The Exchanges

Q Now, I would love to start. You grew up in Southern California, raised by your, obviously, parents. Um, and I want to start with, actually, how did you first fall in love with music? Was there a moment where you remember, this is what I have to do?

A Well, I, I'd never thought about music as a career, but I really did fall in love with music just at home, because my dad would always have amazing music playing, whether it was salsa from Central and South, South America, or it was, you know, soul music from the US. Um, there was always something, he had a huge stereo system that was just State of the art for the time. And there was also a moment where kids out on the street were break dancing and they were break dancing to this, this new sound that my parents didn't play in the house. So I'd go outside and I'd, I'd dance with them. And that's when I fell in love with hip hop music.

AI assessment note: “I really did fall in love with music just at home”

Q many millions around the world, but I just don't think that people understand how it comes together. So I want to just break it up into, like, you know, the company creation side, but also the music creation side. On the music creation side, what's the process for writing new music? Is there a pattern? Do you go into a room with a notepad? Like, how does it work? Genuinely.

A Some people have patterns. Some people have, like, systems that they have to, uh, engage every time they write a song. I'm, I'm available to The muses of the world at any moment, and I'm always constant, I'm constantly writing down ideas or recording, uh, quick ideas into my voice memos. Um, sometimes I'm scheduling, and I'll, I'll schedule a four-hour session, no longer than four hours, for meeting with someone else to come up with an idea. We talk for the first half hour, maybe 45 minutes. From that discussion, a great idea, maybe a, a, a phrase may come about, That phrase will be the nucleus of a brand new song. We'll take that phrase, turn it into a chorus, take that chorus, build a story around it, and write two or three verses, maybe a pre-chorus, post-chorus, a bridge. We've got the form and structure of a song, and that sounds really clinical, but when you, when you get it down and you understand the format, you can spend so much more time on the beauty of the poetry. And you, when you're working with a professional, it happens in four hours. When you're not, you've got to come back the second day or the third day to finish things up.

AI assessment note: “I'll schedule a four-hour session... That phrase will be the nucleus of a brand new song.”

Q to processes. You mentioned your parents there. I always think that parents actually impact a lot about the way that we parent. Um, such wisdom for someone with no girlfriend and no children. Thank you, I know what you're thinking. Um, how did your parents impact the way that you parent today? I know you've got a little one now. How did they impact how you think about good parenting?

A Well, presence is very important. So one of the things is that my dad was in the military. He was spent 30 years in the Marine Corps. He was gone most of the time. So the impact there is that when I had the opportunity to become a father, I was also at the beginning of, you know, a career traveling the world, and I recognized soon that I wanted to find the places within this industry that will keep me paid, having an income to be able to feed and support my family, but also will keep me home. And so rather than having to, to tour all the time, I have carved a niche out of the industry so I can stay home more often than not. So that's, that's one way it's impacted. Another way is just like being strict about certain things. My parents were, were strict about certain things. What I'm strict about is sort of the screen time and sugar intake. They were not, they were totally not strict about sugar intake or screen time. I got Every ounce of television you could imagine with no filter or censorship.

AI assessment note: “So that's, that's one way it's impacted. Another way is just like being strict”

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 I love it. When was the moment when you realized that this was what you had to do for your life, for your life's work?

A When I got laid off from Ernst & Young. Years, years later from the breakdancing story. So, I had been making music all through high school. Um, at age nine, I started writing lyrics. At 15, I started recording. By 17, I was releasing music to friends and, and people all, you know, all over the Southern California area. Um, but the internet was burgeoning, and eventually my songs, while I was in college, my songs made it all across the world. So when I graduated from college, I went to go work as a full-time, you know, consultant in the industry. Uh, in the health sector industry, and my music was just making it all around the world. So, when it came time for, you know, the company was restructuring, there was a reduction of force, I got laid off, and I thought, I'll just, I'll do music until it's time to get another job. I really like music.

