What It Takes To Be A Rockstar
Host and musician Melissa Lucciola talks with signed and DIY musicians from around the world about their lives behind the scenes. From maxing out credit cards, sleeping on floors, sharing beds and having the whole band get paid $250 to play Madison Square Garden, you will hear the in's and out's of life on and off the road and the real struggles of the modern day musician.
What It Takes To Be A Rockstar
Episode 13 - Tongues of Fire - On choosing flexibility to tour over stability, getting creative with marketing and being persistent
This week I talk with Lowell Hobbs of Tongues of Fire about DIY touring, recording in a garage-turned-studio, opening for Modest Mouse and turning down a well paying wedding gig to be able to tour. We also talk about how he tries to get creative and have fun with marketing, how he once sent 100+ emails and didn't hear back from anyone, and how he keeps staying persistent. He also gives some tips and tricks for how to not piss off a soundperson. Enjoy!
About the podcast: Host and musician Melissa Lucciola talks with signed and DIY musicians from around the world about their lives behind the scenes. From maxing out credit cards, sleeping on floors, sharing beds and having the whole band get paid $250 to play Madison Square Garden, you will hear the in's and out's of life on and off the road and the real struggles of the modern day musician.
Check out Tongues of Fire here: https://tonguesofire.com/home
Check out my playlist of all the guests here.
You can watch this full episode on Youtube along with others.
Check out my bands here:
Francie Moon
Gustaf
Crusasis
Edited, recorded, mixed and produced by Melissa Lucciola.
This episode is sponsored by SORRY Cables - rad and colorful quality instrument and microphone cables handmade in LA.
Intro song is called "I'm Starting a Podcast" by Tea Eater
Other music is by Pretty World
Welcome to what it Takes to Be a Rockstar. My name is Mel and I am an international touring musician and on this podcast, I chat with other musicians who are signed or DIY about their behind the scenes lives, from their life on and off the road, the sacrifices they've made to play music, their band's finances, how they book tours and how they get on their labels. Enjoy, I'm starting a podcast. Can I recall this conversation for my podcast? Oh, I'm starting a podcast. I'm starting. I'm starting. I'm starting a podcast. I'm starting a podcast. Alright, thank you so much for being here today Starting a podcast.
Mel:And today I'm talking with their singer, guitar player Lowell, and he tells me all about how they book tours, how they afford to record and market themselves and also they got an opportunity to open for Modest Mouse and he tells me how that ended up happening.
Mel:And he also tells me all these interesting ways that he's tried to make opportunities for the band happen. And I think, honestly, this was a great conversation with a lot of hidden gems about the persistence and creativity you need as a DIY artist to get out there in the world, to show yourself to the world. And yeah, just so you know, this is on YouTube so you can watch this if you do want to see our faces, but absolutely no pressure to do that. And I'm going to link Tongues of Fire's music in the podcast description below, and also I did launch a playlist of all the guests that have been on podcasts so far, so I will also link that. And, yeah, if you enjoy the show, please don't hesitate to hit that subscribe button, because it is free and it helps get the word out to show more people the amazing world of what it takes to be a rock star. All right, enjoy.
Mel:So my first question for you is just like give me a quick rundown about, like your history with music, like when you started or you know the moment you got obsessed with music, something like that um, I think I mean, I've always really loved music, but I I started going to diy shows in college and I was like, oh, this is really cool and it's something I want to do, and so I definitely like tried to start a band for like over a year after that, and then, yeah, then I was finally able to start Tongues of Fire, which is cool.
Mel:Okay, cool. So when did Tongues of Fire start?
Mel:I guess around 2016. I started going to school in 2015.
Lowell:Okay. It's been a long like level of trial and error too okay, cool, and you play guitar in tongues of fire, right, yeah, so was it just you with like a guitar, just trying to start a band, just find anybody who would play with you uh, I definitely.
Mel:I mean the. The lineup shifted a lot then and and it sometimes does now too. I know, yeah, nobody would show up at the show and I'd have to do solo shows sometimes.
Lowell:Really it's hard finding solid people. Oh wow. Would they say like, yeah, I'll be there and then just not show up? Yeah literally that's wild. I've never heard people doing that.
Mel:I've had yeah, I've had people not show up for entire tours before too.
Lowell:It's wild yeah, do you have? So right now you have like a, a solid thing, or it's just like you said, it's still kind of flowy, the people that play with you it's very solid.
Mel:I found I think, like, like I needed to find in the beginning was people just really committed to the life and? Um, I found people like that and then, uh, sometimes they're busy, they like both. Um, actually everybody, everybody else in the band has really cool like side solo projects and I wouldn't want to get in the way of that. Sometimes it's like if you have to choose between the band and being able to do an interesting show, let's just um have somebody fill in for you right, so do you have to get the level where we're at right now so do you have like a pile of musicians you could just call if you need someone to fill in.
Mel:Yeah, I mean, I'm on great terms with a lot of former members of the band so, like sometimes, I'll ask them to come back for a show, and it's great to see you again and stuff like that.
Lowell:That's cool, Cool. So would you say, I guess, tongues of fire, do you think? Do you see it more right now as a solo project or do you see it as a band? Band with this mostly solid lineup?
Mel:It's complicated. I have been with the same drummer for six or seven years, eli. I feel like he's a huge part of the sound, but we do play shows where I have somebody fill in for him. I think I'm technically the only original member, but I feel like, uh, the people I have in the band contribute a lot, especially like to the recordings. It's. It's like people can play the parts that they recorded and wrote. But you know, I think it's, I think the things that they write are special too cool, yeah.
Lowell:So like eli I did see in the video, I like the way he plays I like how he plays with his uh like his left hand yeah, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, he's, he's awesome. Uh, from what I've seen, yeah, that means a lot coming from another drummer yeah, uh cool. So when it comes to recording, like do you, do you write most of stuff or is it like all collaborative?
Mel:I, I write most of the stuff. I at least write the, the skeletons okay, cool it's like I'll write the basis of the song and then let everybody add their own unique like spin to what I wrote, especially eli you. There's a lot of times you level like completely disregard the, the basic little drone track I wrote and come up with something interesting and very different that adds to the song cool that's really cool.
Lowell:Um, I bet, do you appreciate that, or are you or do sometimes are you like man? I wish you just stuck with the idea sometimes.
