SPEAKER_05 0:00

It's DMA Fest with stilling performances by.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

My next guest is somebody that has been in your living room. Unbeknownst to you, you've heard his voice tickle your ear. He's one of the biggest voiceover actors in the country, in the world, actually. But the reason he's here is not to talk about his voiceover career, but this amazing cartoon that he has created to help kids feel empowered and understand the world a little bit better. He created this show called The Shoebiters. It is taking off. He is being booked out. He's about to start his huge tour across America. Please welcome to the show one of my best friends, Mr. Rick Rose.

SPEAKER_07 0:44

Welcome to the MHOMOT.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

All righty. Rick Robles. Welcome to the show, buddy. Thanks, man. It's good to have you here, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I've been wanting to come since you moved out here right after COVID.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I know. I know. It's uh it's so crazy how life works. Everybody, in general, as you get kids and you everybody kind of goes in their own direction because you don't really understand it until you have kids and it just becomes your world as it should. But you know, I moved across the country, you guys moved up to Santa Barbara. It's crazy. But you've you've been to South Carolina before.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Yeah, my mom, her uh, her it's f it's we gotta start, we gotta start off.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

No, no, you keep going. Keep going. You see, this is this is the the part you keep in. This is you gotta just work through it. Because even better, because you're a voiceover artist, a king in the ring, and you're you're is it my baby blues? You're getting a little of a climp.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

I'm used to having people write the words for me. I just sit up, print them out, put them right in front of me, mark them up, and uh and read them. Actually, I don't even mark them anymore.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

No, so well, don't worry about it. You're doing great. Are you one of those people that just can't sleep? I was. I was just like you until I found Ghostbed. Ghostbed has completely changed my life. I've had so many back injuries over the course of my career, car accidents, stunts gone wrong. I was losing so much during the day because I couldn't sleep at night. When I discovered the hybrid luxe split king, everything in my life changed. It has this zero gravity mode, and it is absolutely insane. You just press this little button, your back goes up, your feet goes up a little bit, and my lower lumbar, the pain's gone. It's the very first bed in years that I've actually been able to get a full night's sleep. If it wasn't for ghost bed, I wouldn't look this handsome right now. That's a fact. I mean, it's a little uncomfortable. I'm sure you watching through the screen go, damn, how's he look that good? No Botox, just ghost bed. So do yourself a favor, go to ghostbed.com forward slash buckley. In the password there, put Buckley. B-U-C-K-L-E-Y, get yourself a ghost bed. I can tell you right now, I understand why you're in voiceover because I've never listened to listened to your your voice in the cans before, and it's giving me a bit of a tingle rig.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

But so so South Carolina, you're you're yeah, my grandparents lived in uh Clemson. So I grew up going to Tigers basketball basketball camp pretty much every single summer. And uh yeah, we would drive down from Northern Virginia, the eight-hour drive. Yeah, uh a couple times a year. So I spent a lot of time growing up.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, the Clemson campus is awesome. One my neighbor, I talk about him all the time. He's gonna be on the podcast with me, Mr. Brian Frick. Uh, he's got a all his kids go to uh Clemson. I think he went to Clemson too, or where he might have gone to the Gamecox. Um, but that campus is just awesome. Yeah. And then Lake Kiwi, it's just South Carolina, we we Sean and I always talk about it on the on uh on Filtered Fridays. It's just it's its own special little place. It's got its own its own little vibe. And if you literally draw a line from Los Angeles across the map, it's like basically a straight shot. Um although you can't get direct flights here. Uh um every once in a while, Jet Blue has them during the summer, but it's very hard to get uh direct flights. But um I I love it here, man. There's there's nothing. I mean, we when we were driving around today, we were we were you know, there's just a quietness here that you it's hard to find. It's gotten a lot busier over the years, I'm sure. Um when did you guys move up to to Santa Barbara then? Because we were all 2016.

SPEAKER_05 4:50

Yeah, so middle of 2016. So it's I just crossed. Actually, it was June 15th, 2016. And what's today? June 16th. So it was 10 years yesterday. Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, see, it's all it's blurred because for the audience at home, so Mr. Rick Robles was uh we were roommates. Yeah, we were roommates six years, yeah. It was like it was and it was like the craziest time of life because we were all broke. Yeah, we were all we never met you. We met you at like a party, right? Yeah, I met uh Skip in Santa Barbara.

