(upbeat music)
- Hey everybody, welcome back to the Phantom Power
Artist Hour.
It is Sunday, we're gonna try to be putting these out
every Sunday.
Got a lot of great people lined up in the coming months.
Musicians that are dropping their music into the value
for value world.
Musicians who are getting paid in Bitcoin.
Pretty cool, pretty cool.
Very excited about it.
Today we are joined by the drummer.
We don't get enough drummers.
The drummer for FM rodeo, a great trio,
post punk rock band out of the hill country in Texas.
Curvill to be specific.
Great musicians from that area include Robert Earl Keane,
Lyle Loveit from Down the Street,
but we'll get more into that.
Thank you guys very much for joining us today.
This is a really fun conversation where we talk about
the music in the area of the hill country there in Texas
where the band is from.
We talk a little bit about the band's background.
We talk about their foyer into this whole Bitcoin world.
We talk about bro country.
We talk about trios.
A lot of great stuff in this conversation.
Really appreciate Johnny joining us.
And they've got a big gig coming up at the end of the week
where they're going to be debuting some new material.
So stick around for the entire interview and catch that.
But in the meantime, I will shut up and let us listen
to Headache Song by FM rodeo.
You ready?
I'm ready.
Here we go.
I'm an officer.
Somebody gave me this headache.
The world's collapsing so early.
Somebody wake me and can't see.
The walls are flooded so early.
And now I'm twisting my head in.
So what decided is someone real?
Never better reason.
So I've walked out of bed.
You better run out.
And then there she goes.
Never better reason.
There she goes.
Never better reason.
Somebody break in and shake me.
Locked up inside and it's so unreal.
Can't feel the use of sustaining.
I still a solemn is so unreal.
Never better reason.
Someone walked out of bed.
You better run out.
There she goes.
Never better reason.
There she goes.
Never better reason.
[Music]
All right.
Welcome back to the Phantom Power Artist Hour.
I'm really excited to get FM rodeo out of the Hill Country in Texas on today's show.
For a lot of reasons I dig their music.
We'll dive into the trio thing.
But also because joining us today is the drummer.
Hey, we got to give the drummer some love.
You guys don't get enough love.
What's up, Johnny?
How are you?
I'm doing great, man.
Thank you for having us on and having me on.
It is such an honor.
Do you love the show?
We are talking about drummers.
Sometimes we just have to double down on duties to get this machine oiled up and going.
It's worked out for us because usually in in spand, you usually have one member that really really pushes things, reaches out, networks, and so to speak.
It's quite a bit of that management work done because I've been told over and over again nobody is going to do it as good as you are because nobody is going to care as much as you do about your brand and your craft.
It kind of just leaves it up to us because if we pace somebody and they do a step-up job then we're just really spinning the wheels at that point.
If you're an independent musician in today's world you have to take on as much as you possibly can.
You're your financial sovereignty, your marketing sovereignty, all the songwriting, all that shit.
We'll dive into that.
You are coming to us from the hill country.
You guys are in the curvil.
We are based, well, me.
It's three people.
My name is Johnny.
My name is Troy.
We went to high school together in curvil several decades ago believe it or not.
He taught me my first inch of me.
We were both new to curvil from different parts of Texas.
Whenever we met in theater class we're paired up to do a questionnaire.
One of the questions was what's your favorite music?
He wrote Nirvana and Nirvana also.
He said, "Oh man, that's cool."
And he said, "Your hobby is in his guitar."
I said, "Oh, that's really cool.
I have a bass guitar.
I traded a PlayStation 1 for it.
But I don't know how to play.
I was strumming on it and making wrongly noises.
He made friends.
He taught me how to play said bass guitar.
Guess what my first song was?
It's got to be in their body.
What, it smells like team spirit?
It was team spirit.
Absolutely.
And then we learned some Blink 182.
And just all things 90s.
Because it was the only year 2000.
And so this is the kind of stuff that we grew up on.
But you know, just all this stuff that's also kind of like making a comeback now.
How they say everything rotates or cycles back.
Everything old is new again.
And so I think it's a little bit different.
But I think it's a little different.
And so I think it's a little different.
Yeah, it's a great.
Yeah, it's a great record.
It's a great record.
Well, tell me, so you guys are from, you know, we talked a little bit about Curville,
which is where I think Robert Earl Keane is from there, who's one of the greatest Americana and country writers.
Like you guys are really in a great mecca of independent artists going all the way back to, you know,
when, when William Nelson, you know, kind of gave Nashville the middle finger and said, you know,
fuck you guys.
I'm going to Austin and I'm going to do my own thing.
Like there's a great culture down there.
Outlaw country.
Yeah, I can't remember exactly when that day's better.
Obviously I was born in 85.
So is this, I think this kind of stuff took place in the early 70s.
Yeah, before you.
There's a great club called World Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin.
Back in the 60s.
And this is where the bikers would go.
This is where, you know, there's a lot of conservative folks in Texas and a lot of oil business, a lot of oil money.
Of course, Austin's a capital of Texas.
So, you know, a small handful of politicians, probably hopefully a little bit less corrupt back then than they were today.
But it was definitely a mecca and sort of, I guess you could say a cultural,
housing pot and Armadillo World Headquarters where I set the song, I want to say it's David Ellen coach, where the bikers lap it hippies who are trying to get out of here alive.
It is great because I mean, like you know, politics aside, you get all kinds of people going in there and they love music.
They love live music.
They love honky tongue music.
They love jamming.
They all love drinking beer.
You know, and they sort of just had this common denominator.
And so it attracted way than Jennings and Willie Nelson to come down here.
And of course, they sort of basically started this outlaw country movement.
