(upbeat music)
- Hey everybody, happy Sunday.
This is the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
This is where we interview artists
who are in the value verse.
Artists who believe in Bitcoin,
artists who believe in value for value.
We're gonna talk about their background.
We're gonna talk about their influences.
We're gonna share crazy stories
about being a musician.
And of course, we'll be talking about value for value.
What is value for value?
You ask?
Value for value is a mindset.
It's a mantra.
It's a way of life.
It is where when you put something out
into the universe that has value to it,
people will give you value in return.
And in our case, we're talking Bitcoin.
We're talking Satoshi's and these artists
who believe in this, who have been dropping their music
over into this new revenue stream.
They're doing really well.
They're doing better than they are
with the traditional streaming models.
And this is just the beginning.
These are all, these folks are all early adapters.
And just wait until you see what is gonna happen
with all of this stuff next.
It's gonna be amazing.
So my name is Jim and I am the host
and I'm thrilled that you guys are hanging out
with me today.
I, today's guest, the one and only, Texas native,
Daddy Nat.
Love this guy's voice.
Love his writing.
Wait till here is story, man.
Like, you know, the dude spent some time in New Zealand.
Wait till here is a story about Bitcoin
and initial investing efforts.
And then just his thought process on writing
and recording and what he's doing now.
Really cool guy.
A lot of fun.
I actually reported this about two weeks ago.
Because I was getting out of town
and I was kind of stacking up my interviews
and I had kind of forgotten the contents of it
until I sat down today and listened to it.
Had a lot of fun with this conversation.
I really love the guy.
So I am gonna shut up and we are going to play a song
and then we will bring on Daddy Nat.
The first song that we're gonna hear is one of his own.
Of course, and if you dig it, you gotta boost it.
This song is called Happy Birthday.
Here we go.
♪ Might be lost, but I'm still young ♪
♪ I might not take the right path home ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ Just another day and I'm looking down ♪
♪ Too much weight and pull my shoulder down ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Put it for a night still in 29 ♪
♪ I will rather wait till the end of the world ♪
♪ Back into the groove, let me bring you around ♪
♪ Never hesitate, wait until you fit my song ♪
♪ But it's too late, but I don't know ♪
♪ And I'm still a bit of a singer ♪
♪ All night long ♪
♪ I might be lost, but I'm still young ♪
♪ I might not take the right path home ♪
♪ And I don't care at all ♪
♪ I don't feel no good, no good, no right ♪
♪ I might be lost, but I'm behind ♪
♪ And I don't care at all ♪
♪ Hey darling, I can't talk to you ♪
♪ But I feel like my luck might change some so-and-some ♪
♪ Waving back, I know you want to know me ♪
♪ I feel like I could bring you back to me ♪
♪ But it's too cool if it ain't right ♪
♪ Then it don't feel good ♪
♪ Can't try anymore, no good ♪
♪ And I love you too much, too much, baby ♪
♪ You're for more, but what do I call ♪
♪ But if you lost, but I'm still young ♪
♪ I might not take the right path home ♪
♪ And I don't care at all ♪
♪ I don't feel no good, no good, no right ♪
♪ I might be lost, but I'm behind ♪
♪ And I don't care at all ♪
♪ I can't talk to you ♪
♪ But it's right when you try ♪
♪ You don't got your own say ♪
♪ But it's right when you try ♪
♪ Then it don't feel good, no good, no right ♪
♪ Then it don't feel good, no right ♪
All right, that was Happy Birthday from Daddy Nat.
And I am thrilled to have Daddy Nat on the phone
or on the line or on the cans, as you say.
Dude, thank you for joining us, how are you?
I'm very good, man. Thank you so much for having me, brother.
I appreciate you for facilitating this.
I know you got a bunch of artists on every week
and you made it happen pretty quickly.
So I appreciate you for having me on.
Yeah, I love your voice. I love your writing.
I love your social media cracks me up, dude.
You got a good game going on, man.
Pleasure to you, brother.
Very cool thing with, can I sing you a song on Instagram?
Tell me, let's start there.
Tell me, where did you come up with that idea?
Yeah, man.
So that particular idea, I think I had been,
man, social media is a tough, like, tilde crack.
I could talk all day about it.
I'm sure we'll talk about it on here.
But I had noticed that the videos that I was doing,
kind of like, out and amongst people, you know, outside, as they say, right?
Whether it was, I think that particular one
was at University of Texas. I'm here in Austin, but at University of Texas campus.
And we've done other ones like down on 6th Street and downtown and all that jazz.
But yeah, for that particular one, man, it was really just that I had seen some success with that.
And I was like, what else can I do to like get people to engage somehow?
You know what I mean? Like, I had dumb one where I set up a sign where it basically said,
do you play guitar and have random people come up and play instruments with me outdoors?
And actually, you know, some of it, it wasn't that bad, you know, to be completely honest.
And it was a really cool experience, I think both for myself and the audience.
And so, yeah, man, I try to get as creative as I can every week, you know,
usually on a Sunday, I'll throw up a bunch of ideas against the wall.
And that just happened to be one that landed that week for the list.
And yeah, I'm glad you got to kick out of it. I also had a lot of them make it.
Yeah. And the one where that, where the older guy comes up and he's like, yeah, play guitar.
I play for like 45. He picks up a strat and he starts throwing some riffs in.
I'm like, that's, I mean, it's beautiful.
I mean, I, you know, we all know what you have to do.
Social media to try and drive interaction or whatnot.
That just speaks to the utter beauty and community that is art and that is music.
For sure, man, it's the universal language. Yeah.
Yeah. That was so random, you know what I mean?
His name was John, I believe. And yeah, he basically just out of nowhere came up.
He was on a jog, like quite literally. He was like running the trail around there.
He was on a jog and he ran into one of his other buddies who kind of, you know, usually came out and they would, they jam sometimes, you know, do some busking stuff like that.
And, and he came up and said, yeah, I've been playing for a bit. I'd love to play and then just shredded our face and stuff.
So, yeah, it's, it's beautiful. What'll happen if you're like willing to give it a shot?
Yeah.
Like social media, dude, is such a tough, like, kill the swallow for so many musicians, particularly.
And you got to have fun with it the same way that whenever you're sitting in the studio and you're working on a new record or whatever you're doing, you're mixing a song, you're writing a song, whatever it is, like, that's a beautiful process.
You know, that's like one that like, I think is the reason that I've continued to make music is because it's just so fun.
And I think content creation, man, it's hard to be that way about it because there's a, you know, some other dynamics to it, I suppose.
You know, you have video involved and audio, I suppose. But, but yeah, at the end of the day, it's, if you can have fun with it, I find that that's usually the best and it's also the videos that perform the best.
Yeah. It's kind of like a lot to do with it.
Yeah. And content, you know, I, social media is a real, real bitch, you know, because you're not like,
I mean, you can make the argument, I guess, at your core that you're an entertainer, but, you know, you're an artist and a songwriter, right?
And that's a different mindset than being a content creator with respect to, I got to come up with something, you know, that's 50 seconds long, that's going to look beautiful on this little screen.
Like, that's a different mindset. That's a totally different.
