Actors, Bands, And The Bias We Carry

Ever judge an actor’s band before you’ve heard a single note? We start with dog chaos and caffeine, then slide into a month of horror marathons that reawaken a bigger question: why do we lock artists into one lane and call it authenticity? From Argento’s saturated nightmares and Goblin’s spine-tingling score to the immaculate pacing of Halloween and the cultural bite of Get Out, we unpack how tone, timing, and sound shape our expectations—and why that makes crossovers feel risky.

The spark comes from a small, unforgettable set by The Boxmasters. Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t arrive as “Bad Santa with a guitar”; he shows up as a musician among musicians—tight band, Americana swing, a voice that doesn’t mimic his screen growl. When he turns up the lights to shake hands and thank the room, the “vanity project” narrative collapses. That moment sets up a candid tour through the actor-musician divide: Juliet Lewis commanding a stage, Keanu’s Dogstar sincerity, Jared Leto’s polarizing strength fronting 30 Seconds to Mars, Johnny Depp’s capable but non-defining turns, and the rare triple-threat clarity of Jamie Foxx. We talk marketing, timing, and the fickle economy of hype where sequels cash in while pacing and craft get sidelined.

There’s a deeper layer, too: live art’s gamble versus film’s edit bay, persona versus person, and how meeting a hero—good or bad—rewires how you hear and see their work. We share stories of kindness from Rob Zombie and Andre 3000 that made the art feel closer, and we admit where typecasting in our own heads makes it hard to let people evolve. The thread through it all is permission: try new things, even if you’re not elite; let creatives switch mediums without sneering; judge the work by the work.

If you’re a multihyphenate in hiding—or just someone who loves film scores, tight bands, and honest takes on culture—this one’s for you. Hit play, then tell us who actually nails both music and acting. Subscribe, share with a friend who gatekeeps, and leave a review with your pick for the most underrated crossover.

Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com

Chapters

• 0:17 Catching Up And Coffee Triage
• 2:55 New Songs After The Album Push
• 6:15 Horror Season Rewinds And Discoveries
• 12:24 Classics, Argento, And Iconic Scores
• 18:25 Slasher Prequels, Sequels, And Pacing
• 24:40 Boxmasters Live: Billy Bob Thornton As Musician
• 31:20 The Actor-To-Musician Stigma
• 38:00 Who Excels Where: Leto, Foxx, Gaga
• 45:05 Marketing, Timing, And Public Perception
• 52:10 Persona Vs Person: Juliet Lewis Fan Expectations
• 59:10 Typecasting And The Audience’s Projection
• 1:03:30 Wahlbergs, JT, And Dual-Track Careers
• 1:11:10 Meeting Heroes: When Reality Bites
• 1:19:20 Rob Zombie’s Aesthetic And Kindness
• 1:26:00 Connection-Seeking: Live Art’s Real-Time Risk
• 1:34:45 Normalize Risk: Do It For The Joy
• 1:43:00 Identity, Advice, And Defining Your Path

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:17

What's up, Kev? It has been too long. Far too long that I get to see your beautiful Fug face. Your beautiful Fug. Uh my mug. My Fug. It's your beautiful face and mug together. It's a fug. Yeah. How are you, man? I'm good. I'm a little tired this morning, to be completely honest. I see you chugging your uh getting your keg of coffee in. Good for you. I've already taken down my cold brew, but I I it's one of those I kind of need another one days. You know?

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't obscenely early, but like first thing early this morning, wake up to my dog deciding he wanted to just puke all over the floor for some reason. Love that. Love that for you. It's like a once-a-month thing. Periodically, he just wakes up and decides, oh, it's time to just puke.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16

Do you ever think that maybe he's like when you and your wife are not at home, that he's just throwing a massive rager and he's not telling about it. So all the dogs are coming over. He's doing, you know, all kinds of illicit narcotics and alcohol. And so, but when you come, when you come back, he's all the sweet, belovable, you know, golden retriever. And then he wakes up in the morning, he's trying to hide it. He's like, Oh god, I'm so I'm gonna throw up. Yeah. You know, it's entirely possible. It's possible. He's shoved like, you know, dog toys and stuff under the bed, so you can't see the other people were there trying to hide the evidence. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59

Pushing everything into the closet.

SPEAKER_02: 2:01

Oh, yeah. It's like, come on, they're hurt, they're almost back.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:06

I can smell them. I can smell it down the street.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

You know, yeah. Yeah. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

But otherwise, um no, doing good. Doing good. I mean, we have been doing so much work, like with um, you know, the album having come out recently and making videos and kind of promoting and doing all that sort of thing, that I hadn't written any music for a little while. Yeah. And so I was starting to feel kind of a little out of balance with all of that. So um since we talked last, uh I've written another uh another song. Banger.

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Let's just call it a banger, because it's a it's a damn banger.

SPEAKER_00: 2:53

So I hope so. Yeah, I I think it's really cool. Um yeah, it is. It's been it's been fun because since the album, since we stopped writing the album, you know, because you gotta cap it at some point, there was a small break in there. And then um I haven't consciously done the thing where I'm like, I need to sit down and write today. Um but every so often a song seems to just kind of like fall out of nowhere, which is a really nice gift where like I'll be sitting down and you know just playing or you know, whatever. And then uh very quickly, you know, an entire song comes. I think I mean what since uh when did we finish writing the record?

SPEAKER_02: 3:39

That had to have been It's early March, probably March or well, you were still tinkering, so ultimately I'd say writing was done probably February or March, but you were still tinkering on into the spring.

SPEAKER_00: 3:55

Yeah, that's true with vocals and stuff, some stuff that I went back to. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if we just say it was done in let's just call it end of February, beginning of March, I think since then I've written probably four complete songs, something like that. Just not a ton, but it's been good. One of those is kind of a a throwaway sort of like just for fun song. Um but uh yeah, and I've written a handful of like parts of other songs, but there's been three of them that I feel really excited about that I think are gonna be great for the band. And oh yeah, you know, yeah, since kind of moving on from you know, one album and moving into whatever the the future looks like. It's been fun to explore some different um different angles, you know, different sounds. You know, not that they're like um a vast distance from what we've done. Some of them are just pushing things we've done a little further. Uh but like this most recent one to me is really well, the last two really um have been very different from uh I I feel like anything that we've done before. So, you know, those will get put together and and we'll put those out at some point early next year.

SPEAKER_02: 5:19

Yeah, I think you told me because it was coming on the tail end of you guys watching the monster show that you said you wanted to start wearing dresses, so and I was like, I don't really understand what you mean. And then, you know, but you really meant I'm just trying on different clothes metaphorically. You weren't really meaning that you were gonna start wearing women's clothing.

SPEAKER_00: 5:39

You were really no that that's that's never been my thing. That's not your thing. Yeah, no, no hate. Uh no.

SPEAKER_02: 5:50

I missed a boat on that for Halloween. Like, I I you caught me off guard like the last time we talked about that. It's like horror movies and stuff that were and I'm like, dang it, I missed my window because there were so many that I wanted to talk about, and some obviously some really great ones that are out there, but the window's past, it's all good. I'll have it for next year, I'll have it ready to go. My top list, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 6:13

We said uh we said last time that Halloween is a state of mind. So it is a state of mind. We can talk about horror movies at any point, doesn't have to just be Halloween. We did watch a bunch, a bunch this year. I mean every year we're like, yeah, let's really like buckle down this October and let's you know let's take it seriously. One film a day. Well, that's basically what we did. That's pretty much I mean, not exactly, but we watched a lot. Um and some things that we had seen before, but a bunch of things that we hadn't seen, and um some really like big name stuff that I kind of I I mean, I'm sure you know how this is. I kind of I don't know, it's like the the rebellious part of me that I've never grown out of is like if something is really radically popular, I kind of just uh don't have a big desire to check it out a lot of times. And so that's the case with music and with movies, and so we went back and watched some movies that um honestly were really great, that of course they were great. There's a reason why they were such a big deal that I had just kind of skipped over. Like uh The Substance is a pretty recent one, but that was one that I just was like, eh, I'll get to it. But that was a really good movie. Get out, it was good. Get out. That's one that I had never seen. Um, also a really good movie, maybe a touch long, but really good. Um, so some of that kind of kind of thing too. So it was nice to like catch up culturally on some of the horror stuff that's been you know going on as well.

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

I have to always go back and kind of watch a classic for me every once in a while. Like the because you know me, I go way deep into that world. So like Dario Argento, probably one of my favorite horror directors of all time, next to John Carpenter. I'll always go back and watch like the original Suspiria or Deep Red Hatchet Murders. Like there's some really and it the titles leave a little bit to be desired sometimes, but it's like his movies are really beautifully shot uh for that time, and I love like 70s filmmaking anyway. Yeah, but the color and the and the things there. Like Suspiria is a masterpiece to me, like it's a really beautiful film. The remake I actually enjoyed as well, but the original one just has a thing.

SPEAKER_00: 8:44

I think I've only seen the remake. I think I can't remember which one I watched now.

SPEAKER_02: 8:49

The original one's interesting. It's like hard time, it's hard sometimes to watch movies like that. They're subtitled or not subtitled, but or overdubbed that it takes away somewhat of the it kind of it can feel at times a bit comical or stiff because the overdub doesn't really match. It doesn't feel like the tone of what that actual actress is saying, but there's only a few that were sort of overdubbed in this movie. It's weird, I don't know how he does it anyway. Doesn't matter, but there's an American actress in it, and then there's also people that are overdubbed in the movie, so it's kind of strange, but um the movie itself just again and that soundtrack is so great. The goblin was the uh people that did the score for that movie, and it it is so good. It's like up there to me with like the the Exorcist theme or of course Halloween's theme, you know, yeah uh from Carpenter. It's like that iconic um and really scary. Like it's just a thing when you hear it, you're immediately terrified. Yeah, I don't know how else to say it, but pull up that soundtrack sometime when you're bored, or maybe just in a quiet dark space, put the headphones on and listen to that soundtrack, you'll you don't even need to see the movie, you'll still be terrified by it. It's just a really evokes a really great feeling of unease. Yeah. Um anyway, I digress. But yeah, I we we did watch a few. Uh I have a hard time with Lisa trying to get there because she can't watch clowns, so all the terrifier movies and all that stuff that you know. I'm like, I'm so into that that thing. It's like I love that they're kind of back and they're doing a I got so upset because I've been toying around with writing a a prequel or sort of a return to Crystal Lake, like an original sort of take to go back to Friday the 13th, long before Jason, but really around the lineage of his mother. And I thought there's such a good story here, and I've I've toyed around with that. I don't fashion myself as that a writer, but I did dabble in that a little bit in my former years. And I've always wanted to do something like that to take it back to a bit of a seriousness because that first Friday 13th film was really great, and for a slasher genre and all that kind of stuff, and then like most of that stuff, it just goes off the rail, you know, with the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth iteration of it. So you let it breathe and give it some time away, and then you come back to something, it can be really good, especially in the hands of someone really good. But I just learned that they were doing a prequel um about Crystal Lake, and they're they're filming it now. So I'm like, I'm eager to see what that turns into. It might be really good. I hope it is, because if I've had an idea like that, I wanted to see that oh okay, they did, they really they did a great job with it. Um so we'll see what happens. But anyway, there's my take on horror films.

