Welcome back to another episode of on tap. Today we got a little bit of a curveball episode. We got Jake Gillard back with us. Here we got ominous the monster. Here we got his good buddy, Tony. What is?
Speaker 2:what is?
Speaker 1:your guys's relationship, Like why are you in Minnesota here?
Speaker 3:Well, I have a show on Wednesday, january 24th. It's already be out by then, probably, or after that. But yeah, we just got a show man. It just came out here and that's sweet. What was the what's?
Speaker 1:the dynamic of that, like like, why? Obviously you're from Minnesota, I know that already. But how do you, how do you get booked in shows in other places? Do do people reach out to you or do you like put the feelers out, like, hey, I'm willing to do shows wherever, whoever you know, let's work something out. How does that work?
Speaker 3:That's like, well, you know, you build relationships with people as you go. I've known him for a while. He's actually really good friends of my younger brother, so that's how I met him, you know, and he's also an artist. We've done music together and everything else, and we just fuck with each other on a personal level. So I reached out to him for this specific show. See if you can help me connect the dots or whatever. Um, and we've done, you know. Another show at 7th Street, Entry Yep Two years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you like that venue? I love it. I love that venue.
Speaker 3:I'm from here, so that's like a really big deal for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Being a kid, I was like one day I'm going to headline that shit. And then I you know, we have the show two years ago and I'm like one step closer, you know, and that's when I was still like searching for like the kind of success I have right now. I'm still just like grinding it out, you know, and I said I'm going to come back and I will headline this. And two years later, you know, I go viral on TikTok and everything else and my numbers are going crazy and people are hitting me up and da, da, da, da, da, da da. And I was like this is a perfect time. And if you go on my Spotify and my Apple and stuff like that, it's going to show you that Minneapolis is like one or two of the most listeners in your demographic?
Speaker 1:Yeah, my demographic.
Speaker 3:Oh OK, so I got to go back home now, right, and everybody knows I'm from Minnesota because all I wear is Minnesota gear, minnesota hats, minnesota shirts which was his idea, because I was tempted to buy like Texas things and other things that. I just like or whatever, and he's like nah, stick with your, stick with what you've been doing, because when you pop you know people, people respect that.
Speaker 1:They're going to know where you're from. Yeah, people respect that when you pay homage to the roots where you came up. So you live in Texas now. How long have you lived in Texas or when did you move away from?
Speaker 3:Minnesota. I moved there when I was 15. So I've been there like off and on ever since.
Speaker 1:So you got like dual citizenship. Yeah, basically Damn.
Speaker 3:Park, texan, and then hell, yeah Come back up here like don't you know?
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, You're chilling down there with Joe Rogan and Elon Musk and.
Speaker 6:Yeah, they actually moved down there because of. Yeah, I could see that we don't want to put that out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what is your guys' relationship, tony? What? What brought you along for the trip to Minnesota for the show?
Speaker 6:So we went to the same high school. We didn't know each other. We know of each other. But, we didn't. Yeah, I went to high school. He was a little troublemaker.
Speaker 5:A popping year in there. You went to high school. He went to school high. Is that what you're trying to say? I like that and we both.
Speaker 6:We both made music just different circles and we had a mutual acquaintance. Yeah, that invited us both to the same studio session and we did a little couple of songs together. And then it grew from that to, hey, I just made this new song, can you give me some critique? And then he'd make something, he'd show it to me, and then we started doing music together. And then I after high school I moved to New Jersey for a couple of years, got with the circle of guys over there making music and I moved back to Texas and I kind of cut ties with those guys. So I was kind of like like a free agent, if you will. And then he had a show in Abilene and which was about that's.
Speaker 6:Texas, which is about three hours away from where I lived, and he's a. He should come out to the show and I was like three hour drive and I was like you know what, I'm just going to go. I went out there, we did the show and kind of got pretty close in that that couple of days I was there and then it kind of just grew from there. And now he's been doing this ever since has been like five or six years.
Speaker 5:Yeah, damn, some inspirational Couple of days.
Speaker 1:He was out there, that is how long have you been doing music?
Speaker 3:Since I was 11, I wrote my first verse when I was 11. My mom had my baby brother. His dad is a producer in Minnesota he's not like well known and this was a long time ago, you know but he came over one day and he brought over a CD of instrumentals and he said here, this is for you.
Speaker 3:And I used to have a CD player in the basement, so I ran out to the basement, immediately put it in, trying to be all cool listening to it while he was doing whatever you know, and I just fucking I started running through him and I was like this is going to slap. I'm only 11, though, and you guys don't have the internet and stuff.
Speaker 3:So like yeah, not everybody's making music at 11 at that point, right, and I just it came so natural. But I remember knowing what like a bar was, and like the counts and like when the hooks should come and the changes. It was just smooth and my lyrics weren't like the best, but they weren't the worst.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. I can just picture it now. You know it's like music is definitely not as accessible, especially back then before the internet, when they had everyone at all these web based applications. You could just pull up and just put something down right now and you could use AI to make your voice sound just like Drake or whatever it's insane. And you know, obviously that wasn't a thing up only up until recently. So kids now that are starting to do it, I feel like definitely have a huge advantage when it comes to the accessibility.
Speaker 6:There's an advantage and disadvantage.
Speaker 3:Big disadvantage.
Speaker 6:Yeah, because there's anybody can do it. Now Anybody can go to a guitar center and set up and it kind of floods the markets.
Speaker 1:It's a good point.
Speaker 6:Somebody with real talent can get buried beneath.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're going to look like everybody else out there and it's you can't tell.
Speaker 1:The saturation is crazy, I mean, and that's not a secret.
Speaker 5:No, not at all. I mean, talent isn't as big as how you look or how you can just engage and get people to want to engage in your videos based on.
Speaker 4:You sound crazy, you are on it right, exactly, personality. Yeah, everything.
Speaker 1:Do you think that a lot of the traction that you've got recently is all primarily due to social media and like the ability to reach a bigger crowd in a shorter period of time?
Speaker 3:For sure, for sure, for sure, but like I had a, I had a good following before, it just wasn't like now. It's like crazy you know what I'm saying. So like, but people like were tatting my brand on them still, and like pulling up singing word for word my lyrics and everything else, and like you can vouch for me. It's been like that for a while already. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy because of the kind of music I made and, like you know, it's crazy. I do not. Well, I love tick tock. Now it's my favorite.
Speaker 1:I'm like you're dead on me. You know it changed my life. You have a. You have a tick tock tattoo.
Speaker 3:No, I'm going to.
Speaker 4:Oh.
Speaker 3:I was like damn boys changed my life, but uh, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I got out the Chinese?
Speaker 3:Yeah, china, you know, come on. But yeah anyways social media definitely helped.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I asked it. Is there like a certain strategy? Do you like, do you have like a social media strategy that you implement, Like I'm going to post on this days, this time on this platform, this length, this you know structure to it, Anything like that? I?
Speaker 3:wish I did. I really, I really, you know, for all my loved ones, I wish I knew how to make it shake. Yeah, I'll be up, but it's just staying consistent, you know, and a little bit of luck. Like everybody gets luck eventually. Like I don't care how unlucky you are, eventually you will get lucky. Like, let's say, you got three hobbies one's dogs, bodybuilding and music and now, if you're posting all three of those every other day or whatever, when you do get luck, you don't know if it's going to land on music, you might have got lucky and went viral on a bodybuilding video or dog video.
Speaker 1:Well, now that's your whole audience. Well, and that's tough, because then they go back and look at the catalog and they're like I can't remember for bodybuilding, bodybuilding, why the hell do I see dogs. Yeah, I don't see this. I don't see this. Unfollow. What the hell that's exactly.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of people we know that are really popular for like being funny and this and that and uh, but they want to be musicians, uh huh. So they consist on one thing basically. And eventually when you get lucky to land on that one thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a really fine line too, though, like, no matter what you want to do, if you can like figure out another way to get more exposure to that or to your music or to your passion, whatever it is, I think there's a fine line between, like you said, like going viral for something else where it can work.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's like a delicate balance. You know, are you guys familiar with Gail Lewis, the?
Speaker 5:Walmart, what is the name? So, oh yeah, the Walmart employee.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she's like Gail Lewis, signing out 844 Morris, Illinois.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So anyways, it's just like a TikTok video that just went viral. It was just this lady that recorded herself.
