The Exchanges

Q You mentioned, like, a story, and when you have that story that you're building around it, what makes a good story versus a not so good story?

A Ok, so, a good story, I feel, is something that helps the listener Forget that the world exists and fall into your paradigm, your, whatever fantasy that you're building. In a story like Elton John's Your Song, you hear the lyrics that Bernie Taubin wrote, and you, you start to find yourself sitting on the rooftop kicking off the moss, right? You actually are there when it happens, or a big yellow taxi late one night She heard the screen door slam, and a big yellow taxi took away her old man. Like, you can see the taxi, you can see the man leaving, and, and all of these things, like, they actually become where you are if you close your eyes. That's, that's where you are. That's what a story will do. It draws you in, and it keeps you there, and it's almost like the artist was probably in flow state when they wrote it. If they can get you into flow state where you forget about everything else, dude, that's magic. I could, I consider Songwriting, a well-written song, magical, because it really does sprinkle that fairy dust of, of, uh, timelessness over everyone.

AI assessment note: “a good story, I feel, is something that helps the listener Forget that the world exists”

Q If, if you have an excess supply, why don't you just, but I'm super naive, like, why don't you just produce?

A You know, at this, at this point, so I was, I was raised and groomed in an era where less was more. And I was not ready for this transition to the digital era where more is more is more. And so I need to quickly, uh, readjust and, and, you know, use the algorithms Um, to their, to their benefit, and continuously release music. It's just, for me, it's like, it feels a bit gratuitous to saturate the market in that way. But it's kind of, at this point, it, it's the flywheel. You need to be putting music out regularly so that the algorithm is, is favoring you, so that new audiences can see, find your old music and, and learn about your new music. It just didn't work that way when it, as I was coming up.

AI assessment note: “it feels a bit gratuitous to saturate the market in that way”

Q get you, and you're absolutely right. I, I, I actually saw someone said the other day to me, the only way to, to grow up truly, Harry, I have very deep friends, the only way to grow up truly, Harry, is to have children, and you not be the central point in your life. That's the way that you grow up, and humans grow up. Do you agree with that?

A That sounds insightful. I, I agree just off of, you know, without analyzing it too much. It sounds, it sounds true. Um, and then the other way is do what the Dalai Lama did, right? Like he grew up because he meditated, he recognized, I mean, he had to, he was chosen, but there are other monks who do the same. Like they make a conscious decision and choice to steadfastly adhere to, um, ideals and concepts about How they relate to humanity and how humanity relates to them. You know, rather than just making your principles a matter of convenience, find some principles that, that really mean something to you. Stick to them. That's, I think, just as help, as helpful as having kids. Kids really make you stick to the principles, because your job now is to help them survive, and there's not a whole lot of wiggle room around that. But if you can figure it out without kids, that's, that's a really strong principled person.

AI assessment note: “I, I agree just off of, you know, without analyzing it too much.”

Q of Up and coming media publications, houses, uh, personalities, and I constantly feel like I'm on a treadmill. I constantly feel like, shit, what are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? They're better than me at this. I'm sure, how do you get over that treadmill of fear that you're going to be replaced in what is, for both of us, a very fast moving industry?

A Oh, I mean, like I said, look, for me, it's all about efficiency. So, once I figured out, I had enough money for my grandkids. I'm not, I'm not racing against other people at this point. Like, at this point, I'm just making sure that the family around me is happy, that, that we are content, and that I can then chase after the things that make me happy every day. And every day, it's not writing a song that makes me happy. Every day, there's, there may be something different, and I want to be able to, to do that, but it, it's, the measure does not come from What someone else is up to, because I've seen, and we've all seen, like, the richest of the rich get divorced and have terrible, you know, mental health challenges, and it's, it, that ultimately, the barometer for success has to include way more than, than, uh, finances, and my barometer of success, I think the very, very small part of it at this point, because I've already had what I feel is enough on the finance side, Is everything that relates to humanity and family and not, not measurements that are external in that way. Outside of that.

AI assessment note: “I'm not racing against other people at this point.”

Q Well, I clearly they've been smoking something. Uh, I want to finish my friend, 20, 28. Where is Aloe Black then? If we have a show then?

