How Kids That Fly Built a Cult Following | Touring, Social Media & Making It as a Band

Kids That Fly joins the Loyal Lounge fresh off a month-long national tour to talk about what it really takes to build a band in today's music industry.

From fans driving across the country to attend shows, to viral TikToks, Spotify success, life on the road, and the realities of balancing creativity with content creation, this conversation dives deep into the modern musician's journey.

The band shares how they built a loyal fanbase, why authenticity matters more than trends, and what separates artists who stick with it from those who give up. We also hear from drummer Adam as he reflects on his path from posting drum videos online as a kid to touring the country and inspiring the next generation of musicians.

In this episode:
• Building a fanbase through Spotify and social media
• The reality of touring as an independent band
• Why consistency beats perfection
• Networking tips for young musicians
• How Adam turned content creation into career opportunities
• The pros and cons of today's music industry
• Growing a band without a label
• The future of Kids That Fly

Whether you're an aspiring musician, content creator, or someone chasing a dream, this episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_24 0:00

You're listening to Loyal to the Craft on Adobe Radio. Today we're talking to an up-and-coming band, Kids That Fly, about their journey. Let's get into it. Kids That Fly, welcome to the Loyal Lounge. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks for stopping by. You just finished tour in Florida yesterday, the day before? Two days ago. Yesterday was a driving day. Cool. And so back home after this to New England?

SPEAKER_13 0:20

Right to Connecticut, yep. Connecticut. Let me drop off a van in Jersey.

SPEAKER_29 0:24

Jersey tomorrow.

SPEAKER_13 0:24

Send these boys back to New York and then uh nice. Hopefully get some sleep, I think. I don't know.

SPEAKER_29 0:30

Sleep in my own bed.

SPEAKER_13 0:32

How long was the tour? One month, exactly. Yeah. 24 shows. That's four weeks.

SPEAKER_19 0:38

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_13 0:39

It was good.

SPEAKER_24 0:39

I mean, the fancy. It was awesome, yeah. It was the longest run we've done. You guys have some amazing fans. Like the shows seem packed, and the fans seem like they go nuts.

SPEAKER_13 0:49

Yeah, we've had people fly to see us, drive, and people did some crazy drives. Someone drove from Alabama to Des Moines.

SPEAKER_29 0:56

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_13 0:57

It was a four or five-hour drive. There were a couple of a couple of those at a few of the shows. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, people, it's it's been it's real. It's been it's been real.

SPEAKER_24 1:06

What do you think is what drives that? Is it your social media presence? Do you guys connect with your fans one-on-one on engage, you know, engaging them? Like how do you how do how have you created this fan base that does that? Because that's really hard to come by these days, especially.

SPEAKER_17 1:21

Yeah. It's a slow burn. I mean, we're we're still somewhat of a smaller group, but we s we respond to most DMs that we can and and we'll respond to comments and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:30

I I try to ask everybody whenever we meet them, like, how'd you find us? And a lot of times it's Spotify. Spotify will ship them the music, and they'll and they'll do a lot of they're like, Oh, I found you know, catch you a fool, or I found Dead Beach City, and then I kept listening from there, and they do the dive themselves. Yeah, TikTok. Yeah, TikTok has been blown blowing things up. You gotta post, guys. You gotta post.

SPEAKER_24 1:52

Yeah. What kind of po like what kind of content do you post and just like behind the scenes stuff? Are you like you well, what is it? What what do you think is engaging the most of your fans? I the one the big TikTok that blew up for us for Dead Beat City was the behind the scenes uh of a music video.

SPEAKER_17 2:06

It was a VHS footage that uh there was a solo shot of Nick just performing and uh the lyrics over the top.

SPEAKER_13 2:13

When in doubt, just slap the lyrics in it. I think that's the sequel. I don't know. I'm the worst guy to ask about the TikTok stuff though. I really don't.

SPEAKER_24 2:20

But it's working for you guys and it's clearly drawn fans to the shows. What do they say when they meet you? Is it the music? Is it it what's the vibe of of what's drawing them into your world? I I think the music. I like to think the music.

SPEAKER_17 2:32

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people connect over, I mean, especially Kiss You Fool. I've met my my boyfriend, girlfriend. We had our first kiss over this song, which is always cool to see. Yeah. So I think it is the music that that connects most.

SPEAKER_13 2:44

The first song we had kind of took off without socials, which was which is cool. And I think kind of an anomaly today. Yeah. You know, most of the time it's the socials driving the rest of the ship. But so I think people have sort of Spotify's been great to us. I think, you know. A lot of people complain about Spotify. You can't you really shouldn't. It's the best time to be a musician. People say it's the worst, but it's not. It's the best time.

SPEAKER_20 3:06

What makes you say that?

SPEAKER_13 3:08

The access to music is incredible now, you know. I mean, I can I can pull up my phone and listen to whatever electric light orchestra song I want at any any point in time. Yes. You can find it all. I mean, if you didn't if you didn't know the band in Europe and know what CD shop or record shop their record was sold at, you would not find the music. Now you can you can find anybody at any point in time.

SPEAKER_24 3:31

And you don't think that it's too muddied down and there's too much? I mean, as far as COVID.

SPEAKER_14 3:36

No, it definitely is. It's so saturated, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_24 3:38

So, how do you break out of that noise and and and you know distinguish yourself from the from the pack?

SPEAKER_14 3:43

That's a great great question. Anybody know?

SPEAKER_21 3:45

I I would say focusing on just getting better at music for a while, and then once you feel you're ready, then just start pushing out.

SPEAKER_32 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21 3:53

Rather than focusing on social media first.

SPEAKER_05 3:56

Okay I think it that's all I thought. I think it also has something to do with being individual, you know, not trying to copy, not trying to be the next, you know, band like this, trying to be individual, having your own sound and like really sticking out.

SPEAKER_13 4:07

You gotta break through the noise, you gotta be something sort of X Factory about it, I think.

SPEAKER_30 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 4:11

I don't know what I I mean. We've uh we people always say we have a kind of nostalgic, eclectic sound. Yeah. We all kind of draw from classic rock, so I think there's a little bit of a through line there.

SPEAKER_24 4:22

But I don't know, you know? I think that's what it is. I mean, for me, what drew me to you guys, like after seeing Adam play in with you guys, that's kind of what what prompted me to check you guys out, seeing Adam on the road. Like, Adam and I met how many years ago now, dude? God, seven, eight, seven, yeah, I was 12, 13, maybe. Yeah, dude, crazy. Like on the first ever Lot of the Craft Tour. So I followed your journey of like being a drummer, and we've kept in touch and talked about school and chasing your dreams and music and all those things. And so to see him tour in a band, first of all, was like, okay, this is cool, I'm gonna check it out. But then I was like, whoa, these these guys are awesome. Like the music has a nostalgic value that I think separates you. And obviously, fans of music are looking for whatever they like, and whether it's a nostalgic feeling or whatever that vibe is, like, you guys definitely have something about it. Was that was that curated from the beginning, or was it just something that you guys liked growing up and you were like, This is what we're gonna do? How did you meet, and like how did that kind of form in the very beginning?