Dude, it totally is. And it's one that, man, like, I've had to work on, I think some people just find me and they see me that I've, you know, put these videos out there, you know, they like them or they don't.
But, you know, for those of you who do, you know, I started doing social media. And probably like 2017, 2018 is the first time I really started taking seriously.
Prior to that, man, I had just been writing songs and playing shows and, you know, I was in kind of a rock band and didn't take social media seriously at all.
And it's a journey, man, just like making music is. Some people are naturally talented at it, but for me personally, I've had to work with the hard one.
And I think it's, you know, just go easy on yourself. Like, as long as you're putting in your best effort, I think that's the best way to approach it, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, we could, dude, we could, we could spend three hours talking about it, just social media.
100%. Yeah. So, all right. So let's get back to the beginning here. Let's go, let's go back to Daddy Matt, the songwriter and the musician.
Like, what, where does it all start? Does it, does it start in Austin in fourth grade with the recorder that you were handed in public school?
Does it start in Bismarck, North Dakota with a mandolin? Like, where does it start?
So, so I guess if we're going back to the very beginning. So although I live in Austin now, I'll go ahead and clarify.
I grew up in a little town called Athens, Texas, kind of in Northeast Texas, like, you know, maybe 10,000, 11,000 people.
And, and very top it for the most part. But yeah, you know, I got it when I was really young. I kind of always had a knack for singing.
My dad was kind of an acquired the church that I grew up at. And, and you know, I just kind of came by naturally and, and always was attracted to music.
But I never really picked up an instrument until I was 11 or 12.
I picked up the guitar. It was all AC/DC, classic rock, Led Zeppelin, you know, Van Halen, like, dude, just like, just, uh, Steely Dan at certain points, you know, just kind of like, just having so much fun in that era.
'Cause like, dude, there's so much, you know, it even took me a while to get to the Beatles, but like, you know, kind of, and, and, and Elvis, you know, just so much fun in being able to kind of just be a music nerd.
And, and as I, as I did that, you know, we'd play all these different covers. I ended up getting in a band when I was about 14. We were called the suffocating vegetables, a cover band for all of our favorite classic rock songs.
Nice.
And, you know, dude, just like, from there, I kind of saw the dream. I was the only one who, uh, really like wanted to sing and had a knack, I guess, to some degree for singing.
And so, uh, so I became the lead singer there and kind of just like, grew into it a couple of years later, started writing songs.
I had a very unique experience, uh, you know, starting whenever I was about 18, when I, uh, started writing songs around 16 when I was 18, of course, college came up.
And I had a very kind of almost bizarre, but awesome opportunity to go to university in New Zealand. And so I went to university for three and a half years and lived, uh, originally in town called Christchurch, uh, at a, at a University of Canterbury.
There were some earthquakes there in 2011, so I left, went to the meeting, which was, uh, University of Otago. And, uh, and when I was there, I found that a band that we called simple themes.
And, um, yeah, a band like had a road, a ton, really started like getting deep into the songwriting at that point. And, uh, you know, had a work for the couple producers and recorders to write our first records.
And I think you guys can still find it somewhere online, but it's simple themes. And I, uh, was the lead singer of that and kind of just, you know, at that time, man, everything was written on like a guitar.
So I would just write songs, you know, with my vocals and a guitar. And then I'd have three other players with me who were all bad asses, uh, and, and just could pick it up, you know, and just naturally, you know, would, we would write the songs almost, you know, kind of fluidly that way.
Um, and it was a very, you know, smooth process. And anyway, did that, uh, eventually let New Zealand came to Austin, uh, the band.
We had a lot of regional success, uh, you know, get even some like festivals and a little bit of touring, uh, but, uh, ultimately, you know, bands are hard to manage, brother.
Yeah, I'll move back to Austin. And, uh, although I had a band that I formed over here and brought a lot of the songs with, I, uh, immediately picked up Ableton at that point.
And it was really kind of like diving into the craft of production and, and, and leveraging a dog. Cause prior to that, man, it was, it was just really what other people were using, you know, pro tools usually if I went to a studio or something like that.
And, uh, and, and, and, uh, and it evolved to what I kind of just fell in love with the whole idea that you can make any sound from any, you know, any style of genre of music, whatever you're feeling that day, you can, you can create it.
Uh, in this laptop, which, you know, at the time, I was still integrating a lot of the instrumentation that I, I've done with the bands, uh, which I think kind of gave me just an edge from a songwriting perspective.
And, uh, even then, man, it took me, you know, that was probably 2014. It's almost 10 years, uh, since I started picking up, you know, uh, Ableton and, and teaching myself the game and, um, about five years into that started DaddyNet.
And, uh, never looked back, man, kind of just was like, you know, had finally found my, uh, my final form, so to speak.
Wow. Okay. So very first question. Let's go back to the very first gig of the suffocating vegetables in Athens, Texas.
You got it. Right. The very first gig. And you're the lead singer, right?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Give me, did you remember the song you opened up with for your very first gig?
Oh, dude, I do. Uh, okay. So it was, uh, I don't remember exactly when it was. I think we're talking 2005 or 2006, but it was at the Lakeview Lodge, which I don't believe was, uh, longer around, but it was basically one of the buddies in the band, his parents owned this guy like,
uh, and they had always had aspirations of like letting the bands, letting bands play there. In fact, they'd had a couple bands play there, mostly like, you know, regional metal bands and shit like that.
But, uh, but, but we ended up going up and, uh, and playing in the very first song. Uh, so there were two songs that are super memorable from the gig, but one is, uh, uh, all right now.
I think it's my free. Is that right? Oh, dude, that was so, I still love that song in depth. It's such an epic song and the solo in it and shit is, it was just like it was, uh, that was, that wasn't the first song we learned as a band.
The first song we learned was, you shook me all night long, uh, but yeah, man, it was, uh, you know, we were like deep in like the classic rock.
That's great. Well, you know, I mean, if you're going to play all right now by free and you're in junior high or high school, dude, you're, I hope your bass player was money because I mean, there's a line in there. You got to cover, right?
Uh, you actually still, uh, lays some bass lines for me every once in a while. His name is Sam and he, uh, he was killing it, brother. Now we had it, you know, that's the funny thing when you're that young, you have different people switch positions in the band. So sometimes the drummer would be the bassist and sometimes the keyboardist would be the drummer.
But, uh, but yeah, man, it was, uh, fortunately on that one, uh, we had the right guy for the job.
You took me back to that, the reason why I asked that and I don't know why my brain thought of this is, but you took me back to my very first gig, which was in April of 84.
And I was the lead singer from my band and it was in the basement. It was in the basement cafeteria of the Catholic school that I that I went to.
And the very first song that I sang as a lead singer at a Catholic school was, who was twisted sister, I want to rock.
Oh, yeah.
And I love your point about like people switching around instruments when they're that age because they're so dumb. They don't know any different, right?
We were, we were so bad. We were so dumb that when we saw like we love tears for fears and the song everybody wants to rule the world. We covered, right?
But here's how dumb we were. We were like, oh, well, they didn't have a bass player in the video. So there's no bass in the song. And we're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, right?
