(upbeat music)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
It is Sunday, March 10th, and this, of course,
is a value for value music show.
You guys know what that is, right?
This value cast, this podcast, this thing playing
in your ears that supports artists
who are in the Bitcoin space because you are listening
on a modern podcasting 2.0 app,
like podcast guru,
curiosity, podcast, or podcast, fountain, true fans.
And if you like the show, if you like the music in the show,
you have the ability, the of the Lightning Network,
to send little tiny increments of Bitcoin,
otherwise known as Satoshi's directly to the artists
and the people that are creating this show.
That is what value for value is all about.
And in today's Phantom Power Artist Hour,
have a great conversation with producer and musician,
Martin Grooms from Charleston, South Carolina,
who is off to a great start with his song, The Hard Way,
which has been number one over on Wave Lake
for the last couple of weeks.
Great song, great vocals, great construction.
I broke it down in the Phantom Power Music review
two weeks ago, came out on the last Friday of February.
And Martin was kind enough to join me this week
on short notice for this week's edition
of the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
And we have a great conversation.
We talk about production, we talk about songwriting,
the effect of music on culture.
We talked about Broadway shows,
we talked about Elliott Smith.
It's a fun conversation.
I hope you guys really enjoy it.
He is an articulate guy who cares deeply
about getting the song right and taking the time to do it.
So before we get to the interview,
I wanna play you guys the song that's doing so well
over on Wave Lake.
It is called The Hard Way.
So we'll do that and then we'll bring them on the show.
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
♪ I knew it when we first met ♪
♪ Something wasn't right ♪
♪ And better judgment ♪
♪ Would have kept me to myself ♪
♪ Sweet nothing, it's nothing ♪
♪ Fed me full of lies ♪
♪ And still I can't forget the emptiness I felt ♪
♪ I gave you all I had to give ♪
♪ And it never was enough ♪
♪ It breaks me with those empty arms ♪
♪ And inside your hollow clutch ♪
♪ But you never meant it when you told me that you loved me ♪
♪ I had to find that out the hard way ♪
♪ You said that you'd never put someone else above ♪
♪ And you told me that I'm pretty sure that's what they all say ♪
♪ You were talking when I tuned out ♪
♪ Your timings never rise ♪
♪ Scuces always seem to glide right out your mouth ♪
♪ Sweet nothing, it's nothing ♪
♪ Faded all those nights ♪
♪ I watched us fuck it up as bottles bottom down ♪
♪ We made all marks put in progress ♪
♪ The more fit, the more fit this array ♪
♪ I gave you all I had to give ♪
♪ And tell you what to do ♪
♪ And you never meant it when you told me that you loved me ♪
♪ I had to find that out the hard way ♪
♪ You said that you'd never put someone else above me ♪
♪ And I'm pretty sure that's what they all say ♪
♪ You never meant it when you told me that you loved me ♪
♪ I had to find that out the hard way ♪
♪ You said that you'd never put someone else above me ♪
♪ And I'm pretty sure that's what they all say ♪
(upbeat music)
- All right, everybody, welcome to "Fans and Power"
that is "Hardway" by today's guest, producer and recording artist
Martin Grooms from Charleston, South Carolina,
if I'm not mistaken, is that correct, sir?
- That is correct, yes, sir, thanks for having me today.
- Oh, my pleasure.
You're kind of off to a roaring start in the value verse.
You're doing pretty good with the first one.
You've been number one over on "Wave Lake" for a while.
- Yeah, I'm extremely grateful for all the support
that this song's getting, kind of, to people's surprise.
Similar kind of thing on the major streaming platforms
that can go unnamed for now.
(laughing)
But those that she'll know, we're not named.
- Right, we're not trying to take away
from our value verse over here, right?
So, no, essentially the numbers, they surprise me.
I'm really happy with that.
Strong first month numbers, I would say.
So, I'm pretty stoked on that.
- Yeah, it's a lovely track.
I mean, I broke it down two weeks ago
on the music review, "Great Bobby Callwell Vibes,
"Great Production."
But let's go back.
- Oh, look at that.
We got an amber alert and Nashville.
The phones are going crazy.
- Let's go back to the start of the musical journey for you.
Like, how did you become a musician?
What was your first instrument?
All that fun stuff.
- Oh, this might get orderly.
I'll try my best to condense it.
I grew up in a musical household.
My dad is kind of like a, he's a guitarist.
My mom is a vocalist.
And so, lots of music in my household,
like, you know, coming down the stairs when I was a kid
and my parents were drinking coffee
and singing Beatles tunes and stuff like that.
So, you know, my father has a pretty robust,
I don't know, tasting music.
So, I mean, it was all over the place.
It was stuff like the ink spots,
that King Cole, I mean, you can probably hear
some of that influence somewhere in there.
But then it was stuff like Beatles
clapped in the traditional, you know, classic rock stuff.
So, yeah, I got really lucky with that.
And I grew up singing.
I play a little guitar, a little piano,
not really enough to tout that I do either.
I would never call myself an instrumentalist.
Yeah, no, I'm an ear guy.
So, I've been very lucky with, I don't know,
it's just I hear things very well.
I used to drive my show choir teacher nuts
because instead of reading the music,
I would just go stand by somebody who's in my section
and learn the part by listening to it.
Okay, good, a little bit of a musical theater kid.
I love it.
Yeah, for sure.
But yeah, just come by music very naturally and honestly.
And a big fan of melody, you can probably tell, you know,
at least in this particular song,
very basic chord structure, chord progression.
And most of the work is the melody dancing around that, you know.
So, I don't know, I'm just very inspired by melody
and singing and music is just a huge part of my childhood, I think.
Fantastic.
Yeah, so you kind of grew up in a nurturing musical household
that kind of fills your ears with all these influences.
And now you, so you're the kind of guy that like,
if we were to sit here and pick a part,
and I don't mean to expose any sort of theoretical weakness
if you wanna call it that, but like if we're sitting here
and we're talking Dorian and Locrian scales, you're like,
oh yeah, yeah, you got it.
