Local DJ Gigs...A Dream Killer? 🌟

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business, Cream & Purari discuss:

• Finding time to create music often requires intentional planning.
• EDC Orlando showcased a vibrant festival atmosphere and diverse music scene.
• Back-to-back DJ sets can create an electrifying energy at festivals.
• Networking is crucial in the music industry, often more than meeting the artists themselves.
• The culture of having fans on stage is evolving in the festival scene.
• Local shows can be a double-edged sword for artists.
• Separate your artist identity from open format gigs for clarity.
• Your online presence should reflect your artistic brand.
• Money can drive decisions that may not align with artistic goals.
• Be selective about gigs to maintain your brand integrity.
• Complacency in local markets can hinder career growth. There's a cap on how much money you can make from local gigs.
• Ghost production is common and should not be stigmatized.
• Collaboration in music production is vital for success.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Host Dynamics
• 3:05 Balancing Life and Creativity
• 4:01 Experience at EDC Orlando
• 12:12 Festival Insights and Back-to-Back Sets
• 16:00 Networking and Industry Connections
• 19:00 Seizing Opportunities in the Music Industry
• 23:00 The Importance of Music Over Gigs
• 27:09 Navigating Local Shows and Artist Identity
• 34:58 Balancing Money and Artistic Integrity
• 45:48 The Local Gig Economy: Earnings and Limitations
• 47:05 Navigating Career Choices in Music
• 49:51 The Importance of Focus and Saying No
• 50:50 Branding and Marketing for Artists
• 55:47 Understanding Ghost Production in Music
• 1:06:00 Wrapping Up: Promotions and Future Plans

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 168th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord, Digital Music Pool and the Pyrrhoi Production Academy. My name's Kareem. My name is Perari. Wow, there he is. What is that? Is that the Undertaker bell? This is just a boom and. I'm trying to get the sound effects going, Gary. Come on, man. I got the Taco Bell bing. I got effects on effects. We got Gary W. on vacation at the moment. So, you know, we gotta bring in our sometimes host, Harari. Third host, let's go. I'm doing well. I was just saying to you offline that, you know, Gary's been away and it's sort of given me an opportunity to take a step back from a lot of the get down stuff and focus on more of the content and music and stuff that I have going on. So it's been nice. We all need that. I'm feeling that too. I just got, there's so much life stuff going on and it just, it's making my head spin, but I would love a good week where I could just cancel every one of my responsibilities and just sit and create music, but it's just not the way life works for me anymore. I feel like there's a way that you can still get that. Like even if it's just one day where it's like, I'm gonna lock myself away, cancel all my students, cancel all my meetings, and just make music for that day. You know what, I've done that before and it's always like something comes up, right? Like life comes up or the other day I did it and my wife and I are changing out our bathroom vanity and I'm like, all right, great. Well, he's upstairs. My wife was with the baby somewhere. I'm like, I have no responsibilities except for to make music. And then as the guy was doing my bathroom, the vanity came, like I was telling you offline and it was broken. So. that I had to deal with, okay, now I have to deal with the contractor and then the vanity and now I'm calling up Lowe's screaming and now I'm not in the right head space to make music. So I always feel like I need to like go into like a cabin in the woods and just like lock, dude, I would even love to go to like a conference room somewhere like a WeWork and just bring my laptop and my headphones just for a couple hours so that nobody bothers me but. living that dad, husband, homeowner life, man. It's tough to juggle. It has been the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, balancing those three things. It's been good days, bad days, hard days, but... gets older, feel like you'll be, it'll be, it'll get easier. That's what they said, but now this little girl is climbing on everything and I couldn't even do, I couldn't even find this thing I had to find today because if I put her down for two seconds, she's crawling across the room and she's a little speedster now. So, it's life, man. I get it. You know when your parents say, you'll see one day, like my mom and dad used to say that to me all the time. They'd be like, you'll see one day. I feel that, I feel it. You know what else to do? Like you could, you can cancel everything and block out a full day. And then there's just some days where like you get in the studio and you just got nothing. You got no, no ideas. Like anything you put down sucks. And then like another day where you have five minutes, you're like, let me open Ableton. And then you have this like amazing lead that you create and you're like, fuck, I wish I could spend the whole day on this. Exactly. And it's been like that too. Like the other day I had like 10 minutes before a session. I programmed this little idea. I'm like, my God, this is like three channels of like serum channels. And I'm like, this is fire. I'm like, this melody is great. And then there's days where like, I do have those five hours and, know, I'm sitting there I can't come up with anything. So it's just, it's the creativity, man. It's just, you know, trying to tap into your creativity and when it hits, you're supposed to go dive right in. I just don't have that luxury anymore, but you know, the sacrifice of that. for having a family, being a dad, being a homeowner is just a lot more wholesome for me. Yeah, man, there's a balance to everything. So you were also this weekend just in down in EDC Orlando. You were we won't say what you were doing there, but you were there hanging out with the artists and checking out some sets. What what was your experience down there? Was this your first EDC Orlando? first EDC Orlando, first one that my artist was also at and they've been to the Vegas one and a lot of the other ones too. And dude, what an amazing, amazing festival. I was, I've always known of the Orlando scene as being very big into like, I want to say more bass music, but then, you know, we have some guys that are from Jersey, like Damian D'Amelio or Ricky Hyde who go down to Orlando a lot and I was very curious to see like what the scene was like down there and that's more of the tech house or house realm. I think that scene is blowing up down there, like that rooftop house vibe, like minimal. yeah the Celine the club down there Vanguard. There's a lot of great clubs and I dude I haven't been to Orlando Probably since I was five years old six years old shout out to Gary cuz he's a Disney guy I just haven't been to Orlando and I forgot how Crazy that flight is from Newark to Orlando because of all of the kids on it. So that was I mean, just getting down there, you know, we had a 1 a or 1 p.m. Pickup time for the festival and I was flying in at like 10 o'clock. I'm like, I have plenty of time, but you know flight stuff happens. There's a Disney adult on there with you know, 40 30 40 years old with Mickey Mouse ears on the plane had a panic attack and had to step off the plane. So we had to go back to the gate drop that person off and then we finally got on the way and then I was like time crunched. Now. Now I got in at 11, then get to the hotel was 1130. I had to organize artist pickup and all of our credentials. So photo video credentials, all of our wristbands like you were doing full TM or you were just kind of there hanging out? Okay. Tour manager. So Mike, was tour managing for the weekend or for the day. for the day, yeah. And you you have to organize all the credentials. Thankfully the credentials were in the same place at the Artist Block Hotel, so everything was right there, which made it super easy. And EDC's team is awesome. Everything was set, like ready to go. So I had like an hour to eat, shower, and get artists pick up all done. And yeah, the festival, the scene, the people, it was awesome. Yeah, I saw some video, it looked great. I felt like there was like, what was the stage setup? Because I feel like where you were, there was a ton of people behind the DJ, the artist. so it was it was really interesting this year, which I learned about. they're doing this new thing at EDC where basically they have wristbands for each stage that the artists are allowed to give a certain. I mean, I had an envelope with probably about 50 wristbands. I'm not even joking. And that was just for that specific stage. And what they're doing is you're only allowed to be on stage for that artist. So they have a bartender on stage now. So you're able to just get drinks and they're making you feel like you're part of everything, right? So you're getting that John Summit, thousand people behind the booth vibe and hospitality, you know, where you're taking care of. And then the minute that artist is done, they clear that section off and they bring on the new people. Like I was like, I saw that happen at one point and I