SPEAKER_13 5:20

Yeah, I th I think it w in the beginning, our plan was always trying to sort of steal from other styles. I know someone told me steal like an artist, it might have been you, Blake, but that quote always stuck with me. But we've always kind of pulled from classic that whole Americana 50s uh retro vibe has always been totally fascinating to me, and there's kind of a nice peachy feel to it all. So we tried to pull from the positive of that and and channel that into the music, and I think it came through a lot on the early stuff. There's kind of some 50s um I don't know, there's a little bit of a ballad kind of i theatrical sort of blown-up feel to some of the early stuff. Um I think I think it was part of the plan loosely.

SPEAKER_18 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 6:02

Our whole MO since the start was bands used to be pop music back in the day, or everyone used to know what bands pop for, but no one really questioned. It's our kind of our mission is to to make bands, you know, in the forefront and just to keep them, you know.

SPEAKER_13 6:16

And bands are back, let me tell you. Oh yeah, yeah. I think there's there was a clear solo artist trend. I I think my theory is that it's just easier to have a solo artist around so that there's there's there's a higher concentration of them. A band is you know, three or four people at the minimum, so you gotta house and feed three or four people, or just fit them in the rehearsal space too. Yeah, which is his own logistical nightmare. So I think that's stopped a lot of people from doing the band thing as opposed to just being a bedroom pop artist.

SPEAKER_24 6:46

Well, yeah, I mean you read about it, the logistics of touring is so much more expensive than it used to be. So more mouths to feet, it's a tour, more hotels, more room, more equipment, all of those expenses add up. Yeah, but there's something to be said with a live band performing and they're super tight and they're fun. And I I've never been to one of your shows, but just seeing the videos, it's like you guys seeing fun and the energy seems high. You can just see it with the crowd interactions, and I love the socials that you guys put out where at the end of the shows, you know, your fans seem like they're rabid. And I'm like, I haven't seen that in a long time, actually. You know, like we just had Zach Hanson here, and like that's another band that has this like rabid fan base that like just can't get enough of the music and the fan and in the and the interaction with the band, and like you guys seem like you're on your way to that, which is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_13 7:34

I appreciate it. Yeah, I think it's this tour has been an eye-opener for me, especially we've hit a lot of cities in the Midwest we haven't hit before, and there's a lot of people coming out saying, I wow, I've been dying. Like, thank you for coming to our town. I've been waiting forever. Even in Tallahassee, Tampa, um, Orlando was a great show, and I'm kind of it's all a little bit of a shock. I'm like, I didn't think people would dig us in Orlando, but it's awesome.

SPEAKER_22 7:59

It's been a good time. What's the best city you guys have been to so far? I liked Atlanta a lot. Atlanta was good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 8:05

I'm still Salt Lake City last year. It was still one of the best shows. I was shocked at that. Yeah, I did not expect so many. The crowd was bananas there. This tour was Rochester, New York, though. The Bug Jar. Shout out to the Bob Jar.

SPEAKER_25 8:18

Oh, the Bub Jar is a great menu. I played there. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 8:22

I did not expect it to be a good show. Ticket count was so low going into the day. Yeah, I was I was really.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

I remember walking in, it looked like a scene from a rock band game or a guitar heater game.

SPEAKER_06 8:33

There was the kitchen on the ceiling, and the sound guy.

SPEAKER_05 8:37

He was cool, but he's like, all right, we're just line checking. I'm just like, all right, sweet. And then all of a sudden the bar just packed in and we ripped a set, and they were they were awesome.

SPEAKER_13 8:45

It was epic. Someone brought these hot stickers. Yeah. I guess they hand them out at um EDM events and stuff like that, but they're just little peel away, like at a fast food restaurant. And I watched throughout the set, one girl had them, and it slowly spread throughout the crowd. They were just getting handed out. It was kind of reflective too. So I watched the plague spread through the front route.

SPEAKER_07 9:07

Yeah, we're putting them on the club. Yeah, we got them all over the place now. She came to uh which which Florida show did she come to? And she gave us another roll of them. Whoa. And she's from Rochester?

SPEAKER_24 9:15

I think from there originally moved down south. Dude, that's incredible. You got fans literally traveling across the country to change.

SPEAKER_17 9:23

It's crazy, it's always mind-boggling when people say, Oh, we drove here to do that. Even when we signed stuff still, it was kind of like really like like it's it's a pretty simple signature, but it's still a little strange.

SPEAKER_24 9:34

It's very hit or miss for me. So when you tore like this past tour, you just got off of, was it a headliner, or were you with another band?

SPEAKER_13 9:40

We did a little bit of both. We did the first leg was headline, and then it was a co-headline with a band called PostSex Nachos. We had our other friend's kid sister come and open for us. So it was that three-band bill for the middle nine shows or so. And then the back end was Florida, that was all local appeals.

SPEAKER_24 9:56

And you have an agent? Yeah. Is that new or is that have you how long have you had the age? Relatively since last summer. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 10:05

It's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_24 10:06

What would you say to a young up-and-coming band that doesn't have an agent that wants to go on the road? I mean, back in the day, I used to go on MySpace or find bands in my own hometown, like doing battle of bands and stuff, and that's how I would network. How do you find bands that you guys like? And then is it as simple as a DM? Hey, you're from the Midwest, we're from the East Coast, let's trade shows. Like, what would you say has worked for you guys to kind of merge those two worlds together and get a bigger crowd to a show so you can kind of cross-pollinate?

SPEAKER_11 10:37

You want to talk marketing.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

I feel like I feel it's be hungry. I think one of the one of the main things I learned from Low to the Craft was be hungry. Don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to reach out. Because you know, when I was a kid growing up going to these shows, I would maybe go see the band and I'd wait for them to go to the merge table, and I'd be the last one online just so I could chop it up with them and ask questions like how do I get my band on a tour? How do I like start playing venues like this? How did you guys get from point A to point B? I feel like it was all from even just direct messaging too, yeah, like not being afraid to upload, not being afraid to create content. And through that, I basically learned how to reach out to people because um I started tagging, you know, all my favorite bands and the covers I used to do, and all my favorite drummers, and then through that I've made some like great friendships, some connections, some mentorships that have lasted a lifetime.

SPEAKER_13 11:33

Dude, that's smart as an animal in the market, the networking stuff. It's insane. It's awesome. I'm watching them in the vent just.

SPEAKER_24 11:39

Dude, that's awesome, man. I'm so stoked to hear that. I love it. And you've been consistent as heck with uploading content. I mean, literally, since shortly after we met, and I, you know, met your mom and your dad, and you and your brother at the uh event at Alto Music in New York with Frank Zumo, and you played you played drums with Frank, like your content that you would upload, it was just consistent.

SPEAKER_33 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_24 12:00

You know, and like I feel like a lot of people, and I'm guilty of it, where I'm like, oh, it's not good enough, or I don't have ideas, like you just have to go and put it out there and do and be consistent at it, right?