I'll drive you nuts.
No, because, for instance, we know Bobby Shell is
a contributor to that value versus well.
And a good friend of mine, Bobby Shell.
Shout out Bobby Shell.
Good friend of mine, long time.
And their instances where we'll just be playing around on music,
maybe like what key is this in?
And I'm kind of just like, I don't know, like I can figure it out.
It's more map to reverse engineer it for me.
And I, without trying to put my skill set on a pedestal,
where I'm really strong is just like knowing
if it's the right note or if it's not the right note, you know what I mean?
I do.
And I love working with artists like you,
and one of my favorite is back in Seattle
where I moved here from an artist by the name
Carrie Ackery, AKRE.
And Carrie was big in the Seattle scene and the Grun scene
was signed and she kind of came out of retirement a couple of years ago
and we did a record in Seattle.
And I adore her writing.
She doesn't know theory, she doesn't know keys.
She just sits down and writes, right?
And the beautiful part of that is that she
doesn't get constrained by what music theory classes tell you you can't do.
Because she would give me an arrangement or a new coordinate.
I'm like, you're not supposed to do that.
You know?
Yeah, no.
I wonder what he--
And me, and it's funny, because the guitar player that she had
was also a dear friend of mine.
And he is a music school graduate in a total guitar nerd.
So he and I, while she's talking, she's like, yeah,
I love what you guys were doing.
And then he and I would be like, well, you know, you take the low
Korean and you move it over to the door.
And you've got to mix a letter and a five and a drop 13 and put the extension
on that.
And she's like, just shut the--
I don't play this alone.
I love working with guys like you because yet you're not held back by theory.
We're not bound by the math.
It's more of a feeling thing.
And I think if you can do it successfully, which I'm learning,
I don't know.
It's a second day.
I don't know.
You know, my dad is like that.
He was very-- he's a lot of still, plays the guitar still.
Very much like a pickup his guitar, listen to the Aave Maria iteration of--
or I'm sorry, the Cheat Act conversion of Aave Maria and like pick it apart
and like play it in three days for you note for note.
Like he's just--
Nice.
That's how he is, you know?
Neither of us are really classically trained,
but I would attribute the ear totally to him.
Yeah.
But any other thing.
I think I drive some people who are a little bit more, you know,
traditionally musically inclined, a little bit crazy.
I know Bobby's got a little bit better handle on some of the music stuff
and sometimes I'll be like, no, play this inversion.
So I'm big on inversions, not necessarily full chords.
Kind of similar to the way I play guitar.
It's more or less using the instruments to get the idea out of my head.
Well, and I think that that's relevant and shown
in hard way with your diads and working with forts.
And you know, you really--
I was at Bobby's house.
I was like, watch this and I picked a big guitar.
It was probably this one.
It's my little telecaster.
Tele?
Yeah.
And just a real simple stuff.
You know, the kind of dancing--
Oh, yeah.
--give it a spine.
The record is spying to kind of like, you know, allow other instrumentation
to kind of dip in and out of it.
So no, I was really stoked with the way
that you just to take a minute and say this.
I was really, really stoked on the way that you reviewed the song.
Because when you produce something like that,
you don't expect people to pick it apart
or to find some of the little Easter eggs that you put in there.
And yeah, it's just--
I don't know.
It's a cool thing to like hear somebody give like an introspective--
I don't know-- review of something that you put a lot of effort into.
So I appreciate it about a lot.
That was my pleasure.
And it proves that I still have my hearing, which is--
After--
--after four years--
--for years, right?
It's like--
Yeah, that little di--
I am still there.
Yeah.
Little diads, like one of my favorite parts of the song, though,
because it just kind of glues everything together.
If you don't have that there, it's just like this drum
and bass kind of thing.
But one little element kind of streams it all together, you know?
Well, now, what do you like more?
Do you like writing?
Do you like performing?
Or do you like producing?
Producing.
Really?
Yeah.
I love-- I'm not great at mixing and mastering and all that kind
of stuff.
And that's something that I'm actually trying to get better at.
Obviously, I don't want to be--
let me back up a minute and say this.
I've had the opportunity to work on professional records
in the past and doing so allows you to kind of like see
that process a little better.
And right now, I'm doing it out of necessity,
but I kind of feel like there's no place for ego
in a good product.
And that's kind of true no matter what you're doing.
So I guess I'm saying that to say that everybody has a job
in the music creation process for a reason.
You know what I'm saying?
The guy who is your engineer is not necessarily
going to mix your record.
The guy who mixes your record is not necessarily
going to master your record.
Yeah.
And that's something that as you kind of grow as a musician,
you kind of learn that and you source people out over time.
So that's kind of in my plans to grow the team a little bit,
I think ultimately, but I enjoy the work in that regard.
You know, for those listeners who are not musicians,
how would you explain the role of a producer, not the engineer,
not the mix engineer and not the mastering engineer,
but the role of the producer?
How would you explain it?
The person who oversees the arrangement of the record,
how things drop in and out of it, how
things, it's basically handing the record in,
being like this is done to the liking of me, essentially.
And then co-production is somebody lending ideas
and/or playing light instrumentation on that.
They lend an idea that I didn't necessarily say, hey,
play this.
That's something that they might receive co-production credit
for.
But generally speaking, just the person who kind of makes the call
on the overall sound of the song and the details that make it
interesting, I think.
Yeah.
Another way to describe it for non-musicians who are listening
is a producer would say, hey, don't play that guitar.
Try this one.
Yeah, don't use that amp.
Try this one.
Hey, what if we shortened the chorus just a little bit?
Hey, what if you did a fade out on this song rather
than a hard stop?
All of that stuff.
They're kind of like the chef in orchestrating
this dance in the kitchen.
So--
Right, weak.
Yeah.
Those lines kind of blurt together for me
because I'm the one man show on that.
But generally speaking, that's how I would define it,
is the guy who makes the executive decision
on what the record sounds like, what how long it is, details.