SPEAKER_05 5:26

I I was at that party too. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. You guys came up, yeah. You guys came up, and um, and yeah, someone I knew, uh, my friend Sarah, who I went to high school with, was dating someone there in town, and um, and they said, Hey, our friends are coming up from LA, and I said, I'm gonna, I'm planning on moving down to LA in a in a couple months. They said, You should meet them. Yeah, I did. I met you guys and you're like, Oh, we have an extra room in our in our in our place. And I said, I I want to rent it. You said, Well, do you want to come down and check it out? And I said, No, just how much is it? Here's the check.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

I remember you had you had a green C what C ring or something like that. That big green car. Remember that big green? It was like it almost looked like a cop car. Like remember it? Yeah, a Chrysler. A Chrysler. It was a big dark green thing. Yeah, and I always remember you always had this like almost like like it looked like uh a speed racer jacket, it was blue and red. Remember that with the your collar was popped up and you had your earrings on? The big thick gauge earrings. And we we were like, um, because we were all pretty hammered when we met at the party. We're like, what's up? We're like, yeah, but come on, it's great. And the never in a million years did you think the guy that we met at the party is gonna show up, and sure enough, you were like, hey, and we're like, Do you want to see the room? You're like, you were already moving in, and you're like, I'll take it. Yeah, and uh, and it it was like, but it was such a like you look back, it was like such a a freeing time because all of us were in pursuit of our dreams. Ethan Erickson, who we we call him Skip a Dip. I call you Omphi, and I'm I'm Umphi too. We'll we'll get into that story as well. Um, but we were all fearless, I would say.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

You were all just starting out in all of our careers. Yeah, it was just I wasn't I hadn't even started my real career yet. I was still trying to do the the dream career that never panned out.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

That's right. Musician. Musician, but you I mean, you I'd never met like a rock star at at the time of my life. I was fresh off the boat from Canada, and uh you had your guitar and the earrings and your spiky hair, and you like it just I was like, Oh, this guy's this guy's pretty cool, man. You were so so nice, and uh you only ate meat. You were the you were the pioneer of the carnivore diet before it was trendy. Yeah, you were like all meat all the time back then.

SPEAKER_05 7:35

You did I always felt good. Like you guys are always like, you gotta eat vegetables to be healthy.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

What more vegetables? I'm like, I just like meat. No, you and you actually threw somebody out of our house for cooking vegetables on our barbecue. Yeah, they put it right next to my meat. You're like, you need to leave. They're like, You're joking. He's like, no, you it's time to go.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

There's it's a sacred thing. If I've got some good steaks on the barbecue, you're gonna go up and put a whole bunch of bell peppers and all this. There were like nine different types of vegetables. I opened it up.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah, I was like, this this is not this is not I had more steaks to put on the thing. I know, but you do make you do make uh incredible meat. Your meat tastes good, Montfe. I love your meat. I love your meat in my mouth. It's my favorite thing. No, but but it's so creepy because we were we got a place on Deepdale, and uh it was this like little cabinet. East Hollywood Hills. Yeah, and it was you had to drive under the tunnel, right? And it was so hidden. Yeah, and it was this little bungalow, all one level. Three bedroom, one bath. Yeah, three bedroom, one bath.

SPEAKER_05 8:35

I had one bedroom in the back, you had the front bedroom, Skip had the middle one. Middle, one bathroom with the pipe that went up and you had to flush it with the with the pole. Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

It was so small that the tank had to be up top. And we were like, and then in the back though had this like insane like outdoor area. The outdoor area was what? It had like the pergola, right? Like the covered area, and then it had this pool that was probably, you know, eight foot by ten foot, maybe tiny pool. It was just like a little thing, but it was all enclosed and had all these like banana palms, and it looked something out of like a Sinatra, you know, you know, it just had this, it had all this personality. And we all started painting. You know, we're like, let's design it. We didn't have any money for furniture. Right. We actually got the couches from Santa Barbara, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right. We got those green couches from Santa Barbara, and yeah, everything was, but we didn't like it didn't really like bug us. We were like, it just No, we didn't mind at all. No, it's so different because I remember like girls would come over and they're like, Where's your we're like, what?

SPEAKER_05 9:39

It was boxes, cardboard boxes was the the the coffee table was a was a cardboard, big cardboard box, and the uh the every all the like side tables were just smaller cardboard boxes.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah, and it just didn't click that you we need to be domesticated a little bit. Like we were like, This is well, I was 25, you were 23.

SPEAKER_05 9:57

Yeah, wow. That is so I might have been 24 because we're a year and a half apart.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah. You know, I was 22. I remember I was 22. Yeah, just about 24 then. That's so bananas, and all this stuff. I mean, we were all together on the morning of 9-11. Yeah, remember that? Yeah, I remember I remember you were up early, and uh I was asleep, and um my girlfriend at the time was living with us, and um I was in this like whoa. And I woke up and you're like, Oh yeah, because you were watching the stock market or something like that. Remember, you were probably it wasn't stock market, but it was it was something I think someone had called me and told me to turn it on.