Mel:Sometimes I'll put my foot, foot down on certain things. I'll be like, hey, man, I I think this part right here adds a lot to the song. I think you should give it a try. But I I think I think there's a lot of trust and respect all around in the band and I play with people I trust and respect their decisions with. So they mostly have free reign to do whatever they want with the songs.
Lowell:Yeah, I find that to be really important for band members to be able to do that, because, even though it might not be like such a laser sharp vision for what's happening, I feel like it's really important for people to feel like they added something to the band, you know.
Mel:Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't want anybody in the band to feel like they're just, uh, like a, a hired gun temporary member or anything like that.
Lowell:Yeah, cool, yeah, it's. It's funny Cause, like the older that I get and the older my friends get and older that you know people who play music get, I feel like sometimes a lot of bands fall into like you know, here's the song, here's a demo, play it just like that you know, learn it just the way it was recorded by like these other random people, and then you know that's it and that's like the way it goes. But it's, it's cool to you know, know that there's like your band's like still got this collaborative thing going on yeah no, I, I, it's.
Mel:It's definitely hard to kind of give up that trust, but I work with people I trust, so it's it's something I've been able to do. It's definitely not. There's definitely been times earlier in the band that I've uh, not had that trust yet. It's always been there with eli. But it's nice just trusting everybody in the band at this point. I I've seen them like, I've been around them and I know that they're really good musicians and know what they're doing. So it's like I don't have to walk anybody through anything. I'm going to let them make their own decisions and do what they want.
Lowell:Yeah, that's right, I love that.
Mel:Yeah.
Lowell:Yeah, cool. So, speaking of recording and like you know this whole process, when I listen to your band I'm like dang, those are good recordings, like thank you. Yeah, where do you record?
Mel:in a garage. Yeah, uh, yeah, our friend, uh, dan, he, uh, he has a very good garage. He, he would be a little bit upset if I called it a garage, because it is a really nice studio built into a garage cool and it's just enough for us.
Mel:It's got isolation for the amps and a good drum room so we can record everything live and it sounds good and he is just like a good producer and it's. It's nice that we have something like that where we can get good recordings without, like I don't know, just sacrificing years of savings, you know yeah, yeah, that's amazing because, uh, for people who are listening, who are like what a garage?
Lowell:like it's amazing what people can do with different spaces, like I can't believe that you have a amp isolation in a garage. Yeah, pretty awesome Cause, yeah.
Mel:He's got a control room, a drum room and two like little isolation booths all in one garage.
Lowell:One car garage or two car garage?
Mel:I get the two car garage. Yeah, nice.
Lowell:That makes sense. That's pretty sick and I don't oh go ahead. No, you go ahead I don't know.
Mel:I I used to definitely like, think like if we got in the best studio we could, it would help us find success. Or if, like, we got a music video that looked really good, it would help us find success. And I've found that it's. It's not about that at all. There's so many different aspects to making something work. It's like if, if we can put more money towards, you know, pr and marketing, because we get really good recordings without breaking the bank, I feel like that's way more important than recording at abbey road studios yeah, I know, even though, like I've had a lot of musicians, they don't want to hear that and I've been um I have been poking around on freaking instagram, the threads thing.
Lowell:I don't know if you've ever looked on there, but there's a lot of musicians talking about that stuff now where they're like you need to not you guys need to like pay for marketing, like, stop being an idiot.
Lowell:Basically and I feel like every musician is like you. Just, it's really really, really hard for musicians to like learn how to market themselves and like be okay with marketing themselves and like I don't know how did you come to that journey of you know literally saying that sentence? Because, like, not a lot of people would even say that like you gotta market yourself I mean years of failure.
Mel:I know we've. We've done entire like month-long tours that just fell on their face. And it's because, I don't know, I was. I was told for a long time I believed. I'm like, if what you make is good enough, if you work hard and you care enough about it, you know people will just flock to it. And that's not true. It's like you you got, you have to be able to market yourself. You have to find something to that people can latch on to. I think too, because it's not really. It's like I don't know if I was in the roofing industry and I was a really good roofer, you know it's like, uh, my peers could I don't know like lift me up. It would be like I could start roofing, I don't know, at a higher wage or something.
Lowell:But it's like the public has to decide this and if you're not even reaching the public, there's just no chance of anything ever happening yeah, yeah, yeah, and I feel like with music it's like it's so saturated it's really hard, like there's uh, you know it's not good enough. I talked to my friends about this a lot and it's partly why I started this podcast, but it's like it's very frustrating because it's not good enough. Just to be good, like you have to have some weird edge, especially on the internet. Like there's this um guy I saw recently. He's like base panda on tiktok and it's like he rips on base but if he wasn't wearing a panda head mask thing, it's like no one would give a crap. You know, it's just like absolutely infuriating. And now he now he's stuck just being like the panda forever, you know. And but yeah, like what, what do you do for marketing? That's like something that could be in reach for, maybe other, like DIY musicians that are listening right now.
Mel:I mean, I found I found stuff that's fun to do. I reached out to the puppet guy from Tim and Eric, david Lee Willhart. I was like would you be willing to do a shout-out video for the band? Would you listen to us and, if you liked it, just give us a shout-out. He's like, sure, and we did a video on our page and it's like I don't know, it's fun to do. Yeah, interesting things with this fact that you know you're a band, especially being a band for a long time it's. It sometimes becomes a chore and gets like boring and old. But I'm like, oh my god, we're, we're a band.
Lowell:there's so many fun things we can try out yeah, like just doing that though, like reaching out to the puppet guy, I feel like that feels like a huge thing. That, like I feel like a lot of people, just be like he's never gonna answer, he's never gonna give a crap.
Mel:You know like what yeah, I, uh I tracked down uh his manager through uh like a tim and eric subreddit. You do you gotta find back doors sometimes. Oh my god, it's like if I, if I just cold called his his like instagram, I'd probably get nothing yeah but I was like, okay, he has a manager who helps him tour, like he's he's doing a tour.
Mel:So I reached out about a tour first and like we build a rapport. But I know, yeah, I think I don't know there's definitely a lot of things we've tried and not achieved. But I think finding smart ways to do things is important, cause I did I've done stupid things that have led to nothing too. I used to be like, uh, I made a list of like I don't know like 150 labels or something like that, and booking agents, stuff like that. I'm like these would be you know dreams to work with and I reached out to every single one of them with like a personalized email, took like five hours and I got like no responses and it led to nothing, you know. But we reached out to the puppet guy from Tim and Eric through like a back door and we got to him. So it's just kind of figuring out what works and what doesn't yeah, did you?