was like telling my buddy, I'm like, look, they're taking all of this crowd off for this DJ and they're bringing on the new one. was actually the switch from Nicole Madalbert to Karl Cox of Vintage Culture. So all the Nicole Madalbert people got off the stage. And then there was a line of people backstage who were all allowed on stage to do that. So I thought that was a great idea because it gives the fans like this VIP experience, but still keeping organized in a way. See, like, that's something that I would pay for, you know? Like, I think that's something that fans would be willing to pay whatever it costs because it's a super unique experience. I love it. I think it's so cool. Such a great idea. I don't know if you could pay for it, that I don't know, but I know that was the process. And I didn't give out any wristbands, there was nobody on stage for our set, so... just artist driven, like here's my, you know, here's my friends and my family and whoever else, if they wanna bring fans up there, they give out the wristbands and that's it. Yeah, and I'm sure some artists are like, we don't want anybody on stage, you know, some people do that. So. I mean, think more and more artists do want like a group of people kind of back there, sort of that like boiler room idea where you have people dancing and hanging out. And then you have like the Hugels and the John Summits with like all the girls literally on top of them. Things are changing, right? Like back in the day, you'd never have people on the stage. Think about even shows that you've played with artists locally. Like even as the DJ, they're like, you know, this artist doesn't want anyone on the stage, so like you can't hang out up here kind of thing. I get older I'm starting to become grumpy dad and I'm like everyone out of my booth, know, but when I was younger it wasn't the case. I used to fit like, you know, 12 people into like that small, shout out Mills Tavern, this shirt is now vintage considering that they close, but I used to fit so many people in that little Mills Tavern booth that I didn't care who it was and I think, you know, especially now I think that that's part of the culture is like getting behind the booth, you know, we... We always talk about like the phones out at shows. mean, you had to see, you think the phones are out in the crowd. You should see them behind the stage. mean, everybody thinks they're an influencer and this and that. And it was just kind of like crazy to see that, I guess this year, cause it was brand new. They didn't have it at Vegas, but I even remember like when EDC New York was here. I was, you know, in the area was really EDC New Jersey. Cause it was at MetLife, but like I was one of the more, you know, popular DJs in New Jersey, I did this, I did that, and I couldn't even get backstage at the festival in my own city, you know, which is... doing that? I used to love going to that. I couldn't tell ya, I should probably find out, but... It was also because it was in the parking lot of MetLife Stadium where the Giants and Jets play and it was just like this and also within the stadium. So you would have like the main stage inside and then you have these two or three stages outside. But you're in this giant parking lot. There was so much space. Like you never felt like people were on top of you if you needed to get out of like the masses you could. And not only that, I'm sure they could sell even more tickets because it's such a big space. I don't, I don't know the reason. When did they terminate that? I think it was like they moved it from MetLife to City Field and then they moved it somewhere else. went to the one in City Field and I felt like it was just maybe a little bit unorganized in that sense. But I think now that they have, well, yeah, that, that we had to get a hotel. mean, that was like a hike, you know, you take the trains back and stuff where, you know, MetLife Stadium was so easy. I used to have a big pregame in my basement. And I would DJ and everybody would come. We'd all go down route three, but we were talking about it this weekend because Orlando is in, I don't know whose stadium it is. was called camping world stadium. It might be UCFs, but where the artist section was, was like kind of in the stadium, like where like a chase lounge would be or something like that. And it was cool. And I was like, man, I remember when they had. the size record stage inside of MetLife. And you would walk through the tunnel like you were playing football and like you would be on the field and like Steve Angelo and Junior Sanchez. It was, it was cool. We have nothing here now. we literally don't have, we got nothing. Governor's ball, does that count? That doesn't count. that's it. We don't even have a, what was the island? Governor's Island, man. Zoo. I used to go to that every year too. Well, Ezue, that didn't happen this year, right? Obviously, RIP. We talked about it. Yeah. Well, there you go. Maybe they just don't want to deal with the... Maybe there's logistical nightmares in New York. You know? I'm not behind the scenes on that sense, so I don't really know. But yeah, EDC was great, man. was... a couple things I saw just from looking at the lineup, it seemed like there was a lot more back-to-back sets and some really interesting ones that maybe you wouldn't expect. what did you take away from that? So Friday, when we were there, we had a back to back of Dioro and Timmy Trumpet, which I, walking through the stages, I like kind of heard it and you want to talk about energy. mean, it was, I heard Dioro going uno, dos, tres, and I heard Timmy Trumpet, you ready? Like you, it's just like, imagine both of those energies, it's like fighting each other, one's punching each other. Dude, it sounded so sick, for sure. And then, you know, they have the fire going off. Like you could just see the production of the kinetic field, the main stage. And I was like, dude, this is nuts. But the one that I really enjoyed and I don't even, I want to say it was three hours long or two hours long was I went to go see at the very end of the night. so in the artist area, like, like I told you in the stadium, I was actually hanging out with my boy, Max Styler and my boy, a vision who just as both finished their sets and we were like, yo, what do you guys want to do? You want to go catch a set? And we were just like, we're all going to go to Neon Garden because Anthony had just played that stage and Max is like, I want to go see Nicole. So we all kind of just like walked over there through the festival, which was actually pretty cool because the carding just took long because it was always on the outskirts and there wasn't really a lot of room. So we're just like, dude, let's just walk through the festival and just like, you know, take it in. So here's me, Max Styler and Avisian just walking through the festival with like John summits manager and Max's manager Parker. we're just, you know, trotting through the festival. No one really stops us get to the stage, get backstage and Nicole Madalbert was on who was ripping it. And I didn't even know who was next, but ended up being Carl Cox and vintage culture. And they did a back to back set. man. I had so much fun. It was amazing. And it was cool because Carl was playing a Visions new record, Big Fun. You guys should check that one out. It's such a good record. a remake of an old song. But it was just so much fun and it was just like track after track and energy. it was like, I gotta say there weren't a lot of phones out. Backstage there was, but in the crowd you could kind of see that there wasn't a lot of phones out. Yeah, feel like that's a, you know, when Gary and I talked about this, I feel like that's product of like the Karl Cox crowd that's going there to like dance kind of thing. Yeah. And you could see that it's a little bit, it was a cool mix to see because there were definitely older heads there that were like Karl Cox for lifers, right? And then vintage culture, who I've seen a couple of times, I saw him at marquee during EDC Vegas week. That was 2022. He tends to bring out that younger crowd, but it's like that more he's Brazilian. So it's like that more sexy Brazilian, like model type of crowd too, you know? So it was cool to see the two. I come together and what an unbelievable set. I I stayed till the very, very end and it was unbelievable. mean, Pasquale Rotella came to come check it out. Like it was, it was nuts. Good, sounds like you had a good experience down there. I did and you know, I was on the plane the next day. So it was cool to meet. I met a couple of cool artists. met Hypaton. He was, he's like a 25 year old kid from Italy. He does the future rave stuff with David Guetta. Really, really nice kid. I also met Oliver Heldens. I met Odd Mob. I met a lot of the organizers of the festival. So just going there as an artist or someone that works in the industry. It's a whole different experience. would say the drinks are free. The food is free. You get to hang out with everybody in the industry that you haven't seen. And I got to say, like, if you are a local artist or a local DJ, nothing will humble you more than being backstage with some of these guys. I mean, there was even like a second floor of artists that was like in like