Legal Mashups: Navigating Music Copyright and Studio Management

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Hello and welcome to another episode of The Unstarving Musician.

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I’m Robonzo.

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This is episode 329.

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How are you?

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Where are you?

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What are you wearing?

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Is the sun shining where you are?

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The sun is shining in Queretaro, where I live, after what feels like weeks of rain, so that’s nice.

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In sad music news, McRalph’s a bad company fame dies at 81.

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May he rest in peace and may his family weather this well.

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I don’t know why, I guess it’s an age thing, but these dying icons, young and old, gets to me.

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Amazon has apparently lost its ability to let long-time users change their password without getting locked out of their account.

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That happened in my household this week.

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AI misinformation is a thing.

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Where is the promise of blockchain verifying truth?

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Huh?

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Where?

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You didn’t know you were going to get some technology rant today, did you?

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Today I’m speaking with George Ajjan, also known as The Agency.

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George has a fascinating dual career.

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He’s a contemporary musician, original artist, and international political consultant.

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Though our conversation focuses entirely on his music career.

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I thought that was worth mentioning.

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What makes George’s story particularly valuable for independent artists is his systematic approach to navigating some of the most challenging aspects of being an indie musician.

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He’s developed a practical framework for legally distributing mashup covers, managing efficient studio sessions, and maintaining long-term creative scheduling while balancing real-life responsibilities that other part of his career.

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Whether you are struggling with the legal complexities of derivative works, trying to maximize your studio budget, or looking for sustainable ways to stay consistent with your music career, George’s insights offer actionable solutions that you can implement right away.

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So please enjoy this conversation with me and George Ajjan, aka The Agency.

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Are you originally from New Jersey?

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Yes, yes.

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Cool.

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What was it like growing up there?

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Basically, where I grew up is the Sopranos.

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Like the set of the Sopranos is where I grew up.

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Really?

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So that’s my childhood.

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So yeah, I mean, it was middle class New York suburbs, basically.

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People like me had learning, taking piano lessons was an aspirational middle class thing to do.

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So I mean, I had good music education and that kind of stuck with me and bring me into what I’m doing now as a passion project.

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You’re multi instrumentalist, aren’t you?

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If you count badly playing numerous instruments, yes, I can call myself the instrumentalist.

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But I mean, listen, I can write music on a couple of different instruments, but I wouldn’t play them on any of the tracks that I’m releasing to people.

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Okay.

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What’s your primary instrument?

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Probably I would say my primary instrument is the piano just because I learned that first and I feel technically a bit more competent on it.

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But I mean, these days, just because I travel a lot, a guitar is more readily available to me.

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Sure.

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It’s easy to tune up, whereas a piano that’s anywhere might be really, really out of tune and not very useful.

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But I write on both instruments probably equally.

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That’s cool.

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I can see that.

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It’s fun to pass when you come up with an idea for a riff, or a song, or a chorus, or a progression, or whatever, to pass it back and forth between the instruments, see how it evolves differently.

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When you bring it to the guitar, or you take it to the piano, or whatever, you might change the bass notes a little bit, or each instrument has its own thing.

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Depending on what key you’re in, if you’re in certain keys on the guitar, you can do more interesting things to the open strings, and then you bring those voicings back to the piano, and you end up going in a different direction.

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So I enjoy that, actually.

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That’s pretty cool.

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So we dove right into your non-music professional life.

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How do you balance all that with doing the music thing?

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Well, look, I think that’s the main thing I would like to share with people, is that if you’re coming at this later in life, and you want to do something creative, whether it’s music or writing a book, or being a playwright, or being an artist, or whatever it happens to be, you’re only one person, and you have 24 hours in a day, and you got to sleep for a few hours, and you probably have other family or personal responsibilities.

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So, you know, your time is limited, and you also need to learn things, and there’s certain things you need to do.

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I mean, we joke that these days a singer or songwriter has to also be a photographer, a video editor, social media guru, marketing expert, etc., etc.

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And so you’ve got to figure out, what are the things that I need most help on, and what am I going to learn about doing?

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So, like for me, for example, that was, okay, am I going to spend my time learning to play better on the guitar, or am I going to spend my time learning how to mix songs myself, or am I going to spend my time learning how to make TikToks, or am I going to spend my time learning how to do outreach and promotion?

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I mean, there’s a whole bunch of things, and there’s so much information out there to learn, and a lot of it is free as well.

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You shouldn’t be paying to learn anything until you really get to a level where you feel like, I’ve learned so much of this, but I really think I need some expert advice to help me fine-tune what I’ve learned.

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So that’s the trick.

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So for me, it was deciding with the limited time that I have, what am I going to focus on?

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So I figured, okay, I work for a living.

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If I manage to put some money on the side, I can pay musicians and I can go into a studio and do those things properly.

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So I’m not going to bother learning how to do mixing, and I’m not going to spend hours and hours and hours rehearsing, which I should have been doing for the past 20 years, to be able to play the parts to my satisfaction.

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So I will accept I’m going to pay professionals to do those different tasks.

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But when it came to other things, the songwriting, making the charts, being prepared for the session, I think that’s such a huge thing.

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That’s one thing that I feel like I learned well and I’m eager to share with other people in my shoes because it’s so important.

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Because when you decide you’re going to go into studio and work with professionals, and they have very high expectations, their time is very valuable, and they’re charging you for their valuable time.

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And so you’ve got to figure out what am I going to do and how am I going to prepare for these few hours I have in a studio or this day I have in a studio with these people to make the most out of my time and theirs.

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Because a lot of people will go in unprepared, thinking that, oh, it’s going to be just the boys in the band, and it’s just going to be this magical experience, and it’s not a magical experience.

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They’ve done this day in, day out for decades, and I’m sure they like your material, they may even love your material, but in the end, it’s what direction do you give them to enable them to do the best job creating parts for what you’ve done, which means you’ve got to make really good charts.

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They don’t have to be perfect, the chart will never be perfect, because there will always be the guys will say, well, listen, I think we need to vamp that first four bars another time and they’ll write it on the chart, or listen, I think the bass should change here, or let’s do that measure in two, four, let’s cut two beats out of there.

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That’s fine, they’re professionals, they can make amendments on the fly.

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But what you don’t want to happen is to go in there with a demo that’s not complete and a chart that’s not complete and doesn’t match the demo because you’ll be in a situation where you’re on the clock and then you start sweating because people don’t have direction, you haven’t given them direction, you haven’t told them exactly what you want, and you haven’t given them the tools to help them figure it out.

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And that ends up being a time killer, but also a mood killer.

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Because the last thing you want to happen is to get in there and say, oh, actually, I didn’t really rehearse this vocal, and we’re doing this song in B flat major, but I think we should transpose it down to A flat major so I can hit these higher notes on the runs that I’m trying to do.

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Well, then the bass player and the keyboard player are going to say, but we just spent two hours tracking this in B flat.

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I mean, I’m going to go do that again.

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All right, now I got to relearn the part that I just did, and the fingerings are going to be different.

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I mean, just those, I’m giving detailed examples, but those things can happen if you’re not ready.

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And the other thing to remember is no matter how ready you think you are, you will never be ready enough because there will always be things that are unanticipated, technical glitches, there will be issues of personality, there will be issues of your personal performance, your preference, the sound not being right, and you’ve got to be open minded enough to work through those things on the fly.

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But really, the best thing you can do is be well prepared.

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Have a demo that is clear about how the song is structured, verse, chorus, pre-chorus, whatever it is, okay?

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And have a chart that matches that demo.

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So if you’re going to make changes to either of those two things, everyone’s reading from the same piece of paper and understands exactly what’s at stake there.

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In the scenarios that you typically build out for your recording, do you have any rehearsal time or is it just you bring the charts and these guys kind of know what they’re doing and you might run through a couple of times?

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That’s a really good question because I come from the world of classic rock.

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That’s the music that I fell in love with.

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That’s my idiom, right?

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So you spend your childhood and your teen years learning every single morsel of information about your favorite bands and how they work together and watching all the documentaries and reading all the books and all the interviews and all of that stuff.

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I still do that.

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I stay up late at night, going watching these old VH1 interviews with my favorite bands and all of that.

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That’s wonderful.

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But it gives you a false sense of how things function today.

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Because when you’re in your late 40s and you hire some studio pros to go into the studio to work on your stuff, you are not a bunch of 20-somethings with long hair that are living in a van that are just the band, and you’re going to work on it together and you’re going to say, all right, George, what do you have?

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Let’s work it out and let’s make this into an amazing track.

