself? And so my whole thing, and and now it is, it's like it's running by itself, which problems at American hustle because also what that did to my ego at the time. I mean, dude, I was like flying high going, man, you know, I just came off this record that I did with them, uh, and now I'm washing a dumpster pad for Hattie B's, cleaning up fried chicken grease and and homeless piss and shit, you know. And I'm like, you know, I didn't, you know, this this wasn't my dream. But a year from that I had this like overwhelming confidence that had entered my life, even that even went into my artistry, and it was I never figured it out. And somebody, there was a guy who was like, Why do you think your confidence shifted? I said, I don't know. He goes, Maybe it's because you felt like a man. Because what I did was it was like I didn't wait for the industry to come back. I'm like, I want to create something that will sustain my life and will allow me to do my art and not have to rely on somebody else begging for a deal and signing a deal for you know, getting paid 30 grand a year to write songs. It's like who can live off that? Well, you know, and also who's cutting outside songs anymore, you know, and so it's been great. Uh, but that's what prompted American hustle, because it's like I believe artists or creatives are even if you're whatever dream you're pursuing, sure, you in that this day and time, you can create something on the side that could sustain you. It's just like if I started pressure washing, dude, when I moved to town, yeah, when I had that a lot of time, yeah, dude, I mean that company would have been sold and sure I'd be buying the house next to you, of course. But you know, the the thing is it's like for sale, right? You know, it's like um uh but Nashville, when I moved here, was like, and the deals I got in was like, you can't think about anything else, you have to totally immerse yourself in this, and you're not allowed to think about anything else.

SPEAKER_01

See, that's not a creative environment. Right. It's a fucking that that's a job.

SPEAKER_00

Right. You know? Dude, I'd walk into the studio and my first deal, yeah, my first producer, and I I'll say one of the he he was a great writer, still love him as creative, but when I would when we were starting working on the record, I'd go in to sing a vocal, and uh I'd I'd get into a verse, he'd he'd stop the track and go, You ain't got it. Go back to the house. Come back the next day. Nope, you ain't got it today. Stop. Come back tomorrow. And so that was like five years of my life. And then when I got out of that deal and started working with Mac, it was like, I was so like, I was afraid to sing, you know, and Max was like, just sing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, like, oh and he had joy, you know, oh yeah. I I I did a thing with him in in the studio and it was like, oh shit, that's how it works. Yeah. Well, but that that story you're telling about, you ain't got it. That was um that came from my generation because there were a lot of people that um that took that attitude um and and did that to people. Uh recall used to keep two drummers, and and if the first one wasn't getting it, you know, hey man, Roger, that's not working, you know, bring in the other guy. And and um but that was uh that's so old school and so um destructive of creativity, you know, completely. Um and and and in some ways that's worse than you know uh auto-tuning and and uh all that shit, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, all of a sudden, I mean I you know, you sit there as an artist and all of a sudden you're not able to perform because automatically now the studio is a bad vibe. Yeah, oh no. Walking in the door, your palms are already sweating because I feel like I want to get sent to the principal's office. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Oh fuck. Yeah. Now what? You know how much are you serious? Yeah, yeah, it's a tough one. Yeah, well, I I'm sorry you went through that because unfortunately, the 80s were really beautiful here musically. I I was in every studio in town working on the speakers, but at the same time, um I'm gonna say this to you, it's a blessing. Because what I hear coming out of this town now is nothing. Like, like I, you know, I used to think that picking up bones was a dumb song, you know, and now I listen to it and I think it's one of the most brilliant.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