And that can vary because your mix engineer
may lend an element to the mix that
lends to the production overall that you didn't think of.
So they can kind of cross over, I think.
Now, how did you--
So let's talk about your start as a producer
and who some of your other clients have been.
How did you get a start?
And what are some of the other projects
you've worked on?
Nothing super major, but my background believe it
or not is in hip-hop production.
I'm in my late 30s.
And I've been making beats/music since I was about 15, 16
years old.
Started in FL Studio for elapses at that time.
And just kind of grew throughout that.
But yeah, I provided a lot of instrumentation and beats
and stuff for rappers and stuff in the area
who kind of went on to be on compilations based out of Atlanta.
There's one called A3C, I want to say that I was on in 2015 or 2016
that I made a beat for.
And just more local productions, but got to do an entire project
with a rapper named Matt Monday in a buddy of mine named Dave.
This never saw the light of day, but a lot of the tracks were--
we were kind of co-producing and recording engineering
this project that Sonny Digital, who's another super famous
Atlanta hip-hop producer, was working on.
So that was kind of the-- essentially, that was one of the projects
we got a chance to work on.
And mostly it's been local stuff and kind of my own stuff
and changing styles and trying to determine if I want to be an artist
or if I want to produce or how I want to sound.
All that comes up.
So is this something that you're able to do full time,
part time, what is it for you?
It's part time right now.
I would love to transition that into a full time thing.
It's just kind of a--
reality is, is Bill's got to happen.
So you've got to have your job that allows you to--
allows for that.
And that can be difficult finding the energy and stuff
outside of that to then dedicate it to the music.
So looking to transition it, but right now, it's part time.
Yeah.
Well, you know what's really cool is that I've
started-- I mean, obviously you and Bobby have collaborated,
but I think you guys go back to high school or something
like that, right?
Yeah, yeah, super.
OK.
But there is starting to be some collaborations
with within the value of all the Bitcoin musicians,
collaborating on stuff.
Case in point, like Manlite Quax, Susan Tanzania,
and Joe Martin, who is in the UK, did
a track with Richard, who's in San Francisco.
Right?
That's so cool.
Yeah, so it's cool to see--
it's cool to see that stuff coming around.
And I actually, just today, in the mail,
I got a USB stick from another artist in the value
risk with like 10 years of stuff.
He's like, hey, take a listen.
See if you want to take a whack at something.
I'm like, woo, boy.
There's a lot of stuff in there, and it's kind of daunting.
But it's cool that we're meeting in this value for value
space with the potential of doing some work together.
So it's a lot more intimate, especially in the holidays.
So it's pretty cool.
I like that a lot.
So I'm looking forward to see what happens after the expands.
So back on that, producer vibe, like, who are--
give me five records, LP, long play.
Give me five LP's that you're like, all right,
this is the pinnacle of production.
This is--
Oh, boy.
Shit.
Who are you going to really spend a lot of time on this?
Oh, and by the way, your answers are going to be wrong.
They might be, but I think I might really surprise you.
You know what I mean?
That's cool.
That's like--
I've never got a lot of shit so far.
But I mean, I'm talking about rap music in the ink spots.
So I doubt you're going to get--
Somebody else in the world who will do the same.
Right on, I love it.
Dude, yeah.
Anybody that grows up listening to the Beatles and Nat King
Cole in the ink spots, I'm like, OK, this is going
to be a good conversation.
So a lot of my personal tastes--
obviously, I love all the stuff I grew up on,
but a lot of my personal tastes--
I'm a child of the '90s.
I was born in the mid '80s, approaching my '40s, if you will.
And so a lot of that stuff in the '90s
is what I'm probably going to really hammer on just
because it's what I grew up with.
So first and foremost, we're talking like production.
Man.
I would say "Siamese Dream" by the smashing pumpkins,
which I'm in love with.
I just love that sound.
I think there's a lot of ear candy in there.
It goes unnoticed.
OK, computer by Radiohead.
Well done.
-Production.
-XO by Elliott Smith.
Probably one of my favorite musicians of all time.
And I have a hard time kind of picking
through the catalog on which is my favorite.
But production was, I would say, XO.
-There's three.
-My laugh at-- yeah, yeah, you might laugh at this one.
I'd say "Boist 'em in" to--
it's fantastically produced and is an awesome record.
But it was the first album that I ever owned.
So "Boist 'em in" to--
and then lastly, I would say--
I can't leave this one out.
So I'd say Andrew Bird's "The Mysterious Production of Eggs."
-Wow, you're going deep there, dude.
-I'm a music item, man.
-Yeah.
-Well, now, why are you hesitant to say "Boist 'em in"?
I mean, "Filly Harmonies" man, they're killer.
-Oh, no, it is killer.
And I think that, you know, as I'm trying to find my sound
as an artist and how I want to present myself,
I'm finding a lot of nuances for music like that in the past.
You know, a lot of Motown influence coming out
and vocal patterns and the type of singing I'm doing, I think.
But I think I maybe, first of all, it's a hard question.
So "Picking Five" is really difficult.
You want to pick the right ones.
But I would say that--
I would say that it's also so different than everything
else that I mentioned, you know what I mean?
-Yeah.
-Which is good, not about singing.
Because I keep going.
I can talk about how Jagged Little Pill is a masterpiece,
you know what I mean?
I could talk about how--
-And then howard produced that one, right?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-I think so.
-Who produced "Simey's Dream"?
Did Billy produce that one?
-I don't say there's "Butch Vague" on a lot of those records.
-What's it for?
-I feel like today in like "Soma" and a lot of those--
I know he has--
maybe it was the singles.
I don't know if he executive produced any of it.
It could have been one of those situations
where some people had hands on some records or some songs.
You know, I don't know the executive producer,
but I just really like that version of the "Smashing Pumpkins" pre--
I love Mel and Colleen in the Infinite Sadness, too.
It's one of my favorite records of all time, but I think there is a--
there's something very honest about "Simey's Dream"
that's stripped down and it kind of shows off the pumpkins kind
of integrity as a band without this grandiose production, you know?