SPEAKER_05 12:08

I mean, even after the Josh Manuel thing, um, when I I did the second clinic with Josh and I played uh I forget which issues tune it was, but you know, even at his event where he mentioned, you know, he got his start from uploading videos on the internet too. That's how I found him, and you know, even all these other YouTube drummers like Christina Sciano, SJC Fam Shout Out, yeah, um, Casey Cooper, and basically all these people, you know. Josh went from you know uploading these covers in his room to you know playing with issues, and now he's touring stadiums with Caitlin Brown. Yeah. And to know that kind of all started from uploading content on the internet, especially during like the whole COVID thing, that's where I kind of started doing it, being consistent, and then it was super cool to see other kids start doing it. I remember Iggy maybe sent me a DM and he's like, dude, I want to collab with you on this. How do I start uploading videos? And then Bronx followed, and then he's he started making videos because of Iggy and then Chad, and then every single kid was making these videos. I thought it was super awesome and it was super cool how the content creation kind of phased during COVID started. Yeah.

SPEAKER_27 13:09

And um people were housed during all that stuff. Yeah, a whole new world matter.

SPEAKER_05 13:14

You know, it was it was a time I felt where everybody was on their phone, and you know, there's so much negativity in the world. Why not, you know, post drum videos and trying to get like my favorite drummers' attention. Same thing with Tosh, man. He was uploading videos on the internet trying to get um what's his name? Thomas Pridges' attention. Yeah. And he got it, and then I was watching those videos, and then it just kind of happened for me in the same exact way. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_24 13:38

Smart move, too, being the last in the line for merch so you can like get the undeted attention and like actually chat with them and not feel like that. I got a I got a lot of follows from that. It really is. Some of these people I still talk to this day. That's the best, bro. Like, it is smart, and like there's gotta you gotta have a little bit of a strategy. Sure, we're coming into this world as fans, and like we want to be a part of it, and so there's that passion that drives you, but you do have to have a little bit of strategy. And being the last one in line is very smart, dude.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

I remember I remember I met Laundry Day, uh, four dudes from New York crushing it right now. I met them when they were opening for Neon Trees, and they were probably about my age when I first met them. And I'm like, dude, how do I do this? Because I was playing, you know, small bars to maybe just the bartender and my parents at the time and my other band. And he's just like, dude, it'll be here before you know it. I didn't believe it. Two, three years later, we're playing the same exact venues, opening for bands and doing the thing. To me, it's just crazy that it didn't even register to me after the fact. It's just like, wow, this is this happened in such a fast period of time.

SPEAKER_34 14:40

It does go fast, right?

SPEAKER_05 14:41

And that's all from you know, hustling. Yeah, especially these dudes, man, too. When I first met these guys, it was like two, three years ago. I was probably fresh out of high school, and we did one tour for four days, and then I was just like, whoa, this is awesome. And then we were starting to do shows, and then Deadbeat City blew up out of nowhere, and then it just kind of happened all so fast, and to this point now it's it's just crazy to be in a begin to think about.

SPEAKER_17 15:07

Yeah, I knew Adam Ooh, sorry, I knew Adam was good because before uh we all had day jobs prior, and we I didn't have a rehearsal, these two rehearsed with him before I was able to, and you know, drums and bass are pretty important, and didn't even rehearse with him when we played a show opening for a band called Shepard, and he was just locked in, and I was like, he's a good drummer.

SPEAKER_10 15:26

We picked him up and now we can't get rid of them.

SPEAKER_17 15:28

You're not getting rid of me.

SPEAKER_24 15:31

You're listening to Loyal to the Craft on Adobe Radio. Today we're talking to an up-and-coming band, Kids That Fly, about their journey. Let's get into it. Kids That Fly, welcome to the Loyal Lounge. Thanks for having us. Good to meet you. You just finished tour in Florida yesterday, the day before? Two days ago. Yesterday was a driving day. Cool. And so back home after this to New England.

SPEAKER_13 15:51

Right to Connecticut, yeah. Connecticut. Let me drop off a van in Jersey.

SPEAKER_29 15:55

Jersey tomorrow.

SPEAKER_13 15:56

Send these boys back to New York and then uh nice. Hopefully get some sleep, I think.

SPEAKER_29 16:01

I don't know, but sleep in my own bed.

SPEAKER_13 16:03

How long was the tour? One month, exactly. Yeah, 24 shows. Yeah, that's four weeks.

SPEAKER_19 16:09

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_13 16:10

It was good.

SPEAKER_24 16:11

I mean, the city. It was awesome, yeah. It was the longest run we've done. You guys have some amazing fans. Like the shows seem packed, and the fans seem like they go nuts.

SPEAKER_13 16:20

Yeah, we've had people fly to see us, drive, and people did some crazy drives. Someone drove from Alabama to Des Moines.

SPEAKER_29 16:27

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_13 16:28

It was a four or five hour drive. There were a couple, a couple of those at a few days. It's crazy. Yeah, people, it's it's been it's real. It's been it's been real.

SPEAKER_24 16:38

What do you think is what drives that? Is it your social media presence? Do you guys connect with your fans one-on-one on engage, you know, engaging them? Like, how do you how do how have you created this fan base that does that? Because that's really hard to come by these days, especially.

SPEAKER_17 16:52

Yeah. It's a slow burn. I mean, we're we're still somewhat of a smaller group, but we s we respond to most DMs that we can and and we'll respond to comments and uh you know I I try to ask everybody whenever we meet them, like, how'd you find us?

SPEAKER_13 17:05

And a lot of times it's Spotify. Spotify will ship them the music, and they'll I know they're like, Oh, I found you know, Kiss You Fool, or I found Deadbeat City, and then I kept listening from there, and they do the dive themselves. Yeah, TikTok. Tick yeah, TikTok has been blowing blowing things up. You gotta post, guys. You gotta post.

SPEAKER_24 17:23

Yeah. What kind of po like what kind of content do you post in just like behind the scenes stuff? Are you like you well, what is it? What what do you think is engaging the most of your fans? I the one the big TikTok that blew up for us for Debbie City was a behind the scenes uh of a music video.

SPEAKER_17 17:37

It was a VHS footage that uh there's a solo shot of Nick just performing and uh the lyrics over the top.

SPEAKER_13 17:44

The lyrics over time. When in doubt, just slap the lyrics in the case. I think that's the secret.

SPEAKER_17 17:48

I don't know.

SPEAKER_13 17:48

I'm the worst guy to ask about the TikTok stuff though. I really don't.

SPEAKER_24 17:51

But it's working for you guys and it's clearly drawn fans to the shows. What do they say when they meet you? Is it the music? Is it what's the vibe of of what's drawing them into your world? I'd like I think the music.

SPEAKER_17 18:02

I'd like to think the music. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people connect over, I mean, especially Kiss You Fool. I've met my my boyfriend, girlfriend. We had our first kiss over this song, which is always cool to see. Yeah. I think it is the music that that connects most.

SPEAKER_13 18:15

The first song we had kind of took off without socials, which was which is cool. And I think kind of an anomaly today. Yeah. You know, most of the time it's the socials driving the rest of the ship. But so I think people have sort of Spotify's been great to us, I think. You know, a lot of people complain about Spotify. You can't it you really shouldn't. It's the best time to be a musician. People say it's the worst, but it's not. It's a mess.

SPEAKER_20 18:37

Hey, what once you say that?

SPEAKER_13 18:39

The access to music is incredible now, you know. I mean, I can I can pull up my phone and listen to whatever electric light orchestra song I want at any point in time. Yeah. You can find it all. I mean, if you didn't if you didn't know the band in Europe and know what CD shop or record shop their record was sold at, you would not find the music. Now you can you can find anybody at any point in time.