SPEAKER_00: 11:51

Yeah, I mean it's kind of tough because I mean we see this across all genres, but like when something is successful, all of a sudden it becomes so it it they just turn things into a machine and it really kind of ruins the original what's what was magical about something most of the time. But you know you can think of uh Star Wars, you can think of a bunch of horror flicks, you can think of pretty much anything. It's like why do we keep making uh sequels and prequels and just like destroying the original uh sort of what was special about this, like it's great to add to it because as a fan I'm gonna want to see it. Of course, but treat treat the original with some respect, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 12:45

Yeah, some reverence to it. It's like part of you goes the thing, it's again. I spent a whole podcast just talking about this, and maybe it's worthy of us doing that, but Halloween, for example, the pacing in that film, flawless, flawless pacing. And in all the other sequels to the original, it's never gonna come close. I'm gonna exclude Halloween three because that's a whole different film, and something that I actually defend as being really good in the franchise. It's about a mask maker, it's super creepy, it's a very dark take on how TV poisons the mind in a literal way. Um it's a very fascinating film, but nothing about Michael Myers or really anything to do with that space except that he wears a mask and it kind of ties into this mask manufacturer in this third installment. Regardless of all that, the pacing of that movie is really great. And then when you get into these sort of sequels and all this kind of stuff, they're just going for the kills and the thrills.

unknown: 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 13:54

And they're not necessarily thinking about the art of how to pace that out so that it really was a frightening movie. The exorcist, same thing. It's like there's some frightening elements of that movie that even today, especially if you're rooted in faith and you come from churches and all that movie's still very terrifying to watch. And um there's nothing, in my opinion, that's even come close to topping that in that way. Either one of those films for their various reasons, it's hard to replicate that. And of course, as a fan, you want to go see you want to see Michael Myers again, or you want to see another exorcist movie, but then when you see it, you're like, oh, because it misses sort of that thing. You kind of know what what's coming, you you sort of have an idea of what's going to happen, and you've already seen around the corner a bit, so it's like, how are you gonna retell this in a way that feels as fresh as it did? And that's hard to do, but it's a cash cow for the industry. Horror is one of the most profitable markets for Hollywood, next to Marvel and all of the superhero thing that's kind of come in the last 20 years. Horror is still one that their profit margins are massive because they don't usually have a star cast, yeah. You know, unless you're doing black phone, you got Ethan Hawk, but it's not like Ethan's demanding an A-list salary, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 15:17

I'm really excited for Black phone to Black phone two is super. It was really I haven't seen it yet, but it was I need I need to go see it while it's in theaters because I thought black phone, the first one, was really good. And uh the trailer for the second one looks better.

SPEAKER_02: 15:32

Yeah, it's good, it's really good. Yeah, but I'm also a massive fan of Ethan, so it's like yeah, watching that anyway. What's funny about this is a really good segue into kind of what we're talking about because we're talking about film and actors and people in this space, and you and I talked about this a little bit ago, but um recently I had a chance to go take my mom for like a late birthday gift. I bought tickets for her to go see the Boxmasters, which was um Billy Bob Thornton, um his band, and I'm like, I wonder what this is gonna be like.

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

Is that something she actually asked for? That sounds like one of those oh no. I was gonna say this sounds like one of those gifts that you give yourself uh through giving to someone else.

SPEAKER_02: 16:25

Well, I would say this. Look, I uh no doubt, and you you know me forever, but it's like I'm a massive fan of his work as a actor. Uh there isn't a single film I think that I can think of that I haven't truly enjoyed. I want to embody him in his sort of general the way that you see him in acting, especially like a bad Santa or uh Landman, of course, his new show on Paramount or Goliath or uh any of this stuff, even Sling Blade going back to the first one.

SPEAKER_01: 16:56

I was gonna say Sling Blade, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:58

Yeah, it's like it's all good. One of the best ones that I've got news bears bad news, yeah. Friday Night Lights, like you can go on and on and on, Monsters Ball, like there's so many great movies, but his sort of general attitude in them, it's like I I I wish that my id would be that. It's just he doesn't give any Fs, he says whatever he feels and and he lets the chips fall, and he does not care. And so that sort of spirit has always made me really um attracted to his work. And so, yeah, mom loves his movies, Lisa loved his movies. I see that he's playing with his band. I knew he had a band, I've never really listened to them much. So I was like, hey, this could be fun. It's at a it's at a venue here, Mountain Winery, that's beautiful, outdoor amphitheater. It's like, oh, this could be a really nice night, anywho. So we go and we see him, and man, I just have to say, like, so on the surface, the music's a bit like Americana, like a Tom Petty type of sound, I think, generally speaking. Incredibly talented musicians. They feel a bit like studio musicians, they're really good, their tones are great, the band itself sounds great. When you hear Billy Bob sing, it's not like when he talks. Like he has a bit of a lower, raspier voice, a bit. So when he sings, it's a bit nasally and and sort of high in the register, a bit like Tom's voice in a way. So it's interesting, it was kind of a a weird thing to kind of witness and go, oh, it doesn't the way he sings is not at all the way you would you kind of hear him. And I don't know how to better describe that, but it that's some people like Dave Mustaine, if you hear him sing and then you hear him talk, you go, okay, I can kind of see how he gets that sort of thing, that snarl that he has in his vocal and the way he delivers his attitude in it. But Billy Bob, you would not like you hear him talk like you've seen him in a hundred movies, then you hear him sing and you're like, Oh, that's way different. It's a different thing. Anywho, all that to say is they were really great. And he gets up there and you can tell he's like he's so earnest about it. It's like this is a thing that brings him so much joy, and I I would dare I say probably as much joy or more than he has is even doing his acting stuff. And he really likes he spent time at the very end of the show. Of course, he's his banter with the audience and his storytelling is is really great. He tells a lot of stories about different songs he wrote. They've been doing this for 22 years, they have 19 albums that he shared. He's like, for those of you who probably don't know anything about us, no disrespect. We've been around for 22 years. This is our 19th record that we're putting out. And it really floored me in that moment. And I go, okay, he's been doing this for quite some time, and it really started making so I had to kind of go back and dig a little bit and realize like he's been he's hung out with all the T-bone Burnettes and the Z Z Top guys and all this kind of stuff. So he's been around the music forever, and I thought, this is a really interesting topic for me to talk about with you. Sometimes, I think often actors they get pigeonholed in their work as in their sort of main job, I guess, as an actor. Then you hear that they're gonna go do this side project like a a band. And I'll name off a few that we're all kind of familiar with, but Juliet Lewis, who I met and was when she was doing Juliet and the Licks, fantastic human being, by the way, but even more of a phenomenal singer, right? But no one on the surface wants to give anybody credit in that space. Keanu Reeves, also great band with Dogstar. We both saw them at Bottle Rock, cool band, different kind of music. Very earnest wants to do that and keep going and doing that thing as well. I think the most obvious one that I can think of off the top would be Jared Leto and maybe 30 seconds to Mars, man. Dare I say that 30 seconds to Mars is probably as successful as Jared's movie career or more so it's it's kind of interesting, but I can only think of him as being maybe the one that's uh has seen commercial success in both ways, both as a musician and another. Of course, you got Johnny Depp in the Hollywood Vampires and Johnny's different projects that he's done. But it brought me back to this idea that for a lot of them, at least in what I've read about, is that they all wanted to be a musician first. The acting was sort of a secondary thing to help them find a way to maybe funnel or fuel the music that they wanted to do. And then through matter of circumstance or whatever, they end up becoming really big actors or actresses, and then when they decide to do the band or do the music thing, then everyone kind of scoffs it off or is like, oh god, just another Hollywood blah blah trying to be a musician. And so sometimes the musician community almost seems to turn their back on it because they're like, Oh, this is an actor just trying to do a thing. We're real musicians. There, you know, I mean, there's some a bit of an attitude around it. But then when you see them, you can see, and I've seen all most all of the ones that I mentioned now live. And you go, they're actually really good. Like they're really good artists in their own right in that space. So it just really made me think it's like do they deserve the bad rap that they get sometimes for doing that? Can people sort of let the actor thing go and just appreciate that for what it is? And just say, Oh, yeah. Because everyone's gonna go, look, if you're going to go see Ju and I was as guilty of this as anybody, like I probably had a bit of a crush on Juliet Lewis going back to like I don't know, California and Natural Born Killers. So going to see her, of course, I'm gonna go like anybody would based on her prior work as an actress.

SPEAKER_01: 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:20

But what's really more exciting is number one, you get to see them and go, no, she's great. She's a super good front woman. And then you meet her, and she's just the most sweetest, kind, um generous human being, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 23:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:37

So you don't really want to fault them. I'm like, I want to support them in their endeavor. I I I want to go buy their music, I want to buy a shirt, I want to help them in some way, because I'm like, they deserve just like anybody to enjoy stuff. All of them are creative people. So why are why would somebody stand a judgment about well they're an actor, they should stay in their lane. You know what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00: 24:04

Well, um there's a lot of directions to take that. I I think it's a it's a really interesting premise. Um I I don't know how much of it has to do with uh with with like judging or gatekeeping. I think um I'm sure some of that is out there, and I'm sure a lot of people get written off because they've had success somewhere else, which is kind of funny. Like I think in most ways in life, when someone has tremendous success in one area, we assume that they're good at a lot of things. Um so it's it is kind of funny that in the arts that isn't always uh looked at that way. Yeah. Um I would say with pretty much the examples that you gave most of those artists really uh excel far more at acting than they do at music. That doesn't mean that they're bad at music, but and they might be serviceable. But um Jared Leto's the only one that I would say I find him to be a much better musical artist than an actor. And uh with with love toward Jared, right? He he's he's been in some really great movies, he's done some really great roles. Um he's also fell on some hard times with some of the characters and had some the commercial flops. I feel like um I feel like personally I enjoy him much more as a musical artist and focusing on that than as a movie star. That's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02: 25:52

But I I understand. I know that could be controversial, and some people are gonna fight either way. Some people, I'm sure, are gonna say 30 seconds to Mars sucks or you know, Suicide Squad, you ruined it, or whatever. It's like okay.