-Yeah.
-The success and big budgets really take the--
you know, they really dull the blade of the band.
-You can squeeze the life out of them, for sure.
-Yeah.
-But yeah, I really like "Simey's Dream"
and of course, Mel and Colleen was great,
but I kind of feel that way about a couple.
But like the first Coldplay record is my favorite Coldplay record.
I can't get past that, you know?
Everything else feels a little too produced for me.
It's not to say it's bad.
It's just I really enjoy one of my favorite things about music.
And I tell this to Bobby, too, a lot, is that when you're writing a song,
you want it to be able to stand alone.
Like, you want to be able to pick up a guitar and play the song
and it still translates to your audience, you know what I mean?
-Yeah.
-You don't want the track itself to rely on the production
to stitch it and hold it together, you know?
-I completely know.
And I completely agree with you. A good song is a good song.
You should be able to translate that into several different genres.
Case in point, nine inch nails and hurt.
Hello, Johnny Cash, right?
I mean, that's one of the best covers ever.
-Yeah, absolutely.
-I mean, the song has to stand on itself before the production part,
before the production starts.
Another great example, you mentioned Motown.
A lot of the production on those songs, you know, in terms of technology
and what not is very basic, there's really nothing interesting about the production.
But my god, those songs are just absolutely perfect.
-They're beautiful songs.
-Yeah.
-And that's what's...
I don't know. I think that a good song, and this is not to...
This is not to shit on like good production and like, you know,
like a really good mixing or mastering, but I kind of think that like,
if you deliver a good song, that's gonna stand out to the listener more than how well it's mixed.
I mean, you can put lipstick on a pig all day long, but if the song sucks, I'm turning it off, you know?
It's just...it is what it is.
-Well, yeah, that's a great...
You know, I've been having this conversation a lot with people recently.
Like, what do you...
You know, I mean, one of my favorite records of all time is Paddy Griffin.
Living with ghosts.
And it's just her and her guitar. That's it.
And the back story is is like, you know, she cut a bunch of demos for...
I think it was A&M.
-Okay.
-And they're like, "Your brilliant will get you deal.
Let's go into the studio."
And they did a full band version of all of it.
And they scrapped the whole thing and just said, "Strew it.
We're going with the original demo."
Like, demos that she cut in her bathroom.
Like, literally, in the bridge of one of the songs you can hear,
you can hear an ambulance going down the street.
-Yeah.
-But like...
-It's funny you mentioned that.
Yeah, because it's like...
One of my biggest fears is going to an engineer,
like a real engineer, and like dumping a bunch of money into a record and getting it back
and being like, "I like my demo better."
You know what I mean?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I totally have that.
Well, what do you think is an example of a record where the songs are great,
but the production sucks?
-I mean, I think that's...
-You'd call out any artists.
-But I mean, I think...
-Yeah, you know, in Motown, you can't help that because they didn't really have the great
production as we do now, but like modern stuff.
-Man, yeah, and that's the thing is it's...
I don't want to show my age here, but I feel like modern-day pop music is a good example of that.
The songs are very canned, you know what I mean?
It's like they're not too compressed.
-Me of that, but I just mean the records themselves
are...
I don't know.
I kind of feel like we've reached a point in modern-pot music where a lot of the artists
are...
We can't really tell who's who.
They all sound the same.
It's like music has become very formulaic and...
And, um...
You know, in the present day, if you will.
-I believe that to be absolutely true with male country artists.
-Yeah.
I've met explicitly more with female pop artists.
I can't tell the difference between like, Doa Lipa and like, you know...
Like another artist singing something similar.
You know, it's not that it's a bad record, but it's just...
It's, uh...
-I don't know.
-It's similar.
Same beats, same compression.
-Yeah.
And you've seen the YouTube videos that are like, you know,
every popular song is comprised of these four chords.
Yeah.
-I can't help.
-I mean, they strum through and play.
And, I mean, I find that that's true of most things, but, you know,
there's that aspect of it, but it's also a lot of it's being mixed the same way, which...
It sounds great.
But it just...
It's very bright.
It's very in your face.
It's very, um...
Yeah, I don't know.
It's an interesting question.
I'd have to think about it a little more to answer it honestly.
But...
-Yeah, I know.
-That's not to, again, shit on it.
You know, or take away from female pop musicians.
I'd, you know, think there's a place for everything.
It's just generally speaking, I've kind of noticed that, you know, it's a good example.
You get a lot of songs these days that are mixed extremely well.
But they're kind of...
They're no different than what you heard a month ago, you know?
Yeah.
I do...
I've been kind of feeling...
for a while now that like, what were on the verge of another massive breakthrough?
I don't know if it's another genre.
I don't know if it's another...
breakout artist like...
like Nirvana, you know?
But like, I was in...
I was finishing up college right when Nirvana broke and it was, you know...
Yeah.
It was ground shaking because we're really coming out of the boy band,
era into...
Here's a busted up-finder Mustang, you know, in a Marshall that...
-The Jack's thing, or...
-Yeah, you know, in a Marshall that barely works cranked 211, right?
You've got me a little mad at myself mentioning Nirvana because now I'm thinking about my
five list and it's...
There are just so many other bands that I want to talk about, you know,
Nirvana, Fortissette, and stuff.
But I'm really surprised we haven't had like a breakout...
genre, like something new...
And I don't know, maybe I missed it because I'm...
I'm old, older and stuck in my ways.
But...
And especially too, like, I think, you know, like...
When you...
Like, if you think about how politics and music intersect with each other,
you know, you can talk about, you know,
hippie rock in the '60s and you can see how they come together.
You can talk about thatcher and Reagan and you can see how punk comes together.
Right.
And then I think you could make the argument that making...
When the country made the transition from Obama to Trump, you're like,
"I think there's gonna be some pretty big bands coming out of this."
And I'm like...
There's nothing.
You know what I mean?
I mean, it's been a weird couple of years though.