AI assessment note: “When I got laid off from Ernst & Young.”

Q Would you have pursued the musical career if you hadn't have been laid off?

A Nah, no way. If I, if I was still at Ernst & Young, if I was still business consulting, I'd, I'd continue through that pathway. I'd probably have left Ernst & Young to go to work for one of the companies that maybe we were consulting for, um, probably would have made my way up the executive ladder and Probably would have been some sort of entrepreneur on the side, or maybe would have started a competitive company to the one I was working for, because I would have recognized, I love processes, and I would have recognized processes that maybe the company was reticent to change, or just had, you know, slow bureaucratic ability to, to pivot, and I would have thought, there's a better mousetrap, I'm gonna go build it, and see you at the finish line.

AI assessment note: “Nah, no way. If I, if I was still at Ernst & Young”

Q many millions around the world, but I just don't think that people understand how it comes together. So I want to just break it up into, like, you know, the company creation side, but also the music creation side. On the music creation side, what's the process for writing new music? Is there a pattern? Do you go into a room with a notepad? Like, how does it work? Genuinely.

A Some people have patterns. Some people have, like, systems that they have to, uh, engage every time they write a song. I'm, I'm available to The muses of the world at any moment, and I'm always constant, I'm constantly writing down ideas or recording, uh, quick ideas into my voice memos. Um, sometimes I'm scheduling, and I'll, I'll schedule a four-hour session, no longer than four hours, for meeting with someone else to come up with an idea. We talk for the first half hour, maybe 45 minutes. From that discussion, a great idea, maybe a, a, a phrase may come about, That phrase will be the nucleus of a brand new song. We'll take that phrase, turn it into a chorus, take that chorus, build a story around it, and write two or three verses, maybe a pre-chorus, post-chorus, a bridge. We've got the form and structure of a song, and that sounds really clinical, but when you, when you get it down and you understand the format, you can spend so much more time on the beauty of the poetry. And you, when you're working with a professional, it happens in four hours. When you're not, you've got to come back the second day or the third day to finish things up.

AI assessment note: “schedule a four-hour session... That phrase will be the nucleus of a brand new song.”

Q What do you want them to feel when they listen to you? I know that's a bit of a, like, do you want them to be inspired? Do you want them to be transported? Do you want them to be by what, what is that? How do you want them to feel?

A It depends on the type of song. What I've found that I do mostly is what I call aim. It stands for affirmation, inspiration, and motivation. These are songs that will hopefully be the soundtrack to you living your best life or motivating you to achieve the impossible goal. Right? So songs like, uh, The Man or My Way. Um, those, those kinds of themes, I want to be recognized as, you know, themes that were my artist profile. You know, Al O'Black sings inspiring music. I'm inspired when I listen to Al O'Black. And then there are other songs that are touching stories, you know, that I just feel like there's another part of me that wants to be known as a great storyteller. Um, so on my latest album, there's a song called Harvard, where I, I basically compare my life to the life of a hardworking blue collar mother who, you know, we have completely different experiences in terms of what we do for a living, but We both have kids at home that we want to feed, and we want to educate, and we have that in common. So it's just, you know, I want people to feel like, okay, yeah, Aloe's also a great storyteller that makes me feel more connected to humanity.

AI assessment note: “makes me feel more connected to humanity”

Q How was that session? You go and you're like, I'm gonna bring my A game. I got my notes, I'm ready to go. How was the session?