the private boxes that was. VIP. I was like, this is where the rich DJs are, right? So like, that was like, that's where Tiesto was and Diplo and like vintage cultures, green room, like they were like on a whole nother level. So, you know, it was a, I'm like, these are the rich guys, but I mean, the, way that they organize it insomniac is, unbelievable. And you know, being at these festivals reminds me why I love this so much and why I'm so, you know, passionate about the way I talk about things and what I do, because I just fucking love it. I love every minute of it. And I love celebrating and hanging out with like all the other artists you don't get to see all the time all in one place and just kind of celebrating success and all that. really good work in a room too. So like when you get the opportunity to get into that backstage area, you're going to make the best of it because you got an outgoing personality, you already know a lot of people. And you're deep in the culture and deep in the industry. So like it's easy for you to have conversations with anybody, you know, so I'm sure you made some great connections this weekend that will probably help in the long run, you know. Yeah, for sure. And I get asked that all the time from students. like, how do know who that's John Summits manager? How do you know? And the simple answer is what you just said. Like, I love this shit. I love, I live and breathe this. I, I, if I see somebody in a video like that's with Tiesto, I will, I got to know who that guy is because he's probably important and there's no way to teach that. It's just be engulfed in this stuff and, and just love it. Like, you know, you'll find the right people and you'll know who to talk to and stuff. yeah, I mean, you talk about in your Discord a lot is like, Tiesto's not gonna be the one that's gonna sign your record. It's the team around Tiesto that's gonna be the one that signs your record, you know? Like, those are the people that are gonna help you with your music or, you know, the relationships. Meeting Tiesto that's not really gonna, you're gonna shake his hand and maybe take a picture and like, that's it. Like, he's not making decisions really when it comes to your music getting on the label type thing. Maybe like final decision, but. Yeah. And, and you know, lot of these guys, like I, I saw briefly a conversation happening where I want to say it was YDG dubstep guy. I believe it was his manager was hanging out in the artist's place and he was talking to artists or whatever. And he was the one approaching the artists for remix requests for YDG. That's the guy you want to talk to. YDG isn't walking around saying, yo, let me remix, let me remix. It's the manager. It's the agent, whoever that person was. I saw just walking around talking to artists. Hey, You want to remix his YDG song, we have a budget for it. And they're the ones doing the business. you know, I don't know YDG that well. I didn't know if that was his manager's because I'm not in that specific scene. So I didn't know who that guy was, but I knew he was somewhat of importance because he was going around talking to everybody. So very interesting. I think that's why when there's opportunities, like when there's contests to in to DJ the first set of a stage or there's a contest to win a remix competition, like if you're a producer DJ aspiring to make it to this level, like you should enter all that shit. Even if it's, takes time, even if nothing comes of it, like it's a potential opportunity to make a connection with the decision makers, you know? And maybe nothing comes of it, but That is a door that is a potential opening to create a working relationship. So I would take those opportunities no matter what. If you think it's a long shot or not, I think it's worth your time to pursue. I just learned about the Discovery Project from EDC, which is like, they're, we're going to look for somebody that's killing it, doing originals and DJing, whatever, and they give opportunities to those artists to play the festival on like, an art car or something like that. But yeah, you're not going to get paid, but hey, it's, yeah, I forget what it was called. It was called like, it was like some little bus this year. I, we drove past it when we were going to our stage, but you know, I know guys that entered that like 15 times, never got anything. And then like the 16th time they like won it and played EDC Vegas this year, which was awesome. And then look at you, you get to say, I played EDC Vegas. And that was the same case with, you know, my buddy, Anthony, a vision. He played EDC Vegas on an art car. I want to say close to probably 10 years ago, 2013, 11 years ago. And just now this is now he played his first EDC Vegas in 2022, which I went to. or maybe it was 2021 and now he's a steady neon garden factor releasing on factory 93 guys. So that first discovery project probably didn't do much for him, right? On that art car probably costed him money. You got to pay for the flight. The hotel didn't get paid, right? But maybe the relationships he made, or maybe they didn't ever even heard of him. Cause I don't even think he played as a vision at the time. think he played by his real name, which is what he used to go to. But now with his artist project, he's now playing the same stage, he's sharing the stage with Karl Cox and vintage culture on a big billing. Right. And that will help you to sell yourself or your manager to sell you for gigs down the line. You know, that's a resume booster for sure. It's like, I played EDC 10 years ago. You did what the hell? It's a cool story to tell when you did it. Like actually for real 10 years later, you know, And even as a local artist, if you're trying to break into some of the bigger, the bigger venues in your city, it's like, Hey, I just played EDC Vegas. So like, you should book me. If someone came to me and said, cream, I just played EDC Vegas, I won this contest, I would book that person just to see, you know, 1000 % It's a resume, right? Like, it's like, I always look at it as like a stamp book, right? Where like, just like stamp all these things I've done, right? And then it's like, hey, look at my book. My book is probably a lot thicker than somebody maybe who just started, but it's all a course of 10 years, you know? And you know, that EDC Vegas stamp has not been stamped for me yet, but when I do that, I'll be stamping that. And Ultra. And you know, I want this big... portfolio collection of all the things that I've done in my career and You know, I think that's a goal that anybody any dance music Artist should strive to do is play EDC or Tomorrowland, but really in the US I'm really impressed both the couple times about the hospitality of EDC organization of it I mean everything about it was great. So props to them props to insomnia Yeah, hell yeah. Sounds like it was amazing. I'm gonna flip the order of what we were gonna talk about. I think it just fits better right now. So you've been going heavy on threads. If you don't follow Mikey on threads, please do. Because he's just like, he's hitting all these controversial topics and people are going at him and he's going back at him and it's just like pure entertainment. But as always, you're bringing up. really great points. So I'm going to read one of your threads because we were DMing about it a little bit. I was like, we should definitely talk about this in the podcast. So your thread was a lot of DJs, producers that I coach instantly want to play the shows. Yes, most of us do. But remember, fans won't remember or care about you by the amount of shows you play. Fans will remember you by the music you create and put out. Think about that before you start to jump on the local show gigging. What are your thoughts? And I think this is a great opportunity for us to take these two sides. expand upon that thread and sort of what you were thinking and why you think that way. Yeah, so I made that thread because I had a couple artists in my academy, you know, say, you know, making all this music and I'm doing all this stuff. I'm not getting any shows, right? And it's a very, very touchy top topic because I don't really teach the act of how to get shows. The way you're going to get shows is your brand has to be on point. You have to get noticed. You have to have good music so that people understand your music. And it's a very, very touchy. touchy subject. you know, I posted this video the other day and I want to give a shout out to Taylor Torrance, I believe. I know he's a Cosmic Academy alumni. I don't know if he is a teacher there as well, but it was a YouTube video that came up on my suggested feeds and it said, our local shows worth it. And I watched it and I really want to like, you know, see this. And he talks about basically how these local shows, he compares them to an itch, right? He goes, as an artist, you want to have that itch and you want to scratch that itch, right? So by doing that, you're going to play a local show. You're going to, you know, maybe take a gig that doesn't relate to what you're trying to do, but you have that itch that you want to DJ. You want to play out music. You want to just DJ, right? And the way I kind of interpreted it is, yeah, you want to take that itch and you want to