SPEAKER_00: 26:04

Sure, sure. I mean, it you you might not dig his thing with 30 seconds to Mars. I mean, I get that. I mean I I'm not saying that it has to be your cup of tea. Um, but yeah, I mean, I feel like most of the movies he at least he's made recently, you know, if we go back much further into the the 90s and 2000s, I feel like I don't know, he was in things that were I don't know, he his characters were better, you know. But anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 26:35

Oh, like you go recloin for a dream, that's a a watershed moment for him as an actor. Like that's a powerful movie with a powerful director and an incredible co-star and a very dark subject matter, and he crushes it. He's a phenomenal. You see him in a movie like Dallas Byers Club opposite Matthew McConaughey, the subject matter is heavy, you know, but he's also tremendous in that movie. I think I miss him personally in roles like that.

unknown: 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:05

But I respect that he's gonna go and do the things he's gonna do. It's interesting though, because I'll go back to become more of a leading man, you know. Yeah, I'll go back to this is gonna date me a bit, but you know, of course, I think for those of you who might know Jared Leto going way back into my so-called life with Claire Danes was a TV show that he did that was massive, big massive, like you know, name like a Dawson's Creek or OC or some of those big kind of kids' shows or, you know, I mean teen dramas. And he was in a band. Clara was as sort of uh enamored with him, her character, I think, wanted to date him, I believe, if I'm not if I'm not screwing this up. But he was in a band in high school in that space. So I'm like, oh, it only makes sense that kind of they're leaning into that thing, and then voila, you hear, oh, he's actually in a band in real life. Um that's been a thing that he's really pursued for a long time, and I think he probably fashions himself as being a little bit of both. I I feel like River Phoenix was kind of in that space too. Like he also wanted to be in a band, but also was an actor as well. And um I just learned uh Reese Witherspoon was on the Dak Shepherd podcast a couple weeks ago, and she's talking about when they're talking about walk the line, it's like, you know, how did you have to prepare for that? And she's like, I actually was gonna be a country singer. I was like, went to sort of a a thing, a program where they're kind of decide like, are you good at dancing, acting, singing? And it's like at the end of it, they kind of grade you on all three, and they're like, uh, dancing, you might want to put that away. The singing, you're not bad. You're not a bad singer, but hang that dream up. Yeah, you're not a bad singer, but look, your acting's off the charts, so maybe you should probably you know approach it from that space, and she did, but it made maybe going into walk the line a little bit more acceptable to go, hey, we need you to sing like June. Yeah, and she's like, Whoo, okay, um, I'll do it, but let's see you know what's gonna come from it, and ends up being great, and and did the record, of course, with Joaquin, and it was a super great, and they sang all of it. And of course, if you've seen that movie, it's really great. But yeah, so you see an actor in a movie portraying a singer, they'll go as far as to sing the parts. I know Jeremy Allen White just did Bruce Springsteen, of course. You had Timothy Chalamet doing Dylan last year, you've had uh Rammy Malik, of course, Tara Negerton, Rami Malik, just in the recent years. Of course, that if you know uh Jamie, Jamie Lee Foxx, uh Jamie Lee Fox, Jamie Foxx, Jamie Lee Purchased Halloween. Uh Jamie Lee Fox. Jamie Lee Fox. I love it. That's amazing. Jamie Foxx. Sorry, Jamie, uh, if you ever listen to this. Jamie Fox, another here you go again. We're we're kind of uncovering even more and more and more. Like Will Smith, a massive successful hip hop artist in his day with Jazzy Jeff. Huge, definitely a bigger movie star um than he was maybe in his music, but his music was still it was still going. Of course, Jennifer Lopez again. You think about all these different people, you kind of open up a moment where Lady Gaga, there's another one. She's a great actress. I was gonna bring some good stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 30:36

Yeah, yeah. No, she's phenomenal. I I think there's there's a pretty good chance that if you're an artistic person, then you probably have transferable artistic skills. Maybe not across all forms of art, but like like I enjoy like photography. I'm not a great photographer, I'm decent. I'm sure if I put more time into it, I'd be better. Yeah, I can't draw to save my life. But there are certain forms of art that I'm like I kind of get it, you know. Um and I can kind of play in that world if I really want to, but you know, it's like it's not my main thing.

SPEAKER_03: 31:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

So I think I think with a lot of these people, it makes sense that they're good at multiple things, and it makes sense that they would have something to do to break up maybe the monotony of uh their main thing. Yeah. But you know, if you're gonna be at top of the world in your field, you're it's gonna require so much more energy that it's gonna be hard to be sort of a polymath a little bit, you know. Yeah. And so I feel like there are the people who are really good at one and then decent at the other thing, like I I don't mean it as disrespect, but like Johnny Depp, I feel like is a tremendous actor. I I mean, I don't I haven't seen or heard anything from him musically that's really wowed me. It's always amazing when you see someone who is you know good at what they do in multiple fields, but he's not like a cut above everybody else in music.

SPEAKER_02: 32:29

Yeah, you see him as Wagan being really great. You know, obviously, I don't think he gets to play. It's an interesting one when you think about the Hollywood vampires because you have Alice Cooper and of course um oh my god, my brain just went shut off. Aerosmith guitar Joe Perry, yeah. Playing in the band with him. It's like Joe, I don't think Joe's gonna go up there and go, okay, Alice, yeah, I got it. Johnny, we're friends. Can Johnny really hold up rhythm guitar like Brad does in Aerosmith? Are you gonna be able to keep up with me? And so I gotta believe he's a good guitar player. I've never really heard Johnny sing.

SPEAKER_00: 33:06

Maybe I don't mean to insinuate that he's not good at playing guitar. Yeah. I just mean like anything, if you're gonna be really successful at something, you know, there's the bell curve, right? Of like uh most people operate the that middle space. And is he good enough to get far along and up the curve to separate himself from like the middle of the pack? It doesn't mean that he can't play, that he can't um do well with it. But is that gonna be the thing that is his main thing that people really know and seek him out for? I don't I don't get that feeling. Right. But I get the feeling with some other people, like uh like Jamie Foxx or Will Smith, maybe even. Um, you know, Lady Gaga's interesting because uh the stuff she's acted in, she's been unbelievable. Uh but I haven't seen her do enough of it to know like, is she as capable in that world as she is in music? Yeah. We could go we could go really old school and say Elvis. Uh true who might be one of the first, or at least if not the first, one of the earliest people to really do well at both.

SPEAKER_02: 34:27

Yeah, but they marketed. I think that the interesting one about that too is like obviously every single one of them, well, maybe not. I think you know, my mom would probably happy to course correct me on this one, but he gets put into those movies because they're like, oh, we're gonna do a musical movie. It's gonna be da-da-da-da, and you're gonna sing all the songs, right? It's gonna be you're gonna do this song, and it's gonna be, you know, like I think Eddie Murphy did a really funny one. It's like when they're talking about Elvis being in um in movies, he's like, All right, Elvis, your line's gonna be we gotta win this race. We gotta win this race. You know, he's gonna have to sing, he's gotta sing all of the dialogue, you know. So it plays into the fact that he's a massive superstar in a music world. They're gonna lean into that a bit, so the movies become a sort of like uh another way to capitalize on his fame and not necessarily great artistic work. He wanted to be a really great actor like Marilyn Monroe, same thing. Right. But it's like they end up getting known for one thing and maybe not as much for the other.

SPEAKER_00: 35:33

Um well, yeah, yeah. And that's also where like I I think you posed the question as um successful. And if we're purely just going by like commercial success, which is also why, like, when you first asked me, I'm like, I could take this a lot of directions. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02: 35:50

Because you get a lot of different angles.

SPEAKER_00: 35:52

Because I mean, if you're looking at just commercial success, then probably Jared Leto, to go back to him, has probably made a lot more money making movies. Because I don't think he's really made any money making music.

SPEAKER_02: 36:05

Um, no, not when he's getting sued by his label.

SPEAKER_00: 36:08

Well, yeah, I mean for anyone who hasn't seen that documentary, which I'm blanking on the tech artist. Yeah, yeah. It's it's great, amazing. And they're in my opinion, definitely their strongest record. It covers that whole time period. Um, and it's amazing. And gave me a lot of respect for him and the whole band. Um but you know, they really haven't made money doing it. Uh now that also gets really difficult to quantify because maybe he hasn't personally made money on it, but they've sold a lot of records, you know, and they've had hit hit songs, so there's different ways of even determining success and commercial success.

unknown: 36:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 36:52

But I kind of look at it as like who's uh which medium moves me more, and that's where it gets really subjective, so it's hard to say. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me and say he's a better actor than a singer. Uh his music has always done more for me than his acting has. And I don't think that he's a bad actor. Right. Yeah. Right. Um but he's had some really transcendent moments musically, and he's had some great moments in film, but they're a lot more hit or miss to me.

SPEAKER_03: 37:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00: 37:27

Um, but then, you know, there's like a different level of a person where you get the feeling that they just had to choose. You know, it's like either either path would be great for you. You know, I think um, you know, I I don't know, like Jamie Foxx might be one of those people. Like, he is such a gifted singer. 100%. It's it's amazing how good of a singer he is.

SPEAKER_02: 37:54

Yeah, he's great.

SPEAKER_00: 37:55

He's a he's a phenomenal actor, too.