From Stereo Nickname To Chief Engineer

SPEAKER_01

On the other hand, you know what a dumb song. I'm like, oh no, that's fucking brilliant, you know? And Walter Search used to tell me all the time, you know, Steve, you're not that good. It's just everything else is just that bad. And it's totally true. And so I listen to this stuff now and I think, I don't want to be a part of that. You know, I don't I don't have no desire to do that. You know, I have no desire to uh work on any sound system on Broadway, you know. Yeah, they probably don't want me because I'll tell them exactly what I think, but but at the same time, you know, yeah, it's not gonna work for me. I listen, I've said to you over and over again, I'd love to make a record with you. Yeah, you know, you you come here and be like, you know, and just when you want to, when you feel like it. I got one of my friends is a great songwriter, and uh, and uh I've I'd love to want to do something sometime. This thing's sitting here and it makes great fucking records. I want to do it. All right, yeah. I'm gonna do it. We may get nothing out of it, but you can't go there with that. You know, you gotta go there and do what you feel, and if people accept it, that's great. Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, you know, we it's like over here, we just shot a music video in January. Yeah, and uh but it's also because we get I feel like I'm almost going back in time before I really got into the industry because I'm I feel creative again. Yeah. I've had the space to be creative and it doesn't feel like a job. Yeah. And you know, you realize like I came to town, I grew up on a farm, small town, you know. I never drank, never smoked anything.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, every you know, I I came here and the only thing I'd ever heard before I got to Nashville was bluegrass gospel country. Oh, I I mean I didn't know who Tom Petty was. There you go. You know, it was so limited. And but I, you know, I sang about what I knew and farming, small town life, grandpa's, and you know, when I when I was going through my first deal, it was like, well, wait a minute, let's put this farm boy with the stylist. Let's he's he's gonna be this puppet on a string. Sing this song. We need to start singing more about love, and we need to sing this thing. And it's like, well, you know, that's not what I was passionate about singing. Yeah, no, and I can listen back and go, man, I can even though that vocal could be better now, I can hear the passion.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know. That's all that matters. Yeah, awesome. Nothing else matters. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. I'd listen to somebody's passionate about their music way over listening to somebody that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I listen to John Cash Records, and you sit there and go, he wasn't the best singer in the world. Oh no. But you believe it.

Mentors, Outdoor Gigs, And A Pivot

SPEAKER_01

It moved you emotionally, you know, it moved you emotionally. Yeah, and that's really all it's about. Yeah. Not about anything else. You know, I mean, yeah, there's a there's two different groups of people. One one of them wants just some background noise that goes, but and then there's another group, but I don't want to talk about them. And then there's a group of people that want that music to be a part of their life. And that's what's for me is missing. We spent hours putting the songs in order on an album. So when you listen to it, it told a story. And the story got to a point that at the end you were couldn't wait for the next record. Yeah. You know? And now it's like, mm, yeah. It's just whatever the fuck goes there. No, man. We we every one of those records that you listen to that moves you emotionally is a record where somebody spent a lot of time, I don't think that song quite fits here. You know, let's move this one over there. You know, it's just a different world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So how do you feel like the the um about the level of entertainment now?

SPEAKER_01

Entertainment or or records or music. Entertainment's fucking spectacular. Yeah. We we just saw Bruno at um New Year's Eve in in Las Vegas. It was fucking great.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Purpose Over Complaints

SPEAKER_01

Entertainment, you know, and he says it. I'm I'm an entertainer. Yeah. You know? Um uh uh the rat pack in Las Vegas in the 60s must have been an Elvis. Almost makes me want to cry and miss that, you know? It had to be unfucking believable. Unbelievable. I mean, you listen to Sinatra, and it's just like, oh my God, you know? Yeah. Where does that come from? You know? Where do you dig that up? You don't. Yeah. Yeah, you either got it or you don't, you know. The Rat Pack must have been really incredible. Plus, they're funny as shit, you know. So um I'm um my piece of advice to you is uh in the original question you asked me, of course, I've had those feelings, but um but rejection is a part of subjective anything. So if you're doing something that's subjective to other people, uh rejection's always gonna be a part of it. Yeah. You know, there's no way around it. I mean, I you know, there are people that don't like the Beatles. Hello? You know, you okay? You know, I hate the Beatles. Everything they do is boring. I'm like, really? Okay, that's fine, you know? Mm-hmm. But no, but that's that's okay. I mean, that's who it is. No, they're happy with that, you know. I I never really cared for opera music, but I'm doing a studio now for a Vietnamese opera singer, and I'm like, oh fuck, this is what they're talking about. You know, I had no idea, you know? Dang. Yeah. Yeah, it's a different, it's it's a different world we live in. I I personally, and Zan told me not to say this, but I think it's easier to be successful now than ever. I've got some clients in Oklahoma, they're young kids. Uh, I think they're probably maybe 30 at that range, and uh, they have uh this whole thing they've built up. Artists, uh they have a studio now, and and they're unbelievably successful, and they're about 25 million followers on YouTube channel. And I said, Man, Patrick, that's amazing. 25 million. He goes, that's fucking terrible. So what are you talking about? He goes, There's 9 billion people in the world. I can't get but 25 million of them to pay attention to me. I thought, ooh, that's how you have to look at it, you know? The opportunities now are greater than they've ever been. The record company was the filter. They decided this is what you're gonna listen to. And you made some of those songs I hated, you know, like um the day of the music died, like, goddamn, change the channel, you know? Yeah. Um, but in reality, they pumped it into you so long and so hard that you started to go, it um, you started to go, yeah, that you know, that's okay. It's it's still I hate it. I don't want to say hate it. I just don't enjoy it, you know. And and um you get older, the one thing you got is knowledge, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about uh anything, you know. It's just gonna be I've I talked to people, I have a friend who's uh 93 and was a fighter jet pilot uh and just and landed on aircraft carriers in the Navy. And man, the stories that he tells are like holy shit, you know. Um he lived on a yacht, his yacht in Hong Kong Harbor in the 60s. I'm like, whoa, that's a life, you know. Anyway, wonderful guy, great tennis player, and and um just an interesting dude.