Lowell:do you feel like you got anything from the that puppet guy video, or just like fun?
Mel:uh, I think it's. I think it's the same as the panda, it's like it's. It's something, something interesting to pull people in. And you know, also, if the, if the panda guy wasn't a good basis, you know, there there probably wouldn't be people that actually care about the what he's playing at all, and it's. I hope our music is good enough that people care about it. Beyond that, you know, the puppet guy shouted us out.
Lowell:Yeah, yeah.
Mel:I guess pull people into to even give yourself a chance. Yeah, and that's the thing it's like find some way to give yourself a chance to even be ignored, you know, and then you can see if it works.
Lowell:Yeah, yeah, it's just I don't know. It's just cool to me because, like I don't know, I feel like, even just from like the conversations that we've had over instagram or like, um, when gusoff was going on tour, and you're like, hey, hey, we can come on tour, we can open. And then you know, with the podcast, you're like, hey, I can go on the podcast. And it's like I feel like you're, you have this persistence in you that like is super, super important for musicians to have, but like, um, not a lot of people have that or even act on that. Or even like, you know, they'll maybe send one message and then like, never follow up again, like, where did you learn that from?
Mel:It's just like just never getting any opportunities. It sucked. Especially, I spent, like I said, I spent like a year trying to start the band and people wouldn't even show up or, like you know, just like the shows would be horrible. And then I tried to, I tried to tour without knowing how to tour and it was, you know, torture and I lost band members because of that too. Like they're like I cannot do this anymore, just understandable. No hate for that.
Mel:So I know I'm just like I gotta do whatever I can to get opportunities because we get offered opportunities too. But I'm just like I gotta do whatever I can to get opportunities because we get offered opportunities too, but I I just try to get everything I I can in it. Yeah, usually, you know, there's usually something that works because, like you know, we uh, we've done like other other like situations like we did with y'all because we saw you had an off day between the idols dates and I was like you guys had played boone before, right, and you liked boone, or something like that I lived in boone during the pandemic oh, okay it was stuff.
Mel:Like I was like I know somebody's connected to boone. I was like what if we offer them a boone show?
Mel:yeah, yeah and I was like maybe, maybe it'll come through, just like trying crazy things like that yeah because we we did a fly out show to chicago because there's a band we're gonna open for and their support dropped like two weeks before their tour and I was like you have any like dates on that that we can maybe hop on. And you said everything. But chicago is taken care of. But I could throw you guys into the pot. We'll see and we gotta. Yeah, we got a show that was good enough that we could fly out to it. That's sick, it's great. Yeah, wow, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of people that opportunities come, come easy for them and we're just I don't know. I I think we're good, but I guess we're just not one of those people that get, you know, a lot of opportunities that go their way all the time. So I just search for them too as hard as I can.
Lowell:Yeah, I get that too, like it's all relative, like cause I feel like people, they think that I am a person that gets opportunities or something, and I'm like I've inserted myself into many a situation as well. You know, like even this summer I played bass in Europe on a theater tour and I was the one who was like hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I can go, I can go, I can go.
Mel:And you know it's yeah, that's a big part of doing music is like throwing yourself out there a lot, yeah, yeah, I mean. One thing I just did too is I moved to Atlanta I used to live in Asheville, oh and I decided that there were more opportunities I could pursue in Atlanta and it's been a good thing, you know. So I think it's just it's just kind of throwing yourself out there, like you said, because I was kind of faltering, I was like I was like I don't want to seem, um, like I don't know you're somebody that people just throw opportunities at, and even like I don't know who has opportunities thrown at them. Necessarily, I think it's there's. There's probably a lot of work that everybody puts in behind the scenes that nobody sees. It's hard to just be like you're somebody that's given opportunities all the time.
Lowell:yeah, because I don't, I don't know, I don't know how everybody works well, that's part, like partly, why I started this podcast, because I'm just genuinely curious about, like how people make it happen and I want, like even just the general public or people who don't play music, to understand, like the behind the scenes, that you know you're sitting there making this huge list of 150 labels and agents and whatever, and and like you know, there's a lot of like weird behind the scenes connecting going on all the time.
Lowell:And yeah, it's not, it's not easy and it's like a lot of it is like a personal work of just even feeling like you are good enough to even ask to have that opportunity. You know it's like you and I don't know I feel like it goes in waves where you know one month you're like I could do that, yeah, and then like the next month it's like you know maybe you don't hit anyone up that month because you're like, uh, you know, oh, my music sucks. Or like you're like sick of your songs or something I feel that.
Mel:No, I I definitely feel the burnout I have. I have to work in bursts and it's, it's nice that I have that freedom, especially in my my career too. I work, live, sound, cool, and just being able to be on for you know, be it like four hours or 18 hours straight, and then just be able to be off as long as I want until, like, I get my next freelance gig, that's great, that is that is how I operate and I yeah, I'll like I'll get into the zone and, like you know, send out a ton of emails like start searching for things, and then sometimes I just can't and I won't yeah, yeah, is that how you fund music, like with your live sound?
Lowell:Yeah, yeah.
Mel:The move to Atlanta has been great. For that too. I just I just worked with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra running sound for one of their events.
Lowell:Congrats.
Mel:Thank you, yeah, I mean it's, it's cool. It's definitely been cool being able to go from where I was when you guys were opening for Idols, because I was a stagehand. I was supposed to work that show.
Mel:I was like I want to take it off to go see them instead of working. And you know, it was barely enough to survive in Asheville and now I make enough to kind of be able to put a little bit of money into the band and, I don't know, be able to rent a minivan when we tour. I was like that was the pinnacle, that was the most luxurious thing we've done so far. We could like rent a minivan for $40 a day and tour in that instead of like finding like a minivan from I don't know somewhere else. So we're like I I owned a lot of beater vans and like could barely keep them in like in running order yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lowell:I feel that I have a beater, kind of it's a toyota, so it's gonna last forever oh yeah, it'll never die, it'll be fine it'll never die, and even when it's broken, it still drives somehow yeah, we had a.
Mel:We had a honda odyssey that just it kept going it. It started getting like 14 miles a gallon because some sensor broke, but it kept just going.