A lot of people followed suit.
And of course, they are friends with Johnny Cash.
I sort of brought all these other people here.
And in Texas, also really interesting because we had Royal Orbison and Buddy Holly over to West Texas.
Sort of doing their thing.
And so Elvis frequently come to our over to this direction and believe it or not or just small bit of trivia.
Wayland Jennings with Buddy Holly's bass player.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I mean, should be well.
No, I mean, that's like the coolest information of ever.
And that comment he made to Buddy Holly on the night to play crash.
I know he always regretted it.
You know, it's spooky.
It's absolutely just, just, just, because it could have been Wayland on that plane too.
And it's just something funny.
You'd say to your best friend, you know, like, yeah, I hope you're, I hope you're playing crashes, right?
But he forgot to knock on the wheel now.
Either way, either way.
It was just absolutely tragic.
But again, you know, it's just, just one of those things.
I mean, at least Buddy did, uh, went out doing something and he loved and made a huge impact on,
on things.
And so, um, another great thing about Texas is, um, the,
where our country kind of sort of simmer down and we had the 90s country going on and everything else.
There's this thing called red dirt country and there's a big, you got to,
we owe a lot to Oklahoma, uh, Cody Canada and a lot of these Texas country art.
Well, Texas country is sort of a label, but didn't change it to red dirt country because a lot of these folks were from Oklahoma.
And they sort of meant their own independent scene, which was really cool because whatever I was,
my friends got me into that Texas country or red dirt country.
Um, you know, I was listening a lot more rock and I was like, I don't know country is, you know, not my thing right now.
And then I went to go see a cross Canadian, right?
We know what it is, Southern rock, man.
Southern rock.
And it was amazing.
So like, yeah, this is got really good hooks.
And of course, the songwriting was incredible.
Whereas, uh, you know, songwriting people can appreciate it and it trends, but then pop takes over and it kind of,
the pendulum swings back and forth from, you know, my opinion or I guess you could just kind of look at it that direction and that regard.
But, um, so we don't, we've, in regards to that country music, we've had a lot of really cool stuff going on in terms of rock and roll.
And we had a, you know, buddy, Holly, Roy Orbison and, uh, a lot of blues musicians too.
Steve Ray Bon, Jimmy Vaughan, Nate made their mark.
This guy, Mark Bino has done a lot of work out here.
Gary, Gary Clark Jr. from Austin, Texas.
He's, you know, just, uh, invincible, you know.
So we've had, we've had quite a bit of amazing things and Austin and itself.
Okay, listen, listen, let me back it up.
There's four major cities now in Texas, Dallas, which is great with a lot of rock.
The podiums came out of Dallas, who was, you know, saying possum kingdom and they're a bit real big in the 90s.
Uh, okay, then you have a San Antonio, which is real big with Tejano and a lot of metal, music actually is real big, hard rock big in San Antonio.
Then you got he used to really good with a hip hop, but they also love their rock as well.
And then Austin is growing ever so fast.
And, you know, they consider Austin the music capital of the world.
I'm not quite sure about that. Still think the LA and Nashville, you know, sort of, uh, they're up there too, but.
Uh, there's so much culture in Austin and just, uh, all kinds of weird stuff.
There's the film festivals, Richard Linklater, uh, done many great films and kind of showed a little bit of expressed about, you know, the music culture too with films such as School of Rock, uh, days and confused.
Yeah, uh, all his independent films are just enamored with Austin culture and, um, you know, it was able to showcase that a little bit and let's see, um, there's, there's a couple of other artists out of Austin that's, that's really made their mark.
And I can't remember to think of them all, but we're truly blessed to have many places to play all around this area.
Well, that, that leads me into one of the questions I have for you guys. I mean, you guys have been around now for, you know, I was looking up watching some of your videos on YouTube last night and doing some research on you know, the TV show stuff.
And you guys do have a live great live show.
Thank you.
You're bass player solid. I know he's playing that, uh, that five string Ernie ball, um, and you're in your lead guitar player who is at work today, uh, Troy saw him switching back and forth between a less Paul and a, and a fender.
What looked like an old Mustang.
Tell me about like just, you know, it's some good war stories of being in a band like, give me a story of your best gig so far and your worst gig so far.
You don't have the name any clubs, but come on. Let's hear some funny horror stories. Best egg in worst gig.
Okay. That's, that's, that's, uh, it's a totally subjective.
Yeah.
I mean, they're all.
The funny is because I spend a lot of time and I try not to be anxious about, uh, setting up a gig, especially like a, let's say I'm hosting a gig.
So I set up a showcase and I'm always worried is there going to be a good draw is there other bands that I'm bringing on, are they going to have a good performance?
Are they going to pull out last minute or anything like that?
I think, um,
usually even on a bad gig and I'm a little stressed out during the gig or before a little bit after usually later on that night or the next time I'm damn that's so much fun because this is what we love to do.
So on our worst gig, it's still better than, uh, you know, mowing the lawn or picking up trash or something, you know, just, we still have a lot of fun.
I, my grievances are sometimes a lot of these clubs because of whatever reason budgets, whatever the sound guy won't show up and it's like, well, you're on your own for running sound.
And we have three bands and a showcase is tricky because whereas if you have like a cover band or a band with four hours of material, once you set up, it's, you know, it's kind of like, all right, you were finally up to the races.
And we're good to entertain people for three hours, which is what the agreement was when you have a showcase where you have, you know, three bands, we've got to switch out drums and switch out amps and everything else.
That in itself is really kind of like just all of the work, uh, performing is a fun part, but getting a band off the stage and in on the stage before everybody gets bored and leaves.