SPEAKER_00

I will say the one thing about being in the music world is the people you meet, you get to meet. Yeah, yeah, you know, being in that's the one thing I can look back and go, it was worth it. Because I would have never got to meet most of the friends, yeah, you know, connections. Uh you know, it's just like I brought him here, General Little, you know. Yeah, brought him over here. Uh guys like that. Uh well, there's some really good ones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, and I've I've worked with some total assholes too. Um, but um, but most people who are creative are are once you get past, you know, as Chris Rock says, you meet somebody new, you're just meeting their representative, you know, at some point they start to become who they are. So yeah. Yeah, I agree with that heartily. The people I've been in the music business have been um have been uh overwhelmingly wonderful once you get past the you know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, even just the people outside the music business that you you wouldn't have got to meet. No, that's right. Yeah. Otherwise. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's like, you know, I'm not necessarily excited to go hang out at a music industry event, but if I get booked in middle of nowhere New Mexico on a military base, I want to meet those guys. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you're right. Uh I agree. You know, and you get a lot of those stories. Um, you know, we met, well, I knew Jeff, and then Jeff introduced me to Mike down here, and we met each other. There's a story all on its own.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I know it. Yeah, I took Alice to an Easter party one time, and Allison's favorite word is fuck, you know? And so uh I remember that story. Yeah, and and and by the time we left there, he calls me and goes, Hey man, um, we really like you, but um you're gonna have to do something about Alice's language. I said, Nah, that's Alison. Yeah. You know, and um yeah, it's a it's a um it's a different bird. Anyway, yeah, I I think um in reality, the it uh the other thing is you get older you realize. That your real friends are are hard to come by. And Mike Moore's one, you know. I mean, I d I I make fun and laugh, but he's really a really an unusually cool person, you know? Now that we've saved our ass on that one. I'm just kidding, man.

Pandemic Pivot To Pressure Washing

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, they're sitting live. No, you know, you know, friends, it's like you, especially people in this business, they throw around friends. Yeah. You know, and or name drop. Right. It's my friends, that's my friend said. It's like, yeah, you've been around them twice. It's like a friend has been one that if you call and be like, Austin, I'm kidnapped and War is it's like we're coming to we're figuring out how to, you know.

SPEAKER_01

And and I think that's that's most people, man. You know? I'm I'm sure there's some rotten apples, but not many. Most people are very, very good people, you know, especially in my life. I don't know about yours. Yeah. But people that I everybody's got their shit. Can you trust everybody? Of course not. You know, that's absurd. But at the same time, you you most people are a good heart, good hearted people. No, no matter what country they came from, no matter what color they are, has nothing to do with it. I that whole thing with the racist thing drives me crazy because shit, I didn't know anything about it. We had, you know, Randy Jackson was the bass player in our studio, slept on my couch, you know? And and nobody ever thought about whether anybody was red, yellow, black, or white, nobody cared. We were just having fun making music, you know. So keep on talking about it.

SPEAKER_00

You know, it's what Morgan Freeman say. He goes, uh, how we when he was asking, how do we fix the uh um you know uh the racist problem going on around now? He said, stop talking about it. No, he's actually right. It's like kids, they don't grow up racist. No, they get taught. No, yeah, no, no. It's like, yeah, you know, we know you're not racist, but let's uh let's teach you not how not to be racist. Well, what's racist? Yeah, it's like that's like taking DEI training.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You know, I need a training for this. You do the job, I don't give a shit. I used to say all the time, you know, if you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself. Now you gotta say, you know, if you want it done at all, you gotta do it yourself. You know, I just was it's just a completely different world we live in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So what was a moment where you uh you you were like, man, I know I'm really good at this, and I can and I can start a business doing the thing you do, which is designing sound, finding the emotion, building these venues and hadn't got there yet.