SPEAKER_24 19:02

And you don't think that it's too muddied down and there's too much? I mean, as far as competition.

SPEAKER_14 19:07

No, it definitely is. It's so saturated, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_24 19:09

So, how do you break out of that noise and and and you know distinguish yourself from the from the pack?

SPEAKER_14 19:15

That's a great great question. Anybody know?

SPEAKER_21 19:17

I I would say focusing on just getting better at music for a while, and then once you feel you're ready, then just start pushing out.

SPEAKER_32 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21 19:25

Rather than focusing on social media first. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 19:28

I think it's that's what I thought. I think it also has something to do with being individual, you know, not trying to copy, not trying to be the next, you know, band like this, trying to be individual, having your own sound and like really sticking out.

SPEAKER_13 19:38

You gotta break through the noise. You gotta be something sort of X Factory about it, I think.

SPEAKER_30 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 19:43

I don't know what I I mean. We've uh we people always say we have a kind of nostalgic, eclectic sound. Yeah, we all kind of draw from classic rock, so I think there's a little bit of a through line there.

SPEAKER_24 19:53

But I don't know, you know? I think that's what it is. I mean, for me, what drew me to you guys, like after seeing Adam playing with you guys, that's kind of what what prompted me to check you guys out, seeing Adam on the road. Like, Adam and I met how many years ago now, dude? God, seven, eight, seven, yeah, I was 12, 13, maybe. Yeah, dude, crazy. Like on the first ever loads of the craft tour. So I followed your journey of like being a drummer, and we've kept in touch and talked about school and changing your dreams and music and all those things. And so to see him tour in a band, first of all, was like, okay, this is cool, I'm gonna check it out. But then I was like, whoa, these these guys are awesome. Like the music has a nostalgic value that I think separates you. And obviously, fans of music are looking for whatever they like, and whether it's a nostalgic feeling or whatever that vibe is, like, you guys definitely have something about it. Was that was that curated from the beginning, or was it just something that you guys liked growing up and you were like, this is what we're gonna do? How did you meet, and like how did that kind of form in the very beginning?

SPEAKER_13 20:51

Yeah, I I think it w in the beginning, our plan was always trying to sort of steal from other styles. I know someone told me steal like an artist, it might have been you, Blake, but that quote always stuck with me. We've always kind of pulled from classic, that whole Americana 50s uh retro vibe has always been totally fascinating to me, and there's kind of a nice peachy feel to it all. So we tried to pull from the positive of that and and channel that into the music, and I think it came through a lot on the early stuff. There's kind of some 50s um I don't know, there's a little bit of a ballad kind of i theatrical sort of blown up feel to some of the early stuff. Um I think I think it was part of the plan loosely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 21:33

Our whole MO since the start was bands used to be pop music back in the day, or everyone used to know what bands pop for pop, and no one really questions. It's our kind of our mission is to to make bands, you know, in the forefront and just to keep them, you know.

SPEAKER_13 21:48

And bands are back, let me tell you. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think there's there was a clear solo artist trend. I I think my theory is that it's just easier to have a solo artist around so that there's there's there's a high Concentration of them. Band is you know three or four people at the minimum. So you gotta house and feed three or four people, or just fit them in the rehearsal space too. Yeah. Which is his own logistical nightmare. So I think that's stopped a lot of people from doing the band thing as opposed to just being a bedroom pop artist.

SPEAKER_24 22:18

Well, yeah, I mean you read about it, logistics of touring is so much more expensive than it used to be. So more mouths to feed, more hotels, more room, more equipment, all of those expenses add up. Yeah. But there's something to be said with a live band performing and they're super tight and they're fun. And I I've never been to one of your shows, but just seeing the videos, it's like you guys seem fun and the energy seems high. You could just see it with the crowd interactions. And I love the socials that you guys put out where at the end of the shows, you know, your fans seem like they're rabid. And I'm like, I haven't seen that in a long time, actually. You know, like we just had Zach Hanson here, and like that's another band that has this like rabid fan base that like just can't get enough of the music and the fan and in the interaction with the band, and like you guys seem like you're on your way to that, which is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_13 23:06

I appreciate it. Yeah, I think it's this tour has been an eye-opener for me, especially we've hit a lot of cities in the Midwest we haven't hit before, and there's a lot of people coming out saying, I oh, I've been dying. Like, thank you for coming to our town. I've been waiting forever. Even in Tallahassee, Tampa, um, Orlando is a great show, and I'm kind of it's all a little bit of a shock. I'm like, I'm I didn't think people would dig us in Orlando, but it's awesome.

SPEAKER_22 23:30

It's been a good time. What's the best city you guys have been to so far? I liked Atlanta a lot. Atlanta was awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 23:37

I'm still Salt Lake City last year. Was still one of the best shows. I was shocked at that. Yeah, I did not expect so many. The crowd was bananas there. This tour was Rochester, New York, though. The Bug Jar. Shout out to the Bumber.

SPEAKER_25 23:51

I played there, that's awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 23:53

I did not expect it to be a good show. Ticket count was so low going into the day.

SPEAKER_05 23:57

Yeah, I was I was really I remember walking in, it looked like a scene from a rock band game or a guitar hearing game.

SPEAKER_06 24:04

There was the kitchen on the ceiling, and the sound guy.

SPEAKER_05 24:08

He was cool, but he's like, all right, we're just line checking. I'm just like, all right, sweet. And then all of a sudden the bar just packed in, we ripped a set, and they were they were awesome. It was epic.

SPEAKER_13 24:18

Someone brought these hot stickers, they were gonna say. I guess they hand them out at um EDM events and stuff like that, but they're just little peel away, like at a fast food restaurant. And I watched throughout the set, one girl had them, and it slowly spread throughout the crowd. They were just getting handed out. They were kind of reflective too, so I watched the plague spread through the front route.

SPEAKER_07 24:38

Yeah, we're putting them on the room. Yeah, we got them all over the place now. She came to uh which which Florida show did she come to? And she gave us another roll of them. Whoa. And she's from Rochester? I think.

SPEAKER_24 24:48

Yeah, from there originally moved down south. Dude, that's incredible. You got fans literally traveling across the country to find out.

SPEAKER_17 24:54

It's crazy, it's always mind-boggling when people say, Oh, we drove here to do that. Even when we signed stuff still, it was kind of like really like like it's it's it's a signal signature, but it's still a little strange.

SPEAKER_24 25:05

It's very hitterbiss for me. So when you tore like this past tour you just got off of, was it a headliner or were you were you with another band?

SPEAKER_13 25:12

We did a little bit of both. We did the first leg was headline, and then it was a co-headline with a band called Post Sex Nachos. We had our other friends, kid sister, come and open for us. So it was that three-band bill for the middle nine shows or so. And then the back end was Florida, that was all local. And you have an agent?

SPEAKER_23 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_24 25:30

Is that new or is that have you how long have you had the agent? Relatively since last summer. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 25:36

It's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_24 25:38

What would you say to a young up-and-coming band that doesn't have an agent that wants to go on the road? I mean, back in the day, I used to go on MySpace or find bands in my own hometown, like doing battle with bands and stuff, and that's how I would network. How do you find bands that you guys like? And then is it as simple as a DM? Hey, you're from the Midwest, we're from the East Coast, let's trade shows. Like, what would you say has worked for you guys to kind of merge those two worlds together and get a bigger crowd to a show so you can kind of cross-pollinate?