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That’s not really how it works.

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The way it works is you go in there like, okay, George, show us the chart.

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We’ve listened to the demo.

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Okay.

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What’s the sound you’re looking for?

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Okay, let’s go and do it.

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We’ll run through it a few times and they start tracking right away.

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Then they say, okay, how was that first one?

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I think it should be a little bit slower.

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I think this or I need to work out a baserift for that section.

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Give me five minutes to just to work that out, and then everybody takes a break for five.

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Okay, we’re ready to go back.

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Let’s track it again.

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And then, look, everything’s digital now, so you’re going to cut and paste from different takes, but that’s how it goes.

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It’s not, you know, we’re going to rehearse for a week and then we’re going to go into the studio.

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Like the rehearsing happens while you’re making the tracks, at least that’s been my experience.

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Even if I wanted to be a different way, the people that I’m working with don’t really function that way.

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I mean, they are people my age who have jobs and families and they want to come to the studio for the day, put in their time and then go home and cook dinner and do whatever, take their kids to football practice or whatever it is.

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Yeah, no, that makes sense.

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And then I think you sort of open up with the…

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You typically deal with studio pros, so they sound like the guys who like know that’s going to happen at the studio that day.

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But I was just kind of curious, and I’m sure you’ve had and you sound like you’ve been playing music for a long time.

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So I’m sure you had those days where you’re doing a lot of rehearsing and any recording you did do was like well rehearsed because that’s just the way you guys worked when you were younger and as a band and all that kind of stuff.

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Yeah.

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I mean, look, my first project was a project of mashup covers, which meant that I had to really meticulously make demos because it’s not just the same A minor, C, F, G progression.

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I took songs that don’t really belong together and that have iconic parts to them and fit them together.

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For example, taking Billie Jean by Michael Jackson and Roundabout by Yes, which are essentially the same chord progression in the verse, and each of the songs has an iconic bass line.

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I mean, you could say probably the most iconic bass line of the 70s and the most iconic bass line of the 80s, and so what I did was laid down the first verse was the bass line of Billie Jean with the vocal melody of Roundabout, and then it’s flip-flopped for the second verse, the bass line of Roundabout and the vocal.

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So the point is, when you’re doing that demo, you need to have a really good demo to go in there with because you’re looking for an iconic part.

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They’re not making up a part.

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They have to exactly nail something that’s iconic.

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So that really took a lot of what I call mad scientist work, because I had to rip the stems, I had to tempo match them, I had to speed them up or speed them down, change the key as necessary to make sure that everything fit on a grid, so that I could make a demo at it.

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So that the guys, when we went to the studio, would know exactly what we were trying to recreate.

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So the mashup work that you mentioned seems like it has some elements that people would be interested in.

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So talk about like the legal side of covers and mashups.

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Yeah, so that’s really another very, very good lesson.

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And again, that’s another thing like, okay, you know, how much time do I want to spend learning about this?

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Or do I just say forget about it?

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So very basic primer on the way copyright law works.

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Oftentimes, people will hear a song on the radio and say, I wonder how much they paid to do a cover of that song.

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Do they have to pay the artist?

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And the answer is technically yes, but in reality, no, because it’s an automatic, what they call mechanical license with any song that’s released.

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You pay a small fee and you have the right to cover the song, which means that the performance, the master of the song belongs to you.

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So whatever revenues are derived from playing the song belong to you.

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And then the publishing royalties go to the person who originally wrote the song.

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That’s a piece of cake.

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Anybody can do that.

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Anybody in the world can do that.

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In the case of a mashup, it’s a little bit different, because even though I’m not sampling, these things were already played.

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What I’m doing is I’m taking two songs together.

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So to use another example from that debut album, when you take Knights in White Satin by the Moody Blues from 1967, and Nothing Else Matters by Metallica from 1990 or 1991, which are essentially the same song, they have the same chord progression, same rhythm, same time signature, same tempo.

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But I put those two songs together.

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So I can’t just go to release it on Spotify and say, oh, well, I think half the song was written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich and the other half was written by Justin Hayward.

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You can’t just do that.

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What I would have to do is I would have to go to a lawyer or what they call clearing agent and they would have to reach out to the copyright holders on my behalf to say, hey, this guy called the agency has a mashup cover.

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He wants to combine your song with James Hetfield.

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He wants to combine Nothing Else Matters with Nothing Nights in White Saddle.

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James Hetfield might say, absolutely not.

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That’s a terrible idea.

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I don’t want that to happen.

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In which case, you’re dead.

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You can’t do anything about it.

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Or he might say, yeah, sure.

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Okay.

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I don’t care how much they’re going to pay me.

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Well, he’ll pay you X thousand dollars up front and then a certain percentage they will have to agree.

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Hayward’s people would have to agree with Hetfield’s people on the split of that.

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I mean, that’s a big legal…

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I mean, a lawyer for these things charges like $350 an hour.

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Whereas for those who aren’t in the know, a good studio costs like $400 an hour.

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And a professional musician costs $400 a day, I’m sorry.

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A good studio pro will cost you $500 a day.

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So like an hour and a half of a lawyer’s time is equivalent to a day of a studio pro working with you.

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So for me, like that’s a no brainer.

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I’m not going to spend the money on lawyers.

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So the positive side to that story is YouTube realizing that, look, people want to do covers of songs because that’s another thing.

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Technically, if you do a video of you playing a song, you need what’s called a sync license, which would be another whole huge effort.

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And YouTube said, all right, look, these record companies, they are trying to milk their legacy artists for all their worth.

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So nobody’s going to go and spend the money, some kid in his bedroom playing a cover of Nothing Else Matters, is not going to go and hire a lawyer to get a sync license.

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So YouTube was smart enough to say, listen, we have technology, what they call the content ID system, that will identify the song being played and will attribute the copyright automatically.

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And then YouTube negotiated master agreements so that those revenues will be automatically allocated to the copyright holders, which is why for almost all artists, you’re able to upload your covers to YouTube, because ultimately it gets people interested in those songs.

00:16:35.660 –> 00:16:43.960
Like we’ve seen many, many examples of songs from decades ago, back to the top, go hit back at the top of the charts, because people have done cool covers of them on YouTube.

00:16:43.960 –> 00:16:47.000
But in the case of the mashup covers, it’s the same thing.

00:16:47.000 –> 00:16:52.880
YouTube will say, okay, well, we had detected these two songs, and it’s up to YouTube to figure out how they’re going to split the royalties for that stuff.

00:16:52.880 –> 00:16:56.120
So that was a legal way for me to do what I wanted to do.

00:16:56.120 –> 00:17:06.300
But in another sense, that project was kind of an internship for me, because I had spent so many years writing songs and waiting for the opportunity to have the chance to go into the studio and do them.

00:17:06.300 –> 00:17:12.580
And I thought, before I do my own stuff, let me make the rookie mistakes, like I mentioned before, all those things that might go wrong in the studio.

00:17:12.580 –> 00:17:16.460
Let me do that with someone else’s songs, with my own arrangements, but someone else’s songs.

00:17:16.460 –> 00:17:21.760
And so it was kind of using that as a testing ground, using those songs as guinea pigs.

00:17:21.760 –> 00:17:23.080
Now, that’s interesting.

00:17:23.080 –> 00:17:26.240
Yeah, I forgot about the YouTube content ID thing.

00:17:26.240 –> 00:17:28.040
I was like, how does this end up working?

00:17:28.040 –> 00:17:29.120
But I had a…

00:17:29.120 –> 00:17:36.640
Yeah, and frankly, it doesn’t work all the time, because if I look at some of those seven tracks, some of them were not even detected by YouTube.

00:17:36.640 –> 00:17:37.860
I was wondering that as well.

00:17:38.180 –> 00:17:45.900
And I was also wondering, do they sometimes just, for some reason, that may be difficult to determine, reject them or something or pull them out?

00:17:45.900 –> 00:17:56.640
Well, I mean, there’s famous examples of this that will just be blocked with a big red rubber stamp that says, no, like Jimi Hendrix’s estate, then you don’t see Jimi Hendrix covers on YouTube because they play block.

00:17:56.640 –> 00:18:08.160
Non Henley, another famous blocker, which boggles the mind because, dude, you’re going to make a whole lot of money if people learn about Hotel California from some kid playing a really good cover of it.

00:18:08.160 –> 00:18:11.080
No, the answer is no, they don’t allow it.

00:18:11.080 –> 00:18:13.060
Then others, things are changing.