Confidence, Autonomy, And Art

SPEAKER_01

No, serious. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Not in any sort of an arrogant way. Yeah, but I never thought about it, quote, as a business. I I thought about it as going to work every day and fucking loved every second of it. And now that I'm at this age, I've uh I I it's funny you say that because uh yesterday I had a regret that um I put together a great big deal and to make enough money off of it. I never thought about it that way. It never once occurred to me, you know? Only amount of money that I needed was a roof over my head, a hot rod to drive, uh, and and someplace to go. Uh jokingly, um uh there was a point in my life when we were making money hand over fist in the clubs, and money was falling out of my pockets, and you know, and this I didn't have a wallet until I was 35 and and didn't care about it at all. It didn't matter. You know, yeah. I knew everybody so I could drink free. You know, I had a hot rod, which I forked on myself, and um it just never was a driving force. And and my mother told me that uh that um that uh if uh okay, you can go do this, you don't have to go to LSU, but uh it's you're not gonna be successful until you're 65. I'm like, hey mom, you know, last night I was like snorting Peru, taking acid and dancing all night long. How about 45? Would that work? Because I'm not gonna live to be over 40. That's just not gonna happen. And she's like, oh, that's not true, you know, it'd be okay. So here I never thought about that. That's a good question. Nobody's ever asked that question before. Um and I um I think the only way you can be successful is to show up with a smile on your face and enthusiasm, unless you're just a fucking genius, you know, and people can't. There's a lot of geniuses you don't want to be around. Um, but I I think that mostly that whole image is um well, as a friend of mine told me one time, if you've got looking for money, never gonna get it. Yeah. Unless that's unless you've got this incredible sense of business. I'm talking about you want to do something you want to love to do, and then the money will come, and that's that's the way my life's been. But that's because of Allison, because if if I made$10,000, I spent 15, you know. So um, and so uh I'm not bragging about that. I'm actually grateful that I'm not my age. And Allison says I have a hummingbird nest egg now. Okay, well, that's better. No fucking nest egg, you know. She won't tell me how much money's in it, so don't go buy some goddamn Center Costco muffle. You're laughing, but it's the goddamn truth, you know. I came home with that Mercedes. She's like, the fuck is she drives a Jeep, you know? I was like, Yeah, you're driving a Jeep. I want a Mercedes. I'm you know, my age I need. That's a whole person's car. You're fucking right. Get in. It's so comfortable. It's my sofa down the highway. Yeah, she's a trip. But that's the only reason I can have this conversation because I got$11 in my pocket. But that's a good question. And I'm just being silly. But the truth of it was I never went out looking for McMoney.

SPEAKER_00

I went out. But I mean, with your I mean, when I look at, you know, I looked at your website, I'm sitting there going, oh Jesus, like you've got uh you know your you know flagpole on the ground in in your world. And you're you know I see you as Steve, my friend, when I come over here, but I I know like you can go into pro mode as well, and still keep your you know, your sense of humility and all that, but it's like the things you've done and built um trying to figure out how to ask this, but you don't you don't build what you have built by not having a little bit of business sense too.

SPEAKER_01

And learning that, right? Well, yes, it yes, that's and I'm I'm I'm making fun of it because it's never been my driving force. Right.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, I mean even the the folks you hire to work around you, like well the people I learned from first.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that was the most important thing. Sure. I've I've searched out people, Don Davis, Carolyn Davis, Dr. Patronas, um Dick Heiser, the people who in my industry were on the cutting edge of everything. And I and I made a point to go and be with them as much as I could. Now, did I become a disciple and you know, no, I took what I thought made sense from each one of those people and applied it to what I did. But all that, everything you see on that website came from somebody else referring to me. I've never advertised, I've never done anything like that. You know what? I show up with a smile on my face, you know. I have never, ever felt like there wasn't anything I couldn't do. Never, not one day. You know, like I go there, I look at the situation, and and I think it's whatever Branson that owns Virgin Records. He's got something on Instagram, goes, Yeah, people ask you, do something, you have no idea what you're doing. Tell them, yeah, you'll do it. Because you gotta go figure it out then, you know. My mother used to say, Well, you need to get an education so you have something to fall back on. I don't want anything to fall back on, you know. I want if I fall back, that means I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing, you know. I want to take what I love, what's my passion, I'm gonna do that to the nth degree. And if something happens, I'll go to work at Walmart or whatever, you know. Yeah. You would be a good Walmart creeder. My father was um was just a a very outgoing character, and that's where I got it from. We'd go eat somewhere, and he'd start you know, some conversation with the waiter. Hey Walter! What's the matter? Come on in.