SPEAKER_11 26:08

You want to talk marketing.

SPEAKER_05 26:09

I feel like I feel it's be hungry. I I think one of the one of the main things I learned from Lowell to the Craft was be hungry, don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to reach out. Because you know, when I was a kid growing up going to these shows, I would maybe go see the band and I'd m wait for them to go to the merge table, and I'd be the last one online just so I could chop it up with them and ask questions like how do I get my band on a tour? How do I like start playing venues like this? How did you guys get from point A to point B? I feel like it was all from even just direct messaging too, yeah, like not being afraid to upload, not being afraid to create content. And through that, I basically learned how to reach out to people because um I started tagging, you know, all my favorite bands and the covers I used to do, and all my favorite drummers, and then through that I've made some like great friendships, some connections, some mentorships that have lasted a lifetime.

SPEAKER_13 27:04

Dude, that's smart. The networking stuff. It's insane. It's awesome. I'm watching them in the van just.

SPEAKER_24 27:10

Dude, that's awesome, man. I'm so stoked to hear that. I love it. And you've been consistent as heck with uploading content. I mean, literally, since since shortly after we met, and I, you know, met your mom and your dad, and you and your brother at the uh event at Alto Music in New York with Frank Zumo, and you played you played drums with Frank, like your content that you would upload, it was just consistent.

SPEAKER_33 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_24 27:31

You know, and like I feel like a lot of people, and I'm guilty of it, where I'm like, oh, it's not good enough, or I don't have ideas, like you just have to go and put it out there and do and be consistent at it, right?

SPEAKER_05 27:39

I mean, even after the Josh Manuel thing, um, when I I did the second clinic with Josh and I played uh I forget which issues tune it was, but you know, even at his event where he mentioned, you know, he got his start from uploading videos on the internet, too. That's how I found him, and you know, even all these other YouTube drummers like Christina Sciano, SJC Fam Shout Out, um, Casey Cooper, and basically all these people, you know, Josh went from you know uploading these covers in his room to you know playing with issues, and now he's touring stadiums with Caitlin Brown. Yeah. And to know that kind of all started from uploading content on the internet, especially during like the whole COVID thing. That's where I kind of started doing it, being consistent, and then it was super cool to see other kids start doing it. I remember Iggy maybe sent me a DM and he's like, dude, I want to collab with you on this. How do I start uploading videos? And then Bronx followed, and then he's he started making videos because of Iggy and then Chad, and then every single kid was making these videos. I thought it was super awesome and it was super cool how the content creation kind of phased during COVID started. Yeah.

SPEAKER_27 28:40

And um people were housed during all that stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:45

You know, it was it was a time I felt where everybody was on their phone, and you know, there's so much negativity in the world. Why not, you know, post drum videos and trying to get like my favorite drummers' attention. Same thing with Tosh, man. He was uploading videos on the internet trying to get um what's his name? Thomas Pridges' attention. Yeah. And he got it, and then I was watching those videos, and then it just kind of happened for me in the same exact way. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_24 29:09

Smart move, too, being the last in the line for merch so you can like get the undivided attention and like actually chat with them and not be able to do that. I got a lot of follows from that. It really is. Some of these people I still talk to this day. That's the best, bro. Like, it it is smart, and like there's gotta you gotta have a little bit of a strategy. Sure, we're coming into this world as fans, and like we want to be a part of it, and so there's that passion that drives you, but you do have to have a little bit of strategy. And being the last one in line is very smart, dude.

SPEAKER_05 29:36

I remember I remember I met Laundry Day, uh, four dudes from New York crushing it right now. I met them when they were opening for Neon Trees, and they were probably about my age when I first met them. And I'm like, dude, how do I do this? Because I was playing, you know, small bars to maybe just the bartender and my parents at the time and my other band. And he's just like, dude, it'll be here before you know it. I didn't believe it. Two, three years later, we're playing the same exact venues, opening for bands and doing the thing. To me, it's just crazy that it didn't even register to me after the fact, it's just like wow, this is this happened in such a fast period of time.

SPEAKER_34 30:11

It does go fast, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:12

And that's all from you know, hustling. Yeah, and especially these dudes, man, too. When I first met these guys, it was like two, three years ago. I was probably fresh out of high school, and we did one tour for four days, and then I was just like, Whoa, this is awesome. And then we were starting to do shows, and then Deadbeat City blew up out of nowhere, and then it just kind of happened all so fast, and to this point now, it's it's just crazy to be able to begin to think about.

SPEAKER_17 30:38

Yeah, I knew Adam Ooh, sorry, I knew Adam was good because before uh we all day jobs prior, and we I didn't have a rehearsal, these two rehearsed with him before I was able to, and you know, drums and bass are pretty important and didn't even rehearse with him when we played a show opening for a band called Shepherd, and he was just locked in, and I was like, Oh yeah, he's a good drummer.

SPEAKER_10 30:56

Yeah, we picked him up and now we can't get rid of him.

SPEAKER_13 31:00

You're not getting rid of me. From the beginning, I was I I I have a bit of a thick skull, right? I don't I don't wanna I want to kind of battle the uh the machine, I like to think of it. So I've always been pretty against the backing tracks. I've there's been some really tasteful use of backing tracks I've seen, but I think we're gonna hold the line. We have a couple other ways that we were talking about trying to evolve the sound and put it so that it can battle that sort of digital, really tight feel, but keep it off the grid. I mean, I just like to think of it as off the click. If you're off the click and you can sort of manipulate, you know, it really just kind of touch and go with the crowd. You know, if you want if it feels like it needs to be a little faster, you can bump it up. You don't have to worry about changing any crazy knobs or anything.

SPEAKER_21 31:42

So I like being off the grid, but by the time that we would consider doing backing tracks, we'll be so tight that there's not gonna be a reason to.

SPEAKER_13 31:51

Well, Blake Blake's got a really cool system that he's been talking about, and we have about 50% of the equipment required to make it happen. I don't know if you want to elaborate on the AB ABY synthesizer split. Yeah, this is gonna be crazy. I think this can put us in the lane. We we put synthesizers on stuff sometimes. Mostly to add layers and beef up melodies and stuff, but when we play it live, it's really just the four of us. So we're trying to find a way to get the synth doing what the guitar is doing without putting it on because otherwise my principle thing is I I don't want to go listen to a track. I feel like it doesn't, it's sort of cheating the audience out of a live performance. So if you can find a way to make that sound without it being a laptop, then you're you know, you're paying your respect to the crowd. You're giving them what they're climbing for, which is live music. You want to elaborate because I'd like to try and explain it.

SPEAKER_21 32:42

I mean we're still figuring it out, but I mean trying to figure out how to I either using a MIDI pedal or something to just have the uh a synth hooked up to the guitar like a moag or something, while having the guitar come through. So having two signal from the guitar, but split into a two-speaker system, too, that can be activated on and off.