SPEAKER_05 10:40

And then it went yeah. We so I I think I woke you up uh after the first plane had hit. Yeah, and we were like everybody was just confused because we all saw the second plane hit.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, and I'd never been to New York, so I didn't really can I I you know I was I was like, okay, well, like that's I did you know I don't think I had the concept yet, but but but being so young and we we were only living together for probably I'd say six, seven months before that happened. Right. That was just at the it was right at the end of summer, of course. And like I think we just had like a uh a big party like the weekend before because I remember there was stuff everywhere, right? Right, or that was just maybe this the house. That was all the time. It was just the house. So we were like, we just had a party. Um, but that was like a moment where I was like, oh, like we're we've got to grow up. Like this is the world just changed. Everything got really serious, and it was like this, like, you know, when we're in these, these, this, this headspace of like just we'd all like we'd go out to the nightclubs, and we again we didn't have any money, but we would we got to know some people, and we would get in, and uh uh we would you know just again there was no carry on, and that was the first time I remember being like, oh, like this is I was away from home with something and my parents and like remember we couldn't get the phone calls out because of the all the lines were so busy, and yeah, and it was just uh a different there wasn't cell phones that like recordings that was just you know like we're the last if you just really think about it, we're the last generation to not have the technology. Like we we are literally like everybody af after that had like iPhones and uh uh like I mean I remember when we were I had like a MySpace account, right? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

You had I think you had one of the first blackberries that I ever saw. Yeah, I got it at a gifting suite. I remember when you brought it home at that time. We were living in Morella. Yeah, we had moved on from Deep Dell, yeah. So it was whatever year that was, but I remember when you walking in with this little computer came out. I was like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I kept calling it a blueberry.

unknown 12:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

I was like, they call it a blueberry, and Skip's like, that says blackberry. I'm like, where? He's like, right there. Right. I'm like, it's a blueberry. I was like, I swear they said it was a blueberry. That was the first time I ever saw anything like that. I'm like, that's amazing. Yeah, it was like and then it was like people could like text and look up at you, and you're like, whoa. But I all these all this technology that sort of came into our lives during that time. It was like this crazy thing. And while again, we were all going through trying to figure out like auditions. We had a I remember we got our friend Dave PayCow came down to visit us, and he he's he was like, Hey, I'm gonna come stay.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

We didn't say how long, but he ended up staying for two years. Yeah. But he was like, he was the best room. He was great, he was very quiet, he read his paper. He was the he was the old man of the group because he was he looked younger than all of us, uh, but he was like 55 or something. He was 55, playing 18. And uh um, and he'd always read the paper. He'd he'd he would have coffee, he'd make his coffee, and he would sit down by the window and he would open up his paper, so gentle and quiet, and just read there. And then us three orangutans would come in through and he would be so he like uh and he like folded up and then he'd go outside into the back and he'd want to finish. And then be like, ah he just was so, but I remember his first month there, he's like, I gotta get you guys uh a fax machine. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. He's like, we because it's he's like the amount of money you're spending going out of staples for your kinkos to print it out. He's like, I'll get this for you as sort of my you know thank you to staying here. Like, that's a great idea. Like he was already yeah, he was way more mature than us. And but Skip was older than us. Yeah, he's five years older, but he wasn't more mature.

SPEAKER_05 14:38

He did the dishes though. He did do the dishes, yeah. He taught me how to I remember a conversation where he where he pretty much said, you know, come look at this. Yes, dishes all over the place. He's like, Your mom's not living here anymore. If you're not doing them, I gotta do them. And I was like, Oh, that something clicked there. So that that felt like a very big moment there.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Well, we didn't have a dishwasher, right? I was used to the dishwasher, and I remember one time I did the dishes, and he's like, Oh, dude, you did the dishes. And he then five minutes late, he was like a daddy comes down and he's like, Hey dude, did you use any soap? And I was like, No. But he's like, But you did the dishes? I'm like, Yeah, I just used the water, man. I did the dish. I'm like, Skip, are you really gonna be on my come on, dude? I'm like, you're clean, it's water. It's like you gotta use soap. I'm like, oh okay, dad. Yeah, but it was it was it was a thing, and and and then for you though, in your journey when you know you're you grew up in Virginia and you went to Brown. Yeah, for a year and a half. Yeah, and you play you were playing a lot of sports and sort of things. So back then, before all the voiceover and you are where you are now, which we'll get to later on the show, uh, what was your sort of like where was your shit pointed?

