The Exchanges

Q And how do you make a song in a day? What do you, so you get there?

A I mean, if you're working with a good producer, it's, you get there, they're like, what do you want to make? And you're like, Hey, well, I've been listening. Usually the way a music session starts is you'll just listen to music together. And you'll be like, I've, I really been into this song recently. You'll put it on, try to find some sort of inspiration. Or if you come in with a concept, then you'll kind of work off that. We didn't really have anything, and so he started making a beat. We just, like, wrote some bullshit lyrics, and then we came up with this concert. Like, at that time, Xanax was, like, the big thing. Like, Lil Pump and all these guys were talking about doing Xanax all the time. So we were like, let's make a song called Super Xan, where it doesn't make any sense, because we don't actually know what, like, mainstream rap lyrics mean. We're just kind of trying to, you know, hang on to the trending references and stuff like that. So then once we made that song, we're like, it's the song is pretty damn good. Let's shoot another video for it. And Noelle called in a bunch of favors. We ended up getting a horse for the videos.

AI assessment note: “Usually the way a music session starts is you'll just listen to music together.”

Q Like, what's an example? Like, what do you mean?

A Like, like, I don't know, a super one, I guess a stupid one would be like, you take a picture of someone in here, and it'd be like, addicted to cocaine, or something like that. And people would see that and be like, ah, he is! That's so true! He does look like a cokehead! And so it, and, ok, so then, the way I got it to spread, Is it got rejected by the Apple review, you know, board or whatever multiple times. And so I was like, for being inappropriate. So I was like, hey, I can't make this app clean because then it's not funny. Right. And it won't do anything. So I basically had the, I wrote some code so that the internal database was timed because I knew the app review process took like a week. Right. So then basically after seven days, It would release all the dirty captions. So I got by the Apple review system.

AI assessment note: “a stupid one would be like, you take a picture of someone in here”

Q that? Cause like, obviously you get better by just doing reps, but sometimes, you know, if I want to get better at something, I might, you know, hire a coach, read a book, take a class, uh, like study and break down. People were already good at it. Like, how did you get good at doing what you do? Was there a, any intentional kind of process you went through?

A I think a lot of the times, um, If I'm thinking about, like, getting what makes a good podcast or what makes a good YouTube video or what makes a good song, I'll just, like, consume a lot of it and just think about it a lot. But I mean, like the number one thing you can do is just do it. You just learn by doing, at least for me. Um, so that's, that's how I've gotten good. It's just reps over time. Cause like, if you go and listen to my first episode of my podcast, it was complete garbage. Right. It's just something I've gotten better at. I'm still not that great at it, but like I've gotten better at it through the years.

AI assessment note: “I'll just, like, consume a lot of it and just think about it”

Q Just like, after you had gone through that experience, like, did you think of, like, I'm gonna do this again, or what was your?

A It definitely was my first, like, little taste of independent success, so that Definitely gave me a little courage. Um, like, my plan was, okay, I'm just gonna stay at this company and work my ass off and try to try, you know, do what I can to make this thing a success so that, like, the stock, you know, becomes something, and that didn't happen. Um, but, yeah, it was, like, definitely, it gave me my first little taste of success, and before that, I had never, you know, had, I had never, like, felt Momentum like that before, where something's working and the graph is going up to the right and you're like, oh my God, I'm onto something.

AI assessment note: “It definitely was my first, like, little taste of independent success”

Q What are some things you figured out that made like, let's say the, that cringe series, which now has like, I don't know, a hundred fifty million views on that, that, that style of video that you do. What's something you figured out? You're like, oh, that's, I used to do it this way. Then I figured out this and made it better.

A I don't know if it's really anything conscious. You know, it could, it's like, it's mostly stuff that you just, like, innately pick up on when you do things over and over again, when you read comments and think about what people are reacting to. Um, But you know, a lot of the times it's like the first time we did a video like that, you know, we were trying to riff and kind of stepping over each other's lines and jokes and punchlines and stuff. And the next time we did it, we got a little bit better at like letting each other speak and breathe. And like, that's one thing that I think we're really good at now is we never speak over each other. Like we never interrupt. We're really good at riffing, but like, cause we're innately just conscious of like, you know, the audience and what they want to hear. And no one likes to hear people interrupting and stepping all over each other's jokes, you know. Um, so stuff like that. Um, we just get better at, like, just because you do it, you know?

AI assessment note: “we got a little bit better at like letting each other speak and breathe.”

Q Well, that's also how Tiny Beat Gang came out, right? Like that, that's, it was just something you said.

A It's just like, that was our whole thing is just dick jokes and being stupid and being five years old. So, and then, so after we released this, Uh, we shot a music video for it, and, uh, where we, like, used a friend that was a DP, and we shot it all nice, and then we're like, oh, this is a fun thing, like, doing something a little bit more high production value. This is, like, a really fun path to go down. And then shortly after this, I got a DM from a producer in LA. His name's Diamond Pistols, now, like, a fantastic friend and has produced a ton of music for us. Um, he was like, hey, I'm a producer. Let me produce your next song. This is really funny. And so we were like, sure, and we showed up at his place. And we made a song called Superzan.

AI assessment note: “that was our whole thing is just dick jokes and being stupid”