SPEAKER_13 33:02

Yeah, so you got the guitar amp, we've got we we played a show in New York, and uh they said they had two guitar amps, one of them was just a keyboard amp. So I plugged my electric guitar right into the keyboard amp, and we were like, wow, this is a pretty cool, fat, mid-centric sound. So we're trying to replicate that and have it. There's the ABY foot pedal where you can go basically have the signal split going through the guitar amp, also going through with the synthesizer into the keyboard amp to give it that really bitey, mid-fat sound, and by using the pedal to activate, deactivate it, you can get some extra boost for the hooks or dial back for the verse. Yeah, yeah, where it's a system in development. We've got the keyboard speaker, we don't have the AY pedal yet.

SPEAKER_21 33:43

And that's my side, because you're talking about doing the same but with amps to have two different amps.

SPEAKER_13 33:47

I rigged it with one time in our house that we lived in, uh, the band house, shout out the bandhouse, by the way. Um, I've got a Vox AC15, really nice guitar amp, good tube amp, and I also have an old uh Fender Baseman, 69 to 71. I'm not exactly sure what it's from, but I was splitting the signal using a tuner pedal. This is a trick I learned from Royal Blood. Royal Blood's one of the cool you, I'm sure you don't rub, but there the way they have their sound set up, where it's a bass guitar going through a splitter, octave pedal. I do have that octave pedal. I was obsessed with them back in the day. But uh splitting the signal so that we can go using a tuner pedal to deactivate the big heavy baseman amp. So this is my this is word soup. I'm still sort of figuring this out as I'm going. But Vox on all the time, uh pedal to activate the second amp to give some more boost and really boosting the low end on it, because if baseman's got those two channels, you can daisy chain it. Um I only rigged it one time, but it sounded really, really cool. And I was kicking it on for the choruses and kicking it off for the verses. But that's how I think we can battle the backing track, battling the machine. Yeah. I think we can do it. I think we can fight the algorithm. There's hope for humanity. I love it.

SPEAKER_24 34:55

Yeah, for sure. So you say you're about 50% of the way there. Is it getting new gear and things like that, your desires and wants for stuff like this, whether it's for tone, you know, whether it's for a quenchable thing. Right. Right, you're there's always a list, a wish list of things that you want. Is it a I'm trying to figure out beginning bands, like young kids that are forming a band for the first time that are just like, I wish we had this, and using that as an as an excuse, really, to not just go and create. Is it a time thing? Is it a financial thing? Like getting gear to get you to make the sounds that you want, what would you say is the biggest factor getting you there?

SPEAKER_21 35:33

I I could do that, or explain that is uh definitely just logic or garage band on your laptop and then a focus right guitar, and then that's all you need. You can cut most tones with that nowadays. That's what I'm saying. It is the best time to be in art.

SPEAKER_05 35:46

So there's no there's no hungry for something.

SPEAKER_24 35:48

You can do it. Yeah, you can do it, right? Yeah. Okay. So there's no excuse to not go and create. Maybe to go and perform that live and do and pull it off that way, you're gonna need some sort of budget to get the gear that you need to go and do that. But how would you say you get there? I mean, I remember back in the day I would literally do lawn work, I would bring in bottles and cans, and I would just slowly but surely save up to get my SM58 microphone for my singer or a new crash symbol. Yeah, like slowly but surely was the way that I did it. How would you how would you describe the process for you guys before going on your first tour to get that gear? Like, what are some ways to make that happen and make it more manageable? I've got two.

SPEAKER_13 36:30

Number one, plan your Christmas list very effectively. I love that. Use it if you if you can get a nice new pedal or a nice guitar or whatever from from your Christmas list, don't need anything else. You don't want to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_21 36:40

Let me add to is that so whenever I earned enough money to buy a new piece of gear, there'd be those two, it'd be two different types of gear, like one that you really want for fun, but then one that's realistic that you know you need.

SPEAKER_28 36:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21 36:53

And you should go for the realistic one rather than the fun one.

SPEAKER_28 36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_21 36:56

Because then like the fun one is gonna be fun for a month, but then you don't need it for like tour or whatnot.

SPEAKER_28 37:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 37:02

I also I forgot who said sorry, um, they um forgot who said this, but they said that don't be afraid to take another job to do the art thing. There is kind of the battle between working the job and and doing the art form. And um I forgot who said it, but it the opportun the the cost of making the art, if that is getting another job, then you then get the other job. Make the money, save it up, get the pedal, get the new guitar. And if that is what allows you to do your art form, then absolutely do it.

SPEAKER_17 37:32

Yeah, I remember I I was a lifeguard in high school and all throughout, even when I went from college and saved up for two summers just to buy my first strat. Um and the it's the the the it was such a reward being able to purchase that on your own. And then after that, your own money. Yeah, after that, then then you know you tell your parents, oh, you know, I got this now, and I've been practicing maybe a tell or something.

SPEAKER_13 37:52

But can I get that Rim ProPug minute change? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 37:54

Blake and I are are classically trained uh musicians. I was a trumpet player and he's guitar, and uh it also comes down to that before you even want to get the nice gear, you know, you gotta practice. That's also like the the number one thing. Even you know, my all my trumpet professors and and even other teachers were were just saying, you know, it's it's like the classic thing. It's not the gear that makes the musician, it's the it's the musician that makes the musicians.

SPEAKER_13 38:17

But don't be afraid to get some gear to yourself a break.

SPEAKER_17 38:20

It is true because you can make some really cool new sounds with quick plugs.

SPEAKER_13 38:23

You can also copy everybody now. All these rig rundowns on YouTube and social media. I mean, people the information's out there like it never was before. Especially my favorite, but one of my favorite parts about it is John Mayor's always got tape on his pedal boards. He's always trying to hide what he has because everybody's trying to copy him. Yeah, and and I forgot what it was. If the s this not what's the the clone clon? Yeah, it was the clone.

SPEAKER_21 38:47

I think he there's multiple pieces of gear that he did, but I think it was the Klan they painted black because they he didn't want people to Yeah, well he we bought the pedal, he put it on his board, and then there was a supply chain issue with it.

SPEAKER_13 38:57

Nobody could have to pick the phone.

SPEAKER_21 38:58

Yeah, every time you'd buy a new pedal, people would be trying to get it. I think one time you put a curtain in front of Zamp or something because he's trying something new and you didn't want it to go up.

SPEAKER_05 39:11

I remember my first drum kit. My parents didn't want me to have a drum kit. I was maybe playing drums for five months at the time. After begging them for two years, sign me up for drum lessons. I remember going to five below. I bought two of those little tabletop drum kits, and that's what I practiced on. That's what I played on. Nice. Even though they're beat to crap because I was using my VIC first six because I lost the little twigs that came with them. Yeah. You know, that's how I learned how to play drums. It was on that, it was on pillows.

SPEAKER_24 39:36

Yeah, don't let it, don't let the gear the gear can make you sound better and definitely make you more inspired to play better, but it's not gonna make you a better musician at the end of the day. You can play on a on a uh crappy five below beginner thing and learn your rudiments or learn how to do, you know, how to play guitar.