SPEAKER_02: 37:57

And he puts it in his stand up because you even go, like, this is a triple threat. Yeah, as a comedian, yeah, totally. You gotta think about he's a stand-up comedian. Yeah, probably where I far see him as a stand-up, and of course, he can do sketch comedy, he gets and does that stuff as well. But then you're like in his act, he can also sing, so he'll do impersonations and he'll sing. So he's bringing some of that and introducing, like, oh, I can sing, yeah, right. And then they're like, Oh, dang, this is great. And then he it evolves as you continue to go on, and now a stand-up, of course. He would come in and sing songs and has his piano out there, and he's singing stuff to remind people, like, oh yeah, I did this song, or you know, um doing the whole the big hook on the the uh gold digger for Kanye West. It's like a massive hook, you know, uh where he sounds like Ray, he's meant to sound a little bit like Ray Charles, you know. Yeah, uh, but yeah, Jamie's a just an amazing, and then you see him in acting, of course, and he just crushes it. He's so good. So it's hard to say, like, which one do you really enjoy the more? Like, he's just got charisma in all avenues in that space to me. So you kind of be a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 39:07

Fits in that.

SPEAKER_02: 39:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:09

So there's a handful of those kind of people that I can think about who truly seem like they could operate equally in either field. If that's what they spent most of their time doing, they would be successful in it. Yeah. But I think what you brought up about Elvis exists still today in a lot of this stuff, which is also why I think maybe people are quick to write off when someone wants to go from one to the other, is I think it gets perceived as uh cheap marketing, maybe. Yeah.

unknown: 39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:41

You know, it's like you see Ariana Grande doing Wicked, and you're like Of course. I mean, it now that is an interesting example because that is bringing uh theater to the big screen. And so there's a huge singing component. So you can't just go get anyone off the street to play that role, but no, I have a hard time thinking like she's as good of an you know actor as she is a singer. Um, you know, I mean I'm I'm not saying that she's bad, I'm just saying like, you know, to me that's an easy way of like pulling in music lovers into watching a movie and because she's the popular thing going right now, um you know, like this is interesting because now I'd have to think about just how many movies she's done, but like another one we didn't talk about is Beyonce. Oh yeah. Um, Beyonce, I would say is actually a pretty good actor, and she's done some some good stuff. She hasn't acted in some time. Seems like maybe she kind of left that behind for some reason. Uh because you go back, there's so many. It's like you could go back to the show. There's just a lot of pop artists who do that for a time. And so I think people see that and they go, like, okay, is this person actually really good at this? Or is this person just doing this because it's a way to capitalize on their moment that they're having?

SPEAKER_02: 41:14

You know, but there does seem to be from a critical space in or societal place where we send to stand in judgment when one chooses to do one over the other in a way, and I think that's where it's fascinating to me. Like, I'll let me see if I can think of it. Um Christina Aguilera has a movie. I'm not gonna think of the name of it right now. It bombed. Let's just go there first. It bombed in the theater, and people were like, Oh, just go back and stick to the singing girl. You know, like it was really lambassing her for even attempting to be in a movie. And it's like, okay, well, was it really that terrible? You know, Alt O Gee, that's another one that for Jennifer Lopez, it'll come up. Like, people when they'll go, Oh, she's done some some good stuff. I mean Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 42:06

Yeah, she's done some good stuff. Yeah. That that one uh I bet you there's a piece of it though where people resent success and tremendous success. So when someone's like you just said about the Yeah, I was just gonna say, like, if you're already dominating a field, it's kind of like leave some for the rest of us. Like, are you really gonna go dominate one field and then move over and be tremendously successful in another? And I think it probably does make people feel good to see someone try and fail at something because it humanizes them.

SPEAKER_01: 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:44

Uh absolutely. And some of that is also probably just like the you know, the more negative parts of humanity, right, coming out where you just resent success. But but I do think um Yeah, it I I think it the humanizing part is interesting for people and they they want to feel like they have a shot at doing something, and there's not like 10% of the population who's gonna do everything, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 43:12

We just talked about this too, right before the podcast, you and I are just having a little discussion about punk bands and sort of like what really classifies is punk, you know, because it can mean different things to different people, and it's sort of the punk aesthetic to me was very much something you shared was like when a when a band or an artist becomes really successful, I tend to be like, or if a movie's that big or any of that kind of thing, I'm gonna kind of cross my arms and go, oh, I'll see at some point. I'm not ready to, you know, to dive in. And I think that's the thing that's really fascinating to me. Like culturally, you know, you go, uh, Keanu Reeves, great, and you see him in a ton of movies, and you're like, dog star, and more like dog poop, you know, like you know, like uh harsh. You know, and I don't mean that because I actually think they're really great, but I'm saying that's more of the where I think people just don't give it a chance, and they're like, nah, Billy Bob, how about you just go back to doing great? I want to see 22 iterations of Sling Blade, and you go, Yeah, no, guys, I really want to do this. And you go watch some YouTube videos with him uh in the beginning, I think, going back to that early 2000s when he was really trying to say, I know you guys love me from all this other stuff, and I respect that. I do. I'm really trying to take this serious, and I want the guys in the band to also have a voice to talk. We're of equal here. Like, please ask them questions. And the interviewers were having a hard time because they're like, What made you want to go from blah blah blah to being a singer in a band? And it's like, Because I've always been a singer, you know, and he just becomes a little like he he falls back into sort of this very much like, are you gonna ask me a real question, or are we just gonna sit here and dance around me being an actor that is also a singer? You know, like right, and it he kind of you could tell those things were irritating to him. Like if you're Kevin Bacon, like also a massively successful actor who's also a really great singer and is a good band, and they go out and do those things, and maybe in that space, it's like we're having fun, we're just going out. He and his brother, Bacon brothers, like we're going out, we're having a good time, we're doing stuff, we can afford to do it because of the success that I've had. It opens up the ability for me to go and do this, and I don't have to worry about it making money. But at least my bandmates or people that are in the band are getting paid because people are coming out to see is this gonna be a train wreck or is this gonna be really great? Right. And I think sometimes, to be honest, the three of us going to see Billy Bob, we had no idea. None of us really knew his music, so we're gonna go say, Okay, how's this gonna go? I'm not rooting for him to fail in that moment. I was really hoping, like, I really hope he's good because I spent a lot of money on these tickets. Yeah. So I hope that he's good. But ultimately for me, I think there are probably people that are like, let's see, is this really gonna be, you know, good or not? And they kind of have this sort of attitude about it. And and that could go either way. They can go see Gee Lee and see Jennifer Lopez in that movie and go, oh, girl, please get back to singing. Like, I don't, you know, give me more Jenny on the block and less of you thinking you're an actress. But then again, like the fall, what was the movie? The the horror movie that it was like a really creepy. Oh god, it's gonna trip me up. But anyway, somebody out there who's watching this.

SPEAKER_00: 46:44

Jennifer Lopez was in?

SPEAKER_02: 46:45

Yeah, she was fantastic. It was really great. It was her and Vincent D'Anofrio. Um it was super good. And I'm just blanking on blanking on the name right now, but I'll think of it as soon as we're done with this. It was really great. Anywho, I'll look it up. Um, perfect. Anywho, like you you're thinking about stuff like this, and you go they they have an ability to do multi many things. Like you talked about Lady Gaga, like seeing her in American Horror Story, I thought, oh, she's great. Well, perfect. This is perfect. And it lends a little bit to her kind of character that she is on stage. You know, she does dark things, obviously the meat suit and all this kind of stuff back in her early days too, but she's definitely one that's like not afraid to try different stuff. And um I think on a level for me, I really appreciate it that they do. And of course, I don't think anyone's I think if you're all of the people that we mentioned, probably for them, they couldn't give a rat's ass about what critics say about them. But they want people to come and appreciate them for what they're doing in that moment. So if you're going to see any of these people, they're like, okay, great. What might have brought you here is because you're a fan of some of my work and another thing, but you're here now, so let's appreciate what I'm doing in this form. Right. Did you find it? There's too many in that list.

SPEAKER_00: 48:25

No, yeah. Um it's always hard to find, but yeah, uh especially since I don't already know the title of it. Yeah. Um, but uh yeah, I mean, I th part of it must just be I think what uh uh draws people to like check out whatever it is. Um like if you're checking out someone's music because you really love what they do as a musician, that gives you a different respect for what they do than if you're going to check them out because, oh, I really like them in this movie, and I want to I just want to see what else they do, or I want to get to see them in person because I only ever get to see them on TV. Right. Or, you know, you just assume that they're taking a break from their normal thing and doing it for fun, uh, which is different than someone who's doing it because like it's their life's purpose to do this. And uh and it's hard to know when someone like Billy Bob is going, no, no, no, this is these are two equal parts of who I am as an artist. Um might be more famous uh than another one, but they're both equal parts of who I am. I don't know that that's true for everyone who does both. I think for a lot of people, it probably is something fun to do. And so it's probably a fair assumption on many people's parts of just saying, like, well, I I don't need to take that seriously because I don't know that they're taking it that serious. It just seems like I want to go take a break from acting and I want to make music for a while, and it's fun to go hang out with people in real life and you know, right, yeah, like uh engage with a different art form because I'm pretty good at it. Uh, but you know, it doesn't mean as much to me as you know being in movies or you know, vice versa. Uh I think both are probably true.

SPEAKER_02: 50:23

It was interesting. I'll go back to the Juliet Lewis thing. I when I was living in Los Angeles, she's doing a show at the Viper Room, and I was like, I gotta go see this. This is gonna be great. And I like I said, I told you I was enamored of her, particularly for both those films that I mentioned, California Natural Born Killers. Of course, she's done you know a ton of great work. But at that point, that was sort of my thing. I'm like, I gotta go see her, and so we go and and see them play, and I'm like, anybody that's been in the Viper room, that's a very intimate setting, right? You're literally can walk right up to the stage and literally have a conversation with somebody. It's very much like an old kind of punk rocks type of club. Those there's no barrier, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00: 51:11

Yeah, you know, those clubs are way smaller than you would ever imagine based on how famous they are. Like if you haven't been to LA and gone to any of those places, I think most of them are closed now. They're so small. Very much so. Go on, Guns N' Roses played in here? Like, are you kidding me?

unknown: 51:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 51:32

Where? Yeah, yeah. Where do they fit their entire stage? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:37

No, and that's that's funny, but so seeing her in there, it's like she gets done with the show, she's all sweaty and everything. It's like I go up and say, hey, I just want to say I I I obviously have been blown away with your music. This was incredible to see. Clearly, I know your work as an actress, but I'm so happy and grateful that you're doing this. It's amazing. And you could tell us so earnest about doing this. Uh-oh, hold on. I'm getting uh we're getting somebody over here, an interruption here.

SPEAKER_00: 52:06

Surprise guest.