00:18:13.060 –> 00:18:22.920
I did a mashup cover that took King Crimson, frame by frame, a song from 1981, and mashed it up with a Taylor Swift song called Style.

00:18:24.240 –> 00:18:32.080
Long story short, Robert Fripp, the guitarist of King Crimson, the founder of the band, ended up hearing the track and thought it was cool.

00:18:32.080 –> 00:18:35.680
He actually jammed along to it, and he made a little video jamming along to it.

00:18:35.680 –> 00:18:36.420
That’s cool.

00:18:36.420 –> 00:18:37.940
So that was really, really, I thought that was great.

00:18:37.960 –> 00:18:42.000
It’s like, wow, you know, these guys are paying attention to what the covers that people do of their stuff.

00:18:43.000 –> 00:18:43.880
Yeah, that’s cool.

00:18:43.880 –> 00:18:45.420
That’s very nice.

00:18:45.420 –> 00:18:46.580
So it is a minefield.

00:18:46.580 –> 00:18:50.360
Something can be, but it’s nice that you gave a clear walkthrough.

00:18:50.360 –> 00:18:54.960
People saying, hey, just say 50% belongs to this artist, 50% belongs to this artist.

00:18:54.960 –> 00:18:57.660
No, the reality is you’ve got to spend a fortune on lawyers.

00:18:57.660 –> 00:19:02.880
And that’s negative energy to me to like even have to worry about, are they going to say yes or going to say no?

00:19:03.120 –> 00:19:04.080
I don’t want to spend my time.

00:19:04.080 –> 00:19:09.220
I want to spend my time writing songs and making music, not arguing with lawyers.

00:19:09.220 –> 00:19:12.280
For which ultimately, I mean, this industry is archaic.

00:19:12.280 –> 00:19:15.780
They’re still trying to figure out how to milk every last drop out of their legacy catalogs.

00:19:15.780 –> 00:19:29.140
So I’m hoping that what YouTube has done will become more of a norm and that eventually, even Spotify and the likes and Apple Music will have a way to automatically allocate the royalty so that mashup covers can get out there because they’re a lot of fun to do and to listen to.

00:19:29.260 –> 00:19:30.960
Yeah, that could happen, I suppose.

00:19:31.720 –> 00:19:34.860
And so have you made any legal mistakes?

00:19:34.860 –> 00:19:36.660
Learning, you know, doing, trying this stuff?

00:19:36.700 –> 00:19:39.860
Well, I haven’t gotten any summons yet.

00:19:39.860 –> 00:19:46.920
But, you know, I guess it’s one of those things where it’s like, if you get big enough and somebody wants to sue you over it, you know, that’s a good problem to have.

00:19:46.920 –> 00:19:49.800
I mean, somebody has a few hundred streams on a song.

00:19:49.800 –> 00:19:51.600
Nobody’s coming after you for that.

00:19:51.600 –> 00:20:08.300
But on the other hand, if things are just automated, like we mentioned with Content ID, and some 22-year-old intern working for Universal Music says, oh, this guy violated the copyright of whatever, you know, take action against him, block him or whatever, you don’t want to end up with anything like that.

00:20:08.300 –> 00:20:13.420
I haven’t had any strikes on, I mean, this famous rule, you know, three strike rule on YouTube.

00:20:13.420 –> 00:20:14.740
I haven’t had any strikes.

00:20:14.740 –> 00:20:20.100
So there’s a couple of things that were blocked, like they wouldn’t be shown, but it didn’t count as a strike against me or my channel.

00:20:20.100 –> 00:20:21.660
So that was a good thing.

00:20:21.660 –> 00:20:22.420
That’s good.

00:20:22.420 –> 00:20:27.420
That sort of sounds like, you know, this makes YouTube kind of the safe harbor, the safest approach.

00:20:27.420 –> 00:20:29.540
Yeah, YouTube is definitely the safest place for these things.

00:20:29.540 –> 00:20:34.140
I think there’s a lot of people who upload things like this to Spotify and just don’t attribute it properly.

00:20:34.140 –> 00:20:38.820
And, you know, what I didn’t want to do is risk, because I’m not just a covers artist.

00:20:38.820 –> 00:20:41.040
I want to, and I’m releasing my own material now.

00:20:41.040 –> 00:20:48.800
I didn’t want to put my artist name, my account in jeopardy for the sake of releasing the mashup covers on Spotify when they’re already out on YouTube.

00:20:48.800 –> 00:20:50.560
I figured that’s, as you said, a safe harbor.

00:20:51.100 –> 00:20:55.660
Let me use Spotify and the others in the totally legal, correct way.

00:20:55.660 –> 00:21:06.580
Yeah, that’s pretty much the only way you can, the way they got it set up, I mean, with the, I want to call them distributors, but you know these services like TuneCore and some of the other more popular ones.

00:21:06.580 –> 00:21:14.200
And that is largely to save the Spotifys of the world from dealing with people who submit things incorrectly.

00:21:14.200 –> 00:21:19.380
And plus, it’s great for the artist in a way because everything gets done through one place, so that’s kind of nice.

00:21:19.400 –> 00:21:21.860
Yes, yeah, no, it does facilitate things.

00:21:23.000 –> 00:21:26.600
What about finding session musicians?

00:21:26.600 –> 00:21:33.280
Do you have any tips or experience you think that musicians might appreciate, like for finding the right players and the processes?

00:21:33.280 –> 00:21:44.760
Well, I got very, very lucky in this sense because the first one was I started, this is back in the days of the pandemic when everybody was sitting at home, including the best musicians in the world.

00:21:44.760 –> 00:21:47.280
And I realized like even on Fiverr, you can find amazing people.

00:21:47.760 –> 00:21:53.760
And so I ended up hooking up with a guitarist named Fernando Perdomo, who became my go-to guy for the guitar.

00:21:53.760 –> 00:22:03.420
And I just loved his style and his whole approach to production and songwriting and crafting material and parts and solos was very much in line with my own.

00:22:03.420 –> 00:22:05.600
We have a lot of the same taste in music.

00:22:05.600 –> 00:22:08.780
And so I got really lucky finding him there.

00:22:08.780 –> 00:22:21.400
But then the other thing that happened was a friend from high school who was a professional bass player, still is obviously, and also a studio engineer and a wonderful guy who knows a ton of stuff about recording.

00:22:21.400 –> 00:22:30.180
And when I sent him some of the tracks I was working on with guys I’d hired on Fiverr, and he said, look, frankly, for the amount of money you’re paying, this is really, really good.

00:22:30.180 –> 00:22:50.580
But if you want to take it to another level, I can recruit session guys that I know, and you can bring them to a studio for two days and you can record a whole bunch of tracks all at once and get a whole vibe going, and it will cost you a little bit more, but it will be worth it in terms of the quality that you get and the overall continuity of the sound.

00:22:50.580 –> 00:22:51.900
So we ended up doing that.

00:22:51.900 –> 00:22:53.820
And then I put those two pieces together.

00:22:53.820 –> 00:23:05.140
So in the latest round, Fernando is based in LA, went up to the Bay Area, worked out of a studio in Berkeley called Opus, which is a wonderful, magnificent studio for $400 a day.

00:23:05.140 –> 00:23:13.360
And you have this room that’s with a big arched ceiling, which gives you a great effect for recording rock drums instead of being in a small room.

00:23:13.360 –> 00:23:16.600
So you get the right kind of ambient echo and the room sound.

00:23:16.600 –> 00:23:19.300
So that’s been really, really wonderful working out of there.

00:23:19.300 –> 00:23:26.320
And some of the other studio people I hired for little bits here and there, some of them don’t work out.

00:23:26.320 –> 00:23:35.040
Sometimes you hire somebody for a part, you pay them $75 or $100 to do a remote, track some guitar parts or whatever, and it’s not really the vibe you’re looking for.

00:23:36.380 –> 00:23:39.200
But you’re kind of betting on stuff like that.

00:23:39.620 –> 00:23:40.540
Let me give it a try.

00:23:40.540 –> 00:23:52.380
And sometimes you hire somebody for $50, they end up being somebody that you go back to again and again and again, because they deliver quickly and really good sound quality, and it just works for you.

00:23:52.380 –> 00:23:54.940
So you have to experiment with some of that.

00:23:54.940 –> 00:23:59.260
Again, don’t expect that everything is going to go right, because it’s not.

00:23:59.260 –> 00:24:01.000
There’s going to be people you hire that don’t work out.

00:24:01.000 –> 00:24:05.060
There’s going to be money you spend that ends up being wasted, and that’s part of the learning of it.