Lowell:It didn't break down mid-tour, so the japanese cars definitely go hard yeah so like when you tour, um, since your band is kind of like this in-between collaborative, but like you're kind of you're the one writing a bunch of emails, do you all get paid when you go on tour? Or does everyone take off work when they go on tour, or does all the money just go into renting the sick minivan? How do your tours look? Because you do mostly DIY tours now.
Mel:Yeah, we still haven't been able to get an opening tour yet. Well, I like a bit like a proper opening tour. But all the profits are spread equally between the band. Oh, cool, so I'll just take out, you know, the cost of gas or the cost of renting a van. So gas plus van, plus the cost to, like, print the individual or merch we sell. Like, if we sell a hoodie for 45, I'll take out the 20 that we, uh, that you know I put into making the hoodie, and then the the. Was it 25? Yeah, the 25 goes to the band equally nice, um, do you so?
Lowell:you usually come home with a little money.
Mel:Yeah, I mean, I think we're making like 60, 75 a day per person on this last tour.
Lowell:That's amazing. Which isn't?
Mel:too bad. I mean, if I went on tour for like a month straight, I could probably pay my rent.
Lowell:Dang. Yeah, how many people are coming out to your shows generally.
Mel:I mean, it's the last tour we did was with Destructo Disc, and they're a great band. That's definitely helped, has a draw on their own. But we were we were averaging like 75 a night, which was it felt really good. You know, just like we had a couple like bigger shows that had more people and then like our worst show had like 40 people, but it was it was like usually like 75, which feels amazing in diy venues yeah per person, 75 per person no, no, all together.
Mel:Oh, we're doing like we're doing tiny diy shows. We played a hot dogs uh place in cleveland, nice. I know. Uh, I think we were almost on a build together uh in upstate new york. I remember it was like desperate annies. They had like some kind of monday thing, cool, and I feel like we were trying to get on something that you were on. But yeah, it's just like that kind of level okay, cool, yeah, so, okay.
Lowell:So your band was making 75 bucks like profits a day. You're saying, uh, per person per day. Oh, per person per day, that's amazing, yeah, yeah, what I would, uh I would say if I was my mother, who loves to give me business advice, would be like you got to put some of that aside to print the next batch of merch yeah, I mean, uh, right now, right now, I think, especially since I, I'm, I, I am the, the main person in the band I just use my personal money to to front everything, and then, and then, and then.
Mel:I just try to make it up. Eventually, when everything's so yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I mean I, I kind of, yeah, I I lump a lot of it in with my, like live sound expenditures too yeah, yeah, it's all kind of the same thing where did you learn to do live sound?
Mel:I went to UNC, Asheville, for music technology and it was mostly centered around recording, and I found out that recording didn't really suit how I did things Like going back to like I don't know like spurts of energy fit me best is like working for like three months straight on an album would be a lot for me. And especially like I don't know like working with music I didn't necessarily like that much, felt really really like tedious. It's like if I, if there's a band I don't like and I'm doing live sound for them, I can do sound for them for three hours and I'm done with them forever.
Lowell:I will never have to deal with them again.
Mel:Yeah, but if, if, if you're dealing with like uh, you know, like a studio project with music you don't like or people you don't get along with, it would suck to have to deal with them for months and months and months.
Lowell:Yeah, that's fair. I've never done that, but yeah, I had another friend telling me the same thing the other day, who was like if you don't like that? Yeah, I never really thought of it from the like studio engineers perspective.
Mel:If they don't like your music, then they're just kind of stuck with you yeah, I mean, it's interesting to be on the other side too and being a sound guy and and dealing with, like you know, sound guys as a band and band as a sound guy.
Lowell:Yeah, do you feel like that's probably got to be a good thing, though? Like for you to have both perspectives? Do you think that helps you get along with the, you know, random, cranky sound person?
Mel:Yeah, because I know how frustrating it is and how much work you have to put into it yeah at least to do it, to do it right. I mean, it's like the venue staff are there hours and hours before you're there, hours after you leave yeah they, they, they don't. They are not very like uh happy if you're late. So just don't ever be late, because it's like you're wasting their time, and they spent so much time before you got here waiting for you, yeah, yeah but you're late because you've been you.
Mel:You had to like drive 18 hours on no sleep or something like that. It's it's definitely like a two-way road yeah it's just. It's just like the venue staff's not going to know that. They're just going to be upset that you're late.
Lowell:Right, right, yeah, well, that makes sense. That's good advice. What other advice would you give for bands from the perspective of a sound person that they might not know or think about?
Mel:I think just communication is a two-way street. That's basically like all the problems. It's like you can be late. Just make sure to tell them that you're going to be late. You know, if we're like we're having a really tough time and we're going to be there an hour before doors, you know, this is all, this is what we got to work with, they'll be like, okay, we understand, but if you don't tell anybody and they have to push you, but if you don't tell anybody and they have to push you know everybody else's sound checks back to accommodate you, it's like what the hell are they doing? They just not care about this at all.
Lowell:I think one thing that I would say from the perspective of a person who probably pissed off a lot of sound people in my day, there's like no rule book you know for like how to be a respectful musician, like, or you know like, I wish there was just so.
Lowell:And I think there's also another part of doing this podcast is like, so people can really like understand what's going on, but like yeah I don't know, when you're like 18, playing your first show, and you get this random email, that's like huge, they advance, and it's just like with rand, and it's like show up at three so you can play at 10, you're like no, that doesn't make any sense.
Lowell:But yeah you don't realize till you you know you start being more of a professional. But like if you do diy shows, all the time, you show up at eight o'clock, you there's one microphone and like amps and that's it. There's no like sound person waiting for you. So like making that jump from like a random diy basement show to like you know you're pissing someone off if you don't show up at 3 pm. Like it's so hard to make that jump that. And like now that I you know with goose stop, we're like we have to show up at 3 pm every day. You know most on like our headlining shows and tours and um, you know, now I'm like when I do a francy moon show or something, I I'm like reading everything, like what time are we getting there? And everyone else on the show is like showing up like four hours late. Like what's your problem? Why are you so like intense? And I'm like because this is like you know it's just, it's just like there's like two worlds going on. You know what I mean.
Mel:No, it's great. I think I think both people like me as a sound guy and then like musicians, they just need to like just put, put themselves in the other person's shoes. It's like I don't really get that mad at bands if they're late, especially if they don't understand, like you know how, the, how it's supposed to happen or something like that and you know. And then bands just like I said, they just the, the, the. Those people got their hours before you, you did. They're gonna leave hours after you do. They're just like, I guess, like do you can to make sure you expect their time too yeah, I just feel like a two-way street of respected understanding.