So like the bass player sat out and we're like, well, that sounds like shit. I wonder why that sounds like, you know,
it's almost like it's actually beautiful like those days, you know what I mean? It's actually so awesome. Like I'm, I'm very fond of those memories.
And I'm, you know, it's, it's weird, man. Like you kind of just get the itch for it and it never goes away, you know, for a lot of, for, not for everybody.
There's a lot of those guys I was playing with who aren't playing anymore, but there are a couple who still are. So it's, it's, I'm very fond of those childhood memories with the suffocating vegetables.
Well, tell me that's a great name, by the way.
We did like summer camp, I think, and we were just like all cracking up over band names.
Yeah, I, yeah, like that same band, like a couple of years later, we, I think the last gig we played, we were called the tropical croutons.
Like just, you know, whatever. No, that's not right.
Tell me about, I have, I've never been to New Zealand. I hear like without an exaggeration. I hear it's like the most beautiful spot on the planet.
Like tell me about the music scene down there in Christchurch and Dunning and like, what was that like?
Yeah, bro. New Zealand's absolutely insane. Like I still don't understand how I had the situation.
Like the circuit, you know, my parents were very supportive. Originally, I was looking to go to school out of state.
And that shit is just bonkers expensive. So New Zealand on the, on the, on the flip side, strangely enough, it was actually like pretty darn affordable, kind of similar to going to school at like, you know, UT or something like that in Texas.
And so, and also the, the US dollar was like, you know, I think almost double with the New Zealand dollar was so there's a lot of reasons why I kind of like worked out for me being able to go there both from like, you know, sounding like an awesome idea and also just financially speaking.
But, but as I got over there, man, yeah, I started, you know, had a couple days on like all the major cities, but kind of fell in love with the South Island, particularly because there were mountains that you go snowboarding and there was like ocean that you can go surf at.
It's, it's absolutely stunning. Highly encourage anybody if they ever have the opportunity to go, you know, it's, it's, you got to check out the South Island.
No, the island is really cool too. A little more tropical, a lot more beaches and stuff like that, but the South Island was where I spent most of my time.
Price church, man, really cool, very unfortunate, look at all the earthquakes that happen for those of you maybe aren't aware in 2011 they had a couple serious earthquakes.
Maybe one was in 2011, one was in 2010, but the second one ended up being by devastating to the city infrastructure and ended up, you know, the whole town and university almost shut down for basically the rest of the semester.
So I, you know, was trying to keep things going, so went down to the Navy and, and, and, and both things, I would say, had a pretty heavy rock influence, I think to get into your question about the sound.
Like, I'm trying to think the best way to describe it, a lot of indie rock. And there's also a ton of sort of reggae influence music.
Yeah, like, they almost called like barbecue reggae. There's a, there's a band, if anybody's might have heard before, it's been called 660, which was actually a band that was founded in Dunedin, and it basically lived at a house called 660 Cassistry and the name stuck for 660.
But they have now gone on to be, you know, they're, they're huge these days, and they kind of like, I don't know, instilled the what they call kind of like barbecue reggae, which is just, it's really feel good reggae with like soul singing over it.
You know, there's a lot of kind of, I don't know, you be 40, kind of thing.
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, that's, that's on the bad, that's not a bad example. I'd say a little bit more like, you know, they just got some really good singers, especially like from the Maori community.
Yeah, like, that, that, that, that just, yeah, like, they just have that soul voice that sounds, I think, amazing. It's just such a feel good vibe over a kind of a reggae beat.
I am surprised that there's a reggae influence there. I see, I want one of my favorite classes when I was at music school was
ethnomusicology, and we spent several months talking about the music that came out of Oshina and Australia and New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
And reggae never came up. And when I think of New Zealand, obviously, I mean, if you're younger, you're going to think of Lord.
But I, you know, with me and my gray hair, I'm going to think of split ends and Neil fan and, you know, and more of the,
singer songwriter vibes. So, I'm surprised to hear that there was such a rock influence or the, or a reggae influence as well. That's, that's really neat.
So you get out of, so you go back to Austin and like you said earlier, you know, you start diving into Ableton and you kind of find who you are artistically.
But you've got an interesting pop and soul vibe to you. Like who are some of the biggest influences that you have that help you create songs like one night and, you know, and, and that that speak to that genre.
Yeah, man. I think a lot of it, you know, I grew up on a lot of Motown. So like, you know, basically that was like what my parents probably played the most growing up.
Yeah. And so, you know, everything from like James Brown's one of my favorite artists probably also of all time.
You know, there's a lot of artists that kind of came out of, just like the songs, look, the singers are amazing and the instrumentation is amazing and all that stuff.
But there's also like a good vibe to them. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of Motown records, even though they were about some of them about some of the saddest stuff.
They're just such like upbeat records, you know, like more of a gay, like, you know, like all these, all these guys that I, that, you know, I'd say I grew up with, again, a lot of pop from that.
So I'm not really going deep. A lot of this was service level. My parents weren't like musicians. So all of the stuff that we listened to was just kind of like they love those soul records.
Although I wasn't really, you know, as into it, a lot of country influence, you know, in my hometown being in East Texas and kind of just, you know, and I almost rock was like a safe haven for me because it was kind of like the opposite of country.
It felt like or whatever, you know, and what was, yeah, the country's bad. I like a lot of country today also.
I like it, but if you're growing up in Texas and everybody's shoving George straight down your throat.
Exactly.
And there's nothing wrong with George straight, but you know, just being the standard teenager, you're going to be like whatever sex pistols.
Exactly. Exactly. So, uh, so I kind of see it away from that a little bit, although I've leaned into my, I'd say country roots a little bit as time has gone on, you know, just kind of.
Recognizing who you are completely the full, the full version of yourself as an artist.
And those are my roots, but, but yeah, man, I would say outside of that, you know, I did, I did listen to all kinds of, you know, hip hop, everything from, you know, because I was growing up, right?
It was in, like, in the past, right? And then, you know, I was growing up in the past, like, it was in the past, you know, I was growing up, right? I was growing up in the past, right?
And I felt like even when I tried to write songs in a rock and roll background back then, I was always trying to do something unique. I was always trying to do something that was like a little more cutting edge with my vocals.
So, if I was wrapping a little bit on certain songs at that time, that, not a lot of people were doing that, you know what I mean?
And, at least in the scene that I was in, right? Or even with my melodies, kind of taking a different approach, then, with also, while also having this kind of, I don't know, more of a classic soul and rock background that I grew up on.
And I try to blend the world together. That's kind of where we've landed with that, you know?
I think, I mean, I definitely hear the Motown now that you mention it, especially on one night, right?
Yeah, that, don't, don't, yeah, ever so.
Yeah, I mean, and my God, like, if you listen, if Motown doesn't make you smile, then you need to see a cardiologist, because there's something wrong.
Exactly, exactly. It's filled your vibes, yep.
Yeah, who's on your, who is on your mount rush more of the Motown? Who's your top four?
Man, okay. That's a hard one. That is really hard. Okay, so Stevie Wonder, 100%.
Yeah. Can I add like a band? Because like the temptations are like, you got a cool temptation.