00:24:05.060 –> 00:24:16.400
And it’s better that way, frankly, because if everything goes well the first time, if you want to go and do a track or do a set of tracks, and everything goes perfectly, you can be lulled into the false sense of security that it’s easy.

00:24:16.400 –> 00:24:24.460
And then what happens is when you want to go and invest more money and go into a better studio to do the next time, then you’re going to find out what doesn’t go right, and then you have more at stake.

00:24:24.460 –> 00:24:28.800
So again, being in your late 40s and not in your early 20s, that’s the benefit of life.

00:24:28.800 –> 00:24:31.860
Experience tells you that things are not going to go the way you planned them.

00:24:31.920 –> 00:24:33.960
Don’t be too naïve about it.

00:24:33.960 –> 00:24:35.460
Go in there with the best expectations.

00:24:35.460 –> 00:24:38.520
Prepare yourself, but you have to know that not everything goes perfectly.

00:24:38.520 –> 00:24:39.520
Yeah, don’t be too naïve.

00:24:39.520 –> 00:24:40.900
Don’t be too precious, right?

00:24:40.900 –> 00:24:42.620
Exactly.

00:24:42.620 –> 00:24:49.480
Do you do a hybrid of remote and face-to-face recording on your projects?

00:24:49.640 –> 00:24:50.020
Definitely.

00:24:50.020 –> 00:24:55.300
Because there’s some things, I mean, when I wanted to get the band together.

00:24:55.300 –> 00:24:58.600
So definitely drums and bass recorded together.

00:24:58.600 –> 00:25:03.240
I mean, for rock, you know, in a rock idiom, that’s definitely something you want to have if at all possible.

00:25:03.240 –> 00:25:09.460
In the last set, we had everybody together, keyboards, drums, bass and guitar, and we were all tracking simultaneously.

00:25:09.460 –> 00:25:10.540
That was a wonderful experience.

00:25:10.540 –> 00:25:15.700
But prior to that, it was bass and drums together, and then guitar overdubbed later on.

00:25:15.700 –> 00:25:23.540
But even if I went down to the studio and we were working face-to-face, we were still overdubbing on the previous tracks done in another studio, and then keyboards would be done remotely as well.

00:25:23.540 –> 00:25:25.400
So it’s kind of a hybrid.

00:25:25.400 –> 00:25:31.980
And even after you spend, you know, you have your four guys in the room and you make the tracks, there’s always going to be other little editions that are going to be done remotely.

00:25:31.980 –> 00:25:34.540
So, you know, that’s totally fine.

00:25:34.540 –> 00:25:37.580
And that’s kind of standard practice these days, I think.

00:25:37.580 –> 00:25:39.400
Yeah, I’m curious for me.

00:25:39.400 –> 00:25:45.380
I’ve done a little bit of recording of the quality, you know, where I could distribute and everything was remote.

00:25:45.380 –> 00:25:51.940
This was, you know, during the pandemic, but I had people in, you know, one guy in California, one guy in Texas.

00:25:51.940 –> 00:25:53.100
I was in Panama at the time.

00:25:53.100 –> 00:25:58.160
And then one of the other tracks, there was a guy in England and the rest of the guys that I talked about.

00:25:58.200 –> 00:26:02.440
So it’s kind of, and I’m doing drums and vocals just at home.

00:26:02.440 –> 00:26:04.920
And it worked out, but it’s just been my only experience.

00:26:04.920 –> 00:26:10.040
When I was younger, though, I had like in-studio experience with other musicians.

00:26:11.260 –> 00:26:19.500
One of them, only one of those sessions, like a truly sort of high-end studio experience, but yeah, it has evolved a lot, hasn’t it, over the decades?

00:26:19.500 –> 00:26:24.580
Look, this is one of the big things for me, why I felt so emboldened to do all of this.

00:26:24.580 –> 00:26:29.580
And I wouldn’t have been able to do it when I was younger because I didn’t have the means to do it.

00:26:29.580 –> 00:26:42.100
But when we grew up, people in our age group, it was like either you had a multi-million dollar record deal, or forget it, you would just be playing at the local bar forever, right?

00:26:42.100 –> 00:26:47.140
Because I had the idea, if I ever wanted to make an album, it would cost me a quarter of a million dollars.

00:26:47.140 –> 00:26:49.800
And nowadays, it costs you a small fraction of that.

00:26:49.800 –> 00:26:54.180
I mean, it’s a very low five-figure sum, you could do all this.

00:26:54.620 –> 00:26:59.960
So if you squirrel away some money, you can make it happen in a very professional way, in a very satisfying way.

00:26:59.960 –> 00:27:03.320
And that’s what I was fortunate enough to be able to do.

00:27:03.320 –> 00:27:13.360
But don’t be discouraged, because it’s not a humongous millionaire effort to go and make really, really good quality music.

00:27:13.360 –> 00:27:19.300
Yeah, so many young people right now are emboldened to just do it themselves, and some of them are doing quite a remarkable job.

00:27:19.500 –> 00:27:21.420
No, look, some of it’s great, and some of them learn.

00:27:22.040 –> 00:27:27.320
On the other hand, there’s some people that put out stuff that is not quite up to par.

00:27:27.320 –> 00:27:33.320
And that’s a whole other discussion about, do you just put out everything you can, or do you curate, or whatever?

00:27:33.320 –> 00:27:41.000
When you’re, again, in our age group, and you’ve got decades of backlog of songs, and these gurus say, don’t put out any mid-material.

00:27:41.000 –> 00:27:44.240
And I’m like, dude, I haven’t put out any songs for 25 years.

00:27:44.240 –> 00:27:52.020
So of all those songs I’ve written in 25 years, I’m sure I can pick the best ones to make a really good album, and none of it’s going to be things I’m kind of filling it with.

00:27:52.820 –> 00:28:04.140
Yeah, yeah, are there any good-to-knows about handling for people that haven’t done it before, but like handling contracts and payments with Session Pro, some of the people that you hire, is it all pretty seamless?

00:28:04.280 –> 00:28:06.120
Well, yeah, it depends.

00:28:06.120 –> 00:28:11.420
First of all, if you’re doing it through something like Fiverr or Sound Better, I started with Fiverr.

00:28:11.420 –> 00:28:13.880
Sound Better is, let’s say, a bit more upscale.

00:28:13.880 –> 00:28:18.860
You might find a bit more professionalism, but on Fiverr you have, I think, a broader range of talent.

00:28:18.860 –> 00:28:24.360
And sometimes if you need something simple, like just a simple solo or a simple part, you can find it for cheaper.

00:28:24.360 –> 00:28:30.480
But all of those are platforms that take a cut based on connecting this and making it secure.

00:28:30.480 –> 00:28:34.980
So in those cases, you have absolutely nothing to lose because you pay the money.

00:28:34.980 –> 00:28:48.740
And if something goes wrong or it’s not delivered properly, you have, it’s peer reviewed, and you also have the possibility of having them intervene to adjudicate if anything is unclear or you feel that you didn’t get what you paid for.

00:28:50.020 –> 00:28:58.060
In other situations, again, if somebody that you know is bringing guys to a studio, they’re kind of vouching for you.

00:28:58.060 –> 00:29:02.620
So there’s kind of a personal code of honor there that when you finish the session, you’re going to pay them.

00:29:02.620 –> 00:29:08.380
I mean, I’m just, my personal thing is as soon as the session’s done, I say, okay, guys, what’s your number for Zelle?

00:29:08.380 –> 00:29:10.040
Or, you know, what’s your PayPal?

00:29:10.040 –> 00:29:14.580
And they’re paid before they even walk out the door of the studio just because I want to feel better about that.

00:29:14.580 –> 00:29:17.640
But also I want them to know if I work with George, I’m getting paid on time.

00:29:17.760 –> 00:29:22.500
And that means next time I call him up, they’ll say, oh, if I go work for him, it’s a payday immediately.

00:29:22.500 –> 00:29:28.520
And the funny part was that I was working on a four seasons mashup hybrid project.

00:29:28.520 –> 00:29:30.480
And so we brought in some string players.

00:29:30.480 –> 00:29:37.440
And I was saying to Dan, the bassist engineer who convened everybody, said, oh, you know, I want to make sure I paid them on time.

00:29:37.440 –> 00:29:38.740
He goes, oh, these are string players.

00:29:38.740 –> 00:29:40.780
These are like session union musicians.

00:29:40.780 –> 00:29:43.260
They’re used to getting paid months later than the sessions that they do.