Lowell:Hopefully yeah, no, I, I get it now, but it took me years to be like oh, people have been sitting here for two hours Because no one says it. You walk in the door and there's just someone who's just like you know.
Mel:Why are they so grumpy?
Lowell:Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't say anything and you're like why didn't anyone? So I like what you're saying about the communication. Anyone listening?
Mel:get there on time I remember, yeah, like the first probably 30 shows we play.
Lowell:We never even got in advance or any information about the show, so we had no idea how to like, just act, or what to do yeah, you just have to like slowly figure that out somehow and like I guess over I don't know how you slowly figure that out, you just yeah, I, I remember, uh, yeah, being like 19, I did something to make the sound guy yell at me and I didn't even like comprehend what I was doing wrong.
Lowell:I don't remember what I did wrong then yeah, I uh, when I did the switch to drums, I remember very, very clearly trying to set up the drums and, like you know, kicking the bass drum, and someone was like miking up around the drums frantically between you know sets, and then she looked at me with a death glare and was like, do not do in my face.
Mel:And I was like, and then that was the moment I was like, oh, don't, you know, hit the bass drum when the sound person is like right there okay, got it like yeah, it's just like you have to learn over just years and years of, like you know, uh, pissing people off, I guess yeah, I mean I've had people like just slam cymbals where my ear has been like half an inch from the cymbal while I was setting up mics, so it's like it's like it's, it's.
Lowell:It's kind of scary to be around drums as a sound guy too if you don't want to piss off your sound person, go get yourself some sorry cables, because then your cables are going to work and they're not going to get angry and it's going to sound good. I use a sorry cable to record this podcast. I use sorry cables when I play guitar and when I sing and they are a great company LA-based company and great people and I've never had an issue with these cables and they are actually really cool looking If you're watching. They're brightly colored and you could even get your name or band name engraved or etched in the end of the cable. It's really cool, so check them out at sorrycablescom. Yeah, I try to always say now when I'm setting up, I'm like because I need to play the drums so that I know that they're set up in the right place.
Mel:Yeah, you just have to do it.
Lowell:Yeah, and I need to play them as if I'm playing a show, because it's very, very different for me to just tap on them than it is for me to like slam on them. It's like so different. So I always go to the sound birds and I'm like, hey, do you mind if I play for one minute and then they go? Oh no, no, not at all and then I'm like get your earplugs in, please.
Lowell:I don't feel like I'm, you know, destroying your ears. And then some people don't use the earplugs, but a lot of people do. They'll put them in and then everything's.
Mel:Yeah, yeah yeah, I honestly I wish people would sometimes be less polite and less like uh, non-confrontational and just like explain uh, you know uh why they feel a certain way and like what can be done about it, Cause that's how people, like you know, grow. The sound guy yelling at me when I was 19 taught me nothing. I didn't realize what I was doing wrong and he didn't explain it in a way that I understood and it's like he didn't even need to yell at me. You don't even you need to yell at anybody.
Lowell:You can just explain things and hopefully they'll be cool and understand yes, yeah, I agree, I agree because, yeah, there's a lot of like I don't know. It's very strange because you show up and the sound person is basically like your other member of your band, suddenly, but you don't, you don't know this person most of the time, uh, you've never met. They probably never even listened to your band, like most likely, um, they didn't even get your stage plot. Most of the time, even if you sent it in the manager, whoever did not send forward it to them, so they have like zero information on you unless they actually, you know, really, really, really was looking forward to the show. Then, like you know, every once in a while they'll be like I listened to your band for a week in preparation for this show and it's so rare.
Lowell:But the thing is like you're just, you have to work so closely with this person that you've never met before and, um, you don't know what to expect and they don't know what to expect from you. And then you know, like you said, if it doesn't work out, you could be done with them forever, for the rest of your life, and never have to deal with them again yeah, but it's great when it works.
Mel:Awesome too, because I love running sound for great bands and like making them sound awesome. It's so cool, especially when I know it's it's like a different genre that I normally work with.
Mel:It's like awesome being able to like change how I mix a band I got to, I got a tour with, I set my friends on fire as their uh front of house guy and it was great being able to like work metal core because I don't really do metal core that much, or even metal. So like working with a band and doing like uh like snare bombs and stuff like that, all the breakdowns, it's awesome, yeah. And just like I don't know, yeah, just like being able to check out and enjoy music is is a gift and it's awesome.
Lowell:I can do that as a sound guy yeah, and typically the sound guy gets paid more than the musicians, right yeah.
Mel:I mean, I realized I didn't want to compromise at all with music and there's not that much money in it anywhere, so I decided to do live sound.
Lowell:Yeah, that's smart. That's smart. I've definitely thought of that. But I live way too far away from venues and stuff. But I've considered the live sound path because it is cool, you can continue going on tour and I even have a friend who you know is in the opening band and then, like Jeremy from Pure Adult, he'll be, he'll like open in Pure Adult and I know he did a tour where then he did sound for gilliband, you know, front of house and like literally paid for his opening tour with the sound money you know so um, yeah, greg from stuck does sound too cool, and he did sound when they opened for proto martyr oh cool.
Lowell:Yeah, I mean it's cool, it's, it's a great thing like to. It's actually like a good thing to make money in music with and um. But I want to talk to you a little bit more about booking, because on your website it said booking and it had a different email address. Do you have a booker?
Mel:Uh yeah.
Lowell:Yeah, who's what's the deal? Who's your booker?
Mel:Uh, yeah, I mean, we've we, uh, we have we sometimes work with, uh yeah, a booking agent and we're doing a lot of our own stuff right now. I've just, it's, it's been a couple years now and we've, yeah, just kept trying for opening slots and we'll see if that comes together does the booker like submit for you for those, or you're just sending out emails like crazy uh, yeah, I think he's submitted for us.
Lowell:Nice, be that definitely yeah, um, I saw you open for modest mouse yes yeah, how did that happen?
Mel:It was. It was partially through the orange peel. I worked there and the you know the some of the people there were aware of my band and liked the band, and so Modest Mouse asked for a local opener and they submitted us and we got it.
Lowell:That's awesome, that's so cool. Yeah, yeah, what was that like for you? Like what uh walk me through?