That's tricky and if the sound guy doesn't show up and you know, we don't have that that help, then it gets really tricky. So one club, they had a house, PA system.
And I guess this place was a notorious for the sound guy not showing up and guess what he go up.
And so we had to fend for ourselves. So we were setting up and they had this tricky board where it's not instead of a solid state board or even just a mixing console.
They had this damn one of those radioactive boards that you have to use an iPad to get on air and started to ask the bartender who was a young girl like, hey, where's your PA system?
And here's an iPad and I'm looking at the iPad and like is a joke right? What's the password to get in the iPad? This. All right. What's the, she's like, you get sent on a Wi-Fi, what's the Wi-Fi password? She's like, let me talk to my manager.
The owner and owner won't answer. We can't think finally get the Wi-Fi password. I went to this program, barringer, something or another and we can't do it. So we ended up rigging a vocal straight into one speaker and everything else is just like this, you know, a pipe.
So any that just provides so much extra stress and trying to perform a high energy rock and roll show and you're worried about blowing a speaker or you know, just all this other stuff and really takes away from the performance and we want the performance to be the most memorable and optimal sort of.
Now we're not spoiled in regards to high production and you know, we've had some really big shows and stuff like that where they have a front of house sound guy in a back of house sound guy and you know, it's amazing, but we could do where we have punk rock grass fruits.
We could make a thing work, but if a player speaker, you know, that's on you, you didn't have the sound guy, you didn't have your phone, you know, the arrangements weren't made in your head. And it's just so much extra stress because, you know, I don't want to have any bad juju with any club owners or, you know, sound crew or anything like that.
So I would say to answer your question, that was sort of one of the worst gigs. And we had this month long curse last year where three gigs in a row, I had line all this stuff out ahead of time.
We got a sound guy, we have sound check, we have we're going to cross up all the keys and all the eyes three gigs in a row for whatever reason.
And magically the guitar wouldn't come to the drum monitor and I have a video and I'm, I'm may scrub that video and post it because it's kind of funny, but we did sound check everything was fine.
The main guy left and the interns were there running the sound first band went on. They were great. Then there's our turn and there's no guitar in my monitor in the stage real big guitar amp is way over here.
And I was like, can I get some guitar in my monitor? And then I just know we played another song. Can I get some guitar in my monitor? I asked them like 12 times and I was like, this show is going to be dubbed and I get some guitar in my monitor.
Yeah. It was the band, you know, and the crowd doesn't understand that because like it might be an off night for you guys. And it's not your fault because right, you know, you in the bass player might have been great, but the guitar player was pushing or rushing or
you know, and they don't know that it's because you know, there was a bad mix on stage.
Well, I must much, much prefer. And I think the sound on the outside was fine and we probably did OK. We're probably grouped all right, but it was just more stressful for me instead of saying, can I get some guitar in my monitor?
I'd much better rather be like, Hey, if you like what you hear, we have t-shirts over here. And hey, this is our new song. Hey, here's a story about, you know, the thing.
Instead, I sound like a whiny little bia, you know, trying to get to the end of it. And that's what people perceive, too, you know, in show business, they don't know that they know that other people, you know, what the arrangements were or whatever.
And so it's a little bit of embarrassed, it's slightly embarrassing. I luckily have a thick skin and I'm not really easily.
If I'm agitated, I don't know it and, you know, I can along in at the end of the day, we're just happy to play. And, you know, in and every gig, you know, I burn off so much energy and it kicks off all these indoor fence and everything.
Now, for the best gigs.
It's a toss up. I want to say one of my personal favorite gigs was we were able to open up for the flowbots in Austin.
Flowbots had these couple of hit songs. One of them was I can ride my bike with no handlebars. And, oh, yeah, yeah, they, they were on tour, it's two years ago in June.
And we got to play a really nice club. And I mean, nothing went off without a hitch, you know, everybody crowded a stage, everybody's into it. Now, whenever I play out, roast sticks, I'll jump up, I'll hype the crowd up and you get this immediate response and it just felt so powerful.
And enduring because there are these people came up to they rushed us after we got off and they're we already had a few on Spotify and we followed you on YouTube and, you know, just all this, all these praises and all the gigs that weren't so amazing, you know, we finally get a gig like that.
And it just it makes it all so much worth it. And there's that one. And then there's a series of gigs that we've had. We made friends with this band called SoulShifter out of Port Worth, Texas.
And check them out. They're really good. They're a bass player, drummer and guitar player are the original members of the totes.
And yeah, it's going to say I've heard of SoulShifter before. Yeah. So their music is good. And Lisa Lisa, um, Barger is the bass player's name and Charles Mooney that third of the guitar player's name. He coined that sound that feedback in the monitor and the monitor or the guitar.
Okay, so all of the totes signature sound comes from Charles because he, you know, started the band and did that. Unfortunately, right before rubber neck dropped the big album. He had, he quit the bands.
We see other things in that album dropped in possum kingdom was a huge hit and a couple other other tracks were real popular on that.
But anyway, Lisa and Charles have a podcast called Jackal Oak Tails. And I need to talk to them about getting on putting that on to wave lake and value to value because it is a really good podcast. I love it. Basically, Jackal Oak Tails is,
is it, all right, so there's all these myths around mysterious rock bands like with Jimmy page into witchcraft and etc. etc. And like, is it true at a jackal Oak Tail and a jackal Oak, if you don't know, if you ever come down to Texas, we get big jack rabbits that have antlers.
And they're not real by the way. Yes, they are. And so is the cup of a so is it to pick up and big play.
Big. I lived in Seattle for five years. I know the big footage real. Don't tell me that. Yeah, he plays bass.