A It was a, like I said, a four hour session. I got in at about eight, and, eight PM, and um, I sat down in the home studio, Mike's home studio. He and Tim had already been working on chord progressions, and he just starts playing the guitar, and he says, what do you think of this? And I was like, that sounds great. I have, I have a couple of, um, lyrical ideas, I just wanna, you know, tell them to you real quick. And I just mentioned, wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older. All this time, I was finding myself, didn't know I was lost. And they were like, that sounds great, can you sing it? Can you sing it over this? And he starts playing guitar, and I, and I just made up a melody, and it's pretty much the melody that we hear in the final recording. And they're like, this is perfect, we're gonna record this right now. So they laid down the, ah, the guitar track, and I went into the booth. Um, as he was laying down the guitar track, I'm like quickly writing as many other lyrics as I can. So the couplets that, so it's not a story, so to speak. They're, they're like dis, I don't want to say disparate. I think they're related, but they're, they're couplets. They all are, are just thoughts that I put down to create these verses. And by the time he was done recording the guitar, I went into the booth and I had to make up a melody now for the verse. And so I just mad…

AI assessment note: “It was a, like I said, a four hour session. I got in at about eight”

Q So you, you were saying, I remember this time I interrupted you. Were you leading somewhere there?

A Yeah, I was in Paris. With my band, we were at a restaurant, and I was about to, I had a burger at my lips, and some woman came up behind me and said, oh, Allaway, can I take a picture? Can I take a photo? And my band is looking at me like, this is crazy. Cause it was, it was right at the beginning, like of everything when fame really started to hit. And, um, I just thought this is just not the way I want to live. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to miss out on my burgers. You know, I don't want to be interrupted everywhere I go all the time. I need to figure out how to make my songs perceive me. I need to figure out how to make sure that people know my voice, not my face. And that's what I've been kind of doing. So.

AI assessment note: “I need to figure out how to make sure that people know my voice”

Q When it came out and it was a massive head, how does that feel?

A Well, sheesh. It feels amazing. It feels really good that it was a massive hit, but it wasn't at first. Like, I performed at the Ultra Music Fest, I believe, with Tim and with Mike Einziger, and we were on stage presenting this song, and Tim made a huge decision in his career to not do what everyone else did with lasers and cannon, uh, you know, confetti cannons and smoke and half-naked girls dancing on the stage. He brought real musicians and real vocalists on stage with him, which was, nobody else was doing that at these festivals. And he took a risk, and as I was singing, I could hear ambient audio through my microphone from the audience, like, I could hear boogs. And I just thought, okay, I'm gonna hurry up and get through this song and get off the stage. Um, and then I went online and looked at some of the What people were saying because they were watching it live around the world and people were like, oh, this is suicide, career suicide. And what is he doing? This is terrible. And then, but then there were people like, whoa, this is really big. You took a risk. This is different. And so just to, just, just to let you know, like it wasn't a success at first. So I, I certainly was.

AI assessment note: “It feels amazing. It feels really good that it was a massive hit”

Q Would you have pursued the musical career if you hadn't have been laid off?

A Nah, no way. If I, if I was still at Ernst & Young, if I was still business consulting, I'd, I'd continue through that pathway. I'd probably have left Ernst & Young to go to work for one of the companies that maybe we were consulting for, um, probably would have made my way up the executive ladder and Probably would have been some sort of entrepreneur on the side, or maybe would have started a competitive company to the one I was working for, because I would have recognized, I love processes, and I would have recognized processes that maybe the company was reticent to change, or just had, you know, slow bureaucratic ability to, to pivot, and I would have thought, there's a better mousetrap, I'm gonna go build it, and see you at the finish line.

AI assessment note: “Nah, no way. If I, if I was still at Ernst & Young”

Q to processes. You mentioned your parents there. I always think that parents actually impact a lot about the way that we parent. Um, such wisdom for someone with no girlfriend and no children. Thank you, I know what you're thinking. Um, how did your parents impact the way that you parent today? I know you've got a little one now. How did they impact how you think about good parenting?

A Well, presence is very important. So one of the things is that my dad was in the military. He was spent 30 years in the Marine Corps. He was gone most of the time. So the impact there is that when I had the opportunity to become a father, I was also at the beginning of, you know, a career traveling the world, and I recognized soon that I wanted to find the places within this industry that will keep me paid, having an income to be able to feed and support my family, but also will keep me home. And so rather than having to, to tour all the time, I have carved a niche out of the industry so I can stay home more often than not. So that's, that's one way it's impacted. Another way is just like being strict about certain things. My parents were, were strict about certain things. What I'm strict about is sort of the screen time and sugar intake. They were not, they were totally not strict about sugar intake or screen time. I got Every ounce of television you could imagine with no filter or censorship.