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Um I learned how to play guitar when I was 15. I went over to my buddy Brad Regier's house, and uh he was sitting on his bed strumming to guitar magazine, guitar world, I think it is. And um, and I remember he was like learning a solo, and um and he had joined a band and was kind of learning how to play bass, and he had an acoustic guitar and was learning, and he sent me home with his acoustic guitar because I was really interested in it. Nobody in my family played any instruments, but um that night I stayed up all night long just kind of practicing D, C, and G. And I played Used to Love Her, but I had to kill her for like six hours all night long. It's a Guns N' Roses song. Oh, really? Yeah, used to love her, but I had to kill her. Oh yeah, um, she's buried right in my backyard. Um and uh yeah, and I got I got the bug. I probably, yeah, I mean I guess I started I I I sat there, it was you know that expression you play until your fingers bleed. It's the same three chords. I think there might have been an E minor in there somewhere, but um, but uh yeah, just figuring out those things and didn't didn't even really sleep that night and went to school the next morning and pretty much said, Brad, I I can I can play it now. I can I can I can do the song and yeah, I was so excited. And uh something changed then. I caught I caught that bug in like instantly, and then everything about me was like I wanted to be Eddie Vetter. I just I I uh Brad and I formed a band uh with our buddy Elliot. And uh it's like that scene in school of rock was like you're in the band, man. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, and uh and we got a drummer, our buddy named Mark, and uh we formed a band named Stormy Petrels, and we play our Stormy Petrels, yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's almost like a porn name. It's named after uh um of I named after a college. It's yeah, it's fuzzy memory. I think Oglethorpe College, that's their mascot named, my friend Steve Prom. Oglethorpe. Huh? Oglethorpe, yeah. But did Shrek go there? Probably I think he did. Um yeah, uh our our buddy Steve Prom, uh who's a really famous basketball coach now. Um he uh he went to that college and we named it uh we named it after that. And uh we'd play our Battle of the Bands for our school and did the And this is in Virginia? Yeah, did all the the talent shows and the local bars and stuff like that, even even in high school and stuff. And uh yeah, went to college um and played football at Brown. So you you got and were you on a scholarship there? No, no. Um they uh Brown's mostly an academic school. I'm sure they give scholarships, or maybe they I don't know if they give act athletic scholarships. I probably should know this. I think they give endowments maybe. Yeah, um, I'm not sure. I know I wasn't getting any anything uh for it. And um, but uh but all I was doing really is is writing songs and sending them back to Brad and and uh You were just hooked. Yeah, I I loved writing songs and and um and so eventually out at 19 I moved out to California. What was the first song you ever wrote? Oh that's a great question. The first song I ever wrote is called Graydon, which is the my firstborn's name. That's right, yeah. Yeah, that's weird. Graydon is named my son is named after my my grandpa.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

My grandfather's name is Graydon, and um yeah, he had recently passed away, and I wrote a song about that. Were you close? Yeah, yeah, I was. I was close. Now was he on your mom's side or dad's side? My mom's side. Yeah, he's the one who uh him and my grandma lived in Clemson. Okay, got it. So and yeah, he um he passed away just after I finished high school. Um he had bad like scoliosis stuff. Yeah, his he he was all hunched over. Um he was a great uh a great guy, even though it was so hard for him to move. Like uh imagine he was totally bent over. He had to walk with a walker, but like scoliosis or something. Yeah, it really, really difficult for him to move. He moved very slow, but still every night he would um bring my grandma a glass of water all the way on the other side of the house. They slept in separate rooms like older people do when they snore and all that sort of stuff. But he would bring a uh a glass of water all the way over there. I I think I remember my mom telling me it would take him like 30 minutes of this really slow moving over there and leave it for her and it like every every single night. He was a great, a great man. And um he passed away not long after I graduated from high school. He always wanted to see me graduate from high school and he wanted to see the end of the baseball season that I was playing in, and uh and I thought I feel like he uh held on just to kind of get himself wheeled up to the graduation, see me graduate, and that was one of the things that um that he was holding on for, and then he he kind of I think I I think let go after that. We were all standing around him when he when he passed.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Now, did he know that you were playing music and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Yeah, he did.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

He knew he knew I'd started playing music.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

Did you play for him ever? Uh yeah, I did. I got to play um I got to play him uh songs. I remember being down visiting them in Clemson when I was 15 and it first started. And I remember being in their um in their uh little you know on their on their couch in their retirement home with headphones on, listening to and this was a pivotal moment when I realized everyone listens to music and you listen to music normally, but I do remember a very pivotal moment when I realized that I loved music. I was I had headphones on and I was listening to um to uh And Justice for All, Metallica's album. I love it. And um and uh God, I haven't thought about this in so long. Um and uh God is the is the first song on that album Blackened? I think it was Blackened. And then um I hope I I hope I don't have that wrong. It's been a it's been a little bit since I listened to the full album. But um but I remember listening to that and closing my eyes and and somehow that that it moved me so much that um that I realized that um that the music was kind of uh the music is all I want to do. Music's everything that I that that that I want to do. So um so my grandfather took me down to um to the uh guitar shop and uh guitar center? Uh it's a local South Carolina guitar shop. Do they do they even have guitar centers anywhere?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

They got them, yeah. They're they're bigger than ever. Are they really? But but they seem uh maybe it's just because you can buy everything online now. It's like it just you're not as you know what I mean? Right. What was that other one though? There wasn't there another music store that did sh ended up shutting down. Am I thinking of the right thing? Sam Ash. Sam Ash, that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the big one. Anyways, not to cut you off, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

Yeah, but yeah, the long long story short. The um the uh yeah, I bought my first guitar down here.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

That was a gift from my grandpa. That's awesome, man. And then so that was the first song now. Did you perform that? Has that has that song ever been performed live or uh yeah, yeah, we played that song a lot live after after I moved out to California.