Mel:like the experience of playing that opening show I mean, we've there's definitely been brushes like this before and they've fallen through. So when I, when somebody was like, can we submit you to open for modest mass, I was like I'm not gonna get excited about this. I'm like, of course, but I'm like if this doesn't happen, it'll be crushing, you know.
Mel:So I can't get my hopes up and they're like it's looking good and I was like okay. I was like can't get my hopes up still, I'm like I'm driving the van to like get to the beginning of the tour and they're like okay, you got it and I had to pull over. Yeah I was like I'm going to wreck the van if I keep trying to drive, so I had to pull over on the side of the road and process it. Wow, and it was, and it was sold out, which is crazy.
Lowell:That's cool.
Mel:Yeah, so that means that I mean, of course it would mean that no matter what, but it was like not a single person bought a ticket to see us. You know or knew about us, I guess. So we were definitely playing in front of a cold crowd, but it was a cold crowd of like 4,500 people.
Lowell:That helps. I know it's odd. It's like, yeah, a cold crowd, but it was a cold crowd of like 4,500 people. That helps. I know it's odd, it's like, yeah, the cold crowd feeling.
Mel:But then it. You know, there's always, there's always someone out there who likes what you're doing. Yeah, no, I mean the. The reception was really good. I was surprised because I, I, I I'm not a negative person, but I'm like, okay, be prepared for the worst, you know, be like you are a punk band and this is the band that's known for Float On. I'm like, you know the Float On fans are not going to like you. I'm like I've got to be ready for that, but I don't know. A lot of people seem to like us and the band liked us, which was crazy.
Lowell:Oh, that's awesome, I don't know yeah.
Mel:Like a band you've been listening to for years. It's. It's really cool to be like able to talk to them and like work with them but be on the stage, stages though.
Lowell:Yeah, what did the stage feel like? Was it like big? The pictures look like it was big. Like was it like big? But it looked, the pictures looked like it was big. Like did it feel big?
Mel:uh, it didn't feel that big because, uh, they didn't give us much of a uh a footprint, which I don't, I don't care about. We play, we play, we play.
Mel:No stages a decent amount of times but they're like okay, so you are sitting right up in like the, the six feet right here. Yeah, it's open and so we did. We played a little line and it was awesome. I mean, I don't know it felt so good. Yeah, it's definitely. It was daunting. I was like are we gonna sound good on a big stage? I was like we've never played a outdoor arena situation like our, I don't know. I was like is our music good enough to sound good in a big room? Is does it only sound good distorted and, you know, cramped like that?
Lowell:yeah, is this just meant for the two-car garage?
Mel:yeah, yeah you know, is this music that we like. The garage is our cap, you know, are we? Are we a band that's only going to sound good in a garage? But it sounded good, which is cool.
Lowell:It sounds like it went really well. That's awesome.
Mel:I don't know, it was surreal. It is definitely not anything we've ever experienced before.
Lowell:Yeah, when your band's excited, do you guys play faster.
Mel:Yeah, we play pretty fast. I think I timed out the set. They gave us like 25 minutes and I think we played like 22 minutes. Oh wow, we went so fast.
Lowell:Wow, they saved all the whole song's worth. Wow, yeah, that's good though they say that, that like uh for those of you listening like when you do an opening set, like it's a big no-no to go over, it's better to end early, you know yeah, I mean, yeah, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't dare make uh any anybody at the at the venue I work at mad and seem like I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, that's really cool. I hope you get more of those and I'm glad it went really well.
Mel:Yeah, fingers crossed. I mean, we're definitely always trying. It's interesting because we're working with a pretty small agency, so most of the time what we can get is like $200 in a venue.
Lowell:Mm-hmm.
Mel:And I mean that's good sometimes. But yeah, we're definitely trying to find some kind of opening thing that can work for us. It's mostly been me like pulling strings and hustling and doing like personal connections. Like I said, it was me that made the the modest mouse show happen yeah, well, it's funny the more people you work with.
Lowell:Sometimes it's like I don't know. I noticed with gustav it's like we got on a label in 2020, which is crazy, but we, um, you know, you kind of are like oh, I wonder if you know the work's over, like you, just kind of like sail and just make it yeah, play drums, you know, and it's like absolutely not.
Lowell:It's like it never like and and the. The thing is like you are gonna care the most about what you're making, like no matter what. Like even if someone really, really really cares about what you're doing, that you're working with, you're still gonna care like 150 billion times more somehow.
Mel:You know, yeah, like in the end, you're gonna have the most energy to put towards those things and like yeah, so because, like this, this last tour, like uh, I feel like the booking I put like a lot of like special care into every single show. I was like, uh, let's play with, let's play like a really good, like special care into every single show. I was like let's play with, let's play like a really good venue that fits the genre, like they I know they're going to promote. I'm like I'm going to get like local bands that I care about and I think are going to do well and we just did like eight days straight of that and it was awesome, as opposed to like some of those, some of the shows, where it's like a venue that doesn't even work with us and they like are like we are gonna find the locals, you are not gonna choose locals and it's like some band called like Ray and the Hooligans or something like that, with a Z at the end and it's like Pantera inspired blues and it's like five people.
Lowell:Sounds pretty sick, honestly though. Yeah, I know trying to be like it's not that cool, like, yeah, let's make good.
Mel:Yeah, someone make that band no but like I don't know, like, doing like a month long tour of shows like that is grueling so it was nice being able to like, almost just like, uh, yeah, like, put all my heart into every single show on that tour and it turned out really well.
Lowell:Yeah, how do you book generally? Do you just have like your contacts that you just hit up now from just touring and touring, or do you, you know, let's say you're going to book like a place that you've never been before, like how would you start?
Mel:I've never been before, like how would you start? Okay, I've never been before. Well, um, usually I'll I'll book things on like the other side of two, of like two points. So like right now we have uh dates in both charlotte and philadelphia, so maybe we uh find something for these, like two days between char and Philadelphia yeah, in a new market. Maybe I'll ask my friends if there's any small towns outside of Richmond we should play at Something like that. I know people in Richmond, I know DestructoDisc so I could ask them about something, or maybe, yeah, so maybe I ask my friends in Philly if there's anything between Philly and Richmond that we should try.
Lowell:Cool, so you're just asking around.
Mel:Yeah, I think. I think it's. It all goes down to people in the DIY scene that I trust that I reach out to and ask their opinion, for Sorry for sorry, that's okay.