AI assessment note: “my dad was in the military... gone most of the time. So the impact there”

Q What do you want them to feel when they listen to you? I know that's a bit of a, like, do you want them to be inspired? Do you want them to be transported? Do you want them to be by what, what is that? How do you want them to feel?

A It depends on the type of song. What I've found that I do mostly is what I call aim. It stands for affirmation, inspiration, and motivation. These are songs that will hopefully be the soundtrack to you living your best life or motivating you to achieve the impossible goal. Right? So songs like, uh, The Man or My Way. Um, those, those kinds of themes, I want to be recognized as, you know, themes that were my artist profile. You know, Al O'Black sings inspiring music. I'm inspired when I listen to Al O'Black. And then there are other songs that are touching stories, you know, that I just feel like there's another part of me that wants to be known as a great storyteller. Um, so on my latest album, there's a song called Harvard, where I, I basically compare my life to the life of a hardworking blue collar mother who, you know, we have completely different experiences in terms of what we do for a living, but We both have kids at home that we want to feed, and we want to educate, and we have that in common. So it's just, you know, I want people to feel like, okay, yeah, Aloe's also a great storyteller that makes me feel more connected to humanity.

AI assessment note: “It stands for affirmation, inspiration, and motivation.”

Q I, I totally get you on kind of that storytelling element. I, I have to ask about the story with, with Avicii, obviously, which is a great track with Avicii. How did that come about, and what was the most memorable moment of doing that with him?

A Wow. Oh, man. You know, rest in peace to, to Tim. He was a great artist who was very passionate about music. It was the only thing seemed that he really loved and cared about, and as he was developing as a, as a man, finding spirituality, um, through, through other sources and, and not just music. But that particular song was the culmination of a couple of sessions that I had done with Tim In the studio, he reached out to me because he heard I Need a Dollar. He wanted to work with a soul artist, and he was a, you know, fan of some of the songs of Marvin Gaye, and he was like, I want to do something sort of like, you know, Marvin Gaye. We didn't end up doing any soul together, we did mainly songs that felt like, kind of country-esque. Um, but that particular session, he had booked, he double booked, or something. He had booked a session with Mike Einziger from Incubus, And I was also supposed to meet with Tim to work with him on the songs that we didn't finish. But he was double booked, and Mike Einziger was welcoming, he said, just come over, let's all work together on something. And that's when I, you know, I thought, I'm gonna bring the best lyrics that I have, because now, not only am I working with, you know, Avicii, cause he's, he's already got, he's got hits, but Incubus got hits too, so, there's no reason for me to come in with anything less, I'm not gonna, um, You know,…

AI assessment note: “he reached out to me because he heard I Need a Dollar”

Q How was that session? You go and you're like, I'm gonna bring my A game. I got my notes, I'm ready to go. How was the session?

A It was a, like I said, a four hour session. I got in at about eight, and, eight PM, and um, I sat down in the home studio, Mike's home studio. He and Tim had already been working on chord progressions, and he just starts playing the guitar, and he says, what do you think of this? And I was like, that sounds great. I have, I have a couple of, um, lyrical ideas, I just wanna, you know, tell them to you real quick. And I just mentioned, wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older. All this time, I was finding myself, didn't know I was lost. And they were like, that sounds great, can you sing it? Can you sing it over this? And he starts playing guitar, and I, and I just made up a melody, and it's pretty much the melody that we hear in the final recording. And they're like, this is perfect, we're gonna record this right now. So they laid down the, ah, the guitar track, and I went into the booth. Um, as he was laying down the guitar track, I'm like quickly writing as many other lyrics as I can. So the couplets that, so it's not a story, so to speak. They're, they're like dis, I don't want to say disparate. I think they're related, but they're, they're couplets. They all are, are just thoughts that I put down to create these verses. And by the time he was done recording the guitar, I went into the booth and I had to make up a melody now for the verse. And so I just mad…