SPEAKER_02: 52:07

Yes. I can't I can't turn the camera over here. I'll show you. Let me see if I can get over here that you can kind of see tucked away there. Is that there's uh there's uh a new character that we're gonna talk about at some point in my lovely room here that's sticking her head in. It's uh emlow. It's an emlow. Yeah, it's an emo, an emo elmo. I love it. Apparently, she loves to sing Linda Perry songs. Um, that's gonna tease something from much uh down the road for us. But anywho, that's our next video coming out. Yeah, uh great job. Uh there was um where was it? Meeting her. She's kind, she's like, hey, come back and like I'm doing a show at New Year's at the whiskey. Come back and see us. We're opening for a really great band from the 80s called the Motels. It was super good. Anyway, I go back and see her, and in that show, there's uh in the whiskey, it's a second floor, so I'm kind of looking down. I wanted to sit up there. And I'm watching there are people that are in that audience that have signs up, they're like, We love Mallory Knox. And I'm like, what a head trip that is. Do you know what I mean? Like, obviously, that character for her in Natural More Kero is massive. Yeah, brings her a lot of attention and notoriety and all this stuff. But people writing and making a sign to bring to a show you think about that. If you're that person, like if you're Juliet up there on stage, you're like, do they see me as this person? Like, is that the persona that they think I am? Is that are they expecting to see Mallory Knox do this? Is it like you know, and she was also not to to catch there's another James Cameron movie that she did where she was a singer in a band, a really interesting film that was kind of mid 80s, I think, as well, where she did get to sing and she was great uh in this as well. So you you kind of go back and go, Oh, I see now how the things can kind of tie in together. But that to me really threw me for a loop. And I was like, that's really strange. And I asked her, she I got to talk to her more because she saw me and it's like, Oh, I remember you from the Viper Room. So thanks for coming out again. And I was like, Hey, did that I have to ask you, did that throw you off? I saw the girl, she's like, This is in many shows, they do that. They just they're attracted to that type of character that I was, and I think they're expecting that because of how rambunctious and wild that character was in the movie, they're expecting to see some type of iterations or affectations about that in my stage performance. But how I act in my stage performance is what informed Mallory's character, if that makes any sense. It's sort of in reverse, but people don't know her in that way as a person, so they're coming thinking, oh, she's gonna do some Mallory type of thing. She's gonna be spit on people and give people the finger, and it's gonna be this really punk rock kind of thing. And she does do things like that in the stage, but it's that's who she is. Like that just you can tell that that's that she knows what she's there to do, and she's there to have a great time and get the the energy going. Yeah, and so she's a great front person that put in that space. But people that's what really messed with me. I'm like, wow, I can see how this could be really off-putting somewhat for an actress or a person who wants people to take them seriously in both spaces. That could be really weird, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 56:04

Yeah, I I mean, I think there are many, many examples of people having a hard time wrapping their head around, like separating the art from the artist. You know, we've talked about that in other capacities before. But yeah, I don't know, it's hard because like one, you have to it's like it's like the guy who yells Freebird at the concert, right?

SPEAKER_02: 56:31

It's like for any band, it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:34

I mean it's like so and I know that most of the time they're joking, but it's like the core of that is just a complete lack of awareness for it's a bit like heckling. It's a bit like it's it's exactly like that, and yeah, but but it comes from a place of like being so in your own world that you have no comprehension at all for the uh communal experience and for what people are there for, and for how to be a good member of an audience because there are good and bad audiences. Um so I think there's a big part of it that that is that it's just like a uh an underdeveloped uh awareness of your situation, right? It's like basically still being a kid, you know, in a grown-up's body. But then I think also there's a piece of it where, and this is probably where it gets hard for someone in that situation, is that as a fan, maybe one particular moment of someone's career has made such an impact on you that you want to communicate that to them somehow. And so maybe it's not necessarily that they wanted her to be that character. Um, they might have, right? It could have been person type A that I described, right? The person that has no awareness. Um it could also be someone who's just really wants to take their moment to say, hey, this made a massive impact on me, and I just want to let you know that I really love this character. It doesn't necessarily mean that I want you to be that character right now, uh, or that I want you to sacrifice who you are to be my uh perception of you. Um but I do think sometimes people, you know, like I like I'll I'll give an example for me is like John Krasinski to me is someone who has had a great career. He's gone on, he's done lots of really great projects. Uh I I really don't watch any of them because um, and this is a me problem, it's not a him problem. Right. I can only see him as Jim Halpert from The Office. Right. And and it's a bummer because I really like him and I want him to be successful. That show was so impactful to me at such an important time period for me. You know, that's like that show comes out when I'm a freshman in high school, and so I kind of grow up with that show and those characters, and I've seen that show countless number of times, uh, and embarrassing a number of times, um, that it just has become a thing to where it's hard to see him as anything that's not that character. Um, but at least I'm self-aware enough to like be able to separate myself from that. And you know, if I go meet him, I'm not gonna expect him to be Jim. You know, he's a you know right.

unknown: 59:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 59:42

And so I know different people fall into that where it's like you uh and I guess maybe on some level that is a great job of whoever's making the film or the TV show or whatever. Um, that you've made something so convincing that people believe it's real, even though they're They know it's not real. They still believe that it's real because it feels so real that how could it not be? Even though, like I know it's just a movie, you get so sucked into it that it's hard to separate the fake from the reality. Yeah. You know, there's there's a lot of interesting layers to all of this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:22

This there brought me up. Well, I know we can go another tangent, but this is a really interesting one to think about. It's like so in all these cases, these are very successful actresses or actors that have done incredible work that have landed them in a space where they have a bit of celebrity dumb that goes along with it, for better or worse. Oh, another one I think they probably mark. Mark did another one too to bring up. That's a great one. That's a great one. And his brother, and his brother, both successful different ways. Mark is certainly bigger than I think Donnie in the in the acting space. Yeah, definitely. But Donnie had a huge I mean, new kids on the block, no joke. That was a big band.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:04

Well, here's a here's an interesting topic though. Like I don't mean to derail your tangent, but when you No, I'll get there. I'll get there. When you vote for for Mark, is he a better actor or is he a better musician?

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:18

Uh I think Mark would probably tell you that he's a better actor. Because he doesn't he doesn't I think he knows that and I I might screw this up. So for the Wahlbirds, I have a lot of love for all of you guys, all of the brothers. So please don't come and kick my ass if I do screw this up. But I believe Donnie Donnie helped Mark because of Donnie's success with New Kids on the Block. He helps Mark become Marky Mark and kind of get him connected with people that could get him out there. He's like, I can do this shit too, you know. Like, yeah, you're not the only guy that can pull this off. And I'm sure they have a bit of competitiveness there that runs in the blood, yeah. Seeing them, you know. Well, brothers. So I'm sure there's a the brothers always gonna be that way, and I imagine they are a bit in that space. But then Mark takes off. Of course, he becomes Calvin Klein model, and those all this stuff, blows up as an incredible actor. And then as Donnie's maybe trying to break in the business, Mark's like, Yeah, I can help you with that too. I can get you in there. And then he ends up doing like you know, saw movies and blue bloods and all this different stuff on TV and becomes a pretty decent actor in his own right. But I think people are probably gonna go, Mark, actor music. I've for even forgotten that he did, you know, good vibrations. Uh Donnie, I'm gonna remember him from New Kids on the Block. And even though I know he's an actor, I'm never gonna think of it in that space. I'm always thinking of him as a thing that connected in that moment when I remembered him doing step by step or some you know new kids song. So it's like um yeah, I think I think Mark would say I'm a better actor than a musician, and Donnie might say Justin. I'm actually really good. Just oh well. There's that that's uh that unlocks. Yeah, that's that unlocks a whole Pandora's box. You got Brittany Spears, you got Hillary Duff, you got Justin, you got Christina, all of them, uh uh Miley Cyrus, all of them kind of coming from that space, I think, from a maybe a Disney, dare I say sort of a Disney factory or Disney aesthetic, and then they blow up and become something else. But like you don't you don't think about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:31

But his success in both music and in film has far exceeded, I feel like the others that you mentioned. Like he's had a lot of really successful movies.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:45

He did okay. I don't know if it's like at the near the the level of superstar and that he gets his Justin Timberlake or InSync. Yeah. But you know, like if you said Alpha Dog, Alpha Dog. But I mean, but I mean 2020 experience you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:01

Well, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:03

Yeah, fair. You know what I mean? You look at that and you go, uh, but again, we're all coming in time in time. Again, I don't think but did it certainly help him cement himself and the zeitgeist of like pop culture, of course, but yeah, I would probably argue to say that like Dick in a Box is probably bigger than any of those any of those movies, and it plays off of both. So you know, he's got to give a little wink to Andy in that space because that was a juggernaut of a skit. And I don't I dare I say I don't know if there's any if there's been a bigger one in that space. And then it brings him into being able to do comedy, so you get to see him do sketch comedy, which obviously he's had some training in when he's young, but getting him to seeing, you know, um all the different welcome to omeletville or whatever, you know, those skits were um in the silly stuff, you know, animal or whatever he's dressed up as, or whatever the thing's gonna be. Those are all funny. And so you obviously he's got chops, he's an incredible talent, and yeah, he can act as well. So you kind of go, again, like I was talking about with with Will Smith or with Jamie. In some cases, I feel like the public kind of gives people a certain pass and go, yeah, we we'll accept Eminem because eight mile was fantastic. We'll accept that he's an actor, even though he's a really incredible hip-hop artist.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:36

Do you think people think of him that way though?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:40

I think they were just I think they were probably surprised, even though it's a movie about his life. It's like Prince. Like do you say Prince was great in Purple Rain? It's about him. It's like but my point is far from the truth.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:53

He acted, but do you think people call, like, think of him as an actor? I don't know that that's necessarily true.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:59

Not necessarily, but this is what's interesting, it's like, you know, people look at it and go, wow, he was just electric in that movie. He was so great. Well, you also have a really great supporting cast around him that also helps in that space. Because if you're being you, are you even acting? That's what I mean. It's sort of like you're it's telling his life. So it's like you're riding vehicles that will help support that. Right? A star is A Star is Born, right? That's the one, the remake that Gaga did. Of course, that lives in her world. Right. But she was still off the charts phenomenal in it as an actress.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:31

Well, that's also a character that's not her. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:34