SPEAKER_00

That's Tommy.

SPEAKER_01

Come on in.

Joy In The Room, Not Perfection

SPEAKER_00

How are you? I'm good. Tommy, Steve, Steve, Tommy. Hey, buddy. Two of my oldest. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

You have? Yeah, you have. You have. We had a great conversation. We really did. You want to sit in here? You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I'm fine.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure. Okay. Is that you going to hear me next?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

This is perfect. Okay. Um, because what I want this to be is like real. Yeah. Like, oh yeah. You know, what my generation is is missing, what the younger generation is missing, is realness, like truth. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's all this hype out there about, hey, do this, that, this, and you're gonna make this, and you blah, blah, blah. Fact of the matter is it doesn't happen overnight. No. And, you know, that's that's the thing that's missing. So that's that's kind of what American hustle is. It's not talking about all this hype and crap about the American drink. I wouldn't want my fire false eyelashes, but you probably got some costumes.

SPEAKER_01

Don't make fun of me, man. So no, you're right. And and I I firmly believe that. I firmly believe that that their kids get all their information off a black screen. Yeah. You know? I mean like this the whole time, you know? And I I'm guilty of it too, to some degree. But most of mine just laughing my ass off, you know. There's some funny shit on there. Oh, I do, yeah, that's right. Well, here's how you have to look at that. And everybody has the same problem. You get a hundred people sending you shit all day long, okay? And you can't possibly read it all. What you take away from it is that motherfucker's thinking about me. Right. You know, I'm okay. You know? That's true. Yeah, it is. Because you only send it to people who you A care about and know will get it, you know? You know, I'm I I posted yesterday um Elvis and uh doing um Hunkka Hunkka Burn in Love. God damn it. You know? What a fucking song. What a great player. Well, everything about that's just like this big emotional ball rolling down the road. So good. Anyway, yeah, you're right. I think you're absolutely right. It's gotta be real, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So are you are you uh that just brings me to a new thought, but it's like how do you check in with people, you know, like people you care about, you know, you're crazy busy, and we always stay in touch and everything. But um, you make it a point to check in with with folks. Uh oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's important. And I know that's important to you.

Albums As Stories, Not Playlists

SPEAKER_01

Well, it I um interestingly enough, the nice thing about the phone is that when I get something from somebody I hadn't heard from in a long time, I know there's I'm still in that chain, you know, that that chain of of, hey, what's he doing? How is he? So it if you start looking at it as I wrote somebody, didn't write me right back, you know, then first of all, they ain't doing anything, you know, but what looking at their phone, waiting for somebody to write them, you know? And so I I really like it when I don't hear somebody back from somebody for a week, you know. I mean, unless it's somebody, you know, I'm not I'm I I I just I just like the fact that somebody sends me something every once in a while, or the people that flood my my things. When somebody else and blows my phone up with shit, you know, but it's fun shit about dogs or animals or some some something. And so that I I know that I'm in that chain of thought, which to me is that's that's fine, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So being in as many rooms building studios behind the glass, what is what is this build studio building world taught you about ego? Working with other artists, seeing other artists. Uh and the between the legends and the guys who were just the guys that almost made it. Like what's that taught you about ego? I'm sure you've seen every bit of it.

SPEAKER_02

Um I don't really know because I'm not really impressed.

SPEAKER_01

I I'm as impressed with people that I meet that are um that are uh behind the scenes as the people on the stage. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've talked to some artists that are really, I mean, like Sonny Bono said one time in a conversation, he said, you know, being successful is like playing football. Okay, this ought to be good. And he said, No, he said, you you're on defense, you're trying to get that ball. You the ball's there. If you get the you can't score until you get the ball, unless something happens. You gotta get the ball. And all of a sudden, it's fourth down, you got the ball, they kick the ball, you get the ball, and now you're on offense. All the rules changed. Everything went to a different pattern, and you have to think completely different. I thought, ooh, there's a lot of depth in that conversation, you know. And so I started paying a lot more attention to what he said after he said that. But it's a really interesting point because exactly what happens. The rules are changed, you know, off sides, everything's different. And so that ego thing comes in play with trying to abide by the rules in an offensive experience compared to a defense experience. So in my case, I try to just keep that thing in a neutral, you know. Where I I I treat this the guy sweeping the floor the same way as I do, you know, the the head artists, and and don't get hung up in their own insecurities because you can real quick, you know. But that's a good question. I'll think about that one for a while. Yeah. You're pretty smart, man. For you know, for one of the country boys with you know I'm just no no, you can't.