The temptations are like, they're at their Marvin Gaye for sure. How many mountain with, we have four or five?
We have four or five. I'm not going to go for four.
All right, sorry. You know what?
Hey, man, where are the musicians? Geography and history is not our story.
That's what I was saying. I'm focused on only, you know, social media music. That's all my brain has capacity for it.
Okay, so we got temptations. We got Marvin Gaye. We got Stevie Wonder.
Man, I mean, if James Brown can be thrown in there, it's definitely James Brown. If not, then maybe like the Jackson five.
I mean, because just so many good songs.
Yeah, that's a hard question, and sorry. It's hard. It is. It's a really hard question, but I like it.
Well, okay, so here's another one that I love to ask people like if you, like if you could take one night,
or the song we opened with Happy Birthday, or the song we're going to close with one day.
Sure, sure.
And any Motown artist could cover it. Who?
Oh, my God. Who would you want to cover it?
Oh, and then I'm going to put a completely different spin on that, but answer Motown first.
So I'd be cool with, oh, my God. I mean, probably the temptations, just because, like, because...
And what song? The overall, probably one night, probably one night, just because, like, if you think about it,
"Doh, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, like, there's like, there's a lot of similarities between that song,
so if anybody was going to do it justice, I don't know if it could, for the record. All of these got to be crush it, but that's all I'm going to go with.
I'd like to see the choreography personally.
Yeah.
All right, now let's take the same song one night and let's say, give me somebody to cover it, but they have to be completely out of your genre.
I'm talking like, all right, I want to hear Sepul'Tura do one night, or I want to hear Willie Nelson do one night.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so can I, I got a couple that came to mind, but I don't know if this is too close,
but are you familiar with Unknown Moral Orchestra?
No, you got me on that one. Unknown Moral Orchestra?
Yeah, it's a crazy ass band name, but they were, they're from New Zealand as well, and they were kind of like the up and coming band whenever I was there.
We call them UMO for short, it's kind of like what, you know, most of the band base refers to them as, their moniker,
but the beauty about them is they kind of have this like, they were in the band called The Chicks in New Zealand prior, and they had a super epic punk sound,
and then he kind of did a one-a-turn to kind of like, I don't know, like, Psychpop isn't the right word for it, but it's, you know, of that kind of oceanic,
Taiman Paula wave, if you're, yeah, at all familiar.
Yeah, so they would be really cool, and then if I'm going to go something else from Oshiana, who might, there's another band called
King Gizzard in the Wizard Lizard, I think I'm going to have a little bit of that.
Dude, exactly, I'm not going to tell them anything.
So, but they would be a complete opposite into the Spectrum Music Tensions, if I'm really going like a complete 180.
Yeah, and I was just, and, oh, what about this band from Australia? Have you heard of Tropical Fuckstorm?
Dude, I haven't listened to them, but I've seen somebody on like, either Facebook or Instagram or somebody post about them before, which the names are impeccable.
I'm not going to lie. Australia and New Zealand are so good at bad things.
But, you know, why is that like, do they just feel left out from the rest of the world? Because they're so far down there.
They're just like, you got to do whatever we want.
Yeah, I think they're just cheeky, man. And funny, you know, and live it on an island, I guess, you know, they got some funny guys over there.
Yeah, that's one of those names that like when you bring, and you can see me typing on my phone, because I was like, "Oh, what's the name of it?"
Right? Yeah.
That's, I mean, and they're from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, but that's one of the names of those bands that you kind of like feel, you feel guilty, you feel dirty, saying it, right?
You know, like, I mean, you can see my hair, and I'm like, you know, you can see what I'm wearing, like, "I don't care," right? But still on the...
Gosh, Golly, that's a strong name, you know.
No, I hear you. I hear you. It's... It's probably less polarizing today, but still very polarizing, and definitely when I came out back in the day, or if they did, they would have made some waves.
Yeah. I wonder if their mom... if their mom's good at their show.
[Laughter]
The most supportive. Yeah. Well, all right, Centella, so here's a basic question that I love asking people. I don't mean to... I don't mean to trick people up when I ask them this, but...
Sure.
Why do you like songwriting? What is in it for you selfishly? Why... Why do you do it?
Yeah, so there's a few different ways to kind of address this question, but the... I'll tell you in kind of like three different reasons, I guess.
The first is, is that it is the one thing throughout all my life, and I have definitely tried all kinds of different things over the years that I have just felt, you know, like I was meant to do it.
I don't really know how to describe it other than that. It just, whenever I did it, it made me happy, whenever I did it, it was something that I could see my progress in every time I approached it,
and it was really driven, you know, not really by a wanting of anything. At first, other than just being able to like play this riff or, you know, sing this lick, and eventually, you know, evolved into...
That just continued to progress over the years, it just continued to progress that I fell in love with every aspect of it, and although there were times maybe in high school where I might take a month off and not playing guitar or something like that, right?
It would have been... It was always something that I came back to diligently, and I stuck with it, and so...
So, I love it. That's kind of the first one. I don't really know how to describe it, but... And that love has given me a skill set and a faith in my skill set just over, you know, we're talking almost a couple decades now.
And so, that's the first thing. The second piece is that, like, I think it's really cool to be able to go and...
Like, some people are just artists, you know, and I think, like, whenever you need to express yourself in some way, and I think both through music and as I'm growing to like social media more and more and learn more about it, I think there's a way that you can brand yourself.
In a way that if my grandfather could have done it or my great-great-grandfather, you know, I was named after my great-great-grandfather, who his name was Nat Kurt, right? We all called him Daddy Nat and our family.
And there was Daddy Nat Jr., I'm technically Daddy Nat the third, but basically, you know, if they could have harnessed the power of the internet today, they were both entrepreneurs and they both would have done...
If they knew what the power they had, they would have taken advantage of it. And I think that we're in a unique situation right at this moment in time and have been over for the last, you know, at least decade where you can leverage the internet to build something that you're passionate about.
And I don't think this will always be like this. I don't know, you know, who knows, right? Like, there's all kinds of things that could happen in the future.
But I think we're seizing a moment now, and I think it's still going to be around for another 10, 20, 30 years, but eventually, it's going to be a time where it's much more saturated, much more difficult to do it, and it's quite literally not free to do, you know.
I sure there's time and energy to go into it, but there's not going to be platforms that you can leverage to grow in the same fashion, grow an audience in the same fashion as you can today.
So that's kind of just like more of my entrepreneurial side of brain, and then to finish it off, the most beautiful thing about music is that once you write a song, it becomes an asset that you can just continue to add to your, you know, music portfolio.
You know what I mean? I don't mean this out to business here, but like, it's true. Every song, like a lot of musicians don't think about it like this.
I didn't think about it like this for a long time, but once you start releasing music and once you start slowly gaining an audience for that music, they can become assets that pay serious dividends over the long run, you know.
And not only that, you have people who have life meaningful life experiences while listening to your music, and that, you know, can live on forever, especially with platforms like Wavelake, where you're completely separated from the monotony of, you know, things like Spotify and Title.