00:29:43.260 –> 00:29:45.620
So they’ll be very happy if you pay them right on the day.

00:29:45.680 –> 00:29:48.100
They’ll be shocked that such a thing is even possible.

00:29:48.100 –> 00:29:49.800
I believe it.

00:29:49.800 –> 00:29:51.540
That’s funny.

00:29:51.540 –> 00:29:52.400
That is funny.

00:29:52.400 –> 00:29:53.160
These are things that you like.

00:29:53.160 –> 00:29:54.500
I didn’t know any of that stuff.

00:29:54.500 –> 00:29:57.880
These are things that you learn, these cues that you pick up about how the industry works.

00:29:57.880 –> 00:30:09.760
I mean, that if you haven’t been in and out of studios in all these years, things that are things that are industry norms are not obvious to a bystander.

00:30:10.820 –> 00:30:12.540
Yeah, big learning experiences, I’m sure.

00:30:12.540 –> 00:30:16.720
But I think musicians are generally pretty cool, a lot of people.

00:30:16.720 –> 00:30:17.120
Mostly.

00:30:17.720 –> 00:30:22.180
They tend to be cool, they tend to be forgiving, they tend to be reasonable.

00:30:22.180 –> 00:30:24.340
Some of them can be prima donnas, that’s true.

00:30:24.340 –> 00:30:31.340
But if you avoid that bit of it, in terms of dealing with them on a personal level, I found it to be a very, very positive experience.

00:30:32.440 –> 00:30:41.760
So how do you stay consistent with your creation of music and the other things around it while you’re doing all these things you do in your day life?

00:30:41.760 –> 00:30:45.600
Well, you know, that’s, the answer is I don’t always.

00:30:45.600 –> 00:31:03.920
So like, for example, right now, I’m doing the process of trying to put out short-form content every single day and promoting each song for six weeks, doing what they call the waterfall strategy, which is you don’t roll out the album all at once, you roll it out track by track, six weeks for this track, six weeks for the next single, et cetera.

00:31:03.960 –> 00:31:11.920
And then at the end, you wrap it all together and you should be finding a way to promote that song using short-form content every single day over the course of that six weeks.

00:31:11.920 –> 00:31:20.520
So again, 24 hours in a day, one physical body, that’s what’s taking up my time right now, which means I’m not writing material, I’m not recording.

00:31:20.520 –> 00:31:26.800
In fact, I should be rehearsing vocals for takes that I need to do in the next couple months.

00:31:26.800 –> 00:31:31.160
I should probably be following up on that, but life gets in the way.

00:31:31.600 –> 00:31:46.840
So right now, I’ve just decided to focus on that part of it, partly because Roberto, I spent a lot of time in the studio for the past three years, and I got a lot of stuff that’s ready, and it’s like, okay, you need to get the stuff out there before you go and spend time and money making more of it.

00:31:46.840 –> 00:31:51.560
Don’t end up in that situation where then, like, oh, I have all this stuff, and I lose the energy to put it out.

00:31:51.560 –> 00:31:53.860
While I have the energy to put it out, I’m going to put it out.

00:31:53.860 –> 00:31:55.880
So I’m focusing on that right now.

00:31:55.880 –> 00:31:56.460
That’s cool.

00:31:56.460 –> 00:31:57.840
That’s a good plan.

00:31:57.900 –> 00:32:02.440
It’s nice that you amassed some recordings, however many there was.

00:32:02.440 –> 00:32:04.620
Yeah, well, you know, it started in 2022.

00:32:04.620 –> 00:32:06.860
The first time I went into the studio was 2022.

00:32:06.860 –> 00:32:10.260
And that was mostly for the Mashups Project, but a few other little things.

00:32:10.260 –> 00:32:15.140
And then I went into the studio again, I think, twice in 2023.

00:32:15.140 –> 00:32:19.920
Like I’m going to say, like two days at a time, doing more backing tracks, and then again in 2024.

00:32:20.960 –> 00:32:25.340
So yeah, I’ve got enough for this first album that’s coming out this year.

00:32:25.440 –> 00:32:32.000
And then, as I said, this four seasons mashup cover project that will be rolled out in 2026.

00:32:32.000 –> 00:32:35.980
And then there’s another album that’s mostly recorded already for the year after that.

00:32:35.980 –> 00:32:39.700
So like I’ve got a lot of stuff to keep me busy for the next two and a half years.

00:32:39.700 –> 00:32:45.200
You batched all your studio work for the next couple of years.

00:32:45.200 –> 00:32:46.920
Exactly.

00:32:46.920 –> 00:32:47.580
That’s great.

00:32:47.580 –> 00:32:48.160
That’s great.

00:32:48.160 –> 00:32:58.580
So did you say you have basically your marketing calendar and whatever else you can squeeze in for the music for the rest of the year because of this one project and then…

00:32:58.580 –> 00:33:01.340
Well, I have it broadly sketched out.

00:33:01.340 –> 00:33:06.940
So here’s what, again, I’m regurgitating what I’ve learned on YouTube and from these gurus.

00:33:06.940 –> 00:33:07.520
Okay.

00:33:07.520 –> 00:33:09.460
You’d say you’re going to do a song for six weeks.

00:33:09.460 –> 00:33:09.740
Okay.

00:33:09.740 –> 00:33:20.520
So each week you should have a big event, which is like a landscape video on YouTube, a proper video on full length video of the song.

00:33:20.520 –> 00:33:23.840
So you have to find in the course of six weeks, six different ways to distribute that.

00:33:23.840 –> 00:33:26.680
So a lyric video, a visualizer video.

00:33:26.680 –> 00:33:31.640
I tend to do a score video because I’ll have the score of the song with the chord chart and the melody.

00:33:31.680 –> 00:33:34.080
I’ll turn that into a video.

00:33:34.080 –> 00:33:42.520
I’ve had a great American Sign Language translator who does ASL versions of some of the songs.

00:33:42.520 –> 00:33:46.120
I think that’s a really nice technique to use.

00:33:46.120 –> 00:33:50.580
Then whatever other official video you’re going to do, whether you lip syncing or whatever.

00:33:51.160 –> 00:33:52.640
Each week, you should have one of those.

00:33:52.640 –> 00:33:59.860
Then the rest of the six days of the week, some kind of short form content to promote the song, whatever that happens to be.

00:33:59.860 –> 00:34:02.760
That’s throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

00:34:02.760 –> 00:34:05.920
It’s a lot of work because you have to look at what other people in your genre are doing.

00:34:05.920 –> 00:34:09.820
You have to observe other trends, see what memes are out there.

00:34:09.820 –> 00:34:14.800
Again, for people our age, make a fool of yourself trying to copy these Gen Z kids.

00:34:14.800 –> 00:34:19.280
Part of my thing is I’m going to make fun of the fact that I’m trying to copy what these young kids are doing.

00:34:19.780 –> 00:34:22.440
Because in the end, you have to be authentic and you have to be yourself.

00:34:22.440 –> 00:34:29.420
So yeah, I’m going to be sarcastic and making fun of how ridiculous it is to try to put out a short form video every single day.

00:34:29.520 –> 00:34:30.880
It’s tough, man.

00:34:30.880 –> 00:34:31.540
And some of them work.

00:34:31.540 –> 00:34:34.300
And then you have to collab with other people.

00:34:34.300 –> 00:34:40.680
So doing podcasts like this, I clip them and we’re a part where I’m talking about the song.

00:34:40.680 –> 00:34:46.140
I will clip that and turn that into a 60-second clip with the song playing in the background.

00:34:46.500 –> 00:34:47.520
So just to have different…

00:34:47.520 –> 00:34:52.080
And then, for example, I’ll tag you in that so that your people see that.

00:34:52.080 –> 00:34:55.060
And then that also promotes your podcast, that kind of thing.

00:34:55.160 –> 00:35:00.260
Look, it’s an overused word, but community is really the name of the game for this stuff.

00:35:00.620 –> 00:35:01.160
Totally.

00:35:01.160 –> 00:35:08.340
As somebody, like I said, who’s influenced so deeply by classic rock, but the fans of classic rock music are not looking for me.

00:35:08.340 –> 00:35:13.220
They’re not looking for a guy who’s putting out music in 2025 because he loves music from 1972.

00:35:13.820 –> 00:35:16.620
They’re interested in playing the best hits of 1972.

00:35:16.620 –> 00:35:23.000
What you need to do is find other people who are also putting out music in 2025, who are also influenced by music from 1972.