SPEAKER_00

I've just been around you bullshitters too long. Yeah, that's true too. You know so what was it like working with Johnny Cash?

Entertainment Today Vs. Yesterday’s Magic

SPEAKER_01

Oh well, um uh I'm not sure I want to talk about that one. Only because um oh I I I'll tell you how to I didn't understand until I saw the movie. And so I was perplexed about a lot of things that were going on around me. But um, after I saw the movie, I'm like, oh, now I understand. The same way with Rick Hall at Fame, you know? Yeah, Rick had a hardness and a and a and we got along great. And I love I I truly loved Rick. I mean, I really did. And I think he he called me Stevie, took me out right around his farm and shit. But at the same time, I didn't understand. Because I wasn't there, my mother fucking kept me out of all that, you know. Now I see these people's lives growing up, like, oh fuck, you really grew up like that, you know. I don't know if you saw muscle shells. Oh, yeah. It's a heartbreaker, yeah, you know, and so once that happened, I'm like, oh, okay. Well it kids makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, which happened to him. Yeah, I mean, his whole lot. Yeah, every minute of it's like even when he had uh a ton of success, you know, he had a ton of success and bought that, yeah, bought his daddy a new tractor and he went and killed himself on it.

SPEAKER_01

I know, you know, it's like how the fuck you deal with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I he he wrote a song about it and then it was a number one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, well Rick Hall was Rick Hall and Chips Molman were two of the biggest geniuses on the face of the earth.

unknown

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Without a doubt. Tommy, don't you agree? I do indeed. Yeah. They really were. My experiences with Chips Mulman were you could do a whole episode on that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Literally, it was unbelievable. Wow. He taught me more about the technical aspects of building recording studio. No idea what he was talking about. No, not from a technical standpoint. As an example, all the headphone systems in the studios built sound exactly like the monitors. Because if you're a guitar player and you're out there and you're taking trouble off your amp because the headphones are real bright, and I'm in here adding it back on to get it to sound like a fucking guitar, we're making two different records. And I'm like, really? Hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Where'd that come from? So do you think in this day and time, like if people, if somebody wants to be an audio guy, an engineer, or studio builder, that they have to go to school for it?

Rejection, Taste, And Perspective

SPEAKER_01

You know, I built a studio for uh Mark Ronson in London, and there was a young man there that was a um a studio designer. He worked in London. We became great friends. He was doing marks from him. And he um, I'm gonna answer you a question, okay? But I'm gonna give Allison says, give him the reader type of version, nobody gives a shit. So this guy comes in and he's like, worried about this and worried about that, and worried about this, and that's the sort of thing. I said, Look, I gotta tell you, Chris, the most important thing you need to understand is that it's only about the vibe. If it looks like a diner and the lights are pitiful and they're bright and they're ugly, nobody's gonna work there. And and so I said, Here's what you do. You put this little doll on your shoulder. It's going, hey, motherfucker, it's only about the vibe. And so I we we became great friends. We ended up having a lot of fun together and going to Wembleton and all that stuff. And he called me one time and goes, you know, man, every time I walk in the studio, I hear that little motherfucker going, only about the vibe, you know. So the the point of that is that it that that's how it works. It's only about the vibe. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And I guarantee you they don't teach you that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we're not building, you know, no, no, not at all. They teach you all. We're not building a fucking trauma center, you know. It's a goddamn recording studio. What do you do there? You have fun, you know. Jack, what did Jack Clement say? We're in the fun business, we're not having fun, we're not doing our job. You know, it's so true. It really is. I don't do this shit because it's like a nightmare. I do it because it's goddamn it. I'm working on something right now that's unbelievably cool, you know, it's just for fun, you know. I think that's why I never cared about the money that much. I made money, I still make money, but it wasn't my driving force, you know. So I don't I think it you could learn how to do it. Uh, there's a book um that uh F Al F. Alvin Everest. It's on it's out of print, he died, but that's how I learned to build studios. You want to learn how studios called uh Acoustics for Home and Studio. It's available on Amazon, used F. Alt Alton Everest is his name. Everything you ever want to know there. And you know, lights, smell, Bob. All about the Bob.

SPEAKER_00

So that's the first thought.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I want to go someplace I don't want to leave. I come out here, you've been here. Yeah, you don't want to fucking leave. You know, I like to sit here and listen to music all night long.

SPEAKER_00

You know? Yeah. That's sick. So if you were to tell your 30-year-old something, your 30-year-old self something now.

SPEAKER_01

Something.