Speaker 6:She's been working for Walmart forever and she just recorded herself like all right on the speaker, yeah, gail Lewis signing off for the last time, and she was super emotional about it and it blew up and people like a cop or something like a cop yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now she's doing all these huge collabs with these big YouTube creators and now she has, like merch, that she launched with this other creator who just does merch? She's up and she's crushing right now I mean honestly, her TikTok is at like 500, 600,000. That's crazy. Her YouTube channel is going up. I mean, like every platform she's on is going up.
Speaker 3:They found out her personality. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean like that's kind of an accidental virality. Obviously that was never in her plan. I think it was more so like, at first it started out as a meme, and now it's just become a reality and the Internet has kind of just made it's done its thing.
Speaker 5:She didn't choose the viral life, the viral life chose her. Oh God Right, I think a lot of people that I know that are viral they're like that the same thing they never choose. But then once they get it, they're like okay.
Speaker 3:Well, this obviously works. My niece.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, because in my mind I'm thinking like I'm not posting anything if the goal isn't to get eyeballs on it. Yeah, like that is my goal and maybe that's like a little bit of a like a sadistic way of looking at it, you know, but it's like I'm putting it out to get the exposure.
Speaker 4:You know, because, like I want to, make this part of my business.
Speaker 1:I want to make this part of the podcast. I want to, I want to grow our viewer base. You know so, when you're like going into making videos and like posting TikToks and whatever, do you sit down and like formulate how you're going to do it? Okay, the captions are going to look this way, or anything like that. I'm going to use this part of the song because it's a little bit catchy, or anything like that.
Speaker 3:No, I don't, I don't, I don't overthink it at all. Um, I try not to think about it at all. I just try to stay consistent, like daily, because it's working.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's working.
Speaker 3:Appreciate that. But you look crazy and I talk to him about this all the time Like when he posts his videos, like he'll overanalyze it and like try to find these different ways to get so, surely?
Speaker 6:surely, surely, after he went viral, I already had a TikTok account, but I had a video on it and I was like, all right, well, let me see this. And my thing is, when I get into something, I get into something or I over obsess about it. So I would tell him like hey so it says that if you post on Wednesday at 2 pm, between 6 pm that's when you're this and then if you and he was like just post it, yeah, just get it out.
Speaker 5:I hate that post at this certain time, if you think about how many other people are trying to do that that. Is it so time that I'm looking at a foolish? It's so crazy.
Speaker 3:Like there's no, there's nothing. I went. My first video of our was like nine o'clock in night.
Speaker 4:Damn.
Speaker 3:I just posted it in like a 10 o'clock, 10, 30 on Lane and bed. I'm like oh shit, this is more.
Speaker 5:Yeah, roadie, go to sleep that night. Yeah, I mean, I woke up, I was like dude, tell me, tell me.
Speaker 1:At one point I would imagine all four of us have had something on social media. Get some, get some good traction. Yeah, tell me, that isn't like the best drug in the world when you every time you refresh, there's too many notifications that like fills up the whole thing.
Speaker 3:That, like dopamine hit that gives you every, every research is a dangerous game. It is. I think about that all the time, like now. It makes more sense. I want you to experience it. It makes sense seeing like certain influencers or whatever, do wild shit that they wouldn't normally do.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, you're you're fine, you're feeling like you haven't been viral in a long time they're trying to get their fix.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like this crazy it is People get addicted to that.
Speaker 5:Just seeing the reactions on those, those definitely I mean you got people.
Speaker 1:I mean obviously the, the, the early social media virality was always. How can I do something crazier than the last guy? And I feel like we've reached a point now where like the crazy is almost like too accessible. Yeah, and like cruising through Instagram reels and like seeing someone break their collarbone is not even that crazy Like I'm wanting most time. I won't even probably like the photo, just video. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't be like whatever, but I think genuine content is like, like, just genuinely. A good video is what's really starting to like. Push into the surface now.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think with like with a lot of your guys's content, I think that shows, like those videos that you started putting out of you just like at your desk.
Speaker 5:Yeah, bro.
Speaker 1:Get on the microphone and you just fire something off yeah. Super genuine. You know that it's not like super played out. You know you didn't spend an hour like formulating how to do it. No, whatever, you just posted it and I think that shows through.
Speaker 5:Have you got any traction with some of those yes and no, the only thing that is. I just got to keep doing consistency on it because there's some that started to track. But yeah, and I just got to figure out how to get the attention right away, like I feel like that's right.
Speaker 1:It is because if you like the first, like three seconds, if they're going to scroll past or you have any excuse that's literally done, dude.
Speaker 5:it's crazy that if you think about it this like tick tock shit or like viral shit it all started with Vine. Yeah, dude.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, shout out, I'm shut out by.
Speaker 1:I honestly I wish I could see my vine videos.
Speaker 6:Talk accounts that are like, made after all yeah yeah bro Still rings true.
Speaker 1:I feel like six seconds.
Speaker 5:That's all you had six seconds and that was some of the funniest, so funny.
Speaker 1:That was. I mean, you had to get really creative and I think that was part of what made it so cool was like, you know, you, you're, you're put with such a limitation of it having to be six seconds. They'd get really creative with how you're going to form this story. You know Everything that we see online. It's a story, there's a, you know, there's a rise, a climax and a resolution, and I mean, no matter what it is, and that rise, if it's not, you know, entertaining enough, there's going to keep swiping through.
Speaker 5:I got a question for both of you. Each answer separately your favorite song and why Jesus but you've made one go first, although we've made individually your favorite song that either you've made together, or you've made solo, or it could be with someone else.
Speaker 6:My favorite song that I've made.
Speaker 4:Hmm.
Speaker 6:That's a tough one, like if you wanted whoever watches this to listen to it.
Speaker 5:This is, this is what's going to.
Speaker 6:Yeah, like things like that. Change with time of overall catalog would have to be off of our recent group project that we put out a couple of months ago. It's a sunflower, sunflowers, actually, you know, yeah, sunflowers.
Speaker 3:I don't want to slap the hardest. Yeah, no, I would have to say no.
Speaker 6:Well, yeah, sunflower.
Speaker 1:Is it a club banger?
Speaker 6:No, so it's a. It's a. So right after my mom passed, I put a. I put an album together, kind of dedicated to her in a way, and her favorite flower was sunflowers. That's beautiful, so it's not a song about. There is a song on that project that's about her, but that song is not necessarily about her, but it's kind of just the song grows throughout to the end of the song and it's kind of that build up of this is what happened. This is me accepting it. This is where I met.
Speaker 3:now, yeah me being Victoria. Yeah, Victoria's over the situation. You started by sunflower still.
Speaker 1:Maybe think about you. You care if I play the first like 10 seconds of it. Yeah, go for sunflowers Tony Dent. Yeah, that shit up Sunflowers produced by Steelo George.
Speaker 6:Shout out to Steelo.
Speaker 5:That whole project. Steelo, he's the shit ain't he.
Speaker 6:He's such a good guy, good guy great photographer, great engineer. And we got somebody else coming on here at half time to swap out for me and I want you to ask him that same question.
Speaker 5:I will forget, I got you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, verified artist on Spotify.
Speaker 3:Damn I try that I try.
Speaker 6:Okay, okay, okay. It's gonna be on which Living Wells the best revenge is the project.
Speaker 3:So if you pull up the uh look at that, look at the head, look at the whole it.
Speaker 1:Look at the lettuce.
Speaker 3:So he has a picture of his mom that's vintagey and it's like damn near the same, it's the same angle and everything. And he always puts it on his fridge and I remember he called me and he was like man, I need to, I need to figure like a badass album cover for this project? Yeah, and his mom had just passed. So we were always talking about things like that and I'm like well, this would incorporate that.
Speaker 6:So I kind of like just mirrored that picture of her same filter, same angle.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 6:Sunflowers in the back, and so that's, that's what that cover was.
Speaker 5:That's sweet. You should blow that photo up, put them next to each other and separate frames, separate yeah.
Speaker 1:This is Sunflowers by Tony Dent. Play the first like.
Speaker 4:I like it.