So anyway, they didn't mean to spend so much time plugging in their podcast or anything, but they're great. They're friends of us. We we brought them down to San Antonio in Austin from Fort Worth and to me, that's a big deal because hey, this is the original totes.
They came down to Austin like, well, we haven't played here since South by Southwest in 1994. I'm like, oh my god, some of this has changed. It is not as cool as it used to be, but welcome. And we have so many great shows with them that it's just I'm proud that they call us friends and just super.
Super stoked to be able to network with so many so many great people. And so that's a long winded answer to your question was your best and we're Skig.
No, that's cool. And I certainly don't mind the plug for other podcasts and other bands on there. I would tell them, you know, tell them to look up the apps that you can find on the podcasting index.
Yeah, you know, because those are the those are the modern apps, the 2.0 apps where you know, sats can get kicked back and forth between the listener and the host and whatnot.
And a great host for their podcast, you know, haven't check out RSS blue.
RSS blue is based out of London in the dude's name is Dobie Doss and he's just he's just fantastic. But you mentioned Wabelay can value for value.
So let's get into that. Like how did you guys find Wabelay quick? What is your quote unquote Bitcoin origin story?
Okay, so this is a this is kind of a long story, but I love I love the story because it's it's very interesting.
So we're pushing off all these singles, right? We just dropped our 12th single called headaches song.
And on, you know, just two days ago. And so we started dropping on these singles.
We're independent, D.Y. I so it's we're left to our own devices and our own networking.
And so we had mentioned earlier that we're from curvillm and there's an amazing radio station there called the revf come 94.3 the rock of taxes.
And I drove over there and I took a couple of stickers and a couple of demos and I went over there and I met met with some of the guys over there.
And I met the music director or the marketing director Ed. And then he introduced me to the morning show host.
And I'm going to show host is named Cody Nichols. I love the fact that you knocked on doors went with your single in hand. That's old school, baby. I love it.
Hey, dude, we still hang up. We print up flyers and we hang up on places like gorilla marketing is still a good for you. Hell yeah, man.
Like that. That's kind of like what just loud dead keep going. Yeah, so all right. So we met Cody.
And you know, he's he's a 90s rock kind of guy. He loves, you know, all things rock and roll.
Pantera and just all sorts, all sorts. Anyway, Cody, Cody, Cody checked out our music and it turns out that he actually really liked it. And that's, you know, your merits will carry you very far.
If you put them in the right in, yeah, you have to go and put actively put it out. You can't just release some Spotify. All right, cool. All the hard work's done. Now it's just begun, baby. It's just begun.
And you got to you definitely got to get out there and put your music in front of people and show it to them. And we got lucky. And Cody, Cody liked our music. And so we frequent his show.
And he also started playing it on the radio. And we did interviews for every single. He's played six or seven of our songs. And he was telling us a story.
And he was, is there is Darren COVID and a buddy of his said, Hey, Cody, check this out. You got plugged in. And he had an excerpt from Adam Perry's show. I can't remember exactly which one it was. Maybe it was probably a boost.
It might have been no agenda because boost the grand ball really didn't officially start until this past summer. Okay. So it is. Yeah, it was the previous one. And I said, all right. So basically gave some love to 94.3, the rock of Texas.
And Cody just in and he's telling me this toy is like, Oh my god. I just, you know, turn, turn pink. You know, I'm just like so flattered. So he reached, he shared that excerpt on Twitter. And he, you know, tagged Adam. And it Adam being the humble guy that he is reshared it started talking.
And he said, Hey, man, come to the sandbox. Let's play in the sandbox. And so they became friends. Adam listen, Fredericksburg, which is 20 minutes away from curve bill. And Adam told him about the value for value podcasts about way of lake.
And by the way, if you're on Phantom, then you probably already know all about this, but tell your friends because this is such a great opportunity for independent musicians. This is a great and great network for everybody.
And I'm going to tell you something. We got 10,000 streams on Spotify for our last single, I must say. And it's flattering. But we haven't seen a penny. And yeah, you know, we've already got monetized on value for value with wave lake. And I'm not going to say how much, but it's been really good to us. And so, you know, the hands down, no doubt.
This is an amazing platform. And it's also like stick it to the man because music industry has been super, super insane and impossible for many, many decades.
And I'm talking about very glory. And I'm talking about all that be asked from back in back way when, and of course, Napster came into and changed things. But that just gave the big waves is an opportunity to exploit it in a different way.
And in a lot of ways, they could exploit it easier like an off chair quarterback. They don't have to look as many fingers and value for value podcasting and wave lake is just really, really changed the game. And it's the early stages of this.
I mean, this is really growing more and more of my friends are starting to discover this and sing its praises. So back to coding.
He, he, he learned about it. He's telling us about it and his sons are in a couple of bands and he said that they had a lot of success.
Well, Cody since had started his own podcast. It's called smash my record podcast.
Yeah, love that love that show. Yeah, it is great. And he's an amazing host and he's extremely supportive. And this is, this is all genuine. This is all for the passion and the love from music for independent artists for
the cause. This is not something that people do because they want to monetize and basically still your talents and in still your material and elevate themselves because
Satoshi's you give them straight to us. You know, they get a little bit of monetization for their for their platform and everything. But you know, they're not getting rich off of playing our music.
In fact, probably not getting chances of the problem, not getting rich anyway. It's just a passion for what's happening. And I can appreciate that because as it grows, then we all get a little bit more love and monetization for for what we're doing.
And the time and the effort that you put in that Cody puts in the add-ons putting in. You know, you can't put a price tag on that. So a little bit goes a long way and it's growing and it's great to see.
This come from a place of purity from a place of authenticity instead of just the big machine just you know swinging it's.