AI assessment note: “It was a, like I said, a four hour session. I got in at about eight”

Q I've got to move to a final stage, which is company creation and entrepreneurship. You obviously started a new company recently. What was the genesis and the idea behind that? You know, you're sitting there, incredibly successful career musically. Why don't you like, I want to create a company and why now is the right time?

A Okay, well, I feel like my life is set up in a way where I want to add as much positive value to the world as possible. Through philanthropy, through art, and now hopefully through, through commerce. And I got, I got sick with Omicron at the top of January, the top of, um, twenty-twenty-two in January. And I just started thinking about all the research papers I'd been reading and all of the science that I was kind of learning about the disease. And I did a quick Google search, how to block ACE-II. ACE-II is the receptor in our bodies that, um, the spike protein of SARS-CoV-II exploits in order to enter the cell. And so I thought, I mean, can it be that hard to just block that interaction? And I did a Google search. I found a paper, a peer reviewed paper by some scientists in Houston, and I reached out to them and I thought, This gotta be a product. What are you guys doing with this? And, um, and they said, you know, university's risk averse, and we are professors. We teach all day. We don't have time to do this as a thing, as a business. I said, what if I licensed the IP from the university? Would you guys help me, uh, push, push it along? They said, yeah, we'll give you all the info, the info that you need, the study plans to take this to a clinical research organization and advance the research. So for me, it was really a philanthropic endeavor. I was like, does the world nee…

AI assessment note: “I got sick with Omicron... I did a quick Google search, how to block ACE-II.”

Q So you, you were saying, I remember this time I interrupted you. Were you leading somewhere there?

A Yeah, I was in Paris. With my band, we were at a restaurant, and I was about to, I had a burger at my lips, and some woman came up behind me and said, oh, Allaway, can I take a picture? Can I take a photo? And my band is looking at me like, this is crazy. Cause it was, it was right at the beginning, like of everything when fame really started to hit. And, um, I just thought this is just not the way I want to live. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to miss out on my burgers. You know, I don't want to be interrupted everywhere I go all the time. I need to figure out how to make my songs perceive me. I need to figure out how to make sure that people know my voice, not my face. And that's what I've been kind of doing. So.

AI assessment note: “I need to figure out how to make sure that people know my voice, not my face.”

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 agree just off of, you know, without analyzing it too much.”

Q an example. Mine is, I want to be a 75 year old grandfather with my grandchildren running around me. And I want them to point to companies that are amazing and me to say, hey, we invested in, you know, Steve and Steve from Apple when it was just them in their garage, and we played a tiny role in that, and them go, wow, what are you running towards?

A Ok, so, similar to yours, I would say I'm running towards longevity, that's, that's certain. Um, running towards, uh, really loving and, um, And comforting family and friends structure. Like the things that sustain people, I keep hearing our, our elderly, um, uh, Friends and family saying that having good friends and people around you is what sustains you. So that's really important. And, and so that's what I'm running toward. In the meantime, throughout all the acts of my life, I want to be able to create as much joy as possible. And I try to do that with music. But I'm recognizing that I can do that in so many other ways as well. So my wife and I, we are, you know, heavily involved in local, um, philanthropic endeavors and nonprofit organizations. But at the end of the day, I want people to be able to say that, you know, aloe black was part of, um, the fabric of my joy. Whether it was from the, the money that he offered the organization that supported me, or was it the music that he, and the lyrics that I, I, I absorbed from his songs, uh, or the products that his company created.

AI assessment note: “I would say I'm running towards longevity, that's, that's certain.”