scratch that itch. But what happens when you scratch that itch a little bit too long, right? It starts to bleed. And then you got to clean up a mess of all this blood that you kind of made. So that's kind of where that tweet came from. And I shared it with my students. And I had a couple of students that, again, that you might know that are New Jersey guys. And they say, well, yeah, but I'm on a plane every weekend. And I'm DJing this. Or I agree to disagree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just a really cool topic to talk about. Because I feel like, again, just being at EDC, You know, none of those fans, maybe they went for the festival because EDC does culture a very big thing. They like to say that the fans are the headliners, right? But at end of the day, most of these fans are going or buying a ticket to see the artists they want to play. Now, did they go see John Summit because he plays 150 shows a year or Timmy Trumpet, somebody that I know that gigs a ton because he plays 170 shows a year. They don't go based on the number of shows he plays, right? They go based on the music that they make and they go see him play the music that he make and whether it's a good performance or a bad performance, the reason why they go see that artist is because of the music that they make. Bottom line, there's no other way. Now, going back to like the threads and people coming at me, people were kind of saying like, you know, I've gone and seen DJ and I've followed him or her basically because they played a great set. Does that happen? Yes. That's because the party goer I think goes to the venue just for the party. Maybe it's a specific party. I love that DJ That's like a 1 % case But I think if you really want to make it as an artist or a DJ you have to give something that the fan whether it's music it could be anything else but majority of its music now you have to give something that the fan is going to pay into and I wouldn't even say pay into but like be attracted to and for me that's always been music and you could see the same path of you could there's an interview that John summit just did where he was like Same thing. He's like, yo, I'm, and this is what's also sparked the topic, but like, he was like, I was playing a bunch of local shows in Chicago and I was playing spy bar and I was doing this, but you know, you just got to focus on music because you're not going to get anywhere if you're not making music. And I thought that that thread was very controversial and I'm still getting replies of both sides of the spectrum. It's an interesting topic for sure. And I can totally see how anyone would be really passionate about one side or the other. And before, yeah, I would just say like everyone's path is different. If you want the quickest way to playing festivals and playing big shows and having fans, Yeah, making music every day and trying to create a sound and create songs that people resonate with and want to listen to and pay to go see is going to be your quickest, easiest way on that path for sure. But I think in order to have to be an entertainer, to be a performer, to get people to go to your show and be like, holy shit, that was sick. Not just because of the songs, but because of everything, right? Your visuals, stage presence on the mic, like all this stuff. I think going and playing shows in your home market or wherever, there is value to it. Learning how to be a performer is not something that a studio producer is going to know how to do at all unless they go do it, you know? Yep. I think that's where like I do agree for the DJing is for that itch, right? To get that experience. Now... Right, and you go test music. I think that's really important too, like to get an understanding of what works, like what music works. for me, that was the biggest thing. Like, yeah, I was gigging how many days a week or whatever, but I was testing my big room EDM songs of these small rooms. And that was like, wow, it works here. It's probably going to work on a main stage. But you know, that's the reason why you want to gig is to, like I said, scratch that itch. It shouldn't be all the time. If your biggest goal is to be like, I always ask my students, what's your end goal? What is your end goal? Do you want to be John summit? Do you want to play every EDC? Okay, that's fine. Why are you doing, and I just had this conversation with a student as well. Why are you DJing five nights a week, open format under your artist's name? Change your artist's name, change it to something else or change your local DJ name to something else. Make it your full name and keep your artist project separate, which a lot of guys don't have the luxury of doing, but it's something that you should. And I've always contemplated that DJing open format stuff as Mikey P because yeah, the money was good and I can do this, this and this. And then as Perari, just keep that completely separate as this studio guy. And I think that's something that if you want to achieve that, go ahead and do that. But I want to, I want to share this. Someone, replied to me on threads, to that thread. he said, local DJ gigs can be a dream killer if you're not careful, if you're not careful. Okay. If I thought I, I thought I had made it when I got a residency at the best club in my city, where every house and techno artists came to play every weekend and I got to open for them. And that's one of the reasons why I used to do it in my market was to meet the artists and open for them and get in their good graces. But then he goes on and he says, I enjoyed the partying too much and didn't use those opportunities to network and make and share music. 10 years went by that. I feel like I wasted during 2020 when COVID happened, I started taking music production seriously. Finally, I signed two EPs and got invited this year to play at ADE at age. Think about that. Now this guy is just thinking that his career is starting, but I feel like a lot of people fall into that trap, myself included, where you're partying, you're hanging out with girls, you're doing this, you're doing that, and then you blink and ten years go by and you're like, what the fuck am I doing? What am I doing here? Really? Like, I'm this 30 year old, 40 year old now guy that's still partying with 21 year olds when I could have been taking my career to the next level. And I don't mean to say it maliciously in any way. I say these things because I want to better, like, think about the next thing. Like, think about what's next. Don't get complacent, which is another threat I made. Don't get complacent in your market because that's the dream killer right there. And you just saw a guy who I don't even know decide to share his story of what happened. And I feel like that happens a lot. A lot. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the point you made before reading the tweet about changing your name, if you're gonna do local open format stuff, let's say, in your market, like, your artist name, you should definitely have two names, right? I just think that's such great advice, and anybody that's trying to still gig, but also producing music under a certain name, like, let the artist... name shine through and be associated with the style of music that you're creating and that's it, right? Make mixes, do a Spotify playlist, like whatever you're gonna do, do under that name and then if you are gonna play home shows, do it under a different name. I think that's just smart. to do that, please do that. Take it from somebody who's made that mistake, right? Or take it from somebody that I've seen people make that mistake. Like I had another artist just recently approach me. He wants to do a rebrand. All right, great. So he's using the same logo, the same font as his open format name, but he's rebranding. It's a rebrand into it, like a different artist, right? Like he wants to be this this artist project, but he... said that I want to still play open format gigs because of money or whatever. And I was like, dude, you have a great opportunity here. Keep your old brand, right? But just make this new one. And then I got like, well, I don't want to make two Instagrams and you know, I'll do this. I'll keep it under one. But I know labels and bookers aren't going to give me a good look. They know he said it. I know they aren't, but I'm going to do it anyway. And it's like, dude, You have an opportunity that you could just separate the two, right? And you know, we're having this conversation now where I think he may go with that thing, but it's just the smartest move. Yeah. It's going to be double the work or maybe you have to put more energy into one, but I promise if your end goal is to be that house techno artist and not play open format gigs, then do it the way where you separate the two. It's going to work out in the end because people aren't going to want to see this house techno guy, but you're playing four nights at a bar playing Bad Bunny, we've talked about this on a podcast many times. Bookers and record labels and anyone that's going to make decisions on getting you to where you want to go, they're going to want to go look at your stuff and have a clear understanding of who you are and what you do. And if you have these two different brands on one Instagram page or one website or whatever, TikTok, whatever you're using, it just it's confusing. Like. It's a branding and marketing thing where you want to tell people exactly what you are, who you are and what you do. And that's super important. If that's open format, DJ skills, wordplay, show that off. If that's techno artist, then like that's the only thing you should be showing on your page is techno artist. Zone say that last week where he said your Instagram is your resume, right? Or he compared it to a Christmas tree and how you decorate it with your ornaments, right? Well, my Christmas tree is going to look beautiful. I'm going to decorate it with these nice ornaments. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that, right? I'm not going to put, you know, a nice ornament next to, you know, a piece of metal I found off the street. You know I'm saying? So like it's got to look concise. And we were talking about this with the student as well, like, you know, with the rebrand. your colors, like I know your colors are always red, black and, you know, white. Like my Instagram is a lot of like this like goldish, like yellow color, black and grays as well too. Like all of that plays a part of the brand. Every major company does it. You should do it as well. And I think that, you know, going back to that original topic, like, yes, every, if you want to be a traveling open format DJ, then show that on your Instagram. That is okay. But the problem that I see most people say is that I want to be an artist, but this is what I'm doing. And what you're doing is not helping the artist career. And I will stand by this. can tell you from my own mistakes, not one time did a bar gig or an open format gig ever, ever, ever contribute to my artist career. My artist career has always been contributed from making music, getting shows in the right Places they're not going to be five days a week maybe once a year if that but getting that right show to show off my artist skill set and Everything else will branch off from there. I didn't get backstage to EDC playing a thousand bar gigs I got to EDC from creating a presence about my Artist stuff my coaching stuff whatever it is that I could benefit other people there And that's why I was hired to do what I do and be backstage at EDC Yeah, I think just coming from like the DJ side, I'll kind of give some points of why I think it is important to still take some gigs. I don't think you should be gigging every single Friday and Saturday. I don't even think you should be gigging once a week. I think you should be gigging only the gigs that will allow you to play the style of music that you're creating. So if you're making bass house, what venues in your market can you go play bass house, test your music? Get content, because that's another part of this we haven't talked about yet that I think is important. Go and live in those places. Target a couple places that really make sense for you locally and go get to know every single person there. Go get to know the resident DJ there and do whatever it takes to get some bookings there. Because you'll be able to play your artist style set. Maybe it's not, you're not gonna play the peak hour, probably, but at least you can go play an artist style set. in a venue that's bringing in artists bringing in, you know, has a name, you can get content, which I think is important. You know, I think it's important for people to see you playing on a stage and playing your music, or at least being able to create content around that, you know. So I don't, I think it is important to get some gigs, right? sharpen your sword, go see what works, go test music, go see what doesn't work, get comfortable performing, get comfortable on a mic. think all that stuff is important and really gonna help you down the line if your music does start making noise and you do start getting some bigger gigs. I just think it's a way that if you have some of that stuff already in your repertoire, you don't have to learn it. And you just have to learn how to be a great DJ as an artist kind of thing, you know? Let me ask you this, and we'll kind of peel back the layers a bit, but you having all these DJs under your belt on Get Down and all this stuff, why do you think, what's the main reason why you think that people become either complacent in your market or, you know, like, what's the main reason why they hold on to these open format gigs? Can we pause real quick? Is there a way to edit this? Hold on, my wife's Do I want my carpets vacuums? No, I'll do them. All right, sorry, but going back to that, go ahead, into that question. so yeah, so I would say the number one thing is, is money. Honestly, I think a lot of the times guys are really like, I just want to do this artist DJ thing full time. They quit their job and then they're forced to just take anything. This happened to me too. And for a long time, I was a big proponent of like, I want to work with the people that quit their job and go all in and do this. And that's fine. If you want to be an open format national DJ. I think that path works. If you want to be an artist, you don't want to have to take gigs, local bar gigs that don't make sense for your brand just because you need money. So keep the day job, be very picky and choosy about the venues and the gigs that you do take that we like, like I just said, that allow you to go play your music and it's a good venue and it fits and you can test stuff out and get content. And you don't have to rely on, I'm going to go do this. wedding because I need to make $2,000 to pay my rent kind of thing, you know? I think that's the number one thing. or money is the the root of all evil. Right. And there you go. It's like money like wanting to have money. And yes, you we've talked about this. You're doing these open format gigs. You are making a ton of money. You're doing what you love. Right. You don't have to go work the day job. But I want it like maybe like five years ago, I would have said quit that day job, you know, and just go in all full time on music like you can do it. Right. But now in twenty twenty four, look at where our economy is. Right. Like I'm I'm saying, the, keep the day job, buddy, keep the day job because the club markets right now are not doing as well as they should. I'm even doing less gigs because the offers just aren't there. So there is ebbs and flows in this stuff as well. And I think that for the open format stuff, it's consistent money because you're getting the same rate. It doesn't matter if there's 10 people or a hundred people. When you get to a higher level, it's like there's an offer. And that offer is there. It's called an offer for a reason. It's because what you can do in the club, the nightclub, how can you make them money? How many tickets did you sell and all these other factors? So if you can't do any of that, your offers go down number one or number two, you're not getting them at all, right? Or even more so the club's not doing well. So they can't meet your offer. That's why it's called an offer, not like a pay, right? But circling back to it, money being the root of all evil. Keep that day job and I want to give a shout out to one of my students who is doing an absolutely unbelievable job. Like this guy is exceeding all of my expectations and I want you guys to go look him up and his name is Aster. A-S-T-O-R. When I tell you this guy is grinding his butt off working in finance, he does something with the politics so he was really busy with work last week. He's in finance but he does something with like bonds and the elections and stuff like that. But this guy works his day job, makes great money. He reinvest some of his money into the priority production Academy and other things that I have nothing to do with like Instagram ads and tick tock ads and all these other things. And this guy has five releases this year coming onto six strong, strong releases and maybe a year and a half ago, he couldn't even produce. Now he's making festival progressive house. Awesome stuff. He has 70,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. He has over a hundred thousand streams on all of his songs and he's able to keep the day job. And because of his stuff, he's been going to ADE. People know who he is, laid back. Luke said hi to him on the street and knew who he was. Like he's getting the respect he deserves. So I think that in one or two years, I want to come back on this podcast and say, remember that guy I told you about? Look where he is now. And he kept the day job. This guy was a ticket selling DJ. He stopped opening for artists for selling tickets. Like once in a while he'll do it again. Talk about scratch the itch, but you scratch it too much. It's going to bleed, right? So he does that stuff. He'll play at the summer club and all these local spots just to get, test out his new music. But that's the way he did it. And I don't want to like say, told you so, but let's come back to this in a year and be like, this is what I told them to do and look what's happening. So shout out to Liam Astor, check him out guys. He's, he's killing it right now. Killing it. Shout to Aster, love to hear it. It's a great, it's like a little glimpse into how you can do it. And like I said, when we started