No, but she, of course, she can sing her story. Right. It's not her story, right? Yeah. So I think sometimes the public sends to give a pass to certain people, but then others are like, uh-uh, go go back and stick in your lane. Christina, even though Christina was, again, coming from that same world, you go see her in that movie and it bombs, and it's like, yeah, she's terrible. Just please don't act again. Just go back to singing. And maybe it's unfair, but that's sort of how it comes. There's a judge and jury out there that I think a lot of people aren't aware of that just stands in judgment on those things and goes, No, you need to stick to music. Oh, you get a pass, Jamie. You can do all of it. So we we take you. Yeah, but others like not so much, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:18

I I I think that's true, but I think it's also only true to a point because I think um anyone who has kind of paid attention to culture and popular opinion for any length of time realizes that the popular opinion is fickle. And there is a time and place for things to be successful. And so um you might do something good that is just too early or too late and it fails. And then the opinion of you is that you shouldn't do this thing. Um, which ultimately is most people projecting their own insecurities that stick to what's safe that you've had success at, right? Right. Um but I think anyone who knows that realizes that if it's something that they really believe that they can do, they're gonna they're gonna take more shots at it. Now that might be a little bit tough in that world because, like, you know, is a uh a production company going to take on someone who has had a commercial failure because it poses an inherent risk to a project. But I think there are ways to do it. And uh I think in a way it's kind of like uh these things are all all kind of like test, right? It's like um like what would be a good analogy for this? Uh it's it's like a girl you have a crush on giving you a hard time to see like if you're gonna handle it like are you gonna are you playing cool or are you actually cool? Because if you're actually cool and I give you a hard time, you're gonna laugh about it. If you're not and I give you a hard time, you're gonna reveal yourself to be a you know someone who's insecure and therefore like maybe you know this doesn't go any further. You know, culture sort of saying, hey, maybe you should just sit down and quit is almost a way of saying are you gonna step up and try again and show us that we're wrong? Right. Or are you gonna prove us to be right? You know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:27

Yeah. Well, this taps on something that I was gonna share earlier. So actors, film actors, let's say, mostly in this space, again, a lot of them we're talking about are kind of cinema actors or film actors in that way. They're going, they're filming, they're with the crew, they're with their other actors. They don't have control. They can change certain tones and things in their performance, but it gets edited, it gets played to a test audience, it gets chopped up. Yeah. So a lot of them go and crave things like I want to go do change as director seven times. Yeah. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go be on a I'm gonna do a play, right? And so what they're craving is this sense of connection. It's like you can sense that they're like, I don't really get to feel the visceral thing that I want an audience to be able to react. I hope that this movie's good, but I have no control over it once my performance is in the can.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:26

So they'll go and they'll take on projects because they want to test that fear element of them. I think it's like, no, I'm gonna be able to go and do this this show every single night, and every single night I have no idea what's gonna happen, what the audience is gonna do. If I screw up a line, if I pause on a line a little bit to trake a different point or to evoke something different, there's a magic and a power in that that I think a lot of these guys and folks that we're talking about probably chase. I think we chase it in a different way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:53

I mean, whether it's music or theater, playing for a live audience is totally different than playing for a camera.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:02

So you can see maybe the allure of people wanting to do it because they're like, I need to connect, I need to feel there's real energy with that. Because people tell you, like, oh my god, I loved you in the matrix or natural born killers or you know, Ray or whatever. But they for them, they're like, Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. But it was they were part of a bigger puzzle. But if you are only out there and singing, it's just you. You screw that up, you're gonna get the real-time feedback. A stand-up comic, same thing. You bomb a joke, you're getting that place. And some of them, like if you're Louis C.K., you're gonna go, cool, yeah, I'm gonna live in this uncomfortable or Bill Burr, like I'm just gonna live in this space. And they've become masters in that of like, yeah, I'm gonna say a joke that's gonna bomb, and I'm just gonna sit with it for a minute, and I'm gonna let the audience sit with it. And so they become like almost like a spingali in a way, like where they're like, they have such control in that way that even if it goes bad or sideways, they're kind of okay with it in a way to go, all right, I'm good. Whereas for someone who's just starting out in that space, if they get heckled or too much, that's the end of that career for them. So they found a way to kind of break through and go, I'm okay if audience doesn't say a single word. I'm gonna continue to do this and keep pushing it. I know Will Farrell said this like when a sketch wasn't going good, he's like, I would be in my head going, I am just gonna make this longer and more painful to watch. And so I would slow down, and he's like the cue card guy for SNL was like, read the card. He's like, Oh, hold on, yeah, we're gonna marinate on this for a minute. And they're trying to hurry it up, and he's like, uh-uh, we're gonna sit. He's like, and it was like a almost a middle finger in a way, a very punk rock thing to do to kind of go, no, the audience is gonna live with this now. You're not gonna laugh. Okay, we're just gonna make this even more uncomfortable. And I love when people so I think that craving of that that power or the be the ability to be able to wield that is something that I imagine that all these people we talked about today have a bit of a an instinctual craving to want that. They want that connection, they want to be able to feel that something they did in real time had an emotive reaction from the group, good or bad. Even if they go, ah, it sucks, you suck, cool.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:23

Well, I'm gonna keep going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:24

Well, I don't think anyone is wanting the bad reaction. But I think yeah, I mean, no matter any of those things that you just mentioned, like I don't think there are any comics who really enjoy bombing or you know, but I think you it's a gamble. And the the potential payoff is worth the chance of failure. Um, and you know, I think about how many actors I've seen get interviewed about massive successes they've been in, and like, oh like, did you know that this was gonna be such a great thing? And they're like, most of the time they're like, no, I had no idea that this was gonna be important at all. In fact, I didn't even really understand the movie until after it was done.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:18

Uh, you know, like I don't know, I came in, I did my part, you know, it's not like I'm, you know, so I think it's so separated that I totally understand the desire to want to get out there, and yeah, there's a chance you're gonna fail, but that's what makes the reward so good if you succeed and you feel that connection and that energy and that real-time feedback, and you get to live in that moment. You don't necessarily get to live in a moment like that on on a set, but if you're in the theater or you're you know playing music and people catch a vibe, anyone who's done that knows that that that's a thing. And in fact, anyone who's even been in an audience at a great show knows that that's a thing. People on the edge of their seat or whatever it might be, really engaged in what's going on, it becomes so much more powerful of a moment than just doing something in a rehearsal or doing something on a closed set or you know, to you know, a couple of uh you know, camera people or whatever. Um so yeah, I I understand why people chase that thing for sure. Uh just as we've kind of uncovered, some people have the ability to really do it for real, and other people do it have to do it more as a hobby, uh, which is still fine, but I think to almost like close the loop on your original question, I think that's probably why so many people don't give people their due or give them a chance to prove themselves one way or the other, is because there is so many there are so many people who do it probably more as a hobby, or it's clearly not their strength of the two. And it's like, well, if I have the option of listening to all these other transcendent artists, or listening to this other person who's pretty good, but like a much better actor, well, maybe I I'd rather just watch them act, you know. Uh and I don't necessarily feel a need or a drive to go experience this other part of what they do, which is on some level too bad, you know, but it's also understandable, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:28

It it's interesting, even at my weird level, but it's like the job that I do, and of course I lead a lot of people, but when they find in a completely different environment than than what my joy is or my creative side is. So when people find out that I that I'm in a band or that I do videos for the band or art and all that kind of stuff, it's funny to see their reactions because they know me from the thing that they're you know as their boss or whatever, and the the work that I'm hired and paid to do. So when they find out about that stuff, they go like I had somebody share this with me, and it's like, I finally listened to your record uh yesterday, and it's really good. And I go knowing that person, I like I want to take that at face value and go, okay, they like music, of course, and they listen to it on their on its own merit and kind of remove my relationship with them or my di dynamic with them away and just take it on face value of the band and go, wow, this is really great. This is really good music. But me in my own head, I'm going, that feels like a backhanded compliment where you're just like, I know of you and your work, and I don't I know that I'm gonna judge your work a lot. So to hear the band, it's like, oh well, it was really good because I think your work is you know crap. So, you know, whatever. Like, you know, it's probably me more than anything, but it's like it could mean that, but I think I don't know, pe people are anyway, they're they're surprised when they hear it. It's like, oh, it's really good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:07

Yeah, you think you know somebody from a narrow perspective you have of them, and so when all of a sudden that dynamic changes, you're looking at a brand new person in a in a way, like yeah, it's hard for people to see that they're like, Oh, this guy's my boss, but he's got a really great rock band, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:25

Like I thought I really understood.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:34

Now I'm staring at a stranger almost, whereas before I knew what I was looking at. So now I have to wrap my head around that. And then my question would be well, can this person be good at something else? Uh yeah, I mean, uh it's all the same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:52

Uh like it is, in a way, it's like people are really interested in that space because they, you know, again, and I'm not going there like shouting it from the rooftops. All of my minions must listen to this album that I did because I need you all to love me and love that. It's not like that at all. It's it's like, hey, I did this thing and I'm really proud of it, and I do have a life outside of what you know me in in this space, and I'm willing to open up a little bit so that you you get to learn that about me. And you can also inform a bit of things where if you're really paying attention, it'll connect a dots about who I might be in that work and what I do, right? But it is weird because people kind of look at you differently and they go, It's a bit of a trip because they're like, I work with this guy every day, but I can listen to his music, go see his videos, go see him talking podcasts, all this stuff. So it's a bit of a strange sort of reality at our at even at our level, it's kind of uh different, you know. Um, and I know you experienced that in the same way that I did from your former job, uh, where people would do that, and they're like, Man, your band is really great. And you're like, Yeah, I know. So I I know. Well, you know, I know we've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:15

Because it's actually it's more my main thing than this is. Totally, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, and it's easy from a certain perspective to let those kind of things get under your skin. And I think the the the older that I get and the more that I get to study how people work and even how I work, I realize how normal that is. Um I don't know, and I think I I give I uh I want to say I give more grace toward it, but like I I don't take it nearly as personal as if someone thought I just couldn't do a thing. Like, well, what do you mean? Like, well, what does that what does that say, you know, about me that uh whatever you think about me, and do other people think that too? And oh my god, does that mean I shouldn't you know it's like it doesn't have to be any of that. It just means people live in their little, you know, they see the world through this little window, they see you through this little window, this one little perspective of what they think that you are. It's the same way that they look at the entire world. And, you know, it's like it's like uh, you know, when you're uh when you're young and you start getting into politics and you find a politician that you really believe in, and you're like, great, we're gonna change the world. And then that person gets in office and doesn't do any of the things that they said that they're gonna do, and you're like, I really was seeing things this one way, and it hadn't even entered into my awareness yet as a person that there was a chance, and this person just might not follow through, wasn't as genuine as me, or that there are other things at play that affect this. Um, and I don't know, like like with meeting a hero, you know, you see him doing this thing that you, you know, I I think of your story of Neil Sean. Yeah, uh, is like to this day I've not been able to get over it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:16