00:35:23.000 –> 00:35:29.700
Those are the people you need to find their fans and link together, so you get all that algorithmic love, as they call it.

00:35:29.700 –> 00:35:31.100
It’s exhausting.

00:35:31.100 –> 00:35:31.960
It really is exhausting.

00:35:31.960 –> 00:35:34.500
We don’t even talk about it again.

00:35:34.500 –> 00:35:35.360
No, it’s really good.

00:35:36.420 –> 00:35:42.840
In a way, it’s a shame that this is the way we have to do it and can’t necessarily spend time doing it.

00:35:42.840 –> 00:35:50.520
It’s never been a better time, because the fact that you and I are talking about this right now, and that somebody can hear about it and say, wow, that’s really great.

00:35:50.520 –> 00:35:53.620
I learned something, or I like his songs, or I like his podcasts.

00:35:53.620 –> 00:36:06.460
I mean, that was never possible before, because before it was, again, either you had a record company picking you out of the cast and giving you a million-dollar deal, which basically may turn you into their slave, but that’s a whole other thing, or to do an interview like this.

00:36:06.460 –> 00:36:10.880
It’s like you had to be big enough that some radio host, some radio station, want to interview you.

00:36:10.880 –> 00:36:16.720
I mean, now all of us in our bedrooms are able to talk about it and share about it, which is great.

00:36:16.740 –> 00:36:18.220
It is, it is very nice.

00:36:18.220 –> 00:36:25.760
Again, I don’t complain because, in fact, that’s one of my means is like making fun of the people who sit around complaining about, oh, the algorithm is so unfair.

00:36:25.760 –> 00:36:27.680
Well, too bad.

00:36:27.680 –> 00:36:29.560
It’s better than the way it used to be.

00:36:29.560 –> 00:36:44.740
I think I suffer a syndrome like therapist or something because I listen to a lot of what artists are doing and also listen to, well, I talk to, but then I listen to a lot of famous artists and hear some of the weird stuff that they deal with, which is some of the same stuff that independents deal with.

00:36:44.740 –> 00:36:47.320
And I’m just like, oh, my God, it’s maddening.

00:36:47.320 –> 00:36:49.660
But, you know, I’m still playing music.

00:36:49.660 –> 00:36:51.420
I still have aspirations to record again.

00:36:51.420 –> 00:36:52.760
I love talking to people like you.

00:36:52.760 –> 00:36:57.180
So, yes, yes, you know, we’re lucky.

00:36:57.180 –> 00:37:07.000
Have you, it sounds like you have, but when, how, what’s your sort of process for thinking through changing direction in musically?

00:37:08.480 –> 00:37:19.700
So, um, I was, again, having had so many years to think about how I wanted to do all of this, I kind of had the idea that the first project would be a covers project.

00:37:19.700 –> 00:37:21.060
But even then that changed.

00:37:21.060 –> 00:37:35.960
And you have, this is actually a really good question because it’s, it’s important that you cannot be completely wedded to what you had in mind when the first day that you decided you’re going to do this, the first day you went to the studio because circumstances change and other magic happens and it may change your plan.

00:37:35.960 –> 00:37:43.860
So when I first went in to say, I’m going to do a covers project, it was like three or four mashup covers and then a couple other regular covers.

00:37:43.860 –> 00:37:45.800
And then over time I said, no, you know what?

00:37:45.800 –> 00:37:48.480
Thematically, we’re better to be to do just mashup covers.

00:37:48.480 –> 00:37:52.780
And then I added a few later that we went back in another other sessions and recorded.

00:37:52.780 –> 00:37:56.340
And then those other covers ended up on a later project.

00:37:56.340 –> 00:37:59.640
So you have to be flexible in terms of how you plan these things out.

00:38:00.680 –> 00:38:05.880
Songs, you know, I have a listing on my notes on my phone of, you know, this is the tracklist for the album.

00:38:05.880 –> 00:38:07.780
And I have it all marked down.

00:38:07.780 –> 00:38:20.060
This song is in G major, then the next song starts in A major, so that to make sure that the keys match up or don’t match up as you may want them to, which songs have fade outs and which ones don’t, so that you don’t want two songs with a fade out back to back, stuff like that.

00:38:20.060 –> 00:38:23.760
But that’s just me dreaming about it on my notes.

00:38:23.760 –> 00:38:26.460
When you actually go and put it all together, it may change.

00:38:27.320 –> 00:38:30.420
Other people’s ideas may make you want to change it.

00:38:30.420 –> 00:38:32.460
So you have to have an open mind.

00:38:32.460 –> 00:38:35.600
You have to be true to your art, but you have to be flexible to some point.

00:38:35.600 –> 00:38:38.060
It’s like what you said before.

00:38:38.060 –> 00:38:42.700
Don’t make the perfect enemy of the good because it’s never going to be perfect.

00:38:42.700 –> 00:38:43.520
It’s never going to be perfect.

00:38:43.520 –> 00:38:49.900
Even if you go back and let me, Brian Wilson will go back and say, I wasn’t really happy with the harmonies on Pet Sounds.

00:38:49.900 –> 00:38:53.760
We’re like, that’s like the greatest thing that was ever done and you weren’t happy with the harmonies on Pet Sounds.

00:38:53.860 –> 00:39:00.460
The point being, even the people that we worship practically, are not happy with everything that they did.

00:39:00.460 –> 00:39:02.920
So we have to go a little bit easier on ourselves too.

00:39:02.920 –> 00:39:08.100
And those old guys made the most beautiful, imperfect sounds ever.

00:39:08.100 –> 00:39:09.480
That’s just not possible anymore.

00:39:09.480 –> 00:39:15.220
It’s really, I mean, I get more and more inspiration from them because I’m doing covers.

00:39:15.220 –> 00:39:19.480
Like right now, the one in the middle of promoting is a cover of Blackbird by The Beatles.

00:39:19.740 –> 00:39:22.040
And it’s kind of a minor key reharmonization.

00:39:22.040 –> 00:39:24.860
And there’s some people who don’t like it at all.

00:39:24.860 –> 00:39:43.740
And I’m like, I am in love with the fact that you think that I’m being sacrilegious, because if The Beatles or any of those other bands didn’t start by doing covers, they never would have gotten to the point that their music captured us the way that it did, because that’s how they got started, was taking and being creative with what other people had already done.

00:39:43.740 –> 00:39:47.520
And so in a way, yes, it’s blasphemy, but we owe it to them to be blasphemous.

00:39:48.100 –> 00:39:50.360
And that’s my approach to covers.

00:39:50.360 –> 00:39:51.020
Yeah, I heard that.

00:39:51.200 –> 00:39:56.000
It’s nice and I appreciate it too, because I’ve covered, not recorded, but covered Blackbird.

00:39:56.000 –> 00:39:57.000
And so you did a nice job.

00:39:57.460 –> 00:40:01.920
I actually have heard several of the others that you’ve mentioned, too, the mashups.

00:40:01.920 –> 00:40:03.200
They’re kind of cool.

00:40:03.200 –> 00:40:03.780
I like them.

00:40:03.780 –> 00:40:04.320
They were fun.

00:40:04.320 –> 00:40:06.260
It was a lot of fun doing that.

00:40:06.260 –> 00:40:10.940
You know, we talked about all these things that artists have to do.

00:40:10.940 –> 00:40:16.760
So for the ones that do feel overwhelmed, I mean, there’s kind of two ways to ask this question.

00:40:16.820 –> 00:40:40.820
You know, I was going to ask for, like, your best advice for setting themselves up with a creatable routine or maybe just, you know, what are some of your favorite productivity practices that you have because you undoubtedly have to be very productivity-minded, whether it’s at the forefront of your mind or the back of your mind.

00:40:40.820 –> 00:40:41.760
Yeah, you do.

00:40:41.760 –> 00:40:42.620
You do.

00:40:42.620 –> 00:40:45.800
I find at this stage, it’s easy because it’s very measurable.

00:40:45.960 –> 00:40:50.060
I need to put out a short-form piece of content every single day.

00:40:50.060 –> 00:41:06.500
So that might be batching it, like spending a few hours one day so that I have content ready for the next four or five days, or just saying, okay, I’m going to spend an hour on CapCut, putting this together, subtitling it, putting the captions, doing all that stuff, putting whatever effects I want to have in there.

00:41:06.500 –> 00:41:12.060
That’s kind of easier to do when you’re in, oh, God, I need to start plotting out my next album.

00:41:12.060 –> 00:41:13.760
How much time am I going to spend writing today?