SPEAKER_00

What does that mean? Man, woman? No, like there's only two your 30-year-old self back in the day. If you were to tell him anything. Oh, me. If you could go back and tell him anything, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01

Make money. Think about the money every now and then, you know, for God's sake, motherfucker. Every once in a while, you know, hey man, you know, I probably ought to get paid for this. I don't mind doing it, but that's about it. I mean, we all got regards. I mean, I I handle my divorce so poorly, I'm I I really was um surprised at myself. Divorce will make you crazy. Yeah. You know, like I don't do that. That's not me, you know. As as Chris Rock says so elegantly, man, I don't, I don't really agree with. Let's see, what is it? Um what OJ did was terrible. I don't agree with it, but I understand. You know, and I thought, you're right. It's really brilliant if you think about it, you know. It's terrible. I don't agree with it. I understand. Oh, man. You gotta be careful what you ask me.

It’s Easier Now, If You Commit

SPEAKER_00

Oh, this is great. Uh So you got two girls, two daughters, or you got two kids, a son and a daughter? Son and a daughter. Yeah. And uh they're growing and doing great.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I couldn't be more proud of it. One's a doctor and one's a lawyer. They told me they were going to put me in the nicest nursing home money could buy. And I thought, well, that's really sweet, you little fuckers. Well, I I will tell you a daughter story. Um, I was at dinner one time, uh, not too long ago, with a beach bunch of really heavyweight music business people, not the creative people. They were to some degree, but they're all business. And it was nine of the top business people in the world. We were at uh a place here in town, Snotness place here in town, having dinner. And one of them said to me, he said, you know, man, you're they were all younger than me. Your generation is melancholy about the music. That's what do you mean? He goes, you're listening to the music and you're going, well, that's not the Beatles. Well, that's not the Eagles. It's shit. It makes no sense at all. And he said, 90% of the time you're probably right. He said, but what's happening is there's some really great stuff out there. And the fact that you're so melancholy and not going to listen to it, and I hate this shit, you start developing the inability to understand what other people are trying to do musically. And I thought, ooh, you know. So I smoked a joint and I started writing down what came from that. And I realized that I'm I'm gonna try to do this without getting emotional. My daughter has tattoos, uh, she's doesn't think politically like I do. She's uh different, you know? And we haven't gotten along very well. We haven't I mean, we're we never became in always to love her and everything, but we couldn't have a conversation about anything, you know. And I realized, wait a minute, motherfucker, that's the same thing. You know, your expectations of what she was gonna be like don't work for her. And who am I to judge that that life is is wrong? If she's happy, she's got a doctorate, you know, she's got a car, she eats, you know. Who the fuck am I to put that on her? So I I literally explained that to her, not in those terms, just you know, I'm just sorry. I just had these expectations that that um that you didn't meet, and it's not fair of me. It changed our whole life. We play double tennis now, and the kid is an unbelievable tennis player, but our relationship has never been more spectacular. It's a really big point in my life. You can apply that to a lot of things, not just family, but a lot of things, you know. Sorry, you're not believing my expectations. Dang, that's beautiful. Well, that's my testimony for today. No, but it's true, you know? Yeah, it was a real outner. Now I look at things completely different. Yeah, there's some real good music out there, you know? Sure. A really talented artist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know? Yeah. You know, it's uh you gotta have an open mind.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's hard to do this day and age. You know? So everybody's got a criticism about everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

All right, I could sit here for another two hours and uh we'll have to do another one. Well, what is I kind of want to ask some uh two more questions. Um what would be your advice to the eighteen-year-old, twenty-year-old, whatever in college that has dreams, uh that wants to start a business. What would be your kind of go-to one piece of advice? Oh god, I can't. And it can relate to anything.