Speaker 6:And I'm actually performing that tomorrow night at the show. So or you are performing. I was going to ask you if you were performing.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm in this. What's your favorite song? I know the shot you follow on the Spotify. Boy, I appreciate you. There we go, we bumping it all week.
Speaker 6:I know what yours is. Gotta be Eliza's son.
Speaker 3:It's not but it's not. I don't. I don't think it is Okay. Why? Maybe it is? I actually don't know what my favorite song is, but I know that Eliza's son might be.
Speaker 6:That's the song that went viral. That's the song that got you to where you're at your number one song.
Speaker 1:That's number one popularity right now on Spotify, 196,000 streams. Yeah.
Speaker 3:When I went viral, that was at like 30 or something. That's crazy. Yeah, it's been pretty cool, Pretty badass. I think I only had like 1500 monthly listeners on there and I got 22.2 K is your monthly listeners right now on Spotify. Yeah, that's big enough to fill up target centers. Still have people outside.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. That's so cool to think about that If everyone was all in one place. You know, and it's funny because we go back to like the, the idea of like having a viral video. Yeah, if you had a hundred views on a video, like all of us, I would think safe to say yeah consider that video a flop. That didn't get any views, but if we had a hundred people in the room watching us at the same time would be like holy shit, there's a lot of people here, yeah, yeah, it's all perspective.
Speaker 6:And then you see 22,000, like, like you said, if there was 22,000 people, that's different from streams, because you can have 22,000 streams and some of those could be the same people. With 22,000 monthly listeners is 22,000 individual people.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that so that's interesting, Okay. So even if they're playing your songs and repeat, that doesn't. That doesn't account for that Right?
Speaker 3:So perspective there's 22,000 monthly listeners, but this month I had a hundred and I think 146,000 streams. Okay, we got a 22,000. Damn Listeners. They listened to 146,000 songs.
Speaker 5:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:So if you, I don't even know how you would divide that you know. But everybody can listen to it a couple of times in a band.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I suppose you would never know like there there could be just one person in there that's just bumping it 24 seven.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's a hundred percent yeah, so my favorite song though is probably Eliza's son because it's about I say, mom, if I told you everything that I've done, would you call me your son If I told you about that? Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm over here. I've seen these. I've seen the video pop up on my Instagram reels and my Tik Tok before that's badass.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's fine, that's lit.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that's. That's probably my most. Because I wrote that when I was getting sober I'm completely sober, like no alcohol or anything and I remember thinking like, oh my God, shit's going to suck, I'm not going to be fun, no more, I'm not going to make good music no more, I'm not going to do anything like you know, and it got better.
Speaker 6:Right, I talked to you about it.
Speaker 3:He even said he's like shit. You might get better. Alcohol doesn't make you a good artist.
Speaker 6:Right Doesn't make you a fun person. A lot of artists get stuck in their head Like I can't create without this thing, yeah, I can't. I can't do, I can't be this person on stage without this thing yeah, I mean, they have a fear of removing that thing from their life. It is going to impact their life. That thing that was a fear of his and clearly definitely it paid off.
Speaker 3:It's the exact opposite. I think all addicts are like that, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Use it as an excuse? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6:You have. Well, you know, tomorrow I'm not fun at the party if I don't take a couple of shots.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. I gotta stay awake. You know, I gotta fucking, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1:I get nervous unless I'm drinking or whatever the case yeah. I can't go out on stage unless I'm a couple shots in.
Speaker 5:You know like hey a couple shots, turn in 10 shots before you know what you're. Blackout on stage, Going on stage. You're having to be getting your lyrics.
Speaker 3:Look at that.
Speaker 1:It's like what is that? Like when you go out on stage and you know like, oh, I'm too fucked up.
Speaker 5:It's nerve wrecking. You guys know, I've never, so you've never gone through that, even when I was drinking heavier on stage?
Speaker 6:I don't.
Speaker 5:My first ever show I did. I got way too hammered with my friends. I was. We were just super hyped, Forgot the lyrics to every song no Every silent.
Speaker 3:No, when was your first song? Like when was your first time performing.
Speaker 5:My first time performing was 2016. 2016.
Speaker 3:How old are?
Speaker 5:you, I would have been 19 at that time 19.
Speaker 3:Okay, you first song. No, no, first time performing. Well, first time performing was 2007.
Speaker 4:Damn Right, I was. I was 11 at that time High school.
Speaker 6:So what's that Like?
Speaker 1:1450. 1450. Probably.
Speaker 4:Damn. I was like it was easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4:It feels like it was forever Very uncomfortable experience.
Speaker 2:Dude.
Speaker 6:It was actually at a bingo hall in the town that we lived in.
Speaker 2:Love that and the entire time.
Speaker 6:I was just holding the mic, just looking looking at my feet.
Speaker 3:And we had a song that had to do with money and Terri was in there going crazy Terrible song Right, so I kept doing this.
Speaker 6:Like I was holding the mic and I kept doing this. And then I'm looking at my feet the whole time and the one time I do look up some guy in the crowd is like I get just ruined.
Speaker 4:It's like what's this day? What's he doing? I cannot wait to get off this stage.
Speaker 6:And then we had a house party when I first started to make a music. Well, I went to a house party and somebody they were playing music there and I kind of went over to the ox and I plucked my phone names. I just recorded the song for the first time and I just put it on and kind of went to the back and somebody's like yo, turn this shit off. What the fuck? This shit sucks.
Speaker 6:I'm in the back like, yeah, this is not a good. Someone needs to turn this off. It was not a great experience.
Speaker 1:That'll humble you real quick, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Did you stay at the party?
Speaker 6:Huh, no, I said my shit not went home I was like yeah, this song is bad.
Speaker 3:Still a bottle on the way out Broke their front window.
Speaker 1:Smash the mailbox, spray the mailbox over, call the cop. Call the cop Say yeah, you got your own. Another drink of coffee over here.
Speaker 6:There's no music anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that could go either way. What about you, though? I was 14. Yeah, I was the same person I was telling you, my baby brother's dad, yeah, he had a show he was hosting at a, I think it was a. It was here, I just don't remember where it was. It was a long time ago, but I was 14 and it was an actual bar, and I remember going up there and going crazy. I rehearsed for like weeks and we killed it. We snapped, everybody was tripping, losing their mind. Who are these fucking?
Speaker 1:kids that are in this bar I've never heard of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know I'm a 14 year old. So like there's these, like you know, these bad ass bitches up here to the left like grown. They're grown, clearly, you know, but in my mind I'm 14.
Speaker 4:So I'm like I like me or something.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:So they're like hey come here, come talk to me. So when I got off the stage I like I couldn't hear him because I was wild nervous, because they're all grown. I'm like hell, no, I'm like hold it down on me. I'm like I can't hear him or shit like this, and they're like come here. Oh sorry, I got to go, yeah, yeah. And they walk by just telling me like you're fucking awesome, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that you know that's cool that's, a big that's a big.
Speaker 6:What were you wearing on stage?
Speaker 3:that day I was wearing a blue and white pinstripe. You're thinking about something different.
Speaker 6:Oh, I am, I am. That was a talent show. That was a talent show.
Speaker 3:He's. I was wearing a Kevin Garnett jersey for a talent show I had. So y'all know, the rules are number one, right now my boat, yeah, yeah, around that same time.
Speaker 5:Yeah, did you always go by ominous the monster? No, you still go by cartoon.
Speaker 3:It's cringey, yeah, just cartoon. K-a-r-t-u-n-e.
Speaker 1:Oh that's.
Speaker 5:Dean Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think about it?
Speaker 6:Carloff cartoon it kind of all, has a ring to it and they do bang in the car, so they're cartoons.
Speaker 3:Wow, we love that, don't we Wow?
Speaker 5:Beyond is something that we might not. When did you change to ominous grade?
Speaker 3:9th grade I was like this shit is weak. Did it just hit and right, it just wasn't fitting me, so just the two names.
Speaker 5:How did you come up with the name?
Speaker 3:It's the monster. I was going to Roosevelt High School. You know Roseville is yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:I was going to and that's a weird question to ask Minnesota, but I have actually asked other people in Minnesota like I don't know. That's actually crazy. I can't imagine a world where someone in Minnesota doesn't know where Roseville is.
Speaker 3:So you know Como Park High School and they're like no.
Speaker 5:Oh dude, they must have been in the states. It was at Waterways yesterday, I don't know who it was.