SPEAKER_05 23:24

We have a recording of it somewhere, Brad and I. On on some on some we recorded it, I think, I think once or twice.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

And then you were like, okay, I'm going to LA to Yeah, to to try and make it in music.

SPEAKER_05 23:38

Because didn't you go to you weren't you in your England before too? Right before you met me, I had just come back from from England. I came out here, I lived in, I was gonna live in LA, and then I um realized I don't know anybody in LA. I'm gonna go up to Santa Barbara for a couple of days and visit Brad and my and Mark, who was the drummer in our high school band. And um and ended up staying in Santa Barbara for three years. And then moved out to England for a year and a half, something like that, trying to do music and was able to have a manager and play a lot of shows, a lot of acoustic shows.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

How what was England like back then? Um this is like in the mid-90s, right?

SPEAKER_05 24:18

So this would have been like 98, 90, it was 98 and 99.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I moved back to to California just after the So it would have been like uh uh uh Billy Idol and uh maybe a little after. Not Billy Idol, what's his name? Is it the blonde-haired spikey? Is that Billy Idol? Uh um what's his name? Um he was kind of the punk rock guy. Uh yeah, I think uh you might be thinking of Billy Idol. Billy Idol, like, because that was a bit the 90s was like grunge and um punk and like there was all sorts of like who was the biggest who was big in in England at the time? Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams, yeah, dude. What a legend that guy is. Right. Yeah. I mean, full talk about full circle. Yeah. Now he was. I mean, I remember Robbie Williams. Uh um, I remember I went and did a movie in Bulgaria, and uh Robbie Williams was like and because it's so funny, and that was too when I realized how different music was in different countries. Like you just think, oh, like you in, you know, but the music was in Canada or the music, like that's what's but over there it was like a totally different sound, a totally different thing. So were you influenced then with the music you were making England to the sound of the tone to when you came over to America? Like, was it were you in a different mindset?

SPEAKER_05 25:32

I went out there with two albums I just recorded, um both little concept albums. Um, one about the students I was working with at San Marcos High School.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Because you work with special special needs kids.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

Yeah, Rue My5, 10 songs.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

I remember that. I remember that one.

SPEAKER_05 25:48

Yeah, 10 different musical styles, each song from the point of view of a different student. Yeah, I loved that job. Um I loved that job. I was I'd start at I think 8 a.m. I was never late to that job once because I loved it so much. Um and uh yeah, I got to work with Debbie Keys Thomas, who's still a friend of mine today. And um she was she taught at San Marcos with those the special need kids for a long time. Um she's a great person. Uh and her husband, Wardog, who makes surfboards. Um yeah, Wardog. He's he's like the coolest guy. Um and um and so I would work that job you know, eight to three or whatever it was, and then go and and and record at night, play gigs at night, rehearse at night, try and find a drummer at night, all that sort of stuff. Uh that Brad and I were doing. Brad played bass, I played guitar and sang.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I mean, even when you say that, like trying to find a drummer, you know, there was no internet really then. Like there was it was like so it was more like Yeah, it was want ads in the Santa Barbara Independent and stuff like that. When you think about that, that it's just such like a you know, like we read about like how when with uh with you with you two, like that was uh uh a note put up in their school, right? Want to join a band. Yeah, you know, yeah. It's like sometimes I feel like when you just because it's that's really like putting a message in a bottle and letting it just see who see who gets it, you know. Um, see where the pigeon drops the message off to. And I feel like when those moments happen, it's like, no, that's you know, that's a that's a a higher power bringing you guys together. Now it's like it's like, oh, the I mean we were we were talking about it yesterday, like the algorithm and this, and it's able to focus in on this. And to when I think about it now, it's the first time I've thought about this. There's something very quick and calculated about that journey with the AI, but you lose the process of discovery, and what you're basing your your knowledge on is on data as opposed to instinct, which I think, and I'm just sort of realizing that it's like, huh. And yes, it's very effective, but you lose that antenna, so to speak, of being able to read the room as opposed to be like, well, my, you know, um, it's a whole it's a whole nother world of of uh that that we're we've kind of stepped into. But has I've actually never thought about that. Because yeah, you just put an ad in the paper and then be like, hopefully you can do it. I not to jump over to Skip, but I remember when Skip was looking for a roommate, he went out on his own, uh, and he had that house up on Cliff. What was that? Uh multiview. Multiview. And uh Laurel Canyon. Yeah, Laurel Canyon. And man, me and Sean Seapost would prank call him so many times because it said the ad was, you want to live like a rock star?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Remember that ad? It was so funny. So Sean and I kept calling with like English. Like, I might oh yeah, you won't live like a rock star.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Well, you uh oh he's oh yeah, do you want to come over? Oh, you're fine because Skip is literally like he just loves to talk, he's the nicest thing he oh yeah, and he he would do it, and then 10 minutes later we'd call with he's like, Oh yeah, and then we'd go over to the house. He's like, Yeah, he's like his English band is gonna go. Oh, no way. That's crazy. We just kept calling them and calling them. Oh, it was so funny, finally we got him. And but uh yeah, you want to live like a rock star. But it is it's a crazy journey how we you at that time, if you think about like you're you got high school and then college, and those are like real form of years, and you in your mind you're on this journey of discovery, and then all of a sudden you're out of the institution and you're fucking kicked into the fucking rapids. And I didn't go to college or anything like that, so I was just I was kicked into the I was kicked into, you know, I was kicked in the head a lot uh before I but I was just smiling. Um so but then you just and you just you're floating down this river and you're just kind of meeting people along the way, you're like, hey, we're you going this way too? Cool. And it's just that sort of flow, which do you think that still exists for people now?