Q So what do you do with it then? So then you write this song, we have orange blossom, we have flower. What happens then? Then you ruminate on it for a couple of weeks, couple of months.

A So it's written. I think the next thing I'll do is I will record very rudimentally, uh, into my, my system, uh, me on piano singing the lyrics to this song and it will be decent and I will love it. And then I'll play it in the car when I drop my kids off at school, and if they love it, they'll ask for it the next day, or they'll ask for it when I pick them up. They'll say, can you play the new song again? And then I'll know I have something really special. Then I'll send it to my keyboard player who spent 20 years perfecting his skill. I've spent 20 years perfecting lyrics, so that I don't claim to be a great pianist, but, um, you know, or my guitarist, and he'll do the same. They'll, they'll embellish and, and create the entire instrumental world around my vocal. And then we've got a song.

AI assessment note: “I think the next thing I'll do is I will record very rudimentally”

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 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 When it came out and it was a massive head, how does that feel?

A Well, sheesh. It feels amazing. It feels really good that it was a massive hit, but it wasn't at first. Like, I performed at the Ultra Music Fest, I believe, with Tim and with Mike Einziger, and we were on stage presenting this song, and Tim made a huge decision in his career to not do what everyone else did with lasers and cannon, uh, you know, confetti cannons and smoke and half-naked girls dancing on the stage. He brought real musicians and real vocalists on stage with him, which was, nobody else was doing that at these festivals. And he took a risk, and as I was singing, I could hear ambient audio through my microphone from the audience, like, I could hear boogs. And I just thought, okay, I'm gonna hurry up and get through this song and get off the stage. Um, and then I went online and looked at some of the What people were saying because they were watching it live around the world and people were like, oh, this is suicide, career suicide. And what is he doing? This is terrible. And then, but then there were people like, whoa, this is really big. You took a risk. This is different. And so just to, just, just to let you know, like it wasn't a success at first. So I, I certainly was.

AI assessment note: “It feels amazing. It feels really good that it was a massive hit”

Q I, I totally get you on kind of that storytelling element. I, I have to ask about the story with, with Avicii, obviously, which is a great track with Avicii. How did that come about, and what was the most memorable moment of doing that with him?

A Wow. Oh, man. You know, rest in peace to, to Tim. He was a great artist who was very passionate about music. It was the only thing seemed that he really loved and cared about, and as he was developing as a, as a man, finding spirituality, um, through, through other sources and, and not just music. But that particular song was the culmination of a couple of sessions that I had done with Tim In the studio, he reached out to me because he heard I Need a Dollar. He wanted to work with a soul artist, and he was a, you know, fan of some of the songs of Marvin Gaye, and he was like, I want to do something sort of like, you know, Marvin Gaye. We didn't end up doing any soul together, we did mainly songs that felt like, kind of country-esque. Um, but that particular session, he had booked, he double booked, or something. He had booked a session with Mike Einziger from Incubus, And I was also supposed to meet with Tim to work with him on the songs that we didn't finish. But he was double booked, and Mike Einziger was welcoming, he said, just come over, let's all work together on something. And that's when I, you know, I thought, I'm gonna bring the best lyrics that I have, because now, not only am I working with, you know, Avicii, cause he's, he's already got, he's got hits, but Incubus got hits too, so, there's no reason for me to come in with anything less, I'm not gonna, um, You know,…

AI assessment note: “he reached out to me because he heard I Need a Dollar”

Q I've got to move to a final stage, which is company creation and entrepreneurship. You obviously started a new company recently. What was the genesis and the idea behind that? You know, you're sitting there, incredibly successful career musically. Why don't you like, I want to create a company and why now is the right time?