Lowell:How did you so? You said, uh, in the beginning of this that, like you, you saw, got into the diy scene in college, right, uh-huh yeah, how did you like get in there? Because sometimes it's hard to like get into a scene like what happened, oh yeah there's a.
Mel:There's a specific show in band that I remember I saw. I saw pictures, pictures of Vernon play at like in a basement and before that I'd been to like Van Halen concerts yeah, you know, and.
Mel:I was like what is this? This is crazy. I'd never really heard of music existing like that before. I knew there were like local cover bands and there was like Van Halen there. I didn't know there was like much of a world in between, I don't know. It was interesting knowing I could do it myself, and I did as much as I could myself.
Lowell:Yeah, like speaking of do it yourself, like your merchant stuff. How do you do that? Do you come up with the idea, or do you like pay someone to come up with an idea, or how does it usually go down?
Mel:It goes back to usually connections. I'll look at somebody that has really good merch and ask who did it? Or uh, yeah, like work with my friends. There's somebody in, uh, in charlotte called casey marie and they've done a lot of our merch and it's been like, yeah, it's been great. And uh, my guitarist, jesse, he works at a like a, a merch printing plant. I don't know what you call them.
Mel:Yeah, a merch plant, a t-shirt plant and screen printing yeah, yeah, he does like screen printing and graphic design for them and he's able to cut us a discount when we get our stuff done there. That's so nice, I know it's, it's Jesse's the best.
Lowell:Oh, that's huge. That's like amazing.
Mel:It's huge. I mean I I used to screen print my own stuff and it was a lot of work or I'd like get scalped by like a like I don't know getting overcharged on something too, and it would. It would set the band back of a big thing. I'll be like, well, we can't have recordings for a while yeah find more money yeah.
Lowell:Um, I know you said your friend dan records you in his garage. Does he? Uh, does he charge you like a regular, like rate, or is it cheaper because it's in this sound sick sounding garage studio, or like yeah, he's?
Mel:he's a, he's like a professional engineer. He has bands in there. But I think he gives us a homie discount too sometimes he's and he, like he likes the music and understands what we're going through too. Like he's about to mix some singles for us right now and he's like, he's like I know you might not have the money by the end of the month, but that's okay, we'll figure it out okay because I've always been good for it.
Mel:It's like because I was, I was like christmas has been hard. I was like you can just not mix the the songs until the end of the month because I'm like I'm not sure if I'm gonna have the money at the end of the month, cause I'm like I'm not sure if I'm going to have the money at the end of the month that I don't want to have you do the work and not be able to pay you. He's like I don't worry about it, it's fine, cause he we've done stuff before. He knows I'm good for it.
Lowell:Yeah, Can you give people an idea of like how much you've paid for just just you?
Mel:know overarching for one song like to mix like what's the range? Yeah, like one song, I think like 150, 200 to mix it. That's been the what I've experienced. That's cool and yeah, we usually record for like, yeah, the like like around 400 a and we did these five songs in two days. We definitely do it in a very old style. We do everybody in the same room and just knock it out as fast as we can.
Lowell:Yeah. You do all the overdubs in those two days too.
Mel:Yeah, so we got all the basics done in a day and I spent another day doing vocals and overdubs wow, yeah, for five songs. You said for five songs yeah, yeah, that's like.
Lowell:Yeah, that's the way. If you're like on a budget, you gotta just do it, yeah I don't know.
Mel:It's like I could. I could put every single dime I own until into getting, getting maybe, I don't know, two weeks or something like that. But I don't know, it's going back. Even if something's good, it's really hard to get it out there.
Mel:So, I'd rather put money into making sure, uh, roughly recorded five songs that I think still sound really good, uh out there, versus having, like I don't know like four or three like super high-end songs that like I can only put them on bandcamp and nothing else with the money I've got left yeah, but, like I said, like the songs that you've made, like they sound they sound just as good as anything.
Lowell:Like they sound amazing and that's like the first thing I noticed I was like wow, these sounds, they're like super pro and like, yeah, they sound great. So like you got a good thing going on and it really helps to have someone like. That's kind of like my dream is like to just have that one person that like knows what you're going for, is like gets it exactly kind of like the mix you're looking for, you know, and just have that kind of streamlined process.
Mel:You know sounds great yeah, I mean, yeah, we got it down to science. Really, I'm like, okay, all right, dan, you know, let's, let's, let's do this, let's get this knocked out in two days yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really really cool um, because I think I think it's also nice just being. I feel like we're a pretty good live band and so we pretty much captured our live sound and I'm like that's it. That's all we need, you know.
Lowell:Yeah, sometimes there's more magic in the live stuff anyway, like cause you're all just actually listening to each other and playing with each other.
Mel:I don't know. It's also the music too. We're not like. We're not like animal collective. We don't need, like crazy, lush soundscapes. Just four of us in a room and a bit of overdubs is all we need.
Lowell:Yeah, yeah, that's really cool which makes it nice.
Mel:Yeah, I think, I think, uh, there's even bands that can sound great, uh, recording at home on a laptop. I think, just whatever works and sounds good, you should do yeah, when?
Lowell:um again, just like one, one last question about like the marketing stuff have you tried to do, you know, ads like I've had friends who had really good luck with, like google ads or like instagram ads. Have you put your money into anything like that? If you tried that?
Mel:yeah, we, we did a, we did an ad campaign for this tour too. Uh, I I put some money into doing like, uh, a cold advertisement, so I I had some like good live footage of us over a song and I I had that in all the cities we were gonna play at. And then from the people that like liked that and started following us, we uh advertised the show like the week before the show and we were able to get those warm markets or whatever it's called.
Lowell:Did you? Figure that out yourself, or did someone help you? Sorry to cut you off.
Mel:There's a guy called David. He's in a band called Tunic and he works for an agency that runs ad campaigns for bands, and we've worked with him on that.
Lowell:Awesome.
Mel:Yeah, it's, it's. It was really cool seeing like some definite like turnover from that too. Like people would come up to us at the show and be like we found you from Instagram. Like I sent you a DM, you remember us. And I was like oh yeah, you're that.
Lowell:You're that person that like responded after seeing a video of us live like thank you so much that that means a lot to you came to this yeah, I think that's really cool because, like, uh, one thing I do really want other musicians listening to understand is that, like you're essentially running a small business and like you were saying if you were a roofer, you need to like market that, and I think it takes some people a long time, me included, to like get over the like.