Like if I met him now and he's like, Man, I'm sorry if I was a jerk, I was on a bunch of drugs back then, I'm sorry, I would still be like, Yeah, I still think you're a prick. You know, I it would be hard for me to get over it because I was so impressionable at that moment that it's informed a lot of what I feel like he is, you know, and and it's just it kind of tortured a little bit. And it's like, yeah, even if he apologized today, and he had no reason to apologize. We're just a couple kids that interrupted him in backstage when he's maybe hitting on some girls or whatever he was doing, and he just was rude. But it's like I I've had a hard time with it. As much as I love him as a player, it's really just tainted it. It tainted journey, it tainted bag English, bad English, uh all of it. It's like, man, I was such a big fan, and you just crapped all over it. I just have a hard time with it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:10

Yeah. Well, I mean, and and that's the point, right? Is like you you had one image of who this person was, and then when you met them, you experienced something that was not a part of that image that you had created, and it shattered the whole thing to a point where it might not be able to be repaired. But if you went in and you kind of expected him to be like that, it probably wouldn't have shaken you at all. And in fact, you might have loved it, like, oh man, he was exactly what I thought he was gonna be, was so awesome. He was rock and roll and he was a total jerk. Man, like like how cool is that? I got told to F off by Neil Sean, yeah, the story you'd tell forever from a different perspective. And so uh there was one that was we see what we want to see, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:59

Yeah, there was a a funny one where I don't know, again, in my younger days, living in LA too. I was like trying to I don't know what I was doing, peacocking or something, buying all this thrift store clothes, trying to look hip, you know, fit in a little bit, but also kind of be my own person. And I remembered I was going out a lot, we would go to different shows and stuff, and I ended up at the whiskey. I don't even remember who I was there to see. And I remember this guy coming up to me and goes, This hip guy, he also had a cool jacket on. And he's like, dude, I love that jacket. Where did you get it? I said, just down the street at Goodwill. He's like, Oh my god. I said, I love your jacket, man. That jacket is fly. And I'm like, Well, this is so, you know, just a funny interaction. Josh, my roommate who was with me at the time, he's like, Do you know who that was? And I said, No, who was it? He's like, Bro, that's Andre 3000. And I was like, No freaking way, like, what? How cool. And and I wasn't an outcast, like Josh, massive hip hop fan, great dude. Um I didn't really listen to Outcast, but that moment of meeting Andre in a so of just completely unrelated thing, and just him being nice and complimenting me on a jacket like any human being would, you know, really made me go, huh. I'm gonna go check these guys out, and then became a fan of them honestly because of that. It really for me meeting Juliet Lewis, it reaffirmed those kind of things for me. And I've met a lot of celebrities and people along the way, artists, bands, film actors. And it does matter, like how they show up to you does inform a lot of what you think of them. I got to interview Mark Wahlberg, he was such a uh a consummate, great dude, super generous with his time. And you think, oh, he's he's amazing, he's a really nice guy. I met Harrison Ford, Harrison Ford is exactly what you would imagine him to be. Not that he wasn't trying to be friendly or whatever, but it's pretty straightforward. Let's get to business. I don't want to be bothered with all this direct and that sort of thing. And I wasn't even interviewing him for movies, it was about him doing a really cool thing for the Special Olympics, and he's a pilot. So I was talking to him about that kind of stuff, and even then it was so much like you know, just yeah, and so it's kind of it's kind of uh not shattered the image of him at all because I sort of kind of got to the point where I'm sure they hear all this stuff all the time. So I don't blame him. But in that moment, I think I wasn't as impressionable as what I'm trying to say with Harrison Ford that I was with Neil Sean when I'm 17, 18 years old or younger and beat him, and he's a he's a bit of a jerk, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:00

Well, and you probably had a more realistic image in your mind of who Harrison Ford was. You know, it's not quite as naive as when you're a little younger. But people always do things that surprise you, you know. You'll like you'll find out things about people and you go, oh, really? Like when when someone that you love does a terrible thing, you know, you're like, yes. Like uh, well, no, that that person was always a flawed individual, you know, you just didn't include that as part of your image of them. So it's not that they're different now, it's that you have a clearer picture of who they are, you know. Yeah, and the and the opposite is true. Someone you expect to be a jerk, you know, oh I hate that person, you know, and then you see them do something really great for somebody, and you're like, wait, I'm supposed to hate them, but that was kind of a good thing. Uh now I gotta wrestle with that. Either I change my opinion or I come up with a reason why actually that thing was a really uh a dark, sinister thing that they did, just disguised as a really nice thing, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:08

You you see like Rob Zombie or you see Marilyn, and you have an image of them of what they project to you in their musical world and the sort of ethos of that world that they've created, but you get a chance to see them in an interview, or actually, if you're lucky enough, get to talk to one of them in person and you realize these guys are Rob's an incredibly smart, witty, funny, down-to-earth guy. Yeah, he's not the hillbelly deluxe, wild, redneck, trailer trash type of persona that you see, or what he might give off in White Zombie or in his stuff, or even in his films. He's just an intellectual dude. But it's not the personality. Yeah. And you're probably expecting him to, you know, to go talk to and he's gonna bust open a coors like can and not have any teeth and you know be some of this weird hillbilly type dude.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:07

Smoke and crack.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:08

Yeah, something stupid. And he ends up like he starts talking to you, and you're like, this guy's an incredibly smart, very talented, uh witty individual. And you go to appreciate it, so you you end up appreciating that's a really good segue for another time, but thinking about him, that's another great example of like he's become a director and a musician. And love him or hate him, a lot of people like you go and look at the Rotten Tomato scores for all of his movies, even the one like Devil's Rejects, which people would say is his best film, is like a good movie. A forty percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Like, critics just can't stand him, and he doesn't care. And he's continued to do movies that have all been good on their own right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:54

You know, yeah. I mean, not all of them have been winners. No, but I mean, none of them have been totally terrible. But like uh not for what he does. Lords of Salem is such a good movie, I think. I think that movie's incredible.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:07

I think all of them are good, and having his wife and everything, and it's like what a fun thing to do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:11

And anyway, I don't get on the Robin, but it's like an aesthetic that is unique to him. Like it's like Tim Burton in a way, it's like they just see the world a really specific kind of way that is so different from how most of us see it. And so it's awesome to just get that perspective in in his movies and realize like um whether you like that thing or not, it's really unique.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:39

Yeah. Yeah. And being a fan of both his music and his films, like having him be a kind individual meant a lot. And it just continues to amplify, like, yeah, I'm gonna support all of it, no matter if it's bad, good, if critics hate it. I don't care because I have what I feel to be more of a personal connection in that space because he was kind for a you know, 10-minute interview with myself and some other knucklehead that was interviewing him at Comic-Con or something, and he just ends up being a really nice guy. So you you end up remembering that and it makes you a fan. So when his stuff comes out, you're like, Yeah, I want to buy his music, or yeah, I want to go see his films and support what he's doing because I find him to be a really nice person. And again, to tie it all back, Billy Bob at the end of the show is like, hey, all right, for this last song, I need all of you, we're gonna turn the house lights up. I need every single one of you to come down front here because I want to be able to look at your faces, shake your hand, and say, I really, truly, truly appreciate you guys coming out and supporting us in what we're doing. It means such a great deal to me. I got teary about it because I'm like, this guy's got everything in the world, but and there wasn't a ton. Look, you didn't sell out uh an amphitheater, it was probably a couple hundred people, right? And you could look at that on the surface and go, Oh, that's kind of sad. I wish you you know people would come. But for the people that were there, that was a very special moment. He comes down and shakes everybody's hand. He's like, Hey, thanks, bud. Thanks for coming out and seeing us today. We really appreciate it. I really mean it. Oh, it's good to see you again. Like, all this kind of stuff. He's so his charisma just for granted. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:25

And that just made him even more of a special moment. And getting my mom to see that too, it's like it humanizes a person that you see is such a big, unreachable, untangible thing. And I think what's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:39

Most of the time, his characters aren't that way, too. No, they're absolute pretty much. So you might assume that he's gonna be pretty coarse, you know. You're gonna go up and get the bad Santa.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:50

I'm on my freaking lunch break. Yeah, yeah. Like he's gonna be that, and he's not, you know, he ends up being just a really personal, really cool, down the earth kind of guy. And I think from all the moments, all I tried to say here to close the loop on all of it is like give him a chance. You know, this is they're just creative individuals, whether they choose to paint, direct, act and sing, play in a band, what you know them for versus what they're trying to do for themselves to create connection to their audience and to people. Like be a little open-minded to to check in it out. And again, sure, if you don't like it, it's not your thing, that's great. Don't go crap on them. Right? Yeah, give them a chance to be able to do their thing. And if it's not your cup of tea, that's okay. Just move on and go, well, I like Jared and his band, but I don't necessarily love him in whatever. Or I like Johnny in the Tim Burton movies, but I wasn't really blown away with his band, but good for him for doing it, whatever, and let it sort of move on and let them continue to do things because I think they all deserve a chance to continue to do what they want. I think we're all sometimes living in a space of maybe buried jealousy. It's like you got to monopolize all of the creative outfields, like leave some like you said, leave some room for the rest of us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:12

Or or you think so much of yourself that you just assume you're gonna be great at everything you do.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:19

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:20

I appreciate the perspective that you're coming at this with because I think really is like the idea is normalize taking risk and doing things that you enjoy doing and trying new things and not listening to what other people say and doing the stuff that matters to you. You know, I mean, I guarantee you not everybody loves our band, but it's not gonna stop me from doing what we do because I really love it, it's an important part of my life. And so I think and there are lots of things like that. Like uh, you know, you could look at almost any aspect of anyone's life and pick parts of it that you think are stupid. Right. But it doesn't matter because it's not your life. You should do the things that it's like there are a lot of people who would walk in my apartment and be like, This is how you decorate in here? Are you kidding me? It looks like I don't know, it like it basically looks like Halloween all the time. There's skulls everywhere, there's band artwork all over the walls, there's all kinds of crazy stuff that most people wouldn't put in their homes, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:30