A Oh, 28? What I am really interested in doing is, first of all, my, my, my company is going to be either already With a project, product on the shelf, or very, very close, like phase three trials, um, and success with lots of, lots of investment. Um, that's one thing. In, in terms of music, I am, I've expanded, and I'm sharing the magic of the songwriting process, which you asked me about, on television in a way that people are Are, you know, fascinated to see stories being told and, and developed before their eyes. We get to, we get to pull the, the curtain back on how gold mining works, how fishing works, how kitchens and, and, and, uh, and chefs work, but nobody's really pulled it back on the actual songwriting production creation process, and that's what I really love to do.

AI assessment note: “my company is going to be either already With a project, product on the shelf”

Q It was always told when I was younger that it's actually like, great people are defined by how they respond to tough times. Can I ask you, Hey, when you think about that, what was the tough time, and how did you respond? Was it getting laid off and going, oh god, what am I gonna do? What, what strikes you as that memory when I say that quote?

A Yeah, I think definitely getting laid off was a tough time. There was a lot of pressure coming from my parents being, you know, immigrants from Panama, me being first generation American, going to college, wanting to please my parents and have that kind of experience of staying in a job for 2030 years and retiring. There was pressure from there. There was definitely pressure from myself, like, wanting to achieve and do something more, something greater than Where I had been as a, as a business consultant, knowing I could do more, and not having any kind of crystal ball to see what music would I have to offer. I honestly was just kind of taking a break, you know, taking a break from, from the daily grind, but it was a three-year break that ended up with an opportunity to share my voice with the world in a way that I had never had access to before. So, That, that was it.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I think definitely getting laid off was a tough time.”

Q Can I ask how often when you cut, when you go through this process, how often do you get to the end and then you go, you know what? It's not right. It's not a hit. How often do you throw out material?

A You can't, you can't, you can't determine what's going to be a hit and quite often It's not right, but it's okay, because you can always edit before you get to final record. So songwriting is, you know, that's the, that's the demo. You record, we call it, in Nashville, they call it the work tape. I just call it the demo, like the songwriting demo. And you're gonna go back into the studio, you're gonna fix things, and you're probably gonna change some words here and there. You know, you're probably going to modify a melody here and there. Like I wrote a song this morning, and the placeholder is flower, but it really could be orange blossom, because that sounds, that says more than the word flower, right? It could be blue, blue iris, right? It says more, and blue iris says so much more than orange blossom, because now a blue iris does a double entendre, because you're talking about blue eyes, or you're talking about a flower. So, it's like, you spent, you let the song incubate for a day, two, maybe a week, maybe a month, could be a year, And by the time you come back to it, it almost rewrites itself.

AI assessment note: “quite often It's not right, but it's okay, because you can always edit”

Q of Up and coming media publications, houses, uh, personalities, and I constantly feel like I'm on a treadmill. I constantly feel like, shit, what are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? They're better than me at this. I'm sure, how do you get over that treadmill of fear that you're going to be replaced in what is, for both of us, a very fast moving industry?

A Oh, I mean, like I said, look, for me, it's all about efficiency. So, once I figured out, I had enough money for my grandkids. I'm not, I'm not racing against other people at this point. Like, at this point, I'm just making sure that the family around me is happy, that, that we are content, and that I can then chase after the things that make me happy every day. And every day, it's not writing a song that makes me happy. Every day, there's, there may be something different, and I want to be able to, to do that, but it, it's, the measure does not come from What someone else is up to, because I've seen, and we've all seen, like, the richest of the rich get divorced and have terrible, you know, mental health challenges, and it's, it, that ultimately, the barometer for success has to include way more than, than, uh, finances, and my barometer of success, I think the very, very small part of it at this point, because I've already had what I feel is enough on the finance side, Is everything that relates to humanity and family and not, not measurements that are external in that way. Outside of that.

AI assessment note: “the barometer for success has to include way more than, than, uh, finances”

Q How do you retain, how do you retain romance with a little one? Like, how do you stop it being functional and still like hello?

A Yeah, well, that's also very hard. That's the thing about the average and a little bit above average husband, uh, answer, where my wife will probably be like, you're kind of average. Um, the, you have to be intentional, and I'm not, um, constantly Doing the romantic things that I think I should for my wife, but we talk every day, all the time, we're always communicating. I make, I make time for her, and she was like, no, I don't want you to schedule me into the calendar, and when it, you know, because she didn't want it to be clinical that way. I was like, but it sort of has to be so that You know, when the, at evening time, it's the kids, like we both are present for the kids, and then after the kids go to sleep, then we're present for each other, but how do you do that during the day? Right?

AI assessment note: “after the kids go to sleep, then we're present for each other”

Q Sorry for this. This song is a great example. So you were thinking about it overnight in bed, and then you got up and wrote it this morning. How does that come to be? You know, it's not, for me, that's not normal to hear.