Lowell:I'm just an artist, I'm no good at business, you know stuff or marketing like. I think, like you said, like you're, you hit up the the puppet person and like um, I'm finally finding a way this year to actually make that fun for me too and I think there is a way you can use your artistic self to also be getting yourself out there in a different kind of way that is just like that still feeds that creative part of you, you know yeah, I, I just I really really like want to be myself.
Mel:I don't want to make cringy ass, tiktoks or anything like that. It's like I. I really hope there's a way to be seen in a, in a way that's like authentic to who I am as an artist and who we are as a band, and I think we've seen a little bit of success with it too yeah, yeah, because like the last thing you want to do is, like you know, I don't know, say, the bass panda guy, maybe he just maybe he hates it that he's a has to be stuck in this bass panda thing.
Lowell:Maybe he loves it I don't know, but like you know you don't want to be stuck in something that like now, you have to be that thing for forever because you know you put on a hat one day, you know I mean I got I got an offer to run a run sound for a for a wedding band.
Mel:It'd be like six hundred dollars a night, which is a lot of money, but they're like. You need to be married to this band. We do like a hundred shows a year. Like you need to be married to this band. We do like 100 shows a year and you need to be at every single one of them and that that would have killed my touring career. I don't know.
Lowell:It's just like it's, it's there's, it's definitely like a crossroads out here yeah, there might be someone out there who's like would be like, just do it for a year and just pocket all that money, you know, and like like which kind of leads me to my last little bit of this. So like question is like things like that, like saying no to those things Musicians do that quite a bit or like you know we can't have a regular career or a regular job. You know it's always some flexible gig thing going on Like, um, you know that's, that would be like a huge chunk of change for you If you did a hundred, what's that? $60,000 or something, 600 times a hundred, right Like that. You could record you know whatever in the garage for two months if you want it, or something.
Lowell:you know what I mean like yeah like, what would you say, you know, like I don't know to someone who'd be like, just do that, like why don't you just do that? You know I?
Mel:I uh, I almost applied to run sound for a like a three-month-long huba stank tour too, and if, if I took that, if it happened, I would have been in like Germany when we got the offer to open for Modest Mouse and that would have sucked I we wouldn't have been able to have that opportunity. I don't know. I think I I like being able to play music a lot more than I think I'd like having money and having something that's very stable. I think this is like it's what I enjoy and I really I want to be here and I want to do it, so I don't know why I take that away from me too.
Lowell:Yeah, yeah, I totally understand. And it's just that's just something that musicians do all the time. It's just kind of, you know, it looks like you're shooting yourself in the foot, but then you have this alternate view where you're like, I mean, I mean maybe.
Mel:I mean maybe sixty thousand dollars would take the band further than it's ever been in the, you know the the six plus years I've been pushing as hard as I can diy, maybe, maybe money is all it takes I don't, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
Lowell:I mean, it helps, it does help, it does help, yeah, yeah, but um, but also, it's like all those days, those hundred days that you'd be home, maybe you'd write the next you know big song that you know someone hears and then takes you on tour or whatever, like you never I think that's the line that musicians are always writing. It's like, well, if I don't have time for this, like I'm not going to be able to do my thing you know.
Mel:I mean, that's something I'm definitely very afraid of. I'm like what if I put in all this work into the wrong thing? Or like what I'm doing is not working and I'm just like wasting my time or I could use my time better? I don't think. I don't think there's too much wasted time. I think we we did, we learned a lot from like all those shitty tours we did. We became better as a band and I I learned what not to do.
Lowell:So I think life is just like a, a learning experience, and you hopefully figure out what you want to do with it too yeah, I mean, and obviously, like you're seeing growth and the fact, like I've talked to you know, not a ton of people on this podcast, but I, I talk to a ton of musicians all the time and, like, honestly, diy tours seem to be making more money than the non-diy people because the non-diy people they owe more, they owe a bunch of money to people and they owe percentages to people and all this and the fact I think you might be paying them, getting paid them, like you're getting paid too yeah maybe the most like out of all the diy people me depends.
Lowell:It depends. I didn't get some specifics from some people but like you know, like um, I've heard before like if you're doing something and you don't see growth in like six months, then like change something or try something, but it seems like you're kind of watching it grow and like learning from that and improving upon it and it's like that's all you need to keep on doing, you know, and it's obviously working.
Mel:I mean, going back to the venue thing, I was like so stoked that most of these venues did not care about us being there at 3 pm. They're like, oh yeah, just show up an hour before doors. So it's great we spend so much time at museums and like we went to like the, the riverside in west virginia and got to hang out. It was just like.
Lowell:It was a really fun tour and I'm I'm glad, I'm glad we got to do it diy too yeah, yeah, it's like, honestly, I know there's a lot of bands that just they're like I don't want to do DIY anymore. But, like you know, I hope this podcast gives people the perspective of like, I don't know, sometimes DIY is pretty freaking sweet and like you might be doing better than the bands that aren't DIY and you might not even realize it, you know. And same with bands that, like just want a manager to fix everything in their lives and it's like they don't realize that like they're managing, like you're a manager, like you are managing this band, and it's like I feel like people need to hear that more often, that like they are doing the job of a manager a lot of the time. Like you're out there trying to make connections, you're out there emailing all these people You're, you know, even when you show up to shows and you're like saying hi to people, that's like what other? That's what managers do sometimes is they just like show up.
Lowell:So, yeah, I think people need to give themselves more credit. Uh, yeah, and like, especially musicians like you're basically like an entrepreneur, you know, and uh, yeah, uh, yeah, you just it's like I never connected that to myself until this year. I was like, oh, I'm an entrepreneur and I've been literally doing music, yeah we are, you know.
Lowell:And it's like you know you? Just you got to think of it in that way and it it doesn't, it doesn't have to take away from the fact that you're a sick musician. You write songs and you have a creative brain.
Mel:No, it gets old sometimes. I definitely get tired of having to do all these things a bit, but it's also really cool to be able to be kind of a multimedia project. I'm really happy with the new merch we have and, like I love some of like the photographs that the photographers I'm friends with have taken of us.
Lowell:I'm like it's so cool to be able to combine all these things into a band yeah, and it takes like vision to do that and like, yeah, it's just, it's a huge effort and yeah, when you look back you're like, well, how did all that happen? But yeah, over time it just you're just building something and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, thank you so much for tuning in to another week of what it Takes to Be a Rockstar Another episode coming up next Tuesday. So stay tuned, all right, bye you.