Um, but for us, it makes us really happy to live here and it makes us feel comfortable and at home and like it's our aesthetic and vibe. That's what it is. If it was live, laugh, love and you know, like filmed with home goods, tchotchkis, and knickknacks. It wouldn't be you. It would it wouldn't be yeah, exactly. It wouldn't be a space that I felt like um I belong in. And not that there's anything wrong with that, because if that's what you like, that's what you should do. But just because someone else might be put off by how much black is in my apartment or whatever, I hey, do you? I'm gonna do what makes me happy, and uh, you know, and one day that might change, and that's okay too. Like we don't have to stay the same people forever. You know, Will Smith could have remained a rapper for all time, but he decided that he was gonna take on more of this acting stuff, and guess what? He's really freaking good at it. Um, in fact, probably better than he was as an artist, as a musical artist. So yeah, um, I mean, you know, again, all of it's debatable. Um, but yeah, I mean, I that that main point is just like normalize doing following your follow your heart, follow your intuition, follow your sensibilities, follow your interest, and don't get caught up on what other people think because again, like we said earlier, popular opinion is fickle and it's subject to change. And uh on a dime. So yeah, on a dime. The thing that was terrible is now the hottest thing, and the hottest thing becomes the thing that's terrible and played out, and uh you can't live your life based on the control over it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:25

Once it's out in the world, it becomes the world's to to use and manipulate and see and dissect and all that stuff. So it's it's not really ours anymore. We got to be the parents of a great record, in our opinion, but how it takes shape for those that listen to it is up to them. It's up to the whatever happens with it, happens. You jokingly said absolutely I don't want to sell a song to be in the XYZ ad or for some campaign or whatever, but it's like if it resonated with people and it made an impact and we believe in what the message is, why not? Right? And that's for us to figure out. And then again, it could go any any way it goes in that moment. We don't have any control over it, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:10

So I I think, yeah, give people a chance to do what they want to do, and um don't spend so much time worrying about other people's don't be so damn judgmental. Yeah, totally, totally, totally, totally. We cause we all have uh the ability to be that way, you know. Everyone can have a short-sighted, harsh reaction to something that they know little about, you know, and uh hopefully the journey of life, you know, for I I feel like life for me has basically been a big rock tumbler, and I started off as an incredibly jagged, rough, sharp piece of stone that had lots to say about a lot of things that I should have no opinion on. Uh same. And as time goes on, um, you know, I feel like I've gotten smoothed a little bit um to the point where, you know, and hopefully that's the case for most of us, that we go through these experiences and we realize that um everyone's trying their best, or at least most people, and uh and that perspective is something that you have to acquire. You can't if you haven't experienced enough life yet, you can't understand what that means to somebody else. Um and so, you know, it hopefully gives everyone more empathy with each other to be stupid at times, um, but but also not to pass judgment and and realize, like, hey, you know what, they're gonna figure it out in their own way, but it doesn't have to be reflective of who I am. You know, other people's opinion of who I am is not who I am. The only person who really knows who I am is is me, and that comes from within myself. It doesn't come from what you think of me or what my parents think of me or what my boss thinks of me or what random people on the internet think of me. I can choose to care more about some of those than others, and you probably should prioritize uh the people who are closest to you. But even then, it's like uh I was just listening to a really great interview. Um do you know who Dan Huff is, the producer? Uh yeah, Dan Huff started a YouTube channel a couple of months back, and I was just listening to one of his most recent interviews. I forget the guy's name, but both of his parents are successful music uh musicians and artists and uh that sort of thing. And he was kind of a late bloomer when it came to music, and he's now tremendously successful in the space. But when he decided he wanted to really get into music, his both of his parents told him he shouldn't do it. And his dad basically told him not to do it and uh gave him every opportunity to not go that direction. And uh, you know, he ended up not listening and did it anyway and found a lot of success. And his take on it was basically that they his parents were trying to protect him because it's a really tough industry, and you know, they didn't really exactly since he kind of came to it late, it almost seemed out of nowhere. And like, is this really the right decision for his life? You know, they're thinking of all these things that they should be thinking of as parents. But what he had to think of ultimately was well, what is the right thing for me? You know, and the only person who can really know that is yourself. You can't rely on other people's opinions, even if they want the best for you. You know, their their perspective of who you are or what's going to be best for you. You know, most parents will tell you go be a doctor, be a lawyer. Guess what? Not everyone's cut out to be a doctor or a lawyer. In fact, most people aren't. So, you know, you have to you have to find your own path, and that means being okay with not uh not just um complying to whatever the prevailing voices are in your world and developing that inner voice and following that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:16

I think my mom said that once to me. It's like words of wisdom, but in a very funny way. It's like, well look, son, the world will always need ditch diggers. And so there's there's nobility in in pretty much anything you choose to do in the profession, you just have to see it for what it is and be okay with it. And it really humbled me to think like you know what I'm grateful to have work, I'm grateful to be able to have those things. And again, it's like my job can be tough and incredibly challenging at times, but it's afforded me the ability to enjoy my life in a different way and have things that I really appreciate doing, and it it is allowed me to have the outlet. If I didn't have all the gear and all that kind of stuff, I'd still have a guitar, I'd have something, I'd be able to express myself in that way. So I do owe a lot to it and I don't take that for granted, but it's also allowed me to be like, okay, cool, I can really take root with something that's really means a lot to me. And um, and like we've always said this it means a lot when people say they love our stuff, regardless of whether I feel it's backhanded or not. I have to kind of look at it and take it on the face value and say they appreciated our music, it did something for them, and I'm grateful for it. So I don't want to judge them for giving me critique, you know, because I would also be happy to hear if someone goes, It didn't really do anything for me. You know, I'm not gonna go crawl in a corner. I'm like, oh, that's okay. I appreciate you at least taking the I guess I should quit then, you know. Yeah, I'm gonna just gonna hang it up then. Yeah, sorry. I uh yeah, guess it didn't work out. So anyway, yeah, I say all that, but I think what a fascinating little road we took this last hour and a half, just talking about a very interesting aspect of that world to me that I find to be very interesting. But creative people are creative people and they find different outlets to to spark something in them and spark connection. So good for you, or for all of you out there, no judgment. Um, even if Geely or or wasn't great, who cares? Jennifer Lopez, I think you're doing fine.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:29

Well, so well and and it also doesn't matter, right? We're we're speaking about it in the context of people who have tremendous commercial success in in one way or another, you know, famous examples. But I do think, um, and I don't know if it's social media and people kind of posting the best parts of the things they're best at in life or whatever. But I do get the sense from a lot of people that I talk to that people are reluctant to do things unless they feel like they can be really exceptional at them. You know, it's like, well, you know, I'd really like to golf, but I feel like I'd be a terrible golfer, so I just don't even want to check it out. Right. You know, I I can't I can't, you know, join the PGA tour, you know, in the next six months, so what's the point? Or you know, whatever it might be, you know, I re I really like to, you know, it doesn't matter. I I'd like to play basketball, but I'm pretty bad at basketball, so I should just I'm five foot nine.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:30

Yeah, I should just never play basketball because I can't compete with LeBron James or you know, I couldn't, you know, beat a D1 athlete or something. And it's like, well, first of all, yeah, you're not gonna be able to do it if you never practice and try. So you don't necessarily know what your uh what your ceiling is unless you start committing yourself to it. But two, does everything have to be done from the perspective of I need to be able to impress people with this? You know, it's like that perspective of life, I think, is one that people would be wise to check within themselves and go like, how many things do I do because I just want to do it? And because it's okay if I look silly or if I'm not very good. Like, I love going to top golf. I'm terrible at golf, dude. Like, I can hit the ball, but oh my god, it is like, but it's comedy. I go out there and I don't necessarily expect myself to be good, you know, and I'm not saying that I'm like the example of how to live your life that way, because I I actually don't think that's true. Um, but I think it's something that it's important to develop and just realize like it's okay to do things just because it's fun to do them. Yeah, you know, it's okay to sing even if you're not a great singer. You know, if you enjoyed the song and you want to sing, then just sing. Who cares? You know what I mean? Like, what does it matter? Uh I don't know. I I I see that a lot in people, and um and I get it, we have insecurities and things that we have to work through.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:15

But you only really get this one, you know, it's like the the yellow thing and all the cliches, you get one life, but it's true, and time isn't moving any slower every day. Um, and one day you will not wake up and this will all be over. Um, or you'll be close enough to the end of it that you'll be able to look back and go, man, did I actually make the best of my time? Did I do things only for other people or that I thought were going to paint me in a positive light? Or did I do things that I felt like I really enjoyed doing and I experienced the things that I wanted to experience in life, and I took some risk and and I was okay if people thought it was stupid. Um you know, it's like I learned from it either way, good or bad, I still was a lesson for me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:07

Right. That's it. I think that's the that's a great place to to kind of call it is like go out, enjoy whatever you choose to enjoy, make the best of it, ride it till the wheels fall off, all the sayings, you know. Um and if people are out there and they choose to want to do something in that space, you know, we're grateful to be able to get to enjoy a lot of these folks in their film, their creativity, their their thing. So because you've come to know somebody from a certain thing, allow them the freedom and to be who they are and want to explore and do different things. It's like don't judge them because, well, maybe they're one thing that you know them from is in your opinion better than the other thing that they do. Just say, okay, I appreciate that you're trying and taking risks just like any of us should.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48:57

And yeah, uh, and your opinion is also one opinion in one six point eight billion opinions on the planet, uh something like that, roughly. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Well, this is being awesome. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We didn't really get into a bunch of the things that we sort of planned to talk about, but we can push those until next time. Um, I mean, if you made it to the end of the show, uh, dear listener, thank you so much. We appreciate it and we don't take you for granted. We hope you enjoyed this wild conversation. And uh perhaps you have your own perspective on some of the things that we shared. Uh let us know. Yeah, find us on social media, go to our website, um, all that stuff is at the Sonic Alchemy. Uh, we'd love to hear from you, and we have much, much, much more planned and coming up soon. So until next time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:49:50

Until next time, guys, thanks so much. Go out and support local music, local artists, local creative, anything. Thank you all, as always, and we'll see you on the next one.