You know what I mean?
Like, regardless of that, it's just like...
We've also endured this crazy pandemic and all kinds of other stuff that really could play into it.
I don't know.
I would expect that the conditions would have brought out...
They would have brought out something...
That was just about it, it was about to correct myself.
You're right.
Yeah.
People being sequestered, you would kind of expect that...
That maybe we would have gotten something different.
I don't know.
There were some cool music coming out around that time.
You know, that's all subjective.
You know, saying what's gonna be bigger, huge is...
There's never like...
There's never gonna be a unanimous vote on that.
You know, I think it's hard to think about...
They're being an artist as big as like...
You know, like the Beatles or Nirvana or something to that.
Even Taylor Swift.
I mean...
Yeah, for sure.
But I guess...
My thing with Taylor Swift is she's so polarizing.
It's like I think you find...
Describing the other two bands like Nirvana and the Beatles, especially.
There are people who dislike them, but by and large,
you're gonna find more people who like them than don't like them.
I kind of feel that a lot of the popular artists of today...
They get a bad rap and that sucks.
You know, I don't listen to a ton of Taylor Swift on my own,
but I appreciate what she does.
And I think that that translates to a ton of people, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
It obviously works.
I mean, my God.
You fly across the world and you go on a different continent
and you sell out four nights at 90,000 people a pop
and you're gonna sit there.
Your tour is like boosting the world economy.
It's no...
And I'm sorry, you're gonna say that for music sucks.
Yeah.
Look, you don't have to like it.
That's not the point.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of staying away from like this sucks or that sucks.
I'm probably too a degree that's annoying because like I like what I like,
but I'm never gonna be like, I don't know.
The internet is the most powerful tool we have
and it's like the worst thing on the planet at the same time.
You know...
That's pool of powers who hide behind fake names.
100%.
But it's also full of useful information.
Absolutely.
So it's really a tool that you, you know,
you have to take the good with the bad,
but generally speaking, I just feel like it's a place where people can go and like
pretend that their opinion has more volume than it actually does, you know?
Yeah.
And I hate that.
It's like, you know, the beauty of music and this is going to sound really cliche
and more cliches end for my life as I get older.
I'm assuming that's only going to continue, but...
You know, it's just...
I don't know.
Music's all subjective.
It's all subjective.
Everybody together.
You know?
It's subjective.
There's no right or wrong to it.
And it's like...
And that's what I steal your joy.
Like, what kind of a person would I be at a steal to take that away from you?
That's...
Yeah.
That's...
Yeah.
And it's...
And I love discussions about favorite bands and favorite artists and things like that,
because, you know, it...
It really helps you get to know the other person.
Yeah.
You know?
And there's too...
There's so much joy in that.
Like, you know, like Dave Grohl said, like, "Lip, you know, like we do a three hour show,
there's 15,000 people in the room."
And he's like, "Everybody's there to have a good time.
I don't care if you...
If you...
If you prayed a Buddha, or if you prayed a Peyton Manning,
I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat,
like whatever, like, we're there to have a good time, you know?
And that's what music does.
It brings everybody together.
And...
Yeah.
It's, you know, yeah.
It's been the greatest gift in my life.
The...
Yeah.
Sure.
Well, and it tastes, you know, changes over time for everybody,
but I'm really, you know, I think that's...
To get back to the cliche part of it,
I think that's the beauty of the music,
is that it is so subjective,
and like, what makes you take is not going to necessarily
make the next person tick.
It's just, you know,
Yeah.
Some people listen to sad music,
and they're just like,
"This sucks, turn it off, it's making me sad."
Some people, like, listen to sad music,
and it feels like electricity charging through their body
when they hear it, you know?
It's...
That's me.
That's what's happening to me.
I'm listening to the...
I am too, yeah.
Are you familiar with "Pajor the Lion"?
Yeah.
David Bison.
I was listening to a song at his the other day in a grocery store,
and I was just like,
"Welling up."
I'm like, "I gotta get out of here."
You know?
I need a moment.
But yeah, but it's like some other people...
I sent...
There was a girl I was talking to months ago,
and she was like, "What's your favorite song?"
And I sent her like, "One of my favorite songs."
She was like, "This is so depressing."
I just realized that it's not gonna be forever.
Yeah, I mean, it kind of went that way,
but not immediately, but, you know, it went south.
And...
She, um...
You know, she didn't appreciate it,
and that's cool.
I can't be mad at that, you know?
Yeah.
I think it's really important,
and I try to teach this to younger musicians.
It's like...
It's okay if you don't care for their music.
That's fine.
Yeah.
But if they're successful,
they probably worked their ass off to get it.
There are a very few amount of lucky people,
lottery winners, American Idol winners, who go on to huge success,
and their talent has sustained them.
Carrie Underwood is a great example of that.
Yeah.
You know, despite the fact that she was an American Idol winner,
most people don't know her history of playing local gigs and whatnot,
but the most important thing is that her talent has sustained her.
But it's okay if you don't like the music,
but if they're successful, you gotta respect the hustle, right?
Like...
100%.
Like...
I don't...
I don't like the music of KISS at all.
I just think it's boring as hell.
But do I have mad respect for them for what they did for rock and roll
from a marketing perspective and from a stage perspective?
Think of all the people in the audience and how excited they are to be there.
You know what I mean?
And that's...
Yeah.
That's kind of...
I'm with you.
I don't listen to KISS.
It's a little...
It's more novel for me, you know?
But it's...
Again, it's just kind of like...
Why take...
Why rob somebody of a...
Listen, it's hard enough to...
to work our jobs and to have our lives and to go through pandemics and to have, you know,
discourse throughout our country and...
then on top of it to have people telling you that the shit that you like sucks, you know?
It's just like, "Wow."
It's not...
It's not productive, man.
And it's kind of honestly going back to what you're saying,
telling a young band that they suck or their sound sucks
might make them put the instrument down.
And then what music...
What music at that point are we being robbed of?