Speaker 3:It was one of the mother dudes, I think they were recording this.
Speaker 5:Must have been like Southern Minnesota. I just felt like maybe I was wrong about the name Did. I say wrong Must have been Jed.
Speaker 1:He's from Iowa.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, could have been.
Speaker 4:Yeah so anyways.
Speaker 5:So Roseville comes around and someone's just like yo, you changed that cartoon shit. Yeah, we went through the. Yeah, we went through the.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were looking through the dictionary, he said ominous. You read the description and I used to always wear a hoodie. I was a very angry kid. I was a very, very angry kid.
Speaker 4:I just fought.
Speaker 3:I was the fine. I didn't give it. I was like a very angry person. I always had a hood up. I was not friendly. I wasn't flirting with chicks, I wasn't trying to make friends. I was angry all the time. And doers like this is you. When he found out the description he's like this is of ominous, yeah, ominous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is fire.
Speaker 3:So I, you know, I changed it to ominous and I stayed with that for a little while. Then I used to freestyle a lot so people used to be like, oh, he's a monster, he's a monster. That was like the main thing that would say, like dudes are monster on the mic and I was like that shit hits ominous the monster and I just kind of ran with it and that developed into me being the modern day Frankenstein, yeah.
Speaker 2:Modern day Prometheus yeah.
Speaker 3:What the world has made me. That's why I'm a monster.
Speaker 1:I am on the monster of the world it made me a piece of love, but people look at me as if I'm like you know that's a big thing. You do have face tattoos. Also do you think, yeah, like you got. You got jewelry in your teeth, you got jewelry on your neck, face tattoos. Do you think that, like the approachability is like someone on the street just sees you?
Speaker 5:You're like oh, I was nervous, nice guy. When I first met him I was like damn no Bigger than I thought.
Speaker 3:He's like I killed me. Yo, I thought to every day.
Speaker 4:He was like yeah, he was like can.
Speaker 5:I give you a hug. I know I got out the car. I looked him like Because we actually let your tattooed
Speaker 4:up yeah.
Speaker 6:We actually met Jake on Call of Duty.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's how it was During COVID we were dropping in Moore's you always get on the game with his brother and his brother's.
Speaker 6:A is a cool. My homie gets on with us. I'm like, yeah, not for sure we can run, and then just from that turned into this yeah, dude some of the closest bonds are formed on Call of Duty Warzone.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, weirdest thing, we put our tears, sweat heart into them. No, there's been a lot of arguments.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your service, compliment. Thank you for your service, yeah yeah, fuck yeah. So ominous the monster. Yep you ever, would you ever consider changing it to something that's shorter? You're running with this forever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like it because now my fan base is like adopted like this mentality, like we're all monsters, we're all like these lost souls, these people that are perceived in the wrong way when really we're not like that but that's just how the world made us are a lot of people that are broken or damaged or feel like they have nobody. So then what are they outcast?
Speaker 1:right. It sort of defines the community also exactly.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so I have to run with it at this point.
Speaker 1:I did. I get that. I get that um. How many shows do you do usually like um. Do you try to do them pretty frequent.
Speaker 3:No, I try to do like a city a year or like a like. Like a city a year, like. So I'll maybe do like One a month or two a month, but I won't do the same city twice usually. Oh okay, I live in San Antonio but like so to see. But we won't do a show More than twice if you do it.
Speaker 6:If you do it so frequently, they're gonna like not, I can just catch them next week, there's no reason for do yeah, that's for anybody.
Speaker 5:Do you think it will increase in terms of how many shows you're doing in cities, in terms of performance, in a year now, with the virality growing, if I pronounce that word right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been going up like inquiries and everything have been going up. I think, yeah, I think it'll grow as I grow.
Speaker 1:Do you have like a management, or do you an agent? Nah, we're doing everything yourself, yeah, everything myself.
Speaker 3:As far as social media is go, my homegirl Megan is um. Shout out, megan, she uh the style Megan. No but yeah, she uh.
Speaker 6:I got to ask yeah, machine gun Meg.
Speaker 3:She tells me everything about like Social media. She reads up a lot on tiktok Instagram things that other people are doing. That might help me.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:So like or if I'm commented and I'm wild and out like it and my feelings about a compliment or someone trolling me, she'll tell me like or if I want to over explain myself, she'll be like yeah, she just kind of like a social media manager, in a sense you know, other than that it's just Homies how do you navigate the DMs, like if someone says, hey, I want, I want to, I want you to come do a show for me.
Speaker 1:Let's say they live in San Antonio. Yeah, I'm having a bunch of people over, it's my buddy's birthday. Yeah, we're all huge fans. Years, I wanted you to come sing him happy birthday.
Speaker 3:That's check, look like yeah, yeah, I'll just tell him like cool, here's my price. If they want to feature, I'll tell them my price and if that works for them they can do a down payment, pay it off, whatever. But if it's something like you're saying like book me for something like that. I have an email that's actually ran by Megan as well.
Speaker 1:That um damn so she kind of is a little bit of the kind of right yeah, yeah she handles that.
Speaker 3:Um, or I'll handle it, either, or but she'll, you know, we'll just carry the conversation over there and come on. You know, come to like a happy medium or whatever interesting.
Speaker 1:Do you now that you're like starting to make money off of it, whether it be from booking or from social media or from features or whatever the case? Do you have like um, do you have like a? You start like an LLC or like a business that you're?
Speaker 3:running everything through.
Speaker 1:I need to, but not. Okay, I was just wondering. You know, I didn't want to set you up to admit that you were doing tax evasion or anything but. But I was just curious Was that was that tough to navigate? Because, like, there's not a lot of people out there that are willing to Walk you through how that works, as far as what. Like well, especially in the music industry, like a lot of people just don't tell you like hey, if you're making money, you got to set up a business.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, and it has to be ran this way, yeah, yeah it's kind of like trial and error. Yeah, it's basically we do.
Speaker 1:We do have the benefit now of, like, having YouTube. We can literally just Google, like how to start a business and just follow it step by step, go legal, zoom, comm. They'll run the whole thing for you, whatever. Um, yeah, so you know, when it comes to being an artist that is getting features, getting books for shows, 22.2 K monthly listeners on Spotify what kind of and I've heard that it's not a lot, but what kind of money do you make on streaming platforms like Spotify?
Speaker 6:Well, spotify said it what a tenth of a cent per stream.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, okay, last month's check I made $1,500 and that was with roughly 150,000 streams included my Apple, my YouTube damn okay. We got think. A lot of songs doing as Minimum of a thousand a day.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so collectively they all go to one distribution center.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm from.
Speaker 6:Apple to Spotify to. Amazon.
Speaker 1:They all go to the same Are you use like a distribution platform like DistroKid or I use this okay.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I got no they handle. They handle everything, like all the all, the Monetization from these platforms get sent to them and then they send it to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think he used it to. He does as well, yeah that's really nice.
Speaker 1:That's super handy because, like, we don't have like a distribution platform for any of our social media, so, like YouTube, snapchat, instagram, facebook Are all separate. Then they're all separate monetization too. So I mean, it's all, it's all automatic. Now there's no checks in the mail anymore, but you know, it's one paperless different payments coming in and what are all different days?
Speaker 3:you guys just individually. I guess you don't have a. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:I don't have a distribution platform.
Speaker 1:I post everything individually on each platform and treat it like it's its own thing, like Try not to have like one specific platform, and I try to make videos in a way that I can post it across everything.
Speaker 1:So, like that's mark, for example, you can only post like a minute 30 for reels on Instagram reels and Facebook reels, but you can only do a minute on YouTube shorts, but you can do up to three minutes on Tik Tok. Yeah, and so I'll do like a, and also on Tik Tok you can only monetize if it's over a minute. So what I'll try to do is like I'll try to get it to that like minute 20, but at that minute mark I'll try to make it so like the video almost can end right there too, so that when I post that video on YouTube it's the same video that's posted on Tik Tok, youtube, instagram, facebook. So it's a little bit less work for me, but a little bit more work to think about it from that standpoint, you know but again, as long as you're over that 60-second mark on Tik Tok, you can monetize it.
Speaker 1:I mean to be honest with you. We haven't had very many videos go get any traction that are over 60 seconds. Anyways, on Tik Tok it's hard worth a shot.