A Um, yeah, I'm always, so I'm always writing, but a song that I really love by Fleetwood Mac came on, and it's, it's just, it's a song called Songbird. It inspired me to write something similar. And so, I just sat for a few minutes and kind of let the emotion and the magic fairy dust that was sprinkled on me by Songbird inspire me to write something in that world. Something very touching, sentimental, and, um, and compassionate. And instead of Songbird, my thought was flower. But, Songbird sounds so cool. It didn't just say bird, right? They gave the bird More dynamic by calling it a songbird. So flower to me is not dynamic enough. This is, this is a very kind of, uh, strategic method of, of songwriting, but it's also, I'm inspired and I can use my left and right brain at the same time. And so I, you know, I want to make the word flower more Interesting. So I can find a different kind of flower to describe than just using the word flower.

AI assessment note: “a song called Songbird. It inspired me to write something similar.”

Q Was, was that easy to do? Cause that is their business, you know, as, as horrible as it seems, you know, you are a product.

A It wasn't, it's not easy. It is not easy to run everything yourself, especially when in a, in a system where There are incentives to being part of the machine. There are definitely incentives to being part of the machine. But, uh, you know, I've, I've figured out where I fit, and, and I figure I could always jump back in the machine whenever I want. And I think, you know, another thing that I'm running from is rules. I've always, I've always looked at rules like good suggestions. It's just, it's a good suggestion. Is that a stop sign? Eh, it's a good suggestion, you know. And, and so when it comes to rules, I always think, Maybe there's, maybe there's something, maybe there's a better way to do, to do all of this, and so that's another thing I think I'm running from.

AI assessment note: “It wasn't, it's not easy. It is not easy to run everything yourself”

Q How do you retain, how do you retain romance with a little one? Like, how do you stop it being functional and still like hello?

A Yeah, well, that's also very hard. That's the thing about the average and a little bit above average husband, uh, answer, where my wife will probably be like, you're kind of average. Um, the, you have to be intentional, and I'm not, um, constantly Doing the romantic things that I think I should for my wife, but we talk every day, all the time, we're always communicating. I make, I make time for her, and she was like, no, I don't want you to schedule me into the calendar, and when it, you know, because she didn't want it to be clinical that way. I was like, but it sort of has to be so that You know, when the, at evening time, it's the kids, like we both are present for the kids, and then after the kids go to sleep, then we're present for each other, but how do you do that during the day? Right?

AI assessment note: “after the kids go to sleep, then we're present for each other”

Q Was, was that easy to do? Cause that is their business, you know, as, as horrible as it seems, you know, you are a product.

A It wasn't, it's not easy. It is not easy to run everything yourself, especially when in a, in a system where There are incentives to being part of the machine. There are definitely incentives to being part of the machine. But, uh, you know, I've, I've figured out where I fit, and, and I figure I could always jump back in the machine whenever I want. And I think, you know, another thing that I'm running from is rules. I've always, I've always looked at rules like good suggestions. It's just, it's a good suggestion. Is that a stop sign? Eh, it's a good suggestion, you know. And, and so when it comes to rules, I always think, Maybe there's, maybe there's something, maybe there's a better way to do, to do all of this, and so that's another thing I think I'm running from.

AI assessment note: “It wasn't, it's not easy. It is not easy to run everything yourself”

Q Can I ask how often when you cut, when you go through this process, how often do you get to the end and then you go, you know what? It's not right. It's not a hit. How often do you throw out material?

A You can't, you can't, you can't determine what's going to be a hit and quite often It's not right, but it's okay, because you can always edit before you get to final record. So songwriting is, you know, that's the, that's the demo. You record, we call it, in Nashville, they call it the work tape. I just call it the demo, like the songwriting demo. And you're gonna go back into the studio, you're gonna fix things, and you're probably gonna change some words here and there. You know, you're probably going to modify a melody here and there. Like I wrote a song this morning, and the placeholder is flower, but it really could be orange blossom, because that sounds, that says more than the word flower, right? It could be blue, blue iris, right? It says more, and blue iris says so much more than orange blossom, because now a blue iris does a double entendre, because you're talking about blue eyes, or you're talking about a flower. So, it's like, you spent, you let the song incubate for a day, two, maybe a week, maybe a month, could be a year, And by the time you come back to it, it almost rewrites itself.

AI assessment note: “quite often It's not right, but it's okay, because you can always edit”