Month don't money around me, you know, basically blocking the market and.
And so I can appreciate that. And so we were featured on Cody's first podcast.
We're featured on many of the Instagram ball. We're featured on a couple of others and they they kind of surface up and it's so exciting to check my emails.
So exciting to check my notifications. And I can't remember them all. I wish I had a road and so it wrote some notes down. But there's one this guy's playing the piano and he's picking out our parts.
Self-sidle National Anthem was one of those songs that you had mentioned earlier.
Probably me on my review podcast.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm some review podcast called again. The Phantom Power music review where I take I take three songs and I break them down in the theory and what I like about them.
Yes. Absolutely. I'm so I didn't do my research play that. Why you asked all this interviews over.
That was extremely I got the excerpt of that and I posted it and it was extremely flattering and also this because you actively went out there you picked the parts out.
You're very talented by the way to be able to you knew that there's a half you knew you knew that half step low.
You use your ears and your insight to kind of pick it out.
And it was it was just really amazing to see that and again he kind of comes back down to you're not going to see this kind of shit on MCB or you know obviously or anything on the on the major streaming platforms but this is to me just I don't know it's phenomenal that this exists because again it makes us feel great it makes us feel appreciated.
And of course the to she's are pretty nice to.
Yeah you hit on all the on all the right spots man like because you guys are you guys are a good band you know now there's a.
And if people like what you are doing they you know that you should that there should be an avenue for those people who like what you're doing to send you money directly and that is what value for value is and that is what Bitcoin does.
You know and I and yeah I know exactly what you're talking about with respect is streams on Spotify and not getting paid you know I mean we I talked to just loud a couple of months ago he's he's had 10 million streams on on Spotify and he has made zero dollars you know in a couple of weeks we're going to have daddy Nat on this show nice.
And yeah and I know he's had a lot of streams to and I'm going to ask him point blank I'm like hey dude you like you know how much have you made on Spotify and how much have you made in value for value and you know Angelica Stello did a really good job of documenting that as well like she made like 500 bucks on Spotify and like five years and then made 500 bucks in the first month on you know in the V for V world so it's there you know I mean the opportunity is there so.
I'm just going to say I'm just going to say I think that the biggest hurdle on Bitcoin and and that's a touchy what's the word I'm looking for basically when you own you know Bitcoin and you can translate that into the to choose is this it's the third party so you're not going to be using the app store or anything like that but when you go in to wave lake and.
You basically you first of all you can get on the wave lake and it's w a b l a k e you can just listen you can sign up creating account and listen and check it out and the next part is okay I really love this band I want to show them some love you got to pop in your payment to buy some Bitcoin and and you can make your own amount you know just because
you get the million dollars per share or whatever it is you get twenty dollars of a 40 thousand bucks right now for one bit okay well that's a lot I was not by a little bit a little bit but you can get 20 30 40 bucks and five bucks for this band five bucks for this band five bucks for this band whatever it is also for these DJs and need podcasts providers you know show them some love because these guys aren't getting paid by Apple or nobody like that this is all just like I said
for the passion and it it's all safe it's all completely safe to to get your payment information on there they're not going to pull the money out of your account monthly or anything and what I'm trying to say is if you could buy that silly app that you're going to use for three times and then not using more and they're building you monthly and you forget about that that's how that that's how those those big companies make their money with wave lake they're not going to fill you monthly or anything like that don't be afraid
don't be afraid please do check it out try it out and and you know give us some love nobody's asking you to commit all of your money or anything like that it's just it's a beautiful thing and and and again I say that just say to say it's a little bit scary at first to you know what I want to put my credit card in here and do all that it's really not that big of a deal because
Apple as your credit card they're building you monthly already this is way safer and better than that because every dollar you spend on the value for value podcast goes directly to us not Apple they don't take a cut and you know it's very much transparent.
Yeah and for anybody who's listening who doesn't understand the splits like you know like I I'm going to be splitting this show with the band right so like if you're.
You know you know you guys are going to get 80% of the sats coming in while you and I are talking right right and then and and that's something that I put in on my end when I'm setting up the the podcast feed.
But when your songs are playing on this show like the you know we opened up with headache song we're going to we're going to close that with another one that will talk about here in just a couple minutes.
But that jumps up to 90% right and when I put any song in my like my music review or my music hour shows you know 90% is going to the artist and then the the remaining is going to me you know the host or it's going to.
Maybe it's going to the podcast index maybe it's going to the guy in Switzerland who does my bumper music maybe it's you know it just depends but the bulk of it is is that you know 90% 80% are going to the artists and I think as we see over time is more and more people get into this yet you might see that ratio drop a little bit but hopefully we can come up with some standards.
To where you know the artists are always going to be making at least 60 70% of the the streaming income or you know the stats that are coming in you know which is which is in my opinion extremely generous considering YouTube and Spotify and even apple lied to people are paying money to apple lied to I still have a scene anything from them either you know so.
60 70 89 I mean that's all very generous I mean to me it's your art man it's yeah I think we need artists you know I mean I my wife and I are working on someone the backend to really to really secure this for artists around the world and it's it's your guys is art man like you guys should should receive the lion share of the stats coming in right and of course you know there's always a music business there's always the business.
Portion of it and I say that generous that you you know you give us 90% and everything else but again I don't mind if anybody wants to argue well why don't you give me 100% we're the one that's hosting the show everybody's discovering this because you're taking a time out and yeah and of course you you're only playing stuff that you like to so I mean there's that appreciation as well and so I said just all on all it's a beautiful platform and I mean I do.
And I mean it is it's almost like me like you see in a movie star was you got the rebellion and and the empire is the big music industry and so we're all rebels we're the rebel alliance and yeah absolutely.