Speaker 5:Just takes that one video to hit it yeah a lot of people are just gonna go back and right short, short attention spans hundred percent 80, 80.
Speaker 3:Yes, tough, so the storyline has to be really good to like keep people's attention Really climatic for music, like you have to like you get paid more depending on how much of the song they listen to. Mm-hmm, I don't know if it's the same thing for. Youtube is the same, is it? Yeah, they see it all the way through. You're gonna get the most right when watching.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can 10 second, 10 second. It's like it's an account of the view which is wild for the streaming platform, because you know the reason why YouTube does it that way is like they can serve more ads to people that are watching and then they make more money. So that's how you can make more money, because that dollar amount gets passed down. Yeah, I mean, as far as Spotify is concerned, what's the difference, fellas, do it for a minute or three minutes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I wonder how that's tracked. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And it's just and that's the thing they don't really. They don't release those numbers, right? Yeah, they don't release how they're collecting this data, and same with, like video streaming platforms like Netflix, hulu, they don't release their analytics. So it's a little bit, a little bit ominous, if you will.
Speaker 2:Not in the good way. That's a good point, though.
Speaker 1:So you know it's a little bit of a game. So you know, I think a lot of it's just speculation and some, at the end of the day, no one really knows unless you're in on the secrets. So you know, whatever works for you, just keep doing. That is what.
Speaker 3:I think is the best method.
Speaker 1:So I think you're on the right track, obviously.
Speaker 3:Once you get successful enough, you don't really care about the small details anymore. Hundred percent, you know, chilling at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean honestly, at the end of the day, just to be able to say that you're making any money off of your passion, that's a that's a really prideful thing to be able to Be able to do. Especially a creative industry like this that's completely saturated, like that's a really unique thing. You know, and I mean obviously at the moment it's not millions, but there's nothing saying that it couldn't be or won't be, and I think that's really cool. So you know, I want to, I want to give you your flowers on that.
Speaker 1:It's, it's really cool to see someone flourishing in an area like that, so I really respect that.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, hell, yeah, that's the first time I ever talked about how much I make. I like that.
Speaker 4:Hey, people, people like a little peek behind the curtain.
Speaker 1:People like a little peek behind the curtain, you know times are changing. It's um, there's something to be said about someone who's willing to let the guard down and just be straight up like, hey, this is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm making you know honestly and it's kind of motivating that gets for others.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right there, let's get it. Boom yeah, when I went viral, these two dudes went crazy Like daily boom, boom, boom, boom boom.
Speaker 1:It's that, it's that this many views, is that that's not like dropping?
Speaker 3:dropping, dropping, dropping.
Speaker 1:Oh themselves.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, I was like what do you see somebody in your circle?
Speaker 6:Yeah, no feet like that. There's one of two responses yeah, I don't like that, which means you shouldn't be in that circle in the first place yeah and then there's okay, well, i'ma get it too. I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. Or there's a third one. He's got me.
Speaker 1:I'm just chill oh yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:You don't want to be. You don't want to be that. To that point, your your career, where you've gotten successful, and you know that you've gotten successful writing someone else's coattails. Mmm, they can open the door for you but then it's up to you as an individual artist to be like okay, Thank you for opening the door. Now I'm gonna make this work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm gonna, yeah, I can give you a million or I can teach you how to make a million, right, right.
Speaker 6:That's a great point. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it.
Speaker 5:I was gonna say that your bills.
Speaker 1:Well, boys what do you think we refill our drinks and?
Speaker 3:take a little bathroom break down for that cool.
Speaker 6:It's time for a bathroom break. The boys will be right back.
Speaker 2:All right go ahead, go ahead, bring some shit boy Tony did Welcome back to on tap with the boys Damn.
Speaker 1:Tony, you got really tan over break. So what brings you to Minnesota?
Speaker 2:Can't do with the guys. Man, I gotta show Wednesday tomorrow Came down, I came down like two years ago. They showed so much love. Yeah, it's like another family down here. So we always got a pop-up at every time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you think of the weather?
Speaker 2:It's actually super warm right now, but last week saying we're walking around and like shorts and t-shirts, now Shaken come to the studio with flip-flops, no socks I was looking at.
Speaker 1:Flip-flops, no socks. I think it'd be crazier if you showed up flip-flops and socks. You do you have something against the socks and sandals. I'm a texture guy. Okay, you know I maybe got a little bit of the tism in me.
Speaker 3:That's okay because like the second that that maybe it's only for thong flip-flops, I guess.
Speaker 1:But the second that that that fabric gets in between that thing, in between my toes. Kind of like gives me a little bit of heave-y-jeebies slides. I think that's fine, with socks, you know that's almost more comfortable.
Speaker 2:It is like samurai.
Speaker 5:You'll never catch me in thong sandals.
Speaker 1:I hate you if you ever do clown me the whole day. Here's deal. I'm not opposed to the thong sandals, just not with thong sandals with socks.
Speaker 5:It depends on where you're at like. You're in Cancun, Mexico. Maybe that fits.
Speaker 1:Especially in the sand. If you're anywhere with a beach, no socks. It doesn't matter what kind of sandals you're wearing.
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's a black thing right, but usually we see, like you from the hood, you see, oh he walking around with like the thong sandals. Yeah, like he got money If he all dressed up and he just got thong sandals. We like he got money damn.
Speaker 1:He's the first one getting robbed Sandals on.
Speaker 3:I've never even considered that. Oh yeah, these straight yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm fine ass looking and I'd be rich.
Speaker 3:That's crazy bills, cuz where I grew up here, you know.
Speaker 1:We. We see a guy walk around with thong sandals and he's dressed really well up above the thong sandals. We usually think like he's probably got a divorce or he's drunk. You never know, it could be both. Who knows what it was? So what do you think of Minnesota so far? How many times have you been here before?
Speaker 2:It's my second time and I really like it. Yeah, everybody are cool. Every time we come it's like we always busy. You know, we always working like it's always fun, a good vibe everybody here always shows good vibe.
Speaker 1:It makes it more fun when you can make it like a working trip too, because there's like a the goal to it, there's a structure to it and we still in the move.
Speaker 2:Last time up. Even this time We'll get up in the morning like nine or eight leave yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Well, and you got to come here. When you came here last time, you came in our summertime, I think.
Speaker 2:Minnesota is one of the best summers.
Speaker 5:I agree, might be by it, but it's not not by it's not too, hot Feel good comfortable temperature right both now you got to come here during our winter too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's wild, cuz we live in a really unique place here. That's like a hundred and forty degrees swings of temperature in the summer it can get like to a hundred hundred three like. Doesn't really get much hotter than that, yeah, but then in the winter we can get all the way down to like negative 40 feels like the swing is crazy. A lot of places just stay kind of similar.
Speaker 5:You know Luxuation, they would close schools for us years ago when, we were in high school because it was too cold outside.
Speaker 2:They used to do that when, I was staying in Kentucky like what was the temperature? Turkey weird it'll be hot one day and then snow the next, literally the next day. And they used to always that's the most out of mid school in Kentucky he was watch the news like oh Boys, we're on the game tonight but I do love Minnesota Downtown though it's just like beautiful, whole different scene.
Speaker 1:It's why I'm talking about a fluctuation, because Minneapolis downtown from day tonight is a quite the transformation of people walking around to.
Speaker 4:Yes, you know.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a whole different world. Someone's you know business attire it's 1 pm. They're walking to their office. My time. You see some shit.
Speaker 4:Fireworks get launched out of Dodge Chargers. I think that's all big cities though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good thing, that's a good point, yeah, but ever since 2020 in particular, minneapolis has really, you know, in that regard, change quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, you know, it keeps everyone on their toes. Keeps everyone on their toes. It's kind of cool, you know. Provide some content for tiktok.
Speaker 3:Yeah, are we talking about George Floyd right now? What's that? Was that I was thinking?
Speaker 1:of more, just, oh, yeah, that was oh, yeah, yeah. I was thinking yeah, so basically in my head the timeline from from 2020 to now. Is a completely different place than pre 2020?
Speaker 5:100% there's like I would saw fucking clip today of before, though like 2020 and now after.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well so I'm in Texas, right, yep. Racism is alive in the south.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3:But I'm from here, so I grew up the first portion of my life. There really is no racism in this, although you know like it's not really a thing you know.