SPEAKER_05 39:53

Even with what you have too, you know, going back to the buying your gear thing. I remember being 10 and I bought a kit off marketplace for $100 from one of my dad's friends. Wow. And you know, I set that thing up, I put duct tape all over it trying to be like Josh Dunn, because I remember you guys made that uh like s uh skeleton kit for him, and then you know you see other kids doing it on the internet too. Same thing with like Travis Barker. Yeah, because you know the kids want to be him because they're so inspired. I feel like being inspired and having that as a kid, just having a fire too, to really want to practice and sit down and play your favorite songs. It's um it the the gear over that is like a hundred percent difference because you feel like you're there.

SPEAKER_13 40:34

Yeah, and if you can get both, you're in charge.

SPEAKER_24 40:36

Yeah, yeah. What's next for the band? What's on the horizon? What's some of the what are some of the I don't know, I look at things in three, five, and ten year, you know, business plan increments. What what's like the 10-year plan for the band? Would you where would you guys like to see yourselves in 10 years? Stadium, hopefully.

SPEAKER_13 40:53

Back in Springfield, Missouri, or maybe at the bug jar again for an underplay.

SPEAKER_17 40:57

Dude, I love that. We uh we're after this tour, we're gonna hunker down, finish an album. Cool, um, and then tour again, keep touring and keep doing the thing. Yeah, three-year plan. I mean, hopefully a tour bus is the in the near future would be great. A school bus, a converted school bus.

SPEAKER_13 41:14

School bus, then maybe perfect for the brand, I'm telling you. I'm trying to convince the label to give us some money.

SPEAKER_24 41:18

That would be really cool.

SPEAKER_13 41:19

It'd be hilarious. School bus yellow, too. You're not gonna change the painting. Yeah, yeah. But inside it would be retrofitted. We'll juice it up. We'll put an Xbox, a switch in there, we're gonna get couches, mini fridge, dresser, dresser, and hangers for the flight suits. Flight suits are coming over. Mark my words, guys.

SPEAKER_24 41:36

I love it. So in this day and age, you guys have you got management, you've got a booking agent. I believe those are necessities. Like you need a booking agent to get you on the big tour so you can keep going in that. You you can focus on the art and keep writing and things like that. For younger bands that obsess over that sort of thing, because I remember obsessing over that sort of thing. I was like, my band's not anything unless we have a management, a label, and all these things. Are labels and are those are the things that are infrastructures of a band necessary, or are they just a nice to have to get you to that next step?

SPEAKER_13 42:09

I'll say from from I I think of it in stages. I was I I forgot what band it was. I just saw an Instagram reel about it. But um, I like to think of it as point A, where you start. You're in your mom's basement, mom's garage, whatever it may be, just getting going. You've got no f no fans, no followers, no music, and you gotta start from from absolute scratch. To get from point A to point B, you can do it yourself. But from point B to point C, which would be, you know, proper tours on getting on big bills and organizing a business, which is something you gotta do when you especially when you got four, you know, everybody needs to be fed. If we're doing it full time now, so we gotta be smart with the cash, you know, it can't be as frivolous as we once were. But um to get from point A to point B, you can do yourself. We did it most of the stuff on our own for five, six years. You know, we had a couple people to help us with some playlist pitching, or you know, we've had great producers to help us put the music together, but a lot of the business stuff we just put together on our own. We set up an LLC, you can do it online, you know, make sure you expense all your stuff, pay your taxes and stuff like that. Um but to get to the phase after that, you you need to build a team around yourself a manager, an agent, lawyer, uh label if you're fortunate enough. But especially nowadays, it's the age of uh it really everything is thrown into the hands of the people because of the algorithm, because of the way music is shared now, you can do so much on your own. If you can really get ahead of it and figure out how to do it yourself, you can set yourself up to really be prepared for when that point B to point C time comes, and then you build a team around and they do all the logistics and you're well prepared to really to do the thing properly.

SPEAKER_17 43:56

We had a a pretty good machine running for a while before we started. On with an agent before we signed on with the label. We, I mean, we had a manager who was in the business for a while, and we had a pretty unique perspective. I I used to work at a label for my day job, so I knew the ends of the industry was a major one, too. So at a certain point, I was like, you know, they don't need to be doing that. We could do this instead. So it was a good perspective to have. Um we had an industry plan, it was great. Yeah, so cool. But yeah, our and our manager was in the assistant, we had an independent booker. So we had a good solid team, but it yeah, like Nick said, at a certain point, I do think it's necessary, but for those first, you know, couple years, you know, promoters want to see, you know, how many shows have you played, and even if it's in the basements or or backyards, they just want to know if you could bring people out. If you say, hey, I could bring 10 people to this bar, they'll be like, all right, that's you. Two drinks a person, ten people at a bar, just make sure you shoot the email off.

SPEAKER_13 44:46

You gotta fire off the email. You can't be afraid to reach out and say, Hey, I got a band. You could say if you want to play, if they don't reply, this is a business tactic too, because we all we we all had regular jobs before this. If they don't reply, send a follow-up. Hit them again. Repeated exposure. I mean, it's everything is like a list of numbers now. It's all coming in through an inbox or a a timeline or whatever. So if you can hit a couple exposures on the same person, eventually, you know, if they're if if it's gonna happen, they'll they'll reach out to you and you can do a lot.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:14

I feel like that point A stage is so important. You know, it's I feel so many people are just like, eh, I want an agent, I want to be on this tour, I want to be here now. You gotta play a hundred shows to rooms of nobody before you play to a room of ten people or a hundred people. I remember being maybe a freshman in college when I went for a year, in the back of my English class sending emails to bands that were way too big to open for like, hey, can we open for you at so-and-so venue on this day? Do you need support? And I got a lot of no's. Way too many no's, way too many no responses, but just learning and not falling on the no's and just keep pushing for that and being hungry about it, I think is what's gonna get you to that next point.

SPEAKER_17 45:52

EPKs aren't you know as big, like electronic press kit, aren't as big as they are or they used to be, but that's a good thing for for starting bands are starting out. A lot of venues want to see you know a live video of you performing, how many people can you bring, a picture or two of the band. That's always a good thing to have, and and just be confident. I mean, say if you're a New York band, say, hey, we're a New York band, we could bring 20 people, even you could only bring five people. Say you could bring 20 people out. Before we accepted everyone, or split between New York and Canada, yeah, and but you just it's and just be confident when you send that email, say we could bring this many people out and tell your mom's friends to come, your dad's friends, your your kids.

SPEAKER_13 46:30

Because the parents can mobilize. A lot of the first shows, my mom's Facebook marketing filled some rooms, let me tell you. It was major. It was major.

SPEAKER_17 46:39

It it really started with our hometown shows, and then the hometown shows grew to the city, and the people from the hometowns would take the train to the city. So it's it's gradually. I think we were really fortunate.

SPEAKER_13 46:48

We you know, we all we started at UConn and we had a sort of little mini bubble to promote ourselves in, and I think we did pretty good at first. We sort of became UConn famous for a little bit. It was great, you know, it was it was almost a testing ground for before we spread out. After we all graduated, a lot of people went to New York and Boston, so we had a little bit of following in Boston, a little bit of following in New York, and we started touring those markets, and slowly we spread out. Someone told me one time, put your hand on the map, find get find your location, put your hand on the map, and just slowly go outward, any direction you can. Don't be afraid to drive another hour to go play a room of a couple people, because eventually those people are gonna go tell other people, and you know, it's an exponential curve.