You know, maybe they were going to write this next record that was going to be fantastic
and we'll never know, you know?
So I mean, deterring people from being creative,
especially when I know how much joy that's brought me in the life or alleviated,
you know, stresses or pains that I've been going through,
I would never want to take that away from somebody else.
Yeah, it's a...
It's a pretty shitty thing to be a creator
and to be shitty to other people about their creation.
100%.
The world needs more art.
Yeah.
You know?
And that's kind of...
And I love what value for value is doing
in terms of somebody hearing your song and be like,
"Damn, dude, this dude reminds me of Bobby Colwell."
Boom, there's 20 bucks.
Yeah.
Like...
Yeah, I had to look at Bobby Colwell when I heard it.
And I was just like, "I know this song and this is that's a huge compliment.
I can hear it immediately.
It was pretty cool."
That was...
That was my born in 1970s reference, sorry.
No, I really dig...
I dig hearing the input because, you know, you never really...
or I never really know what sound I'm going for, you know?
And it's kind of like...
It's not super intentional.
It's just in the moment like, "This is how I feel.
This is what I wanted to sound like."
So, you know, hearing the comparisons,
they just open my eyes and ears up to things that I didn't necessarily consider
when I was putting stuff together, you know?
So that's extremely valuable, you know?
Yeah.
Well, how did you...
I mean, I think if you and Bobby have been, for instance, high school,
it's probably pretty obvious how you got orange-filled and brought into this.
Right?
Yeah, that's extremely...
That's Bobby, man.
Yeah.
That's what you know.
For those who don't know, Bobby Shell works for a company called Voltage,
which provides lightning services with respect to Bitcoin payments.
They are a fantastic company.
And just for full disclosure, as we...
I don't know if we said it in the green room or we said it actually in the show,
but I did...
I mean, I had coffee with Bobby this week.
He was in town for a meeting.
And I actually...
My family works with Voltage with respect to nodes and things like that.
So, love those guys.
Yeah.
Do a hell of a job.
Shout out to Nate with Voltage down in Texas.
Dude, it's amazing.
But...
So, what's your take now on...
Now that you've been in the value verse for about a month and...
You know, like...
How do you compare seeing the reactions to your music in the value verse versus St.
and versus the reactions that you get on Instagram or Spotify or whatever?
Yeah.
The...
The major...
So, first of all, I just want to say I like the idea so much as it involves musicians
who are obviously busting their ass and...
You know, trying to both be heard and...
You know, compensated by people who actually appreciate the music.
You know, and I think that that alone is just unbelievable.
It gives you a sense of...
I don't know, it's having a conversation with Bobby the other day where I was just like...
You know, it's great that this song's been out a month and...
You know, mom loves it and my friends love it.
But, you know, when it gets introduced to the ears of people who don't know you
and you start kind of hearing positive feedback or...
You know what I mean?
Just opportunities keep opening doors and...
Or opportunities just to keep showing up.
You know, I guess.
Yeah.
Randomly and that's just a...
I don't know, it's pretty cool, man.
It allows you to kind of gauge...
You know, your audience and engage with them.
And I guess, you know, the larger platform is it's easier to get kind of...
swallowed up.
The numbers on Spotify were good.
I made like a TikTok playlist, I think, the first week, which was really pretty cool.
Damn, dude, that's rare.
Good for you.
Yeah, so I got like 5,000 or so maybe plays in Spotify out the gate.
It's tapered since, but I'm kind of hopeful that maybe we can snowball it again.
So, yeah, I mean...
Was this your first release on Spotify?
No, so I think maybe I mentioned it to you...
Separate from our conversation today, but I had some stuff up and I just...
There was no continuity there and I was like, I want to rebrand and so I kind of stripped
my artist's stages and just started from scratch.
But, you know, in the past I had released songs and they just didn't see that same kind of success, you know.
I don't know whose notifications start dinging off when a new song is uploaded,
but it got noticed relatively quickly.
You know, my DSP didn't really do a whole lot of pitching.
I never got a notification from them that said like, "Hey, you know,
fresh finds, want your song or whatever."
But I just kind of like looked at the numbers when I got access to my artist page and I was like,
"Damn, it's pretty cool."
So it's moving, but it's still your face gets lost and it's been in that, you know,
your face in the crowd.
And, you know, it's good to see that doing some kind of numbers over there, but I think you get
a lot more, you know, I think, in the intimates the word,
intimate and honest interaction with people within the valueverse and I just find out to be
pretty cool.
Yeah, an opportunity like this.
You know what I mean? Like, Yeah!
You know?
Interviewing with you and having people review your song and, you know, having a chance to potentially land on,
you know, the Bitcoin record, stuff like that.
You know, that's a big deal.
Yeah.
Who are you using for distribution like district kid or symphonic or who you're using?
TuneCork.
Oh, TuneCork.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I went district kid for a little while, and I just, I don't know why I switched, it was after I pulled
everything down. I was like, you know, I had a friend who did some distribution through TuneCork.
And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's fine.
You know, they're all kind of similar.
They're the liaison, you know?
To my understanding though, when you get into the big leagues, you go beyond that.
There is a level beyond that that has nothing to do with the commercial DSPs
that like, once you graduate to a level, maybe you have representation or you, you know,
are independent and huge, you know, you've got, I mean, those are the kinds of whether you love
them or hate them. That's like the Kanye West wanting to change one word in a song and changing it in
15 minutes kind of thing. Yeah, I did that. I got to upload it and wait a week.
So, yeah, it's like the Jack Nicholson treatment, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's always that you have to penetrate to really get to those sorts of,
yeah, yeah, those sorts of levels, I won't say.
To when they, when they let you in the Spotify office in New York and it's, oh, good afternoon,
Mr. Grounds here. We have your coffee ready for you.
Would you like a 230 T time or a 430 T time serving?
Things like that, right? Like just because the rest of us are like, hello!
Yeah, we don't get shit for service, right?
No, we don't.