Speaker 5:There's hidden racism.
Speaker 3:Racism right, there's not well, there's not a lot of it anyways. So, like you know, not like the South, you know oh yeah, definitely not.
Speaker 3:So when I went down south it blew my mind that it was like, it was like how it was, and I was like yo, this is, this is, this is crazy, like this is really still a thing, and I think that's also a, you know, was so crazy to me that the George Floyd thing happened in Minnesota, because I used to tell everybody in Texas, like no, minnesota is not like this, trust me, racism ain't even there, like that, I know cutting for the motherland. And then that shit happens. And then I'm sitting here like my bed you guys watch that downfall of Minneapolis.
Speaker 5:No, but I've been meaning to watch it. I've heard it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen it either, but I've really been meaning to watch it. Yeah, so it's a documentary on YouTube about about the whole George Floyd thing, like the body cam footage. The other perspectives you know, the, the politics behind it, you know? Um, it was just proof that it was handled very poorly on all sides, you know.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna have to watch that dude. That's a shitty situation.
Speaker 1:100% yeah yeah, um, you know. On a lighter note, yeah, I think um Walk us through ominous. When you're about to step on stage for a show, do you have like a pre-show Ritual? That you do, I know you're. You're a sober guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people will typically, you know, take a shot to take the nerves off, smoke a joint to take the nerves off, whatever. What does a sober guy do to get ready for a stage performance?
Speaker 3:Nothing we don't do. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I still get butterflies, though every time every time yeah, and I performed you know shit ton. I still get butterflies, but I don't know, I don't. I just go out there, I don't know. I just have this confidence, like I know. I know this is my purpose in life. You know what, whatever you believe in, like whether it's God, the universe, whatever, like I know that this is my purpose, you know. And so when I go out there, I just know I should. I know, if I mess up every single song, the whole crowd is gonna still go crazy for me and with me, right?
Speaker 4:I just have them.
Speaker 3:I know I can do that. You know we can just do whatever. We can literally dance around the whole time and they're like, yeah, right. And I guess once you get to a certain point where you perform so much and you mess up so much and anything that you like, your worst fears and Artists Jake can tell you, and probably Rooch is like, oh what if I mess up my songs?
Speaker 3:I'm sitting there looking like yeah, you know, you just talked about that earlier. You had a freestyle fucking song, you know. But once you get to a point where it's like I don't even phase the outcome, it kind of makes you sloppy too, I guess, because you're like too full of yourself at the same time. You don't, you don't need a ritual or anything do you um?
Speaker 1:Do you like work out to have a better stage presence, like? Do you try to maintain a good, like physical fitness to be able to jump around and and act wild?
Speaker 3:No, I well, I work out to help a party builder. Hmm, it's on body builder. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, so I helps me with my sobriety, I pretty much. So I replaced the negatives with positives, right, so like my caffeine intake went way up because I need some type of stimulant.
Speaker 3:I don't even smoke cigarettes no more, or anything, right, yeah, um, and I work out To relieve stress and help with everything else that it helps with, you know, and on top of that it helps me be strong, you know, and look the way I look and everything.
Speaker 1:Have you ever you ever read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear? No, dude, You'd really like it. Really it's a really good book. So basically just talks about like how you know all your habits determine who you are and you know, just kind of like what you said replacing bad habits with good habits. That's replacing the way that you say things. You know. It's like I'm going to be famous. He's like I am famous, yeah right. Yeah, do you believe in in manifestation?
Speaker 3:like I do.
Speaker 5:Manifested to be where you are right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I think I believe in it without being like a like a firm believer in manifestation. I don't, I don't know, I'm just a kind of person, I don't. I don't really overthink anything too much.
Speaker 4:I guess you know.
Speaker 3:I just kind of just like whatever we're gonna do, we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1:I'm so jealous of that same bro, I feel like I'm the exact opposite when it comes to that. Like when I think about something, I'm gonna think about it a hundred fold and then I just won't stop thinking about it until.
Speaker 3:I'm not sleeping. That's how Tony is too. You know, Tony was like that's. He gets the same way about a lot of things, but he also has a big like fucking mentality. I guess I'm just like that with Mostly everything.
Speaker 1:Tony's also got great hair. So what happened to me? I'm blocked. Yeah, at least gets that.
Speaker 3:He's wearing a wig.
Speaker 1:Alright, that's a really good wig.
Speaker 5:I got a question for you that I asked I'm in Tony. What is your favorite song you've done? Why?
Speaker 1:Are you rapper too?
Speaker 5:Yeah, he's really good my favorite song by him if you, when you have time, to check out his guardian angel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of my most popular minds will be for the record. And it's Cuz I'm just kind of I really spaz, you know, just setting him record straight, you know, yeah every time love that in the point, tony, like this is what I am. This is what I could do as an artist, cuz you know.
Speaker 3:He actually doesn't write any of his lyrics no, I've witnessed it.
Speaker 5:You just go in and just start freestyle everything.
Speaker 1:Damn. Could you pull him up on Spotify?
Speaker 5:I don't have Spotify, but I'll type it out. I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna shoot him a follow on the Spotify.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I got.
Speaker 1:Shit on stage, this one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, go the other one.
Speaker 1:What's the other one? Oh, got it. Yep, I found the other one. Oh yeah, this one Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I like both for me, though, so check out both hold these nuts.
Speaker 4:Like that root you know?
Speaker 5:can you tell us about FAH?
Speaker 2:Okay, so FAH is something I created as a Growing up, as a child. I want to say my freshman year and it's just like I Want to say a brotherhood, but like just a family, you know, all close friends, like Everybody's connected to me and then, like we all like some people not don't know each other a lot, but we all connected.
Speaker 2:You know, we all grew up together, we all stuck together, play sports together and all that. And it stands for a family and honor. No, just, you know everybody FAH, you know y'all FAH, you got a fat. You call each other family. You stand for something as honor, you know. So hell yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm in.
Speaker 2:I'm in.
Speaker 3:I'm not a badass handshake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you think would be some like dream collabs that I'm gonna let you tell you want to put into into fruition here?
Speaker 3:That like what I want to happen.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, okay Okay. Man that is money's not an object question Are they a library that? Let's say alive.
Speaker 3:Let's do a live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do a live, because we want to make it real.
Speaker 3:So I love Daft Punk, but they're no longer a band.
Speaker 1:But I love, I love that Interesting. I did not expect you to say that.
Speaker 3:I love Daft Punk more than like an. Anybody that knows me, knows me can vouch I love Daft Punk. That's actually crazy, crazy, crazy, fucking me and Tony listen to around the world on repeat for like a whole two hour. Car drivers around the world.
Speaker 5:Guys are going around the world.
Speaker 3:Oh God, we were so like that, or or maybe, like Stevie Nicks, would also be dope. But if I'm going to go more into rap, um, that's why I guess I feel like I can.
Speaker 1:Stevie Nicks, I would have never guessed that.
Speaker 3:I listen all types of shit. I actually don't listen to rap the most. I listen up like 90s aren't be a lot, damn Okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, job rule, or what?
Speaker 3:Yeah, not too much job rule, but some 50 cent. Oh yeah, 50 is the man. Oh, that's why you don't like job rule.
Speaker 1:He's your big 50. Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, he does have some good songs, though I mean yeah, here's a cold bang Keep it real here. I'm sorry. Sorry, I know you're watching this, but definitely watching more of a 50 cent guy for sure 100%.
Speaker 1:Personally grew up watching Get Rich or Die Try. I watched that I had that album framed in my bathroom as kid. That is so fucking good.
Speaker 3:Top five rap album of all time.
Speaker 1:I would agree. You know it's funny. You say Daft Punk Stevie Nicks. I would have assumed that there was like a Yellow Wolf Caskey. That's crazy Type of mix.
Speaker 3:I love Yellow Wolf. I when I growing up like Yellow Wolf was probably like my top five Dude same, Same, Uh trunk music.
Speaker 1:I grew up listening to trunk music. When I was skateboarding and don't make me go pop the trunk on you. And now it's really cool to see him getting a lot of traction and like he's really doing big numbers, yeah, big numbers.