People, Community, And Real Friends

SPEAKER_01

It could totally No, no, you don't understand. Um, I'll tell you the the truth after this. Um it's real easy. One of my friends is Walter Sear, he's one of the most genius people on the planet, and lived in New York, unbelievably successful, never had credit. We went on a trip overseas, he couldn't get a credit card, a multimillionaire, but never had credit, always carried cash, paid for everything cash. Um, he his studio is world-reno, Searsound, the greatest studio in the world, literally, still is today. He's he died, followed a cadden died. But anyway, um, a kid he would hire interns, and the interns were always somebody that he could get along with. And so this kid came in there and he said, Walter said, So what experience do you have? And he goes, Well, I don't have a whole lot of recording experience. He said, Well, what the hell are you doing here? And he goes, Well, I just know that this is what I want to do. And Walter said, Well, what'd you do growing up? He said, My father had a cleaning service. He said, Walter said, So you know how to clean the toilet? He goes, Well, yeah, that's what I did. You're hired. And he hired the kid. The kid now is Wilco's engineer. He does all the Wilco's records. Uh, and it came from the fact that you show up on time or before. You got integrity, and there's nothing you won't do. You know? I mean, if it's cleaning the toilet, it's it, you know. There's no boundaries. If you you you gotta have integrity. My father used to say all the time, you gotta be beyond reproach. Well, what the fuck does that mean? You know, it's everyone got their shit. We've all done things. But the truth of it is integrity is number one. When you look somebody in the eye and you tell them this is it, that's it's gotta be that way. You gotta have integrity, you gotta be on time, you gotta be enthusiastic, and you gotta be happy about what you're doing, no matter what it is. You know, you go to work at Burger King and you got a great attitude and you treat everybody the same, you'll own that fucking Burger King six months. I believe that, I really do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know. What does legacy mean to you?

Ego Checks And Switching The Field

SPEAKER_01

That's an interesting question, too. I just started thinking about that. You know, I I really and truly believe that I have a lot to offer still, knowledge-wise. I've never felt better physically. I feel like I'm 18. And um, and I'm gonna start a YouTube channel because I everything I see, the the interesting thing is now what the big comeback is all the stuff I did, Altech speakers, uh vinyl listing rooms, all immersive audio. This fucker's immersive. It's two goddamn speakers. If it's not immersive, you're not, you know, it's it's all those sort of things. So I want to share that information. I don't want to die with this information. I'm the last outpost of common sense left in my business. I really firmly believe that. And I don't want to die without this information and just, you know, it goes away. Yeah. So that's what you need a master class, man. I we just did one in LA at Anaheim in the NAM show, myself in San, the girl that works with me, who I have the utmost respect for. And um it's really funny because it's all these nerds that are doing audio and they're all like audio, and they're well, I have two degrees in audio from SOL to wherever you went, you know. And and they're all uptight. And so the whole NAM thing is like really uptight. And I said, Zan, we're not doing that. We're gonna get up on that stage and make those motherfuckers laugh. And she goes, Okay, that sounds great. So the guy that that's the head of the whole thing goes, Well, what's your talk about? And I said, Well, you ask us to talk about the future of recording studio design. And so I said, We're gonna talk about what the Jetsons would do if they have a recording studio. Okay, well, how are you gonna deal with that? I said, we're gonna have the history of it. We're gonna talk about the things that will never change, because you know, parking, security, all those things, they're never gonna change. And then we're gonna talk about what's gonna happen in the future, and we'll give you examples of what happened. So we just made it totally comfortable, totally relaxed, said right off the bat, look, we're not public speakers. You know, we're just two people that are passionate about what we're gonna do. It's what we do every day. We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna got the greatest applause after it was over. People ran up to start talking to us. I don't mean that arrogantly, but we just joked and laughed. And, you know, I said, look, she's gonna correct me at some point, you know, in this thing, or I'm gonna forget something and she's gonna say something funny about it. And if she does, y'all just laugh. It's okay. We're okay. And so, you know, some guys said, Well, how do you know who your clients are? I said, we don't work with assholes, you know. If we go to somebody and they want to build a studio and they're an asshole, not gonna do it. I go learn everything about them. I don't care about their budget, I don't care about anything, but if you're an asshole, it ain't gonna happen. I've fired a lot of clients, not a lot of few clients, because it's not gonna succeed. The people at the top always hire people just like themselves, all the way down. So if you're an asshole, the only people you're gonna hire are assholes just like you, because I can relate to that. And so if you've got a studio, that's a community. And how you build the people that work in that studio are gonna be just like the owners, it'll never survive if you're an asshole. So I'm not building studios for assholes. So most of my studios, Arlen as an example in Austin, we built that studio in '86 or something. It's still one of the most successful studio in the country, you know, because the people that that own it, Freddie and Lisa Fletcher, are the sweetest people in the world. Same way with 1979. I didn't design that studio. Welcome, 1979. But those two guys are so comfortable to be around. And they make you feel, you know, nobody remembers what you you know what you do. They only remember how you treat them, how you make them feel. And those guys treat people like they're real, they and they're in their positive, it'll work. So anyway, that's my legacy.

SPEAKER_00

Great advice, man. Cheers. Thanks for being on. Yeah. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. If we don't get if I don't get banned after this episode, I'll have you back.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, we should talk about technical shit. That'd be funny.

SPEAKER_00

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