SPEAKER_05 30:06

It has to, I think, right? I mean, people still have friends in their group of friends that they that they end up trudging to the other.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

I hope so, because I feel like I've become more isolated, a sense of like that, but but but I think it's just that part of my journey of I want to see, you know, I want to see where I'm gonna, you know, so many questions like that I had in there, like where am I gonna live? What's what's my kids gonna look like? All those things, or even I was thinking about that, like back then, did you have any concept of where you would be right now? If somebody was to say to you in England over a pint, you know, yeah. If they said you're gonna do voiceover and you're gonna be making a uh uh uh a kid's musical show called Shoebiters. What would you be like? As we get older, it is so important to stay on top of our blood work. That's why I'm incredibly proud to have Pure RX, one of our sponsors of the show. Go to AJ.purerx.co, type in time to shine in the notes, and you will get 50% off your blood work. It's summertime. You want to go camping, you want to go off-road and get your truck, a lift kit. Go to total off-road. TJ and Dan are my guys here in Charleston. They're the best. Huge thank you to them for being sponsored of the show. You got a pavement princess, head to Total Off-Road, get your truck lifted like a real man.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

The the second one, of course, would be completely, yeah, completely out of nowhere. And the um, I didn't even know what voiceover was really until I was 26, pretty much. Um, Skip would be leaving his voiceover copy around the around our our house.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, and um because Skip had done the voice of Southwest, like you're now free to fly. Yeah, fly anywhere for $99. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I remember he had a BMW. I was like, he's like, that's all voiceover. Back then Skip smoked, and he'd be like, I got that from doing voiceover, kid. And I was like, I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 32:20

I I I thought I I remembered it being he didn't even want to tell us because he um you were broke, I was broke. Yeah, Skip found something that he was excellent at.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

And let me pre-preface this that Skip is literally the most handsome dude on the planet. Yeah, I'll I'll never forget this this story of him. He you and I were in the room with this, and he goes, You know that feeling, guys, when you walk in the room and everybody just turns their head and looks at you, and I was like, uh no, Skip. I no, I I I've never he's like, you know, like people are just like look at you. I'm like, huh, maybe because I've like puked at myself or something. I might have been not he's shockingly, he's shockingly handsome, man. Or he was always shredded because he was a gymnast, and he'd be like, he'd be like, uh, guys, I think I'm gaining weight. I should get a trainer and he's like an APAC Right. Yeah, dude, you're you you're fat. You were you you're putting on the ballot. It was always so like, but it was like, and you and I, we just were all so different, but he did, he had his he was he was a modded, modest dude.

SPEAKER_05 33:24

Yeah, that um, but I I remember he didn't want us to feel bad that we weren't making any money doing doing stuff, and he had found something that he was good at because he for years he did he had one account before he was he was the voice of I think Pac Bell. Yeah, was um got Pac Bell, and then that led to want to get away. Yeah. Now you can, right now for Southwest Airlines for me. And he did that for a decade. Um, and uh and the copy would be around. I think he remembers it uh where he said, Hey man, you should you should try this. And he's he's probably he's probably right. Um but I remember kind of seeing in the maybe maybe both can be true. I remember seeing the copy, always laying around and being really interested on that because I know I would imitate those voices when I'd be driving around on the in the car. If I'd hear a promo or something on the radio, I'd I'd I'd imitate that voice. And um, and Skip uh said, Um, this is called voiceover. And I was like, wow, I I'd like to learn more about that. I think I think I can do that. Skip said, You can totally do that, which is um very gracious of him. And he took me down to a voiceover session and I got to see him do it. He went in the booth and read, Wanna Get Away, now you can't fly. And they were like, Okay, that's in 8.7. Can you do it in 8.5? He's like, Yeah, fly Southwest Airlines for the 8.5, all right. And I was like, Wow, it's really good. So I like I got to see a real pro do it, like do it in his thing, and and uh and I was hooked. And credit to Skip, I mean, his personality is he is such a generous guy. Yeah, very, very generous that there's not many people he wants you to win. That yeah, he genuinely wants you to win. And I think that's why for the last 30 years, he's been just crushing campaign after campaign after campaign at such a high level because he genuinely, you know, you can tell when people do want you to succeed, because he basically encouraged me to get into an industry where I would be direct competition for him. Yeah, there's not many people that would be like, yeah, come on in. Let me let me let me hear. This is this is called voiceover, and you make a demo and you try and get an agent, and uh yeah, good, you know, good luck.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