this, there's a lot of ways to do it. Everybody's path is a little bit different. So just because that path worked for him, maybe it doesn't work for you. But as a DJ also, when you're saying yes to all this stuff, because you need the money and you're taking these gigs that are probably paying you less than you deserve, or you're saying yes to venues that... are below where you should be playing, the higher end venues see all this stuff, right? Like the bookers of those places are going to look at you and say, well, there's this rundown. Why is he playing this place? Or why is she playing this place? Like, if they're playing there, they shouldn't be playing in my venue because that's well way below the level that we're at. So I think that's where it hurts you. Also, you never get fully like it's hard for you to expand to the top of the market because you're still playing stuff that's not top of the market. Right. And I think that like, I like to call it the dick measuring post of the month, right? With the rundowns, no disrespect to anybody that posts rundowns, but I was never really a fan of those. Like if they're showing casing off your gigs that like you want bookers to see. So for example, I posted my fall rundown. Like I, first time I did it, but I was playing at Penn State, the best venue in Penn State. I was playing at the best venue in Auburn at Southeastern 1716. I was playing at, you know, all these venues, Azur Day Party, like all these things that like, yeah, I wanted bookers to see that like, this is also what I do. Bottle Blonde Dallas, Memoir in Boston, like, look at this, these are the rooms I'm playing. But then I see other people who are just like posting it to show that they're busy, I feel like. And if you're an open format DJ, again, this is fine. But like, we don't need to see that you have your private event there, like, because people can't go to that, right? you know, why, why are you putting that? Why are you putting the wedding or why are you doing this? And I think that that's another thing too, is like, if you're posting that and, and you want to be an artist, if you're just doing this just to be a DJ, keep doing it. Like whatever different world, different game. But if you're trying to be an artist and you're posting those monthly rundowns of you playing all these places that make no sense that you're getting 250 to $400 a night. Well, why am going to book you for $800 when you want it as an artist, when I know you play down the road for $200. So you're never going to. exceed that. And that's where I call it the loop, the open format loop that I've been been through and I've been out of and I've been sucked back in. And it's just a it's a whirlpool and it could could drown you. could drown you. you're also in that local you're capped, right? There's a cap on how much money you can make. Because it's very rare. I know danger zone said last week, like $500 like you're stuck at that $500, which I think is like, pretty good higher end, whatever that you're going to get for a local gig, right? Four hours, 500 bucks, like that's what it is. Sure. Are there places where you can make more than that? Absolutely. Like the highest end guys in the market are making a little more than that locally for sure. But like That's it, 750 bucks, a thousand bucks, maybe for a local show is about as much as you're ever gonna make. Whereas like you were saying, as an artist, when you're making music and people want to come, them to, excuse me, want to bring you to their city or their venue, they're gonna make an offer and that offer can be any dollar amount. It could be $250,000 if you're Calvin Harris, like it could be any amount. was a time where I was probably 18 years old. was crushing it, doing mashups. Like all my mashups were on 92.3. I was being supported by Beatbreaker, David S, Toro. And I remember Toro at the time approached me with a job to be like an intern and get on the radio, right? Like, and I was gonna full on be like one of those next 92.3 guys. This is so long ago, I don't think I've ever really told this story publicly, but I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, I wanna do that, I wanna do that. And, cause it was the radio, was, know, glitz and glam. And, you know, I was like, that's where I wanna be. And he was like, well, where are you going to school for? You're going to school for communications, right? At Rutgers. And I go, no, I'm going to school to be a doctor. He was like, dude, you don't wanna be in the radio. He goes, especially me, he goes, you'll never get bigger than the radio. And if you wanna be, I think the only two guys that I think three guys let's call it in this area that have exceeded the radio expectations for me have been Camillo who probably plays for a high high price point a couple thousand dollars, but he plays two places in one night Then you have funk flex probably doing the same thing and then Alex sensation Probably makes the most out of all of those guys most for sure, because I know how much he makes. is the only situations I've ever seen somebody become like ginormous, bigger than the radio, right? But like, you know, it's there's a cap, there's a threshold. It's like, where do you go from open format? What's your next step? Probably the radio. And then where do you go after the radio? There's not, there's only like one door to go through where if you're making music, well, great, look at me, I can open up the mixing and mastering door engineering music. I could open up the tour managing door and be a tour manager. I could open up the A &R door and be an A &R because I have the knowledge. them though. You have to pick and choose. You can't do all of them. can't do everything. some of the best advice I've ever gotten was from laid back Luke. And I told him all these things. Luke and I have a very cool relationship where he was an idol of mine and I put him on a Wheaties box one time in 2008 in my graphic design class. We had to make Wheaties boxes and I had to put whoever I wanted to, not a sports guy. I had to laid back Luke with the double L's on my Wheaties box and You know, now we, we, we tend to, you know, have these conversations and chats. He's, he's always been a mentor to me and we go to a Starbucks, very local to here. And we sit and we chat and you know, we had this one chat where I was telling him all the things that I did. was getting married. I would have this Academy. got this, I got that going on. And he said, Mikey, name all the things you got going on. Pick two things. He goes, you could only focus on two things. He goes, anything else that's a distraction from those two things, drop them. And that was the time where I handed over all my Hoboken accounts and I stopped playing these gigs and I did everything that I did to stop being in that world and focus on the two things I'm doing now, which is Ferrari and Ferrari Production Academy. And that's it. Everything else was dropped. So you can't do everything. It's impossible. advice. I think we all need to say no to a lot more than we do, you know, myself included. I, every time I sit down, I'm like, I know I need to get rid of some of these responsibilities. I know I do, you know, and you got to say no to stuff guys. And like, even if you think it's gonna help somebody else or create a better relationship, sometimes you just got to say no. And I think this is a great opportunity here in November, we're gonna start thinking about 2025, right? We're gonna start thinking about some of our goals. I think you really need to sit down and think about what are your big goals? And how are you gonna get there? But we talked previously about like, spending some money. This is your business, right? I think a really important thing for you guys to think about doing is finding a marketing or a branding person or an agency or someone that you can sit down with, spend an hour and just have them sort of assess your brand. And in that one hour, it might cost you a couple hundred bucks. They'll say like, if you're trying to be an artist performing at festivals, then you need to get rid of this stuff. Take this off your profile. Focus more on this. Try to figure out what colors you're going to use and like, just getting your brand on point along with your to match your goals, I think is super important to start 2025. So go on Fiverr, hit me up because I have some agency friends that will do this. find somebody that you can spend an hour or two with and just kind of review your business. I think that's super valuable. I actually just hired like a CEO coach that I'm gonna talk to before the end of the year to sort of help me just realign like what I'm doing, where I need to be spending my time and what I need to get rid of, you know? And I know some of this stuff I need to get rid of, but I will send you that person's contact. off call for that, but it's the same thing. Going back to that student that was approaching me with the rebrand, I was telling him, make a mood board. Look at all the things that inspire you. So when I was designing my or planning my Ferrari logo in COVID, the new one, because my old one didn't fit me anymore, I was thinking of all the things that inspired me. So I love fashion. I like fear of God. I like... the logo fear