A buddy of mine told me about that. He's kind of big in the Web 3 universe and stuff and he just kind
of has learned more about this with me. But buddy Dave, that I was talking about earlier that we got to work on some of those hip-hop records
with sunny digital and stuff. But shout out Dave.
And yeah, he was kind of telling me about that and I was just like, you know, it makes a whole lot of sense.
You know, imagine Kanye West like going to tune core support and being like, change this song.
Yeah.
It makes me laugh, which is not happening.
He's got somebody at a label who's doing that for him, you know, in 30 seconds.
That's the power of influence and money.
Yeah.
Poor share.
Right up. Absolutely true.
Everything can be bought, everything can be sold.
It's just an issue of how much money you got, you know.
You absolutely right about that.
Well, so what do you got coming up next? What's the next single you're going to do?
What are you working on?
Yeah, I'm working on a few songs. Some of them don't even have names yet, but they're kind of,
I have a tendency to get an idea and then I'll kind of like, produce a demo as I'm writing the song.
So like I can record half of it and walk around with my airpods in and like finish writing.
I'll make like a loose instrumental of something and do that.
So I've got several of those that are in the works, but I think the song that's coming next is
called "Cort Square." It's an acoustic version of a song that's going to be on an EP that I'm trying to put together.
It's not going to be the studio version of it, but it's an acoustic guitar version of that.
And it's a song about kind of fragmentedly about New York City and New York City is one of my favorite places
in the States just because it's so huge and ambiguous.
And "Cort Square" is kind of like a, it's a subway station that's in Long Island City,
which sits right across from Midtown Manhattan.
And it just kind of reminds me, it's very quiet like when you're there,
it doesn't really feel like New York City.
So it's like fragmentedly talking about that, but also like when you're in a large crowd,
you're still kind of like nobody cares what you're doing, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's kind of about the ambiguity of New York and just outlining and illustrating
some experiences that I had there and stuff.
So I look forward to hearing it. I love New York. If I had the money, I'd move there in a second.
Yeah, it's amazing. It's quite on. I took my mom there.
I want to say it was November, it was right after they lit the Christmas tree. She had never been
and I was like, "You need to go. I'm an only child not to get too saccharine on you."
But like basically we went and you know had a great time. She had never been in New York City.
I'd have been afforded the opportunity to go a few times prior to that and got a chance to
show her around and we had a really good time and New York City was a very special place for me.
Yeah, yeah. I had the best thing in my life there.
Anyways. Yeah, we're at your here. Come on, man.
Cantor's Deli? No, I went to, so I went to cats this time.
Cats is Deli or whatever and then I went to Sarge's Deli the time before that to kind of do the
the verses on their pastrami. Cat is cat is pastrami is killer, man. Man, I'm telling you Sarge,
you know, if anybody is listening up there, don't hate me for this but I kind of like Sarge is a little
maybe it was because it was like it wasn't so crazy. You know what I mean? It's your New Yorker's
answer to that sandwich. Like everybody's going to go to cats as Deli because it's cats as Deli.
You know, it's got the one Harry Met Sally vibe and you know all that. But there definitely places
off the beaten path that if you do your Googles and you do your research you can find some really
awesome things in that city. So well let's get back to writing really quick. I'm curious. I didn't ask
this. When you write do you predominantly write on acoustic on a keyboard or in a DAW?
I think that varies. That will depend on the song. Usually it starts with a melody idea in my head
or like a phrase. So the hard way started with that. Like literally I went back through my computer
the other day and was just looking through sessions and I found the original session where I just sang
the vocal part like the choral part and I had started like building instrumentation, you know,
software instrumentation around it, stuff like that. So it really just kind of depends. But sometimes
I don't know. I'm probably an acoustic guitar would if I had to put a percentage on it would be
where I'm writing most of the ideas. Very cool. Yeah. And just stumbling on the fretboard and
finding the chords that correlate. I'm good at that. Famous again. I'll be playing these weird
shapes. You'd be like, what is that? I have no idea. What DAW do you use? What software?
Ableton. Predominate. Yeah. I've got experience in all of them.
I feel like if you've done any work in a real studio you know enough about Pro Tools to operate it.
Same with Logic. Yeah. You know if you're handling other people's sessions you have the experience
of kind of working in a lot of different dollars. And yeah, but Ableton I would say is my
bread and butter. I'm a big fan. I think it gets overlooked a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I'm more of like
I got Pro Tools in the inbox like when they first came out in the late 90s or the 2000s, right?
So that's my head is that. Yeah. And I had it in the inbox. Yeah. It's pretty good little
you know little interface. Well Pro Tools LE was like the blue one that was like the yeah.
Pro Tools always felt a little clunky for me. You know it's like fair.
You know going around what's the phrase? You know going to your elbow to get to your ass or whatever
it just probably saying that completely. Yeah. Not the wrong way but you know what I mean.
It's just a laborious and it's like you know I mean I'm working with with limited hardware and stuff
and so you know it gets really daunting when you're trying to listen back and you know you're running
into these like system error like you know you just a lot of system errors unless you're running like a
super high-end machine you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's completely or segregated from the internet
as you can get it so that it can stay as clean as can right. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely.
All right one quick fun question before we talk about the song that's going to take us out. I've
already asked you for like five favorite records in terms of produced but I'm going to take
I'm going to take a stab at a fun question because you mentioned musical theater when you were a kid
and you mentioned just going to to New York. Yeah. Are you a fan of Broadway shows?
No certainly. Absolutely. Yes. Top five Broadway shows go. I don't think I'd have to label what I've
seen. I mean Lion King is up there for sure. I've seen Music Man. That's fantastic. Saw Iida and I saw
Wicked which was great and then Hamilton I would say. Yeah. Which five? Yeah. They give you fun. Yeah.
Okay. I was ordering those or no. No. Well I mean if you're going to put Hamilton in your
in your top five in your top plot I'd put it in my top slot. I'm yeah. I think Lion King is the
must see like you like the first time in New York you got to go see it you know you got to just get it
out of the way. Hamilton though for the writing is just unbelievable and it's incredible.