This is, you know, see I I I believe too, I like I've I thought back in the day I was like act competition with actors or stuff, but then being on the other side of the camera and stuff, I I started to realize that it's like it's actually when you walk in the room and you're whatever the energy is, even though like somebody might give very close identical reads or uh auditions, there's a there's the advertiser, the director, the the studio, whatever, and when they hear that just the the the uh what's that like that decimal point the the inflection, like the like something that it's just an instinct of a thing that you did different because we're just we just see the world differently than somebody else. They're like that's the job, it's those little things, it's how you walk in, it's how you you know uh and I remember being on the other side of the camera and seeing somebody come in, and I was like, that's the guy, like that was somebody we were gonna cast. And I just remember like I just hope this person can talk. Yeah. Um, but it's it's so it's so different. But then even then, for a guy like Skep to invite you in and say, Hey, here's the world, right? I would always laugh too. Like, I'd look at your guys' papers because I wasn't doing voiceover at the time, and like it was like squares and like arrows up and arrows down, right? And like all the stuff, I was like, it's like and it's like literally like 13 seconds of copy, and there's like it's like fucking the Egyptian like holographics all over. Like this, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 37:10

So although I I was I was gonna say, because you said when when Skip invited invited in, this is a question I get a lot of like, hey, who'd you know to get into voiceover? or or or you know that sort of thing, because people figure, hey, everyone's got a voice, so it's just who you know to get in. But that was as far as it went with Skip helping out, was just like this is called voiceover. Make sure to highlight the name because that's who's paying the bills. Yeah, and um, and that's it. I mean, there was nothing else that he could do. There's nothing else anybody can do. What he did was, which was great. So he said, and this is the advice I give to everybody who says, Hey, how do I get into voiceover? It's just like being an actor, it's just like being in a band. It's you got to make a demo and it's gotta be good, and then you got to get it to agents, uh, or at least for the route that I went. There's now a whole online thing and I remember you made it, you made a uh a CD, right? Yeah, so I all I did is Skip said, You got to make a demo. If you if you want to get in, you get you just get an agent to get an agent, gotta make a demo. So I recorded um, because I was doing music stuff, so I had a mic and just recorded uh spots straight off the TV. I didn't even know that you were supposed to change them or anything. I just um the all-new 244 horsepower Acura MDX and uh recorded that and put my own music under it and had six spots and uh sent them around to all the voiceover agents in town. There was something called, you remember that voiceover booklet? Yeah, it was like a tall, thin voiceover. It's called the VO guy, the voiceover guy.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

It was the voice, it was the the voiceover booklet and the Thomas guide.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

Those were the two things that are so I sent it to like all 15 agents, didn't hear back from any of the agents with that with that CD. And um and Skip gave it to um to his agent um and got me a meeting, and I went in, and I actually talk about this in the assembly I'm doing for shoebiters, that's now the the rock music for kids thing. Um this one is about resilience because the very first time I went in and read with uh the person um read the words, read the copy down. It was a thing for baby back rib. Get your baby back ribs, and you can and he came in and said, Voiceover's not for you. Don't try voiceover, you're never gonna have a career in voiceover. A lot of talented people in voiceover, you're not one of them. Don't waste your time. And I was like, wow. Um, and I I mean, I I still see that so clearly. Um, because he's in like a you know, super good looking guy in a really sharp suit. And it just was like it was it was quite a blow because I just made this demo and sent it out everywhere and stuff. So the in the in the assembly, I kind of talk about that. I show a promo and I'm like, this career almost didn't happen. But sometimes you got to be resilient, which is the power word that I talk about in this assembly assembly, and I'm trying to to tell these little kids that I'm doing this rock music stuff for that like sometimes your heart has to bounce back. And you can, you know, it's it's like trying to motivate them and give the kids growth mindset stuff. Because even at I mean, how old was I then? I think I was 27. Um that was that could have very easily been the nail in a coffin, and it'd be like, all right, well, I'll just keep parking cars at the downtown standard. And I remember that. You and James. Yeah, James, best buddy James. Um, James Burton, awesome bass player, and uh him and I were playing in bands, and he got me a job parking cars down there. And um, I could have very easily gone, all right, well, I guess voiceover isn't for me. And uh, this is this is obviously an expert in a big giant building in a thing in a in a and so but I uh yeah, something something got I I got one more, one more opportunity to read, and um, and went in and read with them. And uh and then they said um the per the person called a couple days later uh and said of the they let me read five pieces of copy, which was cool. And they said, you know, a couple pieces, yeah. You you can tell you're green was the word. I didn't even know what that meant at the time. Yeah, you're very green. You're Irish, yeah. But they said, one piece of copy you sounded pretty good on. One piece, so if you take some classes, then call us back. And I said, Well, which which classes? And they said, Well, there's a class called Calmanson and Calmanson. I took that class, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