Speaker 1:Actually, a good friend of mine, who he's a tattoo artist, did this tattoo on me. He was I don't know how he was involved with Yellow Wolf and all this American guys, but he had a little bit. He had a TV show for a short period of time so, like on, like episode four, my buddy proposed to his now wife on the TV show.
Speaker 5:So it's in the show. Shout out Trent. Shout out the Trent Backwoods tattoo the boy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's badass, yeah, so Yellow.
Speaker 1:Wolf, I could see you and Yellow Wolf like your brands, I feel like our. That'd be crazy, really.
Speaker 5:a good fit. I thought you were going to say Kanye.
Speaker 3:Really he is a Kanye stand, he's probably like my top three favorite, like hip hop. I'm going to break down the debate now. Have you ever seen?
Speaker 5:the pictures of Kanye wearing those big ass boots.
Speaker 2:Yes, a croc boots. He thinks they're so fire.
Speaker 5:All of us are like no bro, nobody would ever wear these damn boots.
Speaker 3:I'm all about fashion, bro, like, like, like, I ain't gonna lie. Money wasn't an issue, I'd be stupid drippy. I would have the craziest fashion you know, but look what I'm wearing right now.
Speaker 4:What did Jordan say? My brother?
Speaker 3:said, I look like one of the cheerleaders off the longest yards, that's crazy the.
Speaker 1:Balenciaga croc boots.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, those are gas like these big ones.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, no, no no those are the. Balenciaga ones.
Speaker 3:No, those are mischief.
Speaker 5:These ones.
Speaker 3:No, the black ones. Yeah, the black ones. Who's we clicked on?
Speaker 5:the yellow ones 950 bucks. They go to your guess Do like them.
Speaker 3:Spongebob boots. They do look like this.
Speaker 1:SpongeBob Pop that up on the screen, so I'm gonna fold on the yeah, kanye does it.
Speaker 3:I'm with it. Kanye is top three.
Speaker 5:I think, kanye changed it without Kanye music, especially rap, would not be and fashion yeah, and fashion yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what do you think of the recent Kanye, though, the anti semitism you're hating. I spoke too soon.
Speaker 3:Wait till the question come out.
Speaker 4:Yes, love it hate him.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I'm sticky.
Speaker 4:So you gotta try everybody yeah every.
Speaker 3:I just think you're obviously accepting of everyone.
Speaker 1:I'm just like.
Speaker 3:I mean just just from looking at you, I can tell you no problem with Jews. No, no, of course not, or anybody. I mean, I just think everybody should just do what they want to do, be who you want to be. I do think. I do think media, whatever controls media, can make you look better or worse. Not saying that's what happened to him, I'm just saying that is the case with anybody controlling media. Like he's saying. I mean what he's saying.
Speaker 1:I don't know. He obviously knows a lot more things than we. Yeah, I don't personally know something weird going on.
Speaker 3:I don't even know about them boots till he came out with them. So you know he knows things. I don't know, but uh, yeah.
Speaker 5:I don't know, he's tapped in.
Speaker 3:He's tapped in.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:I'll be there soon, yes, you will you got them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't wait to see in those boots.
Speaker 3:They're ridiculous, but they're almost a statement. Next time you see me, I'll have the boots on Hell, I'll come up with boots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll do the whole episode with just your feet on the table.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, we can't even see your face. You know, if I'm like big enough by then, I might bring us all a pair of boots we got to wear, we gotta wear to bring you down. I promise.
Speaker 4:We'll keep them right here.
Speaker 5:No, for real, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the backdrop, yeah spotlight coming down from the top.
Speaker 5:We'll figure out Alright which song coming, so let's run the question back to you.
Speaker 2:Your dream collab yeah, live only live only gates, one of my top.
Speaker 3:Kevin Gates.
Speaker 5:Kevin Gates. People used to tell me you sound like Kevin Gates.
Speaker 3:I think it's just the boys.
Speaker 2:No papa.
Speaker 5:Papa's fire, something I've heard a little Papa he's got a I feel like I've heard a song of his and my next one would be I think is Mike Yo yo okay.
Speaker 2:Next one will be say I'm gonna give a female, mary J blast. Okay, that's a fire answer.
Speaker 3:Okay, you and Mary J will go crazy. I thought you're gonna say 51 E June or something. I thought, you were gonna say that D baby, d, baby D. Yeah, yeah, what do you?
Speaker 1:guys, what do you guys think of this? This new like Texas wave rappers coming up right now killing it. I love this I love this southern sound coming back, it's almost like yeah, Mexican OT obviously the first one that comes to my mind, but then also like even Paul wall.
Speaker 5:I'm so happy. You said that I'm so happy.
Speaker 1:I grew up listening to. You know Mike Jones, paul wall who like Jones? Yeah, they're doing, they're doing a tour this year.
Speaker 5:Won't me now.
Speaker 3:I'm hot, they all know everybody called it number two.
Speaker 5:Yeah, bro 618 something 281 3, 3 yo. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, dude, I had that song or that album on CD American Dream on CD and I used to put it in my dad's like boombox in our garage and I used to practice a all in on a skateboard in my garage to that back then they didn't want me. Now, yeah, there was a the like track 15, like the one of the last songs was called grandma and it was. I don't know if you remember it was like oh, grandma.
Speaker 5:I feel like I do.
Speaker 1:I miss you, you know I want to kiss you.
Speaker 5:Oh, anyways.
Speaker 1:Um it was like a tribute to Mike Jones. Grandma and I remember I was. I was out skateboarding in the garage of my grandma and grandpa came over for dinner and I remember being like grandma you got to come listen to this song and she's, like you know, mortified very, very middle class white lady you know at this point probably didn't even hadn't heard rap music ever. So she steps out in the garage and I'm just like what do you think of this?
Speaker 4:I'm just I'm high as fuck and she's just like it's good.
Speaker 3:Yes, he's like what Dinner?
Speaker 1:Hell is this.
Speaker 5:Dinner is ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, yeah it didn't hit the crowd wasn't real receptive for dinner. Yeah, it didn't hit, didn't hit. Yeah, um, you know I'm not into music, but I would say for me, I shouldn't say I'm not, I'm really into music, I love music. I don't make music, but a dream collab for me.
Speaker 2:If I.
Speaker 1:I'm not opposed if, if, if I were to make music dream collab for me. Number one I'm gonna put a casky fire fucking love casky love casky. Um, let me see who else. Who else do I bump? I really like Russ, but I feel like he gets a really bad reputation of being like a great musician, but that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 5:He's a great musician, I think, but I don't know. The media maybe just portraying that way. No, he's always. I just don't like bars.
Speaker 1:If you really listen to what he's like or what's what like, what makes him?
Speaker 3:cringy. He just well, I don't know, he just this is one of those kind of artists were like they're always preaching and like do it like me. If you do it any other way, you ain't shit. Or like you know, like you ain't shit, gatekeeping kind of. But he also, like, will tell you like I did it, like this, that and the third. But he'll miss Like, yeah, you're independent now, bro, but you did have a. Well, he is signed to Columbia.
Speaker 1:So I'm saying but like, I mean, he's not that independent right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, isn't that he preaches independent?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I was just reading I've literally just read his Spotify bio yesterday, and when I don't know if it was do it myself or one, one big big song when that came out, that was his first song with Columbia, and so I was thinking in my head I'm like damn, this is doesn't seem like very independent.
Speaker 5:Damn, he switched up, dammit.
Speaker 3:That's what we'll chance the rappers another one.
Speaker 5:Logic completely.
Speaker 3:Logic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was completely.
Speaker 3:It's almost like they're telling you do Kalani, do it independently. So it's like less competition. I don't know what the hell they're doing. I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's it was like it was really popular to have that perception of like I'm, I'm Self-made, yeah, I don't have any help when, like, in reality, you realize that, like the way to really get bumping on Spotify and be put on all these charts, yeah, it's to have that record label money that they're putting up, that they're just being Spotify to put on these playlists connections.
Speaker 1:You know, and I never really thought that was a thing until, like, seeing these interviews with a lot of these bigger artists on Spotify who actually are independent and have been in a position where they've had that marketing money behind them, yeah, and then they're just straight up saying like hey, they're just paying to be on these playlists.
Speaker 3:Well, that's what it is. I love independent.
Speaker 1:That's a good question. I think he's got his own label. Let me look it up, yeah that is a good question.