Hey so so you guys are definitely one of the ones in this V for V space that I love and we've talked about some other artists out there like who who are you listening to in in this whole way Blake value for value or like net who who are some of the artists that you have discovered that you guys really like that you really dig well there's several many many genres to but there's this band called boys town.
I can't remember where they're I think they're from out of Kansas of all places and they sort of have like an 80s sort of retro vibe to it and it's just amazing there that's actually Cody's sons that are in the in boys town and there's a couple of other artists on the platform and I can try to add I need to push more for a lot of my friends in a fellow band.
And then a fellow band around here to get on get on here as well but you know there's so many it's hard to name them all.
Yeah I get you I mean Nate Johnovan is one of the ones that I dig and I'm going to get him on the show I finally heard back from him.
Hopefully we'll get him on like it right around the end of February because I because these shows are starting to line up you know one of them what one of the cool things I love about this whole value for value thing wave like and everything is like there are some bands out there that have broken up that are or no longer operating right.
And it's like what the hell we'll just put on you know somebody in the band still has the has the tunes and they're like yeah let's just put it up there right like and there's a band out of Quebec.
Called Abyss or a bees I don't know how to how you pronounce it happens now the ABB B S S E E I don't know if that's a you know that there's the term Abby and then there's I think an Abyss is for female.
Whatever the term is but that band damn I love that band like I'm like that's one of those things where I'm like man I wish that band didn't break up like if they were to her and I go see him right now right there's so much great shit out there for sure and you know I think that this part this podcast platform appeals not just for active musicians but anybody who's ever published anything ever because all if your band broke up or if you know COVID destroyed your band whatever it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't matter because if you ever if you ever were an artist and you have even just loads of recordings you could upload it to way like it talks nothing you just go to profile your artist profile you upload it and I didn't even have to do anything but
boost your gram phantom smash my record all these all these podcasts and picked up our music and every other week I'm you know signing on and finding it getting tagged on these social media platforms hey we boosted you know self title national anthem or pop song and it's like man that's going to be a great day for it's I don't know it's just hard to say how much gratification but again
if you have any any kind of music out there at all ever I strongly recommend uploading it because you more than just the satosis you get your music in front of other people's ears and it's just it's quite amazing that
absolutely and there's no there's no commitment or anything like that you don't have to sign an agreement with a manager or you know record contract or anything like that this is all independent do I this is just
man it's quite amazing yeah all right so you look let me ask a couple quick questions here before we before we wrap this up here's one of my favorite questions that I love to ask other musicians
all right what is your guilty pleasure in music and when I mean guilty pleasure I mean something that is like outside of your genre like it when they think of FM rodeo they're going to be thinking of power trios
you know punk power trios but I'm talking like is it spice girls is it guilt films is it DMX like what is your guilty pleasure outside of your genre it comes on you're like not
it's my show is a piece yeah yeah all right so I'm trying to think as far as I know that Marshall or bass player really loves he's actually a lead guitar player for band called Christian shields and I need to talk to Christian about upload and his music on wave like but our
player plays guitar like Steve Vi is quite amazing so loves loves loves loves hair metal and and Stevie Ray Vaughan as well Troy Troy's big 90s guy he loves a oasis green day
Nirvana but he's also he loves a lot of independent artists he always brings a stuff to the table that I don't know and this typically rock induced just like a libertines out of England and Arctic monkeys ride as they're getting so big before there's popular as they were block party and stuff like that and
for me I really do like a lot of different type of music I'm a sucker for a lot of pop music and country music so one of my favorite songs is would you go with me by Josh Turner and because he's got such an incredible voice and that song is got a great tempo you go with me and it just it just hits
you know it's a pot country song not like a snap claps stuff and you know I'm not going to rail on to you harder you know I could but let's let's let's bash bro country bring it come on okay all right
sitting on their road you know no no come on come up come up with something substantial come up with something unique and original instead of just synthesizers snaps and claps and singing about your jacked up truck and you know
that's a lot of political bunnies yeah exactly it's just a listener who doesn't know what a buckle bunny is a buckle bunny is like a really good looking well endowed young woman who is wearing very small and tight and short jeans and she's got a huge belt buckle on there it is the worst trope that you can imagine with respect to women
and the road country it's it's pretty sure just bring it out there yeah it's it's it's pretty it's pretty cringey but that's one of the reasons why like one of my guilty pleasures is Matty and Tay in country like I love Matty and Tay and their first single just out of the gate was just a big middle finger to all of those
country posters who yes who just do nothing but just degrade women and all of that stuff and I love Matty and Tay I've seen him in concert a couple of times
I love writing love this love I love them I love any of these artists that are making country music great again
yeah let me let me share a theory with you and you tell me if you agree or if I'm just a cranky old bastard when I when I listen when I listen to broke country today I think what what these guys are doing what they're doing to hip hop and R&B is the exact same thing
that like Pat Boone did and a lot of the white artists did to even Elvis did to African Americans and early blues and early rock and roll like I think they're just they are what's the word I'm looking for
well white washing is kind of one one terms is a little bit more on the racial side but uh but watering down I guess you could say because you have these amazing formulas that people paved the road and it's okay to have influences right
there's always every time you hear a new song there's always going to be it's always going to be backed by influences now what makes it unique and interesting is if you could pick out a couple of different influences
off of okay I used to like or I do like a depot or you know let's see Elton John or you know just any of these types of influences and you create your own heart
and it's unique and original versus just rehashing something and he just add high production value value quote unquote high production to you know
okay we got 808s well great yeah it's you know it hits in the truck whenever you have your subs on is it good is it unique or original or is it even really interesting and so yeah I say it's watered down
and I don't think that you're being an old cranked bastard by having an opinion on I mean honestly this is your distinction for one your music critic as well I mean not a