00:41:13.760 –> 00:41:17.740
How much time am I going to spend whatever?

00:41:17.740 –> 00:41:20.940
Artistically, I find that you just have to go with the flow.

00:41:20.940 –> 00:41:36.500
And if you spend hours more sitting at the piano than you expected to, or you spend hours more on your digital audio workstation, figuring out the tracks and the form of the song, you just got to go with the flow of that.

00:41:36.500 –> 00:41:41.580
I don’t think, at least for me, I don’t find that that should be regimented or managed.

00:41:41.580 –> 00:41:45.880
That’s just kind of, even in my professional life, I’m not the type that’s exactly on the clock.

00:41:45.880 –> 00:41:47.720
Okay, I’m from 9 to 10, I’m going to do this.

00:41:47.720 –> 00:41:52.100
I just kind of go with whatever is flowing at a particular moment.

00:41:52.100 –> 00:41:54.740
Do you have to travel for the, I’m going to call it journalistic work.

00:41:54.740 –> 00:41:57.440
I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, but do you have to travel for that side of your work life?

00:41:57.440 –> 00:41:58.060
Yeah, yeah, I do.

00:41:58.380 –> 00:42:26.080
In fact, this last year I’ve been on the road quite a bit, which is in a way good because it gives me time, because when I’m traveling, I don’t have physically the need to take care of my kids and make sure they have lunch for school and drive them to their practices or their activities or their play dates or whatever it happens to be, which means I’m on my own in a hotel room somewhere, and it’s just me and my computer or me and I have a guitar with me, and that gives me time to work on that stuff.

00:42:26.080 –> 00:42:34.700
So that’s a blessing in disguise from time to time having to be away from my kids, it gives me the chance to be closer to my musical pursuits.

00:42:35.420 –> 00:42:37.040
How old are your kids?

00:42:37.040 –> 00:42:39.540
14 and almost 11.

00:42:39.540 –> 00:42:41.120
Trouble and trouble.

00:42:42.560 –> 00:42:45.540
Yeah, you should see the trouble is when I try to get them to play music with me.

00:42:47.580 –> 00:42:48.860
That’s great.

00:42:50.100 –> 00:43:03.500
Given that you’ve been doing music for a while too, what has caught your eye most in the terms of how the landscape for being an independent artist has changed since you started or since the independent artist was a thing?

00:43:04.520 –> 00:43:15.260
I think what’s overwhelmed me the most, and I still haven’t wrapped my head around it, is how much research it is to figure out what music is out there today.

00:43:15.260 –> 00:43:15.600
Yeah.

00:43:15.600 –> 00:43:22.320
Because just going to the hits playlist, if you’re an indie artist like me, it’s not going to inform you in any particular way.

00:43:22.320 –> 00:43:27.120
You got to really research to find artists who sound like you.

00:43:27.120 –> 00:43:29.620
And that takes time to listen to those.

00:43:30.060 –> 00:43:33.520
It takes three minutes to listen to a song or maybe more.

00:43:33.520 –> 00:43:35.080
That’s a lot of time spent listening.

00:43:35.080 –> 00:43:37.200
So that’s a lot of time when I’m in the gym, for example.

00:43:37.200 –> 00:43:38.720
I’m spending an hour in the gym.

00:43:38.720 –> 00:43:39.300
Okay.

00:43:39.300 –> 00:43:40.500
Let me put on the playlist.

00:43:40.500 –> 00:43:44.340
I’ll find a playlist like Best New Indie Rock or something like that on Spotify.

00:43:44.340 –> 00:43:45.500
I’ll put it on there.

00:43:45.500 –> 00:43:54.800
And every song that comes up, even is vaguely in my ballpark, immediately favorite the artist and then click on their bio and find out.

00:43:54.820 –> 00:43:57.440
You know, if they have an Instagram page, immediately follow them on Instagram.

00:43:57.440 –> 00:44:10.340
So that starts working into my feed and starting to familiarize myself with other artists that are somehow in my genre, because genre nowadays has become such a micro, nano, whatever.

00:44:10.340 –> 00:44:16.600
And you and I, to be honest, I still haven’t figured out what my my genre exactly is.

00:44:16.600 –> 00:44:19.700
And that’s that’s been a challenge.

00:44:19.700 –> 00:44:20.640
It’s not like the old days.

00:44:20.700 –> 00:44:21.780
Oh, you know, classic rock.

00:44:22.260 –> 00:44:23.120
Okay.

00:44:23.120 –> 00:44:24.000
Progressive rock.

00:44:24.000 –> 00:44:24.280
Okay.

00:44:24.280 –> 00:44:25.140
You know, blues rock.

00:44:25.140 –> 00:44:26.280
Okay.

00:44:26.280 –> 00:44:28.660
These days, it’s much, much, much more refined.

00:44:28.660 –> 00:44:29.660
Yeah.

00:44:29.660 –> 00:44:42.720
I think that other people are the best judges of what genre you may be viewed under, because totally like when I read it, if I’m talking to somebody like you, who’s informed, but if I play it for friends or family, you know what they say?

00:44:42.720 –> 00:44:45.020
Oh, it reminds me of The Beatles.

00:44:45.020 –> 00:44:45.480
Thanks.

00:44:45.480 –> 00:44:52.320
You know, it reminds me of 70s rock.

00:44:52.320 –> 00:44:55.260
Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t help me.

00:44:55.260 –> 00:45:11.400
Sometimes that’s useful though, because for me, I had in mind when I started a project, I kind of envisioned it sounding one way, and it comes out another way somewhat to a large degree, and then you hear the feedback from people and they start comparing you.

00:45:11.400 –> 00:45:14.380
They may compare you to other artists, and it’s kind of got me thinking.

00:45:14.720 –> 00:45:28.600
Yes, and every artist will tell you that they hear the most shocking things that people hear, and that’s another important point, because you know all the things that influence you, but somebody who hears your song doesn’t know those things, and it may be things that subconsciously prep their way in that you don’t recognize.

00:45:28.860 –> 00:45:38.520
An example of that is the next song I’m promoting, it’s a cover of More Than Words by Xtreme, where I brought the song to the piano and did it in a much darker kind of a context.

00:45:39.160 –> 00:45:47.780
And the engineer, I did that in a small studio just to do the vocal recordings after we had, well, that was done remotely, this is just piano and vocal.

00:45:47.780 –> 00:45:50.700
And the end, Disney musical.

00:45:50.700 –> 00:45:58.820
And at first I was like pretty offended actually, like, you know, I’m a rock artist, we need Disney musical, what kind of cheesy crap is that?

00:45:58.820 –> 00:46:15.020
And I realized like, no, but you know what, when I was in high school, I was in, I was on stage, I was in doing musical theater, and so probably the drama of musical theater arrangements is somewhere in my musical DNA in a way that I don’t recognize explicitly, but it’s in there.

00:46:15.020 –> 00:46:25.800
And so I’ve learned, and like a lot of other people have learned, embrace, as you’re saying, embrace what people tell you your music reminds them of, because they know ultimately better than you do.

00:46:25.800 –> 00:46:36.580
Yeah, yeah, I too was surprised, but I was like, yeah, nobody said anything that wasn’t an influence on me, that’s for sure, but it just wasn’t the influence I thought was going for or thought of at the time.

00:46:36.580 –> 00:46:44.680
So are there any trends that you think, maybe you’ve already mentioned them, but any trends you think that independent artists should pay attention to?

00:46:44.680 –> 00:46:48.620
Well, we can’t have a discussion about trends without talking about artificial intelligence.

00:46:48.620 –> 00:47:13.300
So I think my personal view on the broad level of artificial intelligence in any field, whether it’s in my regular job, professional life, or musical pursuits or anything, ultimately, artificial intelligence is limited by human biology, because even if a computer can create a billion songs with the click of a button, it still takes a human being three minutes to listen to a song to determine if he or she likes the song or not.

00:47:13.300 –> 00:47:20.360
So AI can create all of this stuff, but who’s ever going to go and listen to it to determine if it’s worth repeating?

00:47:20.360 –> 00:47:22.660
So I really don’t worry about that.

00:47:22.660 –> 00:47:28.640
In terms of the tools, it’s incumbent upon you to learn how to use the tools to make yourself more efficient.

00:47:29.120 –> 00:47:33.600
Just like when we were in school, learning how to use the calculator made you more efficient.

00:47:33.600 –> 00:47:37.100
It didn’t replace having to know the fundamentals of math.

00:47:37.100 –> 00:47:46.620
It just made it easier and it made it, it made the transition be able to do more difficult mathematics require less time.