Just the amount of good like if you have a Broadway show that has like one great song and that's
pretty damn good. Right. But then like my god how many great songs did Lin Manuel Miranda write for
that? It's just one after another. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my background by the way is in that.
I think I mentioned the the show choir that I was in when I was a kid. We did some light traveling
San Francisco in New York Boston stuff like that and we were always singing you know Lin-Miz or you
know some kind of iteration of a Broadway you know play. So a lot of that came from my time in you
know my singing days back in school. Yeah. Well that's great. I mean that passion translates
you know into every other artistic phase in your life so yeah totally are you an illustrator at all
or like do you dabble in any other side of the arts? I get do you still do theater? Like not so much.
I find that it's I think I made the joke earlier you know Jack of all trades master of none.
I do a lot of different things you know I'm kind of first generation internet kid I grew up between
like skateboarding and then like learning computer programming and HTML so it was like a healthy balance
of yeah I'm a weird shit like I feel like you're one of the two of those things usually. Yeah. I've
somehow found my ways about and yeah some media I was a commercial designer for years graphic design
work in that capacity you know videography I do do a little photography I hesitate to call myself
any one of those things because it just sounds like you're trying to impress somebody. So I kind of
condensed it down to wanting to really just you know be a musician and hopefully we can we can land
there but yeah the answer is yes the long winded way I'd do a lot of media production stuff for sure.
Oh fantastic. Well I've really enjoyed this conversation get to know who you are who you are as a
producer and as a say and you got to hell of a voice too dude I mean thanks man thanks yeah this has been
fun it's been nice to get to know you and understand your production style and some of the
different influences that you have had now we're gonna we're gonna wrap up the show with the song that
you did you co-produce or produce or what you did some engineering on it Bobby came to me with
the instrumental and he just he needed somebody to press record so I did the mixing in the you know
recording of the song form okay and it's in its beep steak and trademats right they can be
staking tradwives yeah yeah no he's all about it I um okay man I support it yeah whatever my
friends want to do you know as long as it's not here anybody it's a it's a fun song for sure yeah
yeah we have fun making it he is he's a he's a good dude and he's got his hand in a lot of different
buckets and it's fun to see his his take on some of those musical ideas as well so
agreed agreed I'm excited to make more music with him in the future that'll be fun so fantastic well
Martin will we'll we'll play that song to take us out um but stick around you and I'll talk a little
bit in the green room but thank you very much for coming on the show man it's been really nice to
get to know you absolutely thanks for having me thank you everyone for being here tonight um to
close out the evening we have Bobby shell he's gonna be performing a originals and uh I think it's
gonna be very tasteful for the crowd that we have here we heard some of you are based you have
traditional families and uh you believe in summer so everyone who's on the fringes and not for
that um you might be one of the crown world people so uh Bobby take it away wake up in the morning
salt and pepper my eggs I got my rib I cooked that's the life that I live I hate the city traffic
outskirts where I sit grocery store ain't about a shopping farmers market I'm living base
I ain't base it raw sauce no poison I'm tasting homegrown
res blazing speaking truth on the beat got the whole world praying oh bring back the good light
why these politicians losing their act right wife and two kids sitting quite nice
life is so great when you got yourself a trad white yes Lord I got the good light let these
politicians know they better act right wife and two kids sitting quite nice life is so great when
you got yourself a trad white what up freaks the beat is beef steak supercharged with the flow all
gas and no brakes I live at this pace I thrive in the face of any challenge just lift your hands and pray Lord
bring back the good light why these politicians losing their act right wife and two kids sitting quite
nice life is so great when you got yourself a trad white yes Lord I got the good light let these
politicians know they better act right wife and two kids sitting quite nice life is so great when
you got yourself a trad white don't forget the first thing before breakfast one two three got
I get a bench press never skip a leg day not a little princess I don't cut corners for my sons I never
been wreck oh my gosh is that the sad slinger earning 99% on wave lake the cash bring your
listen cash is trash and I'm the beekeeper the sourdough that's a router not to be leaving wake up in
the morning salt and pepper my eggs I got my rib I could that's the life that I live I heat the city
traffic outskirts where I sit grocery store ain't about a shopping farmers market I'm never
based I ain't based it raw sauce no poison I'm tasting homegrown risk blazing speaking truth on
the beat got the whole world praying what up freaks the beat is beef steak supercharged with the
flow all gas and no brakes I live at this pace I thrive in the face of any challenge just lift your
hands and pray Lord bring back the good light why these politicians losing their act right wife and
two kids sitting quite nice like a soul great when you got yourself a trad white yes Lord I got the
good light let these politicians know they better act right wife and two kids sitting quite nice life
is so great when you got yourself a trad white
a beef steak and trad wise that is Bobby Shell and Martin engineered that track and I can't help but
pick up on maybe a little bit of Maclamore sarcastic influences on that track
it definitely definitely makes me smile and the fun thing about music too is you know if you know
Bobby and I've had a couple of business meetings with him and he's brilliant charming guy but you know
it's it's fun when you hear songs like that coming from a dude like who can put on a brilliant business
of marketing hat and then turn around and do a song like that that's one of the great things about
art is it not love it my thanks to Martin for joining us in today's phantom power artist hour
and for Bobby for co-writing the song that we kicked off the show with which of course is hardway thank
you guys all for the sats and boost if you got any questions you can find us on telegram and on
not stir of course and a couple of the social media platforms you can always go to phantompowermusic.io
and find us there if you guys know any musicians who are interested in getting their music up into
the bitcoin space and participating in value for value we would love to help them out my thanks to
all the other show producers as well all the guys out there that guys and gals thank you very much who
are pushing this wonderful agenda forward there's a host of great shows out there and I hope you
guys are listening to them as well good all right get out of here go mo the yard it's getting warm
outside go get the flower beds ready go tip over all those pots that are filled up with water because
the mosquitoes are coming all right see you guys thanks for listening
(fanfare)
(upbeat music)
[ Music ]