And Apple Music and all these various streaming platforms. So, you know, those are kind of my three pillars. The start though is always just because for whatever reason, man, it's what I've always loved to do.
Yeah.
Everything can become work, but I always come back to it. And I feel satisfied after a long day of work, you know.
Are you able to do it full time? Are you?
I am, man. I, so very, very fortunate. And I will say, you know, there's more of this story, right? I moved to Austin and was working a full time tech sales job for my first, like, you know, eight years, I guess, basically for me moving here.
And in 2020, I had saved up quite a bit of money and I was planning to kind of make the jump. And then, and also was making money for my music at that point. But then COVID happened and there's a lot of uncertainty.
So in March of 2022, and I believe in the day job and have been having as much fun as possible.
Or said, too, obviously, it's made it more of a job, but it's been, it's been my lifelong goal. You know what I mean was to figure out a way to eventually be able to sustain myself from my music.
And obviously, you know, there's other things that were involved in that journey, kidding there. But, but, yeah, man, like, you know, value for value is real. And we need to, you do need to figure out a way to, you do have an opportunity to live the life that you want to live.
I think in today's era and, and making music, you are providing value. So I think, you know, that's the most beautiful thing about all this is that it's going to become easier and easier to, I think, make a living as time goes on for the upcoming musicians, especially the ones who are in love with it and making, you know, art, you know what I mean?
Like serious, serious crafts. Yeah, how did you, I love the point you make about your songs becoming assets and looking at it like a business because not enough musicians look at it like a business.
It's, it's unfortunate, but you have to look at it like it's a business. It's tough. Yeah. I mean, because we all just want to be come by eye and go stand on the corner and play guitar.
I mean, you know, and we all want to do what you do in social media, which is have people come in and join us because that's the community of music, but and that's that that's the gift that music gives all of us.
That's the gift that it bonds, you know, all of our worlds together, you know, you can have 10,000 people in an arena down a Christ church listening to Maori music and split ends and Lord and an ACDC and everybody's like, you know, they're all in the same spirit.
You know, for sure. But how did you, how did you, I mean, since you referenced value for value and you referenced way of like, how did you find them? How did you find way of like, how did you find Bitcoin?
Yeah, man. So, man, Bitcoin, long story there, but I, so while was in Dunedin, New Zealand, I'll start with Bitcoin while I was living in Dunedin, New Zealand.
There was a buddy of mine who was quite, just like, quite technically savvy, knew a little bit about coding and was just, you know, deep in the inner webs of Reddit and the internet, which in 20,000 or 2012, like Reddit was huge at that time as well.
Yeah.
You know, it was kind of an emerging place and that's where I got a lot of almost every all my news information that's I'm in just everything. But anyway, I walked in, we lived in this kind of big dorm at the time and his name was Matty and Matty had not come out of his room and it was 4 p.m.
So he's been in his room all day long. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to go check on Matty, see what's going on. So I walk Gannies sitting on his mattress, which is just basically on the floor.
You know, it doesn't even have like, you know, whatever, but he's sitting there, cross-legged, computer screen in front of a dark room and he's basically reading this sort of Reddit thread about Bitcoin.
And, you know, at the time, it was about $1.25, which was, you know, I had no idea what Bitcoin was at all.
And at the time, I was just simply like, you know, wow, that's an interesting, you know, and it's gone up from 25 cents or something like that. You know, it is grown so much.
So I was like, okay, that's kind of interesting. And I didn't buy any, although we kind of talked about buying them. A bunch of the people in the flat or the apartment that we were living in, one of the chiff in, and then we have something built them up.
And then they ended up doing it. And so, but from that time, I just kind of paid attention to it, you know, to some degree. And about eight bucks, I ended up sending my, everybody I knew, like my folks, my, my brother, you know, my cousins, my uncles, everybody I knew who had money.
I was like, look, this is $8. It's gone up from $1.25 since I first saw it, but 1,000 bucks into it, forget about it. Here's where you can go to do it. And this time, I can't even remember where it was. And just everybody just, I dude, I had, like, probably 40 or 50 replies that were just like, just, just, just, just, just got picked after it's come picked up.
It's basically shitting on it. And I was like, you know, already went into a degree, but was like, alright, whatever.
And so, how many people took it? Nobody, dude.
Literally zero people did it. And so, I'm sitting there and I'm lost in 2014. And at this time, in 2013, I saw go up to 160 bucks. And I remember in that exact moment, being like, it's all over.
I can't believe I missed this amazing, you know, one of my community. And I remember one of my friends, his name was, what is his name?
Matt. Oh god, I'm forgetting his last name right now. But anyway, Matt basically was like another Mattie, Mattie and Matt. But Matt basically went and bought one Bitcoin that day for $161.
And I remember thinking, are you out of your mind? I genuinely was like, how could you ever have bought this at $161?
It could have gone right back down, right? What did? But it still, you just would have huddled. I mean, it was what it hurled onto it that it would have worked out.
So, maybe I could say Bitcoin was on my radar for kind of from 2011. And I was always interested in it. But I was sitting on the sidelines because I was broke candidly, you know, in college.
You know, I had my tuition and stuff paid for, but, you know, daily expenses, it just wasn't something that, you know, I really felt like I had the liberty of doing.
You know what I mean? And then, whenever I got to Austin, was paying attention to it, was interviewing even at a Bitcoin mining company at one point trying to get a job there.
It was just fascinating about it. I had bought some. It ended up going, I don't know, to a few hundred bucks, I think. And this was maybe, maybe 2016 or 2015.
I'm not exactly sure what year it was. And I ended up selling it completely got on the sidelines. And in 2017, I really started to see the light again.
And I saw all these other coins coming out and I saw all the speculation going involved with them. And slowly just started to realize that there is one cryptocurrency that is unlike all the other cryptocurrencies.
And that is Bitcoin. That is the one that, you know, I can go and play and I do. I like to have fun on all the other chains. And I like to learn about all the cutting edge technology and I get bitten the ass for half of it. And some of it does okay.
But Bitcoin is unlike the rest of these. And I kind of just slowly sort of accumulating and when I quit my job initially, you know, Bitcoin was like 55k or something.
So I'm like, sit nice. You know, this is this is going to be, you know, sweet. And of course, it's coming back, but it's, you know, but it was, I've been able to figure out that it's the bear markets and all these times where things go up and down.
It's really where you can go dig in and learn stuff because it's not so crowded those times and you can, you know, dig a little deep.
So that rolled into, you know, me learning a little bit more about the lighting network. Me kind of getting exposed actually through like a Bitcoin conference of sorts.
Yeah.
It's like a local meetup that we have here in Austin that we needed a place called the Bitcoin Commons and a guy there, his name is John, basically told me that hey, you know, you, you should check out wave lake like I heard about others, right?
I'd heard about sound XYZ, which is not the same thing, but I heard about these other platforms that people were trying to leverage to like, levers their music on the on the blockchain and some capacity.
I hadn't heard more for one that was compelling with Bitcoin yet and just got on there and immediately just started learning more and more and, you know, had the pleasure of, you know, going on another podcast before this that I had the, you know, opportunity to learn even more about value for value.