00:47:46.620 –> 00:47:52.220
And the same thing that AI will enable us to do more sophisticated recording in less time.

00:47:52.220 –> 00:47:52.920
And that’s a good thing.

00:47:52.920 –> 00:47:56.300
Just like when synthesizers came out, they replaced having to do a whole string section.

00:47:56.400 –> 00:47:59.060
Just like when quantization came out, et cetera, et cetera.

00:47:59.060 –> 00:48:00.640
There’s a million examples of this.

00:48:00.640 –> 00:48:03.700
This whole AI is just the latest example of it.

00:48:03.700 –> 00:48:07.600
I refuse to use anything that’s not human produced.

00:48:07.600 –> 00:48:11.100
Like I will never use a fake AI vocal.

00:48:11.100 –> 00:48:13.540
I do use pitch correction.

00:48:13.540 –> 00:48:20.660
I do use, certainly when I’m making the videos, the automatic tools enable you to caption the videos and all that stuff.

00:48:20.660 –> 00:48:22.680
It’s a huge, huge time savings.

00:48:23.320 –> 00:48:45.980
So, anybody who’s getting into this should learn about these basic tools and learn to master them, not fearing that they’re going to take away your importance as a songwriter or as a singer or whatever, but as a tool that will help you to be more efficient and more productive as a singer or a songwriter or a musician or whatever it is.

00:48:45.980 –> 00:48:47.060
You mentioned CapCut again.

00:48:47.060 –> 00:48:48.920
Are you a Mac or Windows user?

00:48:48.920 –> 00:48:50.120
I’m a Mac user.

00:48:50.180 –> 00:48:51.380
Okay.

00:48:51.380 –> 00:48:57.660
So I’m really annoyed, by the way, that CapCut in the latest update, a lot of things that were free are now paid features.

00:48:57.660 –> 00:49:00.060
Are you using the paid or free version?

00:49:00.060 –> 00:49:13.760
I was using the free version, but now things that were automatic are now suddenly paid, like the auto captions, which I was using constantly, like for things like this, you know, to get the auto captions there.

00:49:13.840 –> 00:49:19.440
So I’m like, I might have to bite the bullet and pay 10 or $12 a month or whatever it is to use CapCut.

00:49:19.440 –> 00:49:21.800
But, you know, again, these are wonderful tools.

00:49:21.800 –> 00:49:24.020
And you know, you mentioned using, I mean, I’m a Mac user.

00:49:24.440 –> 00:49:29.400
I find it shocking how poor iMovie is in comparison to CapCut.

00:49:29.400 –> 00:49:32.740
I mean, it’s almost incomparable.

00:49:32.740 –> 00:49:34.100
It’s so inferior.

00:49:34.100 –> 00:49:36.520
And I’m shocked, really shocked.

00:49:36.520 –> 00:49:38.560
Yeah, I’ve thought a lot about that too.

00:49:38.560 –> 00:49:43.160
And I’ve used CapCut and I got, very recently, or somewhat recently tried it.

00:49:43.400 –> 00:49:45.140
I liked it, really loved it, as a matter of fact.

00:49:45.140 –> 00:49:50.160
And then they did what you mentioned, a feature that I was using became a paid thing.

00:49:50.160 –> 00:49:54.020
And it was unfortunate because it happened in the middle of a project.

00:49:54.020 –> 00:49:57.340
And that would have been nice if I would have known that was going to happen to me.

00:49:57.340 –> 00:49:59.440
So I haven’t used it since.

00:49:59.440 –> 00:50:05.520
But, you know, Apple has, also they have GarageBand and they have Logic.

00:50:05.620 –> 00:50:09.300
They have iMovie and then they have, what is it, Final Cut?

00:50:09.300 –> 00:50:11.060
Final Cut Pro, yeah, sure.

00:50:11.140 –> 00:50:14.760
Yeah, okay, so I want to spend 300 bucks, that’s fine, but CapCut is free.

00:50:14.760 –> 00:50:14.940
Yes.

00:50:14.940 –> 00:50:19.380
Well, even the free version is still light years beyond what iMovie can do.

00:50:19.380 –> 00:50:20.760
Yeah, I may look at it again.

00:50:20.760 –> 00:50:22.860
I got so mad that day, I’m like, screw this, all this.

00:50:22.860 –> 00:50:25.980
It’s funny, that kind of bait and switch stuff is very annoying.

00:50:25.980 –> 00:50:34.580
Yeah, it’s funny that the more I’ve just sat and thought about what I’m trying to do, I know that iMovie is very basic in its functionality.

00:50:34.580 –> 00:50:38.560
I guess it’s mostly, they didn’t put a lot of, well, they just didn’t put a lot of features in it.

00:50:39.260 –> 00:50:48.620
But I’m real, I’ve been doing this with all kinds of applications and by applications, I mean, you know, all the different things we’re using on our computers and phones.

00:50:48.620 –> 00:50:51.360
And I’m realizing, oh, I have the ability to do that.

00:50:51.360 –> 00:50:54.620
I don’t need a special app for that or that.

00:50:54.620 –> 00:50:55.560
So I know how to do that.

00:50:55.560 –> 00:50:55.920
Yeah.

00:50:55.920 –> 00:50:59.420
But you just have to sort of think because we get so used to using these things.

00:50:59.420 –> 00:51:01.040
Do you have you toured or do you tour?

00:51:01.040 –> 00:51:02.560
Do you have plans to tour?

00:51:02.560 –> 00:51:03.440
Oh, God, no.

00:51:03.440 –> 00:51:20.740
I mean, that’s something again, if you talk about like hours spent in a day, like rehearsing to be able to play a live gig somewhere is something that’s way, way, way down my priority list just because it’s not something that would come as naturally to me and it would be a big stress.

00:51:20.740 –> 00:51:22.480
And yes, eventually I would like to do it.

00:51:22.480 –> 00:51:28.840
Maybe I’ll start doing coffee houses around somewhere, but that’s not immediately in the plans, no.

00:51:28.840 –> 00:51:29.320
Yeah, you should.

00:51:29.320 –> 00:51:30.660
You’ll enjoy it, I think.

00:51:31.160 –> 00:51:35.120
Yeah, I know, but a lot to do, a lot more to think about.

00:51:35.120 –> 00:51:41.600
It’s a lot of, I don’t know, I haven’t been on the stage playing like that in a long, long, long time.

00:51:41.600 –> 00:51:42.420
But you have done it.

00:51:43.060 –> 00:51:55.520
Yeah, I have done it in the past, but you know, and maybe I would fall in love with it, but it’s just like the amount of rehearsal time I would have to put in to be able to play some of the, because I have to play and sing at the same time, it wouldn’t be easy for me, technically.

00:51:55.520 –> 00:51:56.840
Just like I’m limited technically.

00:51:59.080 –> 00:51:59.940
I get it.

00:51:59.940 –> 00:52:01.400
I get it.

00:52:01.400 –> 00:52:04.000
Well, hey, I think we covered a lot of good stuff here.

00:52:04.140 –> 00:52:04.660
You sure did.

00:52:04.660 –> 00:52:05.100
Yeah.

00:52:05.100 –> 00:52:05.680
Yeah.

00:52:05.680 –> 00:52:13.600
I know your website is theagency.com, and that’s A-J-J-A-N-C-Y, but I’ll put it in the show notes, because that’s going to be tough for people to remember.

00:52:14.580 –> 00:52:17.980
Yeah, George, also known as The Agency, it’s a real pleasure talking with you.

00:52:17.980 –> 00:52:18.680
I appreciate it.

00:52:18.680 –> 00:52:19.220
Absolutely, Rob.

00:52:19.220 –> 00:52:21.100
Thank you so much.

00:52:21.100 –> 00:52:24.000
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00:52:24.000 –> 00:52:25.660
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00:52:26.060 –> 00:52:28.860
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00:52:28.860 –> 00:52:42.880
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00:52:42.880 –> 00:52:46.120
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00:52:46.120 –> 00:52:57.880
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00:52:57.880 –> 00:53:02.460
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00:53:13.420 –> 00:53:17.720
The music you’re hearing is New Gods Part 2, the instrumental mix by yours truly.

00:53:17.720 –> 00:53:22.480
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00:53:22.480 –> 00:53:33.240
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00:53:33.240 –> 00:53:37.340
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00:53:39.860 –> 00:53:41.240
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00:53:41.240 –> 00:53:43.440
Peace, gratitude and a whole lot of love.