Speaker 5:I forgot.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I think he has his own, yet Slamerican is his record label.
Speaker 1:That's it, he's nothing else.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, so Eminem before that.
Speaker 1:So his music has been released on record labels Interscope, shady records and DGC records, including independent record label ghetto, vision and Slamerican, which has released some of his independent material. So he's an American independent record label specializing in hip-hop music, so found it in 2012 by yellow wolf.
Speaker 3:It looks to be that he's under Slamerican, yeah so I mean he's independent now, but he also doesn't walk around saying what could record do you?
Speaker 5:know, yeah right.
Speaker 3:He's what he could to get to where he's at, and I does his own thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like, like the artist that is in the pin, it's really good, like you can tell, like today, like hit that platform yet, yeah, like it's a big artist. So, for instance, south Walker, he's well known by a lot of people, even in other states, but he's still not in the south.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's big as everybody like. A lot of people say, oh, he's underrated, he's just cuz he really independent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, stuff like that, yeah, there's something we said about being independent too, because, like being independent, you don't have that budget for the money, so you don't. Most of the time, they don't have a team about them, you know. So they're. They're not only the musician, but they're their own accountant, they're their own booking agent, they're their own manager, they're their own social media strategist. Yeah, you know, there's so many different hats that you got to wear and the the hardest part and this is kind of the same thing as like youtubers now too, it's like the whole business model is based on one person, and if that one person doesn't produce, so you get a couple of bad months of streams, or or the calls just aren't coming in. The rest of the team feels that, and how do you just start laying off, like some of your closest friends and family, because that's typically, yeah, the people who are in these positions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So it's like a. It's a weird game and you got to think how many people Were just like destined for stardom and had real raw talent but couldn't make it to that level because of something like that. Where they're like they hired their buddy to be their manager, but their buddy fucked them over and now they don't ever want to do it, or vice versa. They hired their buddy and it was just a little bit too early. They tried growing too fast yeah all of a sudden there's no money coming in.
Speaker 1:And now both of them have to go get a different job.
Speaker 3:One's doing too much work Most of work with the other ones, barely doing anything with their split 50-50.
Speaker 4:that creates division yeah yeah, I'm really big against.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how do you? How do you navigate that you like? What's your plan as you're rising up so?
Speaker 3:Everybody kind of has a role and everybody understands that. As far as, like Tony and Roach, if if I'm either gonna do by myself and neither of them are gonna be involved, or we're gonna figure out a way where they both can be involved, I don't ever want it to be like my decision to say him or him because that creates a division, even though they say they don't care or anything like that. You know, it's just best to just if it's all or nothing, type, you know, mm-hmm. So that's, that's a mentality.
Speaker 1:I'll keep that real what it's like a piece of advice so you could give someone who is Starting out in the industry right now.
Speaker 3:Oh, I would say just probably, stay original. Just just stay like original. Like, be true to yourself. Do not listen to anybody's advice unless they're where you want to be in life. Too many people have advice and they fucking hate their own life but like everybody in their mom will tell you like, do this and that. Then you look at how they live in here. Just like I want to be like you, so I'm gonna give you know it's. I would just say you know, stay consistent, try to stay original. You know Creative, be coachable. A lot of artists aren't coachable. I think they know what are. They got it all. Be, especially rappers and hip-hop artists. We have the most biggest egos.
Speaker 3:Yeah and like, but we have the littlest pockets, you know like we want everything on a discount, but we also know we're talking about, don't you know? And yeah, yeah, I guess that's that's what I would do. Just stay consistent, stay true to yourself and be coachable and Just keep going. Hell yeah.
Speaker 5:I think that's great advice. That's fucking fire. I'm gonna start rapping tomorrow.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I should give you more in depth, but yeah, that's, that's what I would say.
Speaker 5:That's real, bro, that's real.
Speaker 3:Hell yeah well how about you?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Basically the same thing. Bro said I feel like you got to be Coachable. Uh cuz. It is a lot of cocky people that feel like can't nobody tell them that Every great leader had a teacher. Yeah, yeah exactly be a student. Yeah, just stay original. Stay original and keep. You want great people around you to you know, to keep the relationship going you need a relationship. In this career Can't nobody do it all by themselves. You got to have some type of relationship with somebody to keep moving.
Speaker 3:That's true networking, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Network is your net net worth. That's the way I look at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah you. It's all about who you know what, not what you know. Right, that's what they always say. That really is true.
Speaker 5:I think another thing too is um, if you're gonna be an artist for example, rapper, song, musician of any sort be able to take constructive criticism, say, like it ties in with ego. A lot of Individuals that are musicians will somebody will give them criticism like hey, I don't think you hit that good enough because I was there before when I first started. Yeah, I think you can do better and they'll take it the wrong way and then, out of nowhere. They're like all right, well, fuck this next song now I'm done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think to be able to take that. Yeah, people have to realize that music is not all music's made for everybody. You know, there's a lot of music that's not for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:But then, you find your crop. It's like another thing is you got to know your demographic right. Once certain people start gravitating to your music, then you kind of know, like for me, I know like a lot of addicts and people like with trauma and like depression and stuff like that, those kind of people are the ones that gravitate to my music the most, just because and I know that so I'm gonna always push it kind Of more towards that direction. Actually, that's what it's gonna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one thing that I heard, too, was like if you're making something for everyone, you're actually making something for no one. Yeah, it's like by making it to broad and trying to appeal to too many people. It doesn't appeal to anyone because it's too broad. Yeah, like not getting specific. You don't have that same like resignation, like with someone on the material.
Speaker 2:You know you gotta think too. Most of the like big artists they start off by building. That little fair base is just some of the strongest fair base like yeah. J Cole, kenji Lamar is like these are people that feel like they grew with them, so that's yeah, I'm gonna fair base.
Speaker 3:MGK is a huge one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, young boys, people like that, yolo Wolf.
Speaker 5:Yeah all right, people at XXX, yeah, yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:A lot of people with these cult followings that, if played right, can really use that as a launchy platform. Yeah, you're, you're your best marketing.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously social media is Very powerful and you have the ability to reach a lot of people in a short period of time. But those Core 100 fans are gonna be the best marketers for the music. Because, yeah, don't? I mean you can't tell me that some music that your buddy just showed you when you're just like hanging out one day, doesn't just hit a little bit different when it's like a recommendation from them versus a recommendation from an algorithm, you know yeah, yeah on that to.
Speaker 2:I give advice to fans Don't let like so. When I first started off, your family and friends, you know they'll be like oh, you know they checked out your music, but really have it. Push your music out to people that don't know you. You know when they don't know you. They gonna look at you more like a superstar if they actually enjoy your music.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Let they get you down, push it out to exactly.
Speaker 3:They say like you, you'll be bigger in other places in your hometown your hometowns last to come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what they say, because they have a different perspective of you too, right yeah?
Speaker 3:So like. For someone like me, though, is like I've lived in so many different places growing up that there's no one place that's like, yeah, home, so like everywhere I go there, just like. Treating me as if I am that outsider, uh-huh, kind of also works to my advantage, you know yeah, cuz you're ominous and you're ominous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just gonna say that you got an ominous aura to you.
Speaker 3:You know, they know what it is I get scared heard that I'm gonna listen to him.
Speaker 1:Well, boys, what do you think? We wrap this thing up Roots. You got anything to say to the people?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I got checkers out on all platforms. You know all of them All of hell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where can? Where can they find you? I'll put it in the description of the video here too, but maybe just reaffirm, tell the people you can find me on Instagram, tiktok, snapchat.
Speaker 2:All in this the same thing. Roots world, you know, are you? You CH world?
Speaker 3:Everywhere, yep. And then ominous the monster everywhere, hell yeah, straight up easy. Sounds great. I'm having this sir.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to going to the concert tomorrow. It's gonna be good night, I cannot wait, and it's gonna be dope. I want to say thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. Thanks for coming up from Texas. Thanks for having yeah, this is dope. Appreciate it. Yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 6:Hell yeah. Also, you guys can find me everywhere at Tony Dent 41. That's Instagram, facebook, twitter, x. What the fuck it is nowadays, tiktok. You can find me at Tony Dent MIE. You can find me on porn hub at somebody's baby's daddy. Yeah look me up everywhere, baby.