SPEAKER_05 47:33

It's like the similar story with Toleran Pilots how you know they started, you know, playing these festivals and places where people would show up, see these two dudes banging on drums or like playing with a computer and like rapping and playing piano, and they're just like, I don't know what I'm watching, but this is amazing. And now they're one of the biggest bands in the entire world.

SPEAKER_24 47:50

Yeah, yeah. And their friends tell their friends, like you said, and that web effect is is real. It looks great. And before you know it, you got fans flying across the country to see your band play, which is so wild.

SPEAKER_13 48:00

We've had it felt it already. I mean, we've played shows out in Denver, and because of that, people were coming to our show in Lowell, Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_05 48:07

It's even in upstate New York, we had someone come see us from the Denver show. Yeah, they flew to Denver for their one-year anniversary to see us.

SPEAKER_25 48:14

That's so great.

SPEAKER_13 48:15

And then they're back. We went to Buffalo and we caught them again. Yeah, yeah. It's we're already starting to see that effect, which is which is really great. So even fruits of your labeler.

SPEAKER_05 48:24

Fruits of your label, I don't know how to say the phrase.

SPEAKER_27 48:25

Fruits of your labor.

SPEAKER_05 48:26

Fruits of your label. Even before you get to that point, you know, when we I first started touring with them, we were touring in Nick's Jeep. Oh, yeah, man. Those were the days, man. Even before you go to the went to a van, even some of the weekend runs we did with Dog Park, we were renting minivans and chucking all of our bag line gear into the minivan and calling it that, you know.

SPEAKER_13 48:48

We were losing money on some of them, too. You can't be afraid to just go out there and play for the people.

SPEAKER_24 48:53

Yeah, yeah. It's funny you saying that though, those are the days because like you're talking about getting a bus and dreaming of that, and like you're in the rented van right now, which is a luxury for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_13 49:02

We're point B. I think we've definitely made a point B.

SPEAKER_24 49:04

Yeah, yeah. It's just it's so fun and interesting to see it and the perspective of all of it, where you're like, yeah, those are the days, like thrown in the back of the Jeep, and like it's awesome, it's an evolution. You guys are doing it. It's really cool and inspiring to hear your story. Thank you for sharing it. Hey, thanks for thanks for having us. Let's uh let's end by giving some shout-outs. And you mentioned parents and Facebook marketing. I'm gonna give a shout-out to uh Adam's parents. You know, your mom DMs me, she just sent me a message last night telling me how excited you were to come today. And like, man, parents supporting their kids in music, I think, is so important. So, shout out Adam's parents. Who you guys are gonna give a shout-out to?

SPEAKER_13 49:39

I'm shouting out my mom. Thank you, mom. You know, always been supportive, surprisingly supportive, my parents of this rock and roll career. So I've always they've they've totally set me up for success. They've let me do it, they've empowered me. Cool, I love that. You know, don't be like now, listen, moms. I know drum sets in the living room or the basement, it's a big ask, but if you make that leap, there might be serious, serious uh rewards. So 100%, dude.

SPEAKER_24 50:05

Just buy some ear points. I'm gonna go last. Especially, especially the uh, especially the parents of of drummers. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_13 50:12

I was I had the drum phase too. My mom, she couldn't stand it, really. Dude, uh, those symbols. Oh, that's bad. You can even get those sort of muted kids too, but it's just not the same. You gotta get the proper drums.

SPEAKER_24 50:24

I'm gonna go as far as to say shout out to all the neighbors of parents that support their drummers. My neighbors specifically. Seriously.

SPEAKER_17 50:31

Yep. What do you got for a shout-out? Uh definitely my parents, my mom specifically. She ran a record store when I was growing up and brought me to my first concert when I was two. And my my band teachers. It's it's not uncool to practice your instrument. I I promise you that. It is, it is when you're in college, people would be like, wait, you play saxophone, you play trombone? That's cool. So it's it's not uncool. Trumpet. Trumpet's cool as hell. Yeah. And shout out teachers too, man.

SPEAKER_24 50:55

Teachers. And teachers get paid the less of most.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

Seriously, teachers. Thank you for letting me practice during your lunch period or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_21 51:06

Yeah, for real. Yeah.

SPEAKER_24 51:07

What do you got for a shout out?

SPEAKER_21 51:08

Yeah, shout out for my parents and uh Doug Mayer, my guitar teacher in college, taught me all my my lines and everything.

SPEAKER_05 51:16

I definitely say shout out my parents for sure. They've been probably the biggest supporters of my career. Shout out to my grandma for bringing me to Alto Music because this would have never happened. But most importantly, shout out to you and Lola to the Craft because nobody else is doing more for youth and music than Lola to the Craft. Like it is insane to see how it went from just a clinic tour, like a passion project, to what you're doing now. Like you bought or you rented like a small tenth stage at Warp Tour just so school rock kids could play their first warp tour. You guys bringing Derek up and Tosh to play songs with kids, I'm pretty sure that made their entire life easily. And then I appreciate you saying that, man. That's awesome. Bringing Teddy Swims into a high school, like do an assembly and talk to kids, and then collaborating with like run uh Travis Barker's Run, Travis Run, and you know, bringing the paradox out and kids, and you know, even like the stuff you did at when uh what was it, when we were young fest, yeah, and doing all those interviews, that definitely it had a spark. You know, you had the Somerset, you had Boys Like Girls, who else you had Simple Plan, State Champs, you had all those bands speak about, you know, when they were kids and saying, like, this is it, like just pursue it and you'll do it.

SPEAKER_24 52:20

Well, I appreciate it. And that's what it's all about, dude. You know, similar to a band, that's kind of what we're doing, and it's that cast a wide net, send a bunch of emails, you know, obviously hope that things happen, but work really hard. And a lot of those things that happen were a little bit on a whim. Literally, Tosh and Derek I saw in catering, and I'm like, hey, this is what we got going on in the vendor village. You want you want to come jam with the kids and like let's go. And it's and it's just that man throwing the line out and hoping that it happens.

SPEAKER_05 52:47

You know, even like being pulled up to play with Frank, you know, in Too Deep. I remember we played Lincoln Hall in Chicago, and then we I think we went to a Portillos or something afterwards, and it was on the radio queue. And that to me was just insane. It's just like that sparked a lot for me and my probably love for performing and playing music, and to you know, play a music hall to 400 people that night and then hear that song years later to me is just insane. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_24 53:11

We all gotta start somewhere, you know. We all you that's just what it is. That's human nature. You all start somewhere, and like you guys are like you said, you're going from you're from A to B, you're going from B to C right now. So appreciate you sharing the journey. We'll get you back on, and we'll get definitely be out of show at some point next time you guys are through North Carolina, and we'll uh definitely stay in touch. So best best of luck to you guys. I'm I'm rooting for you. So kids that fly, check them out. Make sure you support local music. Thanks so much for listening to Loyal to the Craft on Adobe Radio. Fuel the habit by going to loyaltothecraft.com, sign up for our email newsletter, and grab a t shirt and a hat to support the youth in chasing their dreams and music. Make sure you follow Kids That Fly and go see them on tour to support the band and tell them your friends over at Loyal to the Craft sent you. See you guys next week.