And yeah, man, I'll tell you it's once you really start to admire how perfect the ecosystem is for Bitcoin and now that we're building upon it and all of the.
I don't know just like horrible things that can go on in terms of like scams on other projects and other altcoins Bitcoin is truly a safe haven in.
You know what I mean?
It's all into something that is much bigger than I think most people give a credit for and I think it's really like the, I don't know, one of the most life changing perhaps the most life changing thing that you could invest your time learning about.
Maybe ever in human history. I try to think about it that way.
Well, how would you explain value for value to to a musician like, you know, I mean, Austin's full, Austin's full of great players like.
Like, you know, how would you explain it to another musician to try and get them on board?
Sure. Well, I will say I probably won't bring up Bitcoin at all at first. You know, like my whole thought is is that value for value purely as a concept is, okay, you get paid a third of a penny ish from Spotify every time somebody goes and streams your music, right?
But you don't have any relation ish right and that's if you're lucky that's if you're in the highest paid territories. So if you get that then that's great, I guess, you know, you're making some sort I make, I make a living of a lot of it comes from streams.
So I'm not here to crack on streams they do help, but you need them in volume to be able to be successful there.
And I have currently I don't know anywhere between 150 and 250,000 month of listeners kind of fun. Right. And and those all are people who are coming and listening to my music at least once in a 30 day or 28 day period.
But I don't have any relationship with them. And not only that every single time that they go and stream my music.
I'm getting such a small minority for the value that I am very likely bringing to them with my music and I'm not all my songs.
You know, like in the part, but some of them people have meaningful life experiences.
You know, it brings value to them in a way that's almost like unexplainable untangible.
And I think what value for value sets up is that instead of you paying Spotify or one of these platforms to where you're going to be, you know, giving money to a platform to then pay out the artists on the back.
You're finally making it peer to peer. You're making it to where you can directly feel good about listening to something for infinite amounts of time just like it was back in the day when you bought records.
So this time it's all going to the artist, you know, I mean, and then on top of that, it's not our archaic technology like records.
I still like records, but I'm just saying like now you can connect it to things like this, like this podcast where you can directly, you know, split funds whenever the music is enjoyed by their audience.
So you know, kind of a long way to say that it is quite literally a way for you who's providing value as an artist into this world to receive value that's fatter.
And that's based upon how much value it gives to that person in their life.
Yeah, and I agree with you. I don't lead with Bitcoin either because it can turn them off.
Right. I just I lead with, hey, there's another revenue stream out there here. Let me talk to you about something that I think you should add to your business plan.
Like keep doing spotify and iTunes and YouTube and tick tock and everything else.
But add this into the mix and add nocturne to your mix.
Exactly.
And because you're going to get compensated directly because likes and hearts don't mean shit.
Yeah, I mean, they really don't and it's it's it's so cutthroat out there in that social media world that as something like this emerges, it is going to be a slow, a slow increase, you know, but we will also on these platforms hit a sort of, I don't know, breaking point to where we shoot up in volumes and volumes of people are going to come into this space.
And the other early adopters in my opinion are going to greatly benefit from that if you if you were here early and you were, you know, continuing to stay in the space.
And, you know, I'm excited to see how we're able to just continue to build on top of Bitcoin, man. And I think it's just so such so much more of a safe haven in the land of cryptocurrency.
It really can't even be compared to anything else. And it's just so exciting to see this stuff built on top of it.
Yeah, I was I was in the last artist hour podcast. This that came out on Sunday the 18th. This one's coming out on Sunday the 25th.
But in the artist hour podcast on Sunday the 18th, I was I was talking with real Richard who is an electronic and hip hop guy out of the Bay Area.
Got it. And he's got about 10 songs up on way Blake. He's pulled in like, you know, a couple hundred thousand, couple hundred thousand sats. He's doing well.
And he and I were talking about when this becomes mainstream.
And and what I hear from a lot of people is that, you know, we're probably five years out, four or five years out.
Right.
And I disagree with that. I hit here's my hypothesis that I really hope comes true. Sure.
And there's and there's two scenarios. Number one, somebody let me just say that I think that this thing is going to absolutely blow up within a year to two years.
Wow. Yeah.
Yeah, because there's a lot of good talent that's coming over here. And somebody is going to go mainstream from let's just call it the Bitcoin space. Right.
It could be you. It could be I wrote out of Virginia. It could be FM rodeo. Who I interviewed love those guys.
It could be Joe Martin. It could be even real Richard. You know, he's he's more of like Calvin Harris type, you know, electronic DJ.
But somebody somebody is going to go mainstream from this space and they're and people are going to like, well, where did you get your start?
And how did you pay for this? How did you do that? And they're going to go Bitcoin. What? Yeah, RSS feeds. No, sir. They're going to be like, what? And then, you know, and it's going to blow up or here's another way of doing it.
Some, there is going to be some household name, some legacy artists, somebody like a hunter haze or a like a match a match box 20 somebody like that. Sure.
Who maybe they like they're done with their record label. They don't have a traditional label agreement anymore. Maybe they're even done with their publishing company and but they're still together and they're like screw it.
We're going to do another record and we're going to put it up over here and people and there and they are going to drive traffic over here.
The technology is there. We know it works. We know it works on, you know, true fans and podverse and podcast guru and fountain. We know it works, you know, over on wave lake in the last seven months.
We've seen the wallet splits and everything finally come around to reflect multi splits that are required for professional songwriters such as yourself and people in Austin and the people here in Nashville.
And I don't think it's going to take that long. I think something's going to pop something's going to hit.
I think so is also just people.
What you what you don't realize is that everything is kind of condensing from just like a macro perspective because the internet, you know, like information.
You just disseminate so much quickly more quickly now because you are getting it from YouTube, you know, like so many videos are uploaded on YouTube all the day about absolutely everything or you can read about it on Twitter or X rather or or a noctur platform as well.
But I guess what I'm trying to say is is that information just spreads so much quicker today.
And so as the word gets out about this is really like in my eyes, it's almost even just one tick-tock away from somebody explaining how they made X amount of money, especially in like a full cycle, which I think we're interested in right now.
And I think that it doesn't take much for the docks to connect whenever even if it's an independent artist, you know what I mean? Who is like me or like anybody else who's on this platform, you know, basically just trying to push their music in all the possible ways.
And through that finds a home because that's the one thing that you'll notice it's different about a platform like Wavelight. Like people are actually going out and they're sending you sacks, you know, for your work.
They're giving you value for the value that you get to them. And it really only takes like that concept.
I think once either the right influencer, the right tick-tock video, the right whatever, when it goes, it will spread rapidly and we'll have a huge influx of users.
And not everybody will stick with it, but that will begin the slow, I think, grow to where, you know, maybe it starts with a, you know, a couple million users that grows to tens of millions of users to eventually hundreds of millions and, you know, beyond.
And that is, I mean, obviously we're a long way from that two day, but the power of the internet is beautiful and you can get, you know, it just makes sense.
Like it's, it clearly is like it's a very difficult thing to, for anybody who's trying to make a living from their music, which so many people are in the modern age.
And I think to young kids, it'll also be then, because they, you know, Bitcoin is not so foreign of the concept.