A Okay, well, I feel like my life is set up in a way where I want to add as much positive value to the world as possible. Through philanthropy, through art, and now hopefully through, through commerce. And I got, I got sick with Omicron at the top of January, the top of, um, twenty-twenty-two in January. And I just started thinking about all the research papers I'd been reading and all of the science that I was kind of learning about the disease. And I did a quick Google search, how to block ACE-II. ACE-II is the receptor in our bodies that, um, the spike protein of SARS-CoV-II exploits in order to enter the cell. And so I thought, I mean, can it be that hard to just block that interaction? And I did a Google search. I found a paper, a peer reviewed paper by some scientists in Houston, and I reached out to them and I thought, This gotta be a product. What are you guys doing with this? And, um, and they said, you know, university's risk averse, and we are professors. We teach all day. We don't have time to do this as a thing, as a business. I said, what if I licensed the IP from the university? Would you guys help me, uh, push, push it along? They said, yeah, we'll give you all the info, the info that you need, the study plans to take this to a clinical research organization and advance the research. So for me, it was really a philanthropic endeavor. I was like, does the world nee…

AI assessment note: “I got sick with Omicron at the top of January, the top of, um, twenty-twenty-two”

Q It's absolutely a worthy endeavor. We were DMing about it before, but like, what are the biggest challenges? And what are the biggest surprises for you in terms of those early stages of company formation?

A So one of the things I didn't know was that Biotech is a specific sector, and not all VCs are amenable to biotech as an investment. So I was just talking to any VC that I could get, I could get on the phone, and wasting their time and my time, and so now I recognize, ok, there's specific funds that I should be speaking to, and then when you talk to those funds, um, they're not They're not really worried about your idea. You could have the greatest idea in the world. Who's your team, right? Who's going to take this from a dream to an actual, uh, product on the shelf and who's going to return my money. And these are the things I was not really, uh, contemplating at first, because like I said, it was a philanthropic endeavor, but now I recognize there's a, it has to be an enterprise play in order to get a buy-in and in order to get buy-in, you need all of these T's crossed and I's dotted. So the hardest part really is, is finding the, the team that's going to help me push it forward.

AI assessment note: “the hardest part really is, is finding the, the team that's going to help”

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: “definitely getting laid off was a tough time. There was a lot of pressure”

Q an example. Mine is, I want to be a 75 year old grandfather with my grandchildren running around me. And I want them to point to companies that are amazing and me to say, hey, we invested in, you know, Steve and Steve from Apple when it was just them in their garage, and we played a tiny role in that, and them go, wow, what are you running towards?

A Ok, so, similar to yours, I would say I'm running towards longevity, that's, that's certain. Um, running towards, uh, really loving and, um, And comforting family and friends structure. Like the things that sustain people, I keep hearing our, our elderly, um, uh, Friends and family saying that having good friends and people around you is what sustains you. So that's really important. And, and so that's what I'm running toward. In the meantime, throughout all the acts of my life, I want to be able to create as much joy as possible. And I try to do that with music. But I'm recognizing that I can do that in so many other ways as well. So my wife and I, we are, you know, heavily involved in local, um, philanthropic endeavors and nonprofit organizations. But at the end of the day, I want people to be able to say that, you know, aloe black was part of, um, the fabric of my joy. Whether it was from the, the money that he offered the organization that supported me, or was it the music that he, and the lyrics that I, I, I absorbed from his songs, uh, or the products that his company created.

AI assessment note: “I would say I'm running towards longevity, that's, that's certain.”

Q I agree with you actually in terms of the optimism there. What are you most concerned and worried about on the flip side?

A I do have the, the optimism I just mentioned. It's the things that I'm, the things that I'm concerned about is that, you know, too many people suffer before we get to the, to the actual solutions. You know, people are talking about, uh, AI and machine learning and robotics. It is a concern because certainly the jobs that we can do as humans will be replaced by technology. It have been over the progression of, of our industrial age, but that gives us more time to be human, I think. So, um, I'm concerned in the short run for, for how we all manage that, that friction, but I don't, I don't worry too much about the long run.

AI assessment note: “the things that I'm concerned about is that, you know, too many people suffer”