lot of things I don't believe I mean he's called as you see it and if it's garbage it's garbage I'm I try not I give I mean obviously I don't feature songs I don't like I don't you know I'm not going to I will never put up a
podcast of like hey everybody this song really sucks and here's the 10 reasons why we got enough we got enough negative energy in the world I don't need to add to it
but the cultural appropriation that's what I was looking for that's when I listen to Morgan wall and or Luke Brian or you know and I know that like obviously the songs are are are relating to a lot of
people because because the lyrics are strong and their lyrics are always going to be the strongest thing in country but I just cannot get past the fact that okay at the end of the day I'm
listening to an R&B or a hip hop beat a hip hop track that has been watered down with white country thought processes and images and a lot of those are
misogynistic and just absolutely awful you know right well and I guess you could say that one of the problems I have as a cranky old bastard or aging bastard coming up
so whenever you have a manufactured band or manufactured music you typically get a guy is got a good voice and then you have songwriter songwriting teams that come up with
something and then they what they typically do is rehash an old court progression which is okay because every court progression under the sun with the exception of maybe jazz music has been
written or you know and there's a form of that words right but the problem I have is that whenever Morgan wall and or Luke Brian or any of these Florida George I don't think there are
active anymore thank God but whenever they they manufacture music and in the summer is coming there's nothing from your heart there's nothing from authenticity there's nothing really of value or
substance there it's really just a cater to the masses and I'm not necessarily a purest on I do have guilty pleasure that do love my share of pop music but it's usually whenever a vocalist tells you a story
in a single heart out and there's passion involved and it tickles your feels and I get it a lot of the people who are just fair weather music friends
dance they'll the tickled by some of this manufactured music but as an app well as a musician as an avid music critic myself I could just if it's manufactured it better be good there better
be something there that really grabs you and stands out and it feels good or it just it triggers some sort of a motion whether it be I want to work out I want to
go running or I'm inspired or you know it makes my heart melts or like I want to cry it better have something like that because if it's just basic and they just wanted to make some
mix the money off of the same old stuff that's been around but it just sounds better because it has the 808's and the mix is good then you know I'm
bullshit because you know there's plenty of that and authenticity and they're involved and so you know I just I just want something from the heart and there's
also a lot of that out there you just got to go stream through it find it there's a lot really good bands out there that aren't you know on the top 10 on the radio
or or you know all that and I mean it's really really good music out there you just got to dig around and find it
yeah there's a place for manufactured music in the world I'm not I'm saying that there isn't but I think that artists or excuse me the
audience will always respond to authenticity into some edges and to into things that are quote unquote not perfect
and I don't mean that in a bad way I mean you Johnny you know what I'm talking about because you can go into the studio and you can make everything perfect with
Pro Tools now but I think people respond when they can feel that gut level energy coming out of the song it doesn't matter what genre it is and you know just for the sake of this conversation I think they
definitely hear that with your you know with National Anthem and with headache song the song we opened up the show with and and with the song we're going to close with which is
pop song so tell us a little bit about that song pop song what where it comes from and where you guys track it.
Okay so me and Troy had met back in the year 2000 this was in high school and he taught me how to play instruments and he started right
in songs back then and his song writing craft has just gotten better and better throughout time and Troy catalogs fans probably close to 60 to 70 songs throughout time now
not all their songs are as complex as as they as somebody more of the modern ones and so pop song came out about well he wrote that song
in 2006 I believe or two dozen no actually two dozen four so it's almost 20 year old 20 year old song now in 2004 wow yeah and so Troy I know quote him because he said this in the radio the other day
pop song had a lot of green day influences so he's kind of writing songs but sort of based on those types of formulas those types of melodies and those sort of tones and I remember when okay Troy was
involved in another project and he was doing man he was just cranking out all these songs and I heard a demo and he had a drummer named man well Garcia
and props to man well he had a lot of really good ideas for some of these beats and I heard that demo and first thing that jumped at to me was the guitars
the guitar has this really cool lick and the intro and throughout the song and it re-occurs to deleting to get up a pplp pplp
and it's a moving guitar line and it's very energetic and it's a pop song is essentially the love song but it's got this great pop punk energy about it
and like I said it's got a lot of moving parts that's him from just smashes and another really interesting thing about that song in the arrangement is
there's this weird tricky rhythm and I spent a while back but I spent a lot of time breaking this rhythm down
(sings)
and so it's not just...
- Yeah, the beat triplets, it's like a clip of the beat and it's really tricky if I'm not really sometimes paying attention whenever we're playing it live
I have to kind of like bounce back into it if it slides back
- Yeah that part kind of reminds me of Westside Story, you know?
(sings)
- Yeah and I'm certainly proud of it because of the complexities of it and this is just something that Troy manifests in after Alan is guitar
and one thing that's interesting about FM Brodio that a lot of people probably don't know
because we try to tighten it up as a trio but they always say that John Bonham would follow Jimmy Page when it and his drumming in Led Zeppelin's music
me and Troy will get together and Troy will just kind of... he has his own guitar style
it reminds me a lot of Jimmy Hendrix when he does a lot of pig scratching and he's kind of carrying this rhythm
but he'll have like just, you know, he's just kind of just jumping out everywhere
and so I lock in on that guitar and it's me and Troy have been playing for over 23 or 24 years
we lock in and then the bass player usually jumps in with me and in overtime we groove together as the band
I split the difference so to speak with the bass player if you know you got it
that snare drum can hit slightly above time or slightly behind time and it creates a whole completely different type of groove
now Grenad a lot of our songs are very straight driven, punk rock style, very very driven
you know all that small nuances make a huge difference on the groove
and now as far as the lyrics go on pop song, there are... Troy's lyrics I say they're very mysterious, very unique
because he's not saying "oh this is a girl named Jill" and we went to high school together in 2006
he's not very specific and that's on purpose
it's... -Bring hands in the one room
yeah, yeah, whenever he writes the songs it's a little bit co-bane
ask in regards to there's a little bit of mystery, it's up to interpretation
it's up to you, is this a love song about the girl or is this the love song about two guys?
is this song about... you know it's sort of... it's sort of... -It's sort of a love song about his Les Paul?