of God. I looked at these tall, narrow fonts and then I looked at some DJs like Tiesto who rebranded to these tall, narrow fonts. And I'm like, okay, I gravitate towards that. Now, what are the color schemes? There was a website called, I think it was colors.co where it will generate color schemes for you and you like one, just use three of those colors in there because they work together and pick them. But you know, if you can't do that work, hire somebody to do that for you and let them do that because every big company sports team, like this is some of the biggest advice I've ever gotten as well too, I'm really giving some gems here is, if you don't know, pick a fucking sports team, right? And use the color combination of that sports team. Do you know how much money is invested into the branding and all that stuff on sports teams? And you could just steal it? Good artist copy, great artist steal, right? Steal the colors of a sports team. You could argue and say, I stole the colors of the stealers. You could argue and say you stole the colors of the Atlanta Falcons, right? So steal that stuff. Just take it. It's just a simple thing. And maybe you like FedEx will steal the orange and the purple color scheme, right? So there's so many things that you could utilize resource wise that you don't really have to pay for. But if you don't know how to hire somebody that's an expert in that and invest that into yourself. Yeah, that same person, that marketing or branding person can help you create what's called a brand kit, right? And that'll include all this stuff. So it'll have your logos, your colors, even the fonts. Like these are the three fonts that I use when we're talking about my brand. Like they can literally dig so deep into your brand and create, you'll have this like one cheater. It's like the cream brand kit. It's super valuable. And even in Canva, you can load all that stuff into Canva. And every time you create something, you can go to that brand kit and it has all your stuff there already. like, it's just an amazing tool and it keeps all of your stuff on brand. keeps all your stuff consistent. And that's what people want to see is consistency. And when they, when they see your brand and they see the cream and they know it's going to be red and black, you know, like they, know Ferrari is going to be golden and black and gray. And like, that's important. It's important whether, whether the consumer or the fan or whoever knows it or not. All that stuff helps them associate you with your brand and your logo and all that stuff and your music. I go back to spinning records, every single spinning release, album art, what's on the record, the giant S, people know it, right? It's consistent, no matter if you're the biggest artist, smallest artist, you're getting that fucking S. And what's great is they've created such a great brand. When I see that S, I am more likely to go listen to the song, you know? Like no matter whether I know the artist or not, that's what's so crazy about a strong brand. Sometimes a strong brand can just carry you through. When I see Rick Wonders name on Headliner Music Pool, I'm gonna go listen to the edit because it's probably gonna be good in something that I to download. Exactly. Yep. Hit it on the head. next topic. know you and I are talkers. We can go forever. The best pie, well it's not helping that I'm drinking a grande cold brew as well, so. before we started too. All right, so another topic that I think I just want to bring some light to. think there's like a, every time we talk about ghost production or we talk about people helping you with your production, I feel like there's like a negative connotation when it comes to having help on your production. And I want to kind of, Get rid of that. I wanna sort of peel back the curtain and let you guys know what happens and how a lot of tracks are created. And it's not just the artist that's creating tracks. Many times there is a full team helping to create one name your favorite artist track. And those people's names might never be associated. You might not get any credits. but there's more than one person on a lot of tracks. So I just want to peel back that curtain and sort of, I'm going to turn it over to you. What is ghost production and why do people use a ghost producer? And then let's talk a little bit about like the process of creating music and all the different people that can be associated in finishing a track. Got it, okay. So ghost producing is primarily a stigma in dance music, right? So let's talk about like kind of just the definition of it. It's basically, let's use me as an example as the producer. It's me producing a track, not the mixing and mastering necessarily, but it's making a record, a creative piece of work, right? For another artist. that is not involved in the collaborative process. They're not sitting next to you in the studio. It's not involved. In exchange for a sum of money or whatever it is, maybe a percentage on the record, signed by an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, right? So basically, let's say Cream wanted to make a song, he doesn't know how to produce or whatever. So he would hire me to create the song, right? Deliver it to him for a... amount of money that is sent or whatever, and then I deliver him a final master, and then you and I don't speak ever again. So there's a ghost behind it, but you're going out into the industry and saying, here's my brand new track that I worked on, and this, that's where you could see, now why is that a stigma? It's because it's a fake it till you make it type of thing. How often is it happening? I would say it's happening... probably just as much as it was, I would say 2013 is really when it happened, like it started becoming light of it because there was the case of Epic by Quintino and Sandro Silva, right? So what happened with Epic, it's public knowledge, you guys can go look at it, is that track was huge, right? And then you look at the producers on it, it's Sandro Silva, Quintino and Martin Vorwerk. Martin Vorwerk is the ghost producer of Quintino. So there was no NDA there. So what happened during that was is, They started making it so like, now you got to sign NDA. This person's not on the record or whatever. And that was it. And people started to feel ashamed that like, the fans started to dive into that, that were a little bit more educated and be like, well, you didn't make this record. So why am I going to become a fan of you? What's authentic about you? You know? And that was 10 years ago. Then you have the other case of Kashmir. The reason why Kashmir got so big is because he was ghost producing tsunami for Borges, right? Again, I'm not calling out these DJs for any reason, but this is, it's a stigma in dance music. It's been there for a while. Like these are the two most popular cases of this, I would say thing. Now, does it happen today? Absolutely. Do I do ghost productions for people? Absolutely. The difference is, is that you could be able to make a track for a sum of money and get that money now, rather than make a track for somebody, take a percentage and be on the credits. And maybe you get that money in five years or 10 years, depending on how that record does. So that's why a lot of people were doing that because they're like, Hey, I'm a good producer. This, this, and this, I'm going to take a sum of money. You take it. We call it a wrap. The problem is really with where the fans lie is like, I think they've become a little bit more accepted of this kind of practice or just getting help on your music in general for the fact that every other major artist does it. in dance music, We're kind of, and I've said this before on some other podcasts, but like we're kind of, guess, held to a standard that we have to do everything. We have to produce it. We have to mix and master it. We have to do the sound design ourselves X, Y, and Z, right? That's the Stigman dance music. But then you go to pop music. Let's take Luke Holmes or Toby Keith, for example. Let's use a country guy, someone not even in our genre. Well, there's probably somebody helping him write the song. whether it's they wrote the chords for him or they played a piano riff for him or they wrote the lyrics for him or they helped write the lyrics, then the performer Toby Keith will go in, maybe he has a band playing the guitar, maybe he's just doing the singing, right? Then that has to get shipped off to an engineer who's doing the mixing and mastering and that's happening all in dance music now, but fans are starting to say, that's ghost production. No, there's credits there for a reason and people are getting credited in the right way now. So I think it just has to be transparent on who's working on what. who's getting credits. And I think even with Apple Music, I saw the other day that they're actually making you on the credits now put who was the guitarist, who was the mastering engineer. So everybody gets proper credits now, which I think is fantastic. that's gonna solve all the problems, to be honest. When you're uploading these tracks, being able to just put all the credits on there and requiring that, think is something that would be kind of great for fans, to really see who's involved in a project. The thing