Oh, yeah, they're totally down with it. They're down.
Exactly.
Like I talk to, you know, my folks are still kicking it and I love them dearly.
You know, they're in their 80s, but when I talk to them, they're like, hmm.
Exactly.
They don't get it. I mean, but hey, it's, it's, it's okay. It's okay.
And that change, that's the thing, that's what almost can show you that you're, you're right about it is that like things that are disruptive like this.
It takes a long time for people really care or see the light or understand, even if it's right in front of their very eyes for, for decades.
You know, the internet was kind of the same way.
And then one day it blossoms into something that you're using, you know, eight plus hours a day.
I mean, it's funny, my, my wife and I actually met at a.com in Santa Monica.
That's all right.
Like back in the day, right? Like we each had like 500,000 shares in the company and we got a palm pilot and all of you know catered lunches and all this bullshit.
Love it, love it.
You know, and the whole thing went under in like 18 months. They blew like 45 million dollars and seed money in 18 months.
But a lot of this energy that we see when we're talking to app developers or or pot or you know streaming developers, RSS folks.
The energy that we see, the vibe that we get from these guys is very synonymous with the, the time when we met.
And you know, I mean, the folks that are behind the scenes working on the RSS feeds and the Noster stuff and every like these guys are just so frickin smart, you know.
I would say God blockchain has invited and crypto but has invited the best and brightest and also some of the most devious also in certain aspects.
But the lights are here, you know, and it's getting edge and it's exciting and that's how I approach music.
You know, I'm trying to make something that I have it necessary.
I want it to be 100% me and I want it to be at least contemporary. I want it to be modern.
I want it to be of its era and trying to do something that maybe others haven't done exactly the same way.
I think cryptocurrency is kind of a similar thing. You know, people who are here, they recognize that it's, we have an opportunity here that's kind of unlike anything else that's come previous other than maybe the internet.
Well, tell, tell us, I mean, damn, dude, I can't believe we've been talking for an hour already.
Tell me about, I mean, we're going to end the show in a little bit here with one day and I want to get back to songwriting really quick.
When you sit down to craft a song, are you a bit of a luddite like me? Like, do you like to sit there with the acoustic or an acoustic piano or do you start on Ableton?
Like, how do you, what's your process?
So I try to lean into both of those areas. So some days I try to just write something, sometimes I even write Al Capela, but or my guitar or on, you know, a piano.
And I'll have a cook idea and I'll kind of work it out there.
But, and that's how I wrote, for the majority of my life, that's how I wrote songs, right? You know, kind of come up with a core progression, write some vocals to it, or come up with a melody line vocally and then write some chords to it, and then kind of figure out, okay, based on that, where do I go?
You know, how do I, how do I make this interesting, you know, pop, which I've always been to some degree, making even with rock and roll, like the music I was making wasn't necessarily, you know, it, it wasn't like,
trying to think of Mars Volta, or something like that, right? It was, it was a little straightforward, right? And so I've always had, I don't know, just trying to write, again, music that makes you feel good.
And so the most common approach that I've gone with today, although I do a little bit everything, I think it's important to change it up.
I'll generally work with either a sample that I create, so either a piano, a guitar, a vocal sample, then I'll bring it into Ableton, or kind of like get that main idea built upon it,
like sort of whether it's a guitar riff, whether it's a piano riff, whether it's, you know, a bass line, and then I will essentially kind of, you know, build from it.
So it's much more akin to kind of how hip-hop, I guess, is great to do that. The reason I do that is because I find that it allows me to flow a little bit more smoothly.
You know, in, of course, if I have something already in mind, I'll just start with that, and I'll, and I'll kind of write out the, you know, guitar sample, record some vocals over it, and do us along from there.
But a lot of it is more, you know, kind of whether it's my own samples or samples that I've gotten from other musicians that I like, you know, I'll start there, and then I'll basically, you know, build out a rough sketch of whatever the demo is going to be.
So I try to, if you get a bass line down, you know, a main chord progression of some sort, some drums over it, and then from that moment, I'll try to get it to where there's a couple different sections, kind of some flow to the overall instrumental.
And I will quite literally just get on my microphone and, you know, put a little fix of my vocals, if I'm feeling you know, fun and just throw up on the mic.
I'll just just give out as many different things, melody ideas, almost just kind of throwing stuff against a wall and just re styling for usually three to five takes.
I'll just go from there, I'll take the melodies that I like, and then I'll basically start writing lyrics to those melodies and kind of arrange the melodies in whichever way, vocal melodies, I'm talking about here, in whichever sort of way that feels the nicest.
And I just try to be as efficient and smooth as possible, and I try to go off of what feels the best, because one of the things that I have struggled with, especially my earlier songwriting days,
I just quite simply would overthink things, you know, and I look to my favorite musicians, and it was really something I struggled with, especially bands, because you have so many opinions, and one opinion voiced, unfortunately sometimes can throw off the vibe of the whole song that you're writing.
So I try today to diligently just make it as smooth and free, because recognizing that when you're recording everything sort of blind by line, you can always go back, as long as you're saving everything, you can always go back and redo it, but you don't know what it's going to be like until you try it.
And so I try to be as free as possible, you know.
And I think you can get lost in the recording process, too, you can spend so much time trying to be a perfectionist that it will lose its heart and soul.
Exactly.
So I think there's a line you got across when you're tracking to be like, all right, you know, all right, that conveys what I wanted to say.
Can I sing it 10 different ways? Yeah, I probably could. Could I play that bass riff? I have different ways? Yeah, I probably could, but is it conveying what I needed to convey? Yes. Okay. And that's good enough. Let's keep moving on.
Like good enough, you know, I don't mean that in terms of the enemy of perfect, but, you know, it's like, I mean, you can just, you know, I mean, don is better than perfect, unfortunately, in this world, especially when it comes to art.
And you know, it's one of those things that, again, that is not intuitive to me. That is not how I grew up with music at all.
But I've come to make this put my bag against the wall and make it my full time career.
You kind of, kind of force yourself to get to a stage where you, you have to understand that like it's, you know, it's a necessary evil.
But even then, like, songwriting, you know, you can't spend what I mean by this is you can't spend not only if you spend too long in a song.
Will it lose the feel that it once had? And therefore make your songwriting to it, probably less inspired from the initial point.
But it's also like, you know, this is an asset that we're building here. And the longer you spend on it, the more that resources you are putting into it.
And therefore, you know, the kind of the moral ROI you're going to need to be able to get it, you know, to get you a place to where you feel, you know, like you've gotten a return on at one point.
And it's not all about that either. You know, Rick Rubin is one of my biggest influences.
I love his book, The Creative Act. I know it sounds crazy, but I think the beauty of Rick Rubin is that he, he's just so free and in the moment.
And writes whatever he needs to or wants to when it comes to music is the craft, whatever it is that you're making, whether it's music, any art.
You just need to go and input whatever emotion or feeling or thoughts or energy that you have at that exact time.
Go and write the song. And if it ends up becoming a record that you put out, great. If it ends up being a number one record of yours, great.
If it doesn't ever end up coming out, great. Like you just need to go create and the rest will come.