-Yeah, yeah, you know... -What do we watch?
-He walks on ice again, that means the Les Paul is out there on the ice, walking the thin line
you know?
and so the lyrics that he writes they have a little bit of mystery involved to me
that adds a little bit of value to it because more people can relate
and you know it's sort of just... he's... and I agree with him, it's sort of boring to know the exact story
you know sometimes it's not, sometimes there's a place for that
but this on pop song especially, you got that on headache song
I know we're talking about pop song but headache song just dropped it a couple of days ago
and I'm really out of that by the way there's a lyric video dropping on Thursday
-Wait -It's coming this coming week for headache song
and there's also a lyric video for pop song on YouTube channel to search FM rodeo
now keep an eye out there's an FM rodeo in Wisconsin
they're a really good country cover band
but they don't write in really amazing rock and roll songs like FM rodeo Texas
and headache song very very similar it's more of a heartbreak song about some lovers and you know he gets the headache
and the world is unreal everything's colliding and very chaos
but it's such like a beat you know just a very positive tone headache song
headache song it's got a, I don't know it's kind of like a pop song but it's about you know
not really necessarily destruction but you know heartbreak and chaos in terms of oil
-Yeah well I agree with you and Troy with respect to you know keeping those lyrics a little bit ambiguous
because you don't want you know in a lot of cases you just don't want to give the whole story away
like for me like when I hear a song and I really love it I'm always going to take that song
and put a time stamp on it for lack of a better term in terms of when it came into my life
and if I hear the full story of the lyrics and why the artist wrote it that way
it's going to change that it's going to change the value of the song for me
so I typically don't want to know you know yeah go ahead sorry just another great analogy on that is if you know they always say the book is better than the movie
yeah yeah it's kind of like if you read a book and you have it all in your mind about not the setting
the place the characters how they look and how they fill in your mind especially if you're enamored in the book
you know and then they come up with a movie and of course it could be adapted to a great screenplay and very entertaining
but they're going to change it especially this day and age they're going to change it to fit the modern ideology or agenda or whatever
but the movie could be hit or miss but it could also be damaging to the story as the book you know
oh yeah I'm not saying don't watch movies or anything like that but it's sort of somebody else's interpretation you know it will get Stanley Kubrick and Stephen Keaton
there's a little bit of controversy there on Stephen Keaton how he felt about the picture
but you know it's an analogy
well listen thank you so much for joining us I know you guys have a big gig coming up this Friday February 2nd
you're playing where at Fitzgeralds in San Antonio is that what you're playing?
we are as a matter of fact if the alright so Friday is going to be a busy day for a Friday February 2nd
we are actually going a radio performance at 94/3 the rev at film in Curveville with coding that afternoon
and then that night we're playing our we're having our single release party in San Antonio for a headache song
and so it's going to be a long very productive hopefully day
Fitzgeralds the doors are at 8 if you find yourself in San Antonio or if you feel like traveling
and by the way if you could travel to San Antonio hit us up on this
hit us up on Instagram I'll buy your tickets
I won't be able to make it down but the same goes for you guys you guys are ever up in Nashville man you gotta let me know
absolutely and we have a great bill we have Fox Motel we have above my enemy and we have Langton Dryer
these are all amazing local artists at San Antonio and believe me they will have music on wave lick
and on the value of a podcast up very soon
right on well I'm happy to talk to them you can send them my way
I can certainly answer any questions that they have to get them in this space because like I said a million times like I'm more
I'm so excited for independent musicians now because of this so Johnny thank you very much for joining us today on the Phantom Power artist hour
it is Sunday the 28th and if I'm going to bust my ass to get this thing out tonight like give me like six hours
and I'll have it out and we are going to wrap up the show with pop song by FM rodeo
well thank you thank you again for having me and you know as it meet representing FM rodeo is our team and it's an honor
and thank you so much for all you do well thanks brother appreciate it hang on just a second we'll wrap it up offline
okay
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Shout out to the drummer man dude held it down for well over an hour talking about the band
what a great guy Johnny thank you so much for coming on and give our regards to your bandmates as well
Johnny is really you know he and Troy have been banging away at this thing for a dozen years 15 years right
a great example of what an indie band is and what an indie band has to do to succeed in today's world
and of course we love the fact that they are all in on value for value
thank you guys very much for listening if you guys know any musicians out there independent musicians out there
and they've got questions about value for value send them my way man you can find me on a noster on telegram
Instagram Twitter I am more than happy to talk to any independent musician about getting them into this space
tomorrow Monday is fan of power business hour we're gonna have Chris Boobay on he is an author of two books
we did that interview earlier this morning and it's a it's a good one Chris is a really smart guy
Wednesday is fan of power music with music hour excuse me and then Friday once again fan of power music review
which Johnny was talking about where I kind of break down a couple of songs that I dig and talk to you guys about production
and composition and song structure and theory things like that
so thank you guys very much for listening if you like this podcast please send us some sats
it would go a long way and as always smile for the mug shot see ya
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