is, that nobody cares, right? Like we could use, yeah, like we could, we could sit here all day and talk about the Supreme and Carpenter thing where, you know, producer put two loops together from Oliver. Oliver has no credits on the song or maybe he does now. I don't know. I have no idea. I can't say that as a fact, but basically Oliver has a splice pack on splice royalty free. So anybody can use them. He took a drum loop and a guitar loop and some producer put those two together and made the hit of the summer. Right? Oliver makes no money from that, I'm sure, because it's royalty free, and I could be wrong about that, from what it looks like, probably no money. And the only people that are like, that's lazy. That's this, that, that. Guess who those people are? Other producers. why didn't you think of that, buddy? Like, why didn't, like a lot of the times, like in dance music, like, did you know, you know that song, NOS by Steve Angelo? Yeah. That's a construction kit that he put together in vengeance. Like didn't do much, just took the synth loop and the kick and the baseline, strung it together probably in a couple hours, still a hit, right? So like use the stuff to your advantage. there, are there chefs that go out and buy pre-seasoned meat and all they got to do is throw it on the grill? Absolutely. And then they're selling it. Why not? Right? Do it. as a chef, you're going and buying the king crab that's been flown in fresh off the off the boat that was in the ocean like 12 hours ago. Yeah, of course, that's gonna be better than the imitation crab. course, you know, so, you know, I think that it's a stigma. Yes, it's happening, but I can tell you straight up that there are teams like every big artist, let's call, I'm not going to say any specific artists in this case, because I don't know who has NDAs or not, whatever, but let's call artist A, right? They have a team of people behind them. They tour 150 to 180 shows a year. There's no way they can get in the studio for that amount of time. Or you can even... really take a look at someone like John summit who had to take off touring to make his album. Like he took off like a month and sat in London to actually make the music. But there's a team of people like there's a someone that helps write the initial ideas. Right. And then though that's passed on to the artist, the artist will now produce that something, a song that's already half written, arrange it, produce it, do all these other things to make it them change some sounds. And then they'll ship it off to a mixing and mastering engineer. they don't do it. And now everybody gets credited, everybody gets their own thing, right? So I think where it lies is really within the credits. I think that's the biggest thing. think more artists are getting credited now for their work and they're not getting screwed over as much because, you know, it's, it's, you're working on part of a, of a piece of art, a creative piece that is copywritten and all this. And if you've done your copywritten part, you should get, you know, associated with that, I think. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's okay to get help in these different areas, right? If there's someone that's really great at mixing and mastering, like, and you're not, why would you not have that person help you with that, you know? and it's a time thing too. Like I've been producing for 14 13 14 years I was just having this conversation with my wife the other day that like I don't have the time to sit here most times from scratch and start scrolling through serum presets I've done all that work already right like I know what presets I like I know how to do that But I don't have time to sit here from scratch all the time and what I wish I had was like a publishing company who has writers and songwriters and all these people that already do the work, they write a song for you. And now I take that song and I develop it into what my version is. That for me is like, as I get older and more into production is the best way for me to work is to take something that somebody has already written. So I don't have to sit there and write the song and figure out the chords and do all this stuff. Somebody already did that work. It's a great song. I produce it out. And at this point now I am mixing and mastering it. And then I put the song out that way. Like I wish I had more of that in my career now because I don't have the time to, and I don't even tour as much as half of these guys to sit there and, you know, go through, boom, bing, ding, boom, ding, and find the right kick. I just don't have the time to do that anymore. He was the same kick in every song, right? So, you know, and I will credit those artists. And I want to give a big shout out to Corey LaRue and Nicole, who helped write Beautiful Life. And you could see that in the credits because I produced Beautiful Life with Mac J, but They wrote the original lyrics and the songs and the chords and all that stuff. And, you know, it was great to work with them and I wish I could work with them more. And I will work with them more, but you know, they wrote that song. So. It happens, guys. part of the process these days. Don't be ashamed on getting help with your music. Alright, I think this is good point to wrap. Do you have anything that you'd like to promo? The academy, upcoming shows, music... feel like last time I promo'd something, I got so busy and it never happened. So there is still a new course coming when I have four seconds in my life to make the assets of it, which I may have to hire someone to do now that we've talked about it. But how to remix on SoundCloud will be coming or how to remix for SoundCloud will be coming where we're going to dive in and do a whole eight-week course on how to remix specific songs for SoundCloud and gain a fan base through that, through download gates and stuff. So you see the creative process of me. Writing the song, mixing, mastering, all that. I'm probably going to push that back to early next year when I have some more free time because it's just been crazy right now. Black Friday sale happening in the Academy starting next week, 25 % off any single course. So if you want to get into the Academy, now would be a great time to do it. If you're a beginner and you want to start coming January, February in the slow months, I would say now is a great time to get in. So Black Friday sale will be happening next week. Discount automatically applied at checkout. And I think I got a new remix coming out. I think I got this remix coming out maybe in the next week or two. again, just got to get finished. But that's all I got going on. Ferrari stuff to the Academy are in the show notes. When we send out the emails with the pod, it's all in there as well. So you can just click there and check out the courses and everything else that's going on at the Academy. I would say the other thing, if you are a producer or getting into producing the Black Friday sale on all the plugins and sample packs is probably the best sale of the year. So now would be a great time to go and buy some of that stuff if. Yeah. so if you're buying a course or you're one-on-one student, I am the frugal plugin master. I post free plugins. post stuff that's discounted heavily. make a whole spreadsheet every year on Black Friday. So you're going to get the benefits of that. you know, being in the discord, the list is, is, is a highly, it's the most fun time in the academy because it's like. It's like when the doors open and everybody runs into like Target or whatever, it's like that with like plugins and samples and stuff. So I think this year a big one is going to be Soothe for a lot of people. A lot of people got to pick up Soothe. There's this other plugin by Luca Predolesi called Space Control. So a lot of good ones. Yeah, it's a fun time. It really is like it is like the doors open and people rush in. It's hilarious. On my end, a couple of things I want to promo. So Dario Valley and I did a back to back set 360 style at Birch a couple weeks ago. It was extremely successful, super fun. We recorded the whole thing. So we're gonna we're gonna put up the entire two hour show on YouTube. So you can watch, listen. We have a couple camera angles. came out really dope. Shout to Jules and Alex are helping us get that going. By the time this comes out, it'll probably be live on YouTube. So you could check that out. We'll probably drop the audio on SoundCloud as well. And then myself and Two-Face have an edit pack coming out on November 21st. So it's 10 edits that we produced together. It's pretty dope. I've been... testing a lot of the tracks there. mean, there's stuff that you guys are definitely going to use on there. So hyped about that one. I think that's it for me. a lot of stuff. mean, they've been killing it. You've been killing it. I'm excited to hear that. I got to get that in my inbox. They just came in third place on the DMP contest. So, shout out to them. They've been grinding, They're grinding. they dropped a remix last week, the House of Pain remix, and Pump and Edits. I'm sure you guys are playing a lot of their stuff, too. So shout to Two-Face doing their thing. All right, guys. Thanks for listening to this episode. We'll talk to you soon. Peace.