Yeah, I can identify. I understand why you would admire him. And it took me a long time to admire him as well.
You know, you know, it's just kind of like, stare over those long beards of the corner. You're like, OK, what's this guy really about?
Yeah, because I'll tell you point blank, like I've got interactions with him from from a Hollywood back in the 90s.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. And like, like I just remember like walking out of this one particular studio.
And he is lying on the couch in clothes that were like, you know, three days worn no shoes just looks like a total dirt bag.
And I overheard a conversation that he was having on the phone. And because he was in the commons area. And I'm like, really this fucking guy.
This is the fucking guy.
And I was so full of piss and vinegar at that time when I was in Hollywood trying to make it as a singer songwriter that I didn't understand the beauty of his artistry of the beauty of what he does.
And it makes total sense to me why you why you dig that guy because that's that's totally your vibe. Absolutely. That's your vibe.
And and and I don't mean that in a bad way. Like he is he is really good at drawing out the true artist. And if you don't believe that for the love of God, go look at what he did with Johnny Cash.
Yeah, exactly. Man, that is so powerful.
You know, and I think it was like, you know, obviously there's like a lore to Rick Rubin, right? That I think a lot of people fall in love with.
But for me personally, it was that in combination with just all the records. And even then he did comedy albums with.
His name several, but I'm trying to think there's one the day the laughter died. I'm breaking up. I'm forgetting whatever his name is. He's absolutely on the phone.
I'm trying to be in a minute, but anyway, you know, just all these innovative things across the industry. And I think a couple things that I took from him.
One is is that you just need to create and create whatever you feel and make it as genuine as possible in that moment.
Make it the best as possible as you can. Don't care about the other stuff because it really. And that is almost why I fall in love with songwriting is because when I go in write a song, like if I want to make a singer songwriter country song that day, I'll do it.
I hear it, but like I'm going to go write whatever I feel like. And I think that in combination with he had this quote where he was like, I think that if you really want to, you know, if you really care about making art and art is the first priority, who cares if you work a day job, you know, to pursue this thing.
If you're doing that in service to the art, then that is the right path as opposed to, you know, not having any money in there for resources to go pursue whatever you're trying to do.
So anyway, it kind of just flipped my whole perspective on how to approach this game because, you know, there were a number of years where it was a whole lot of fun playing live shows, but it didn't have a, there was a whole lot of money that was spent as opposed to money made.
Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, when you do your live shows, is it you in a band? Is it you in tracks? What do you do?
We do use Ableton, but yeah, you so I have a drummer with me always, so I'll have and he'll be playing live drums kind of and he'll have some like, you know, triggers and stuff that he can use to go alongside of it, but the tracks are going through Ableton.
I'll have my vocals also going through Ableton and then I have a guy who co-wrote a lot of the music with me. He goes by lonely child and he, he co-produced for several of the songs, including one night, and he'll come and play both guitar and then saxophone on certain songs.
I'm a little three piece. I would love to have a freaking choir and a bassist and, you know, everything at one point, but again, you got to scale it, you know, and as I grow, I don't know if you're something I look into.
Well, we're gonna wrap up, I mean, you talked about one night and it really warms my heart, but by the way, 12 million streams on Spotify do.
Thank you so much, dude.
That's brother, like that's not easy. That's not easy. And it warms my heart to hear a guy who's got 12 million on one song and 500,000 on a bunch of others to be such a fan of V for V.
But tell us about this next song that we're going to use to close out the show, this song called One Day.
Thank you so much. And I appreciate you. I was wondering when I was going to be able to give the plug for this, but yeah, this next song, it means a lot to me.
One night is obviously the song that kind of put me on the map has 12 million streams. You know, I have, you know, some other songs on the way to a million streams in plus, but, you know, maybe across platforms I do.
But it is certainly the one that has been magnitude greater than the other and really just gave me the opportunity to pursue this full time.
So I've always wanted to write a follow-up called One Day. And this song was written basically right after I quit my job in 2022.
I was, you know, straight out and basically like the first song that I wrote when I went to the studio was, was this song and the whole premise of it is is that One Day, One Night can change your life.
You know, that's, that was the premise of One Night. One day, I'm going to make it. One day, I'm going to be able to pursue my dream and not be pushed down by the thumb of Corporate America, which I very much so was in.
And so this song is really more of, you know, like an anthem for me basically leaving my job and doing music full time.
And it's been one that I've been sitting on for a little while because I feel like it is a powerful song and I feel like it's, you know, I think it has all the right ingredients that makes up that in that.
And so, so yeah, it means a lot to me. And you know, if there's a message in it, it's that One Day, you can, you know, really achieve whatever you want to in life.
Whether it's, you know, leaving your, you know, boss that you hate, whether it's leaving a job that's, you know, a dead in job or a job that you're just unhappy with.
And it's just one day going and pursuing something like music or an art of some fashion, you know, and keep it a day job, whatever it is, whatever your dream is.
Like, there's a lot of bumps along the way, but if you stick with it, it'll work out. So that's the plug.
Love it. Well, Daddy Matt, thank you very much for coming on the show. Stick around. Let's talk a little bit in the in the in the green room, so to speak.
But this is the Phantom Power artist hour. You have been listening to the incomparable Daddy Matt from Athens, Texas, and then Austin, Texas by way of Christ Church New Zealand.
This song is called, song is called One Day, dude. Thanks again, man. Stick around for a second.
Thank you so much, man.
One, two, three.
Playing strings and I'm running late again. I know my boss is waiting. He probably hates me.
He's so this hollow and vacant because he don't take no vacations. We're the guy that I'm making so I can be something one day.
The letter might be something big.
Monday, man, I'll rather be asleep at home. I think that I'm in her, you're not the weekend. Like you smile, you escape.
And I can't you break it out, they figure out that I might be something one day.
One, two, three.
Oh, no.
I'll get this job done.
Friday is Friday, time to let them know. Here's mine two weeks, I think you probably should have met me.
So let them use to it, so let them out, things will change for me one day.
I'll be something one day.
And there'll be something one day.
That is one day from Daddy Nat down in Austin, Texas. What you ought to do is take that song one day and play it right after one night.
It's a great follow up. It's a great theme. I love what he's trying to do with both of those songs.
And you can totally tell the Motown influence, man. His stuff just makes me smile. And that's what Motown should do.
I love his, hustle, I love his appreciation for the game. And man, the dude knows his way around Ableton. That's for sure.
So thank you guys so much for listening to the Phantom Power artist to hour. This has been episode 11.
We got a couple of great ones coming up looking to speak with Nate Johnovan coming up next week.
And I think after that, I know Sarah Jades coming in, trying to get some of the other folks that we've been featuring a lot, trying to schedule something with the trusted as well as Marina Osk.
And I hope you guys stick around for those. And other than that, we thank you guys for listening. We thank you for all your boosts and your apps and your sats and your support, a value for value music.
You can find us on Telegram, you can find us on Noster, you can find us at phantompowermusic.io as well as Twitter and Instagram.
And that'll do it. Thanks so much for listening.
Stay safe out there. Smile for the mug shot.
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