It's Harvey class. Harvey. I remember Harvey. Harvey and Kathy Kalmans. They're legends. He would always be eating, he would always tell me he was on a diet and he'd be eating cheese. He'd be like, I've got I gotta lose weight. I'm eating it, and he'd have the the string cheese. He'd be like, he's like, All right, AJ, you're up in the booth there. Was it down by the the Starbucks there? Remember, it's across the street in Studio City, uh-huh. By Warner Brothers there, remember that? And it was always hard to find parking. Yeah. It was like, and he was like old school. Like you'd get in there and he'd be like, like, and because of my dyslexia, you get the copy when you show up, and I'm like, and then people are just he's like turning the other. I go, and he's like, oh, and then I do it. He's like, we should probably do that again. But what I was saying where what I was just hearing you for the first time talk about this, it's like, I think, I mean, this is probably an obvious thing, you know, that you've realized the fact that you were in front of a mic for so long, the fact that you were singing songs, telling a story, right? Connecting with an audience, because real good voiceover, I feel, or need real good ad reads. You're talking, you have to talk to somebody, you're talking to something. Well matter what it is, there's there's something you're conveying in a very short amount of time, you have to hit these words in a certain way, but you have to do it without with sounding sincere and not like old school over the top, like tonight I'm bada badah bada like the old school radio shows. Like it it's it's a very much, and I feel like you think maybe that had a lot to play with your with your music background that you're you know, and writing songs and understanding text and concept and how to speak quickly, because when someone says get it down from like you said with Skip, get it down from eight, right? Seven, five to eight, that is, and you're already speaking, that's incredible, and to still hold right and hit all the words and with like those arrows goes up, right? It's a really hard thing to do.

SPEAKER_05 43:21

You know what I think it was was I think there's a two percent thing that separates a lot of people that are professionals, almost professionals, gonna be professionals, people at the top, people just getting to the top. And what it was for me was I I took that class, I signed up for the class. I told the agent that said, Hey, take this Cowlinson class. So I called up, said, Hey, I want to sign the class. Great, I signed up for the class. I called the agent back within like three minutes and said, All right, I signed up for the class. And they said, You signed up for the class, huh? 99% of the people we tell to sign up for the class, they don't even sign up for the class. You sign up for it now? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's great. I said the class ends on November 15th. Can I come in? Uh the class goes from 11 to 2. I remember that. Can I come in after 2 p.m. on whatever it was, November 15th? I don't remember the exact day. And they said, well, yeah, okay. And there was a week before the class started. And so what I did was I knew three hours a week wasn't going to get me anywhere in seven weeks because I was going to be competing against professionals. So something in me, even though I was only 27, knew I've got to get to work in these next seven weeks. So um, so I started, we had we had our first D VR, I think, right around then. I DVR'd a bunch of shows. I remember I got it. It was a T it was called Tivo. Tivo, yeah. We got our Tivo.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

I got it, I I got it at a um a gifting suite. Like you got everything. Yeah, I got I got it because I booked a couple of things and the publisher's platform PR uh invited me. We went at the Sky Bar. I remember this, and they gave out T I was like, what? It was this huge thing. I remember when you came home. I was like, what is it? I'm like, dude, this records shows. Right. Like I think it was like five shows at once it can record. We're like, whoa, and it changed our lives. And you could rewind the show. You could rewind it. It was amazing. Yeah. That's so crazy. TiVo.

SPEAKER_05 45:09

That was that was the your gifting suite helped me because I Tvot. You're welcome. Instantly. You're welcome. Instantly TiVo those things. And I would take one commercial, and I and I started that afternoon. One commercial, record it into my little mini cassette thing. Uh there's well before iPhones and records. And um, and I would uh record a commercial of someone that sounded my age, that sounded sounded good. Um, and then I would write it out on a piece of on a in a notebook and write it out word for word, and then I'd rewind it and practice it. And I had the words and I'd and I'd do the spot. I'd I'd listen to what the guy was doing because I figured the person talking on the TV is the person who booked the job over all the other hundred people that booked the job. So yeah, so the perfect read is right there. So I would write it out, and first I'd read it the way I would read it, just normal, without remembering it, and and kind of I'd do it through a few times. This is the same advice I've given a thousand people who've all said, How do you get into voiceover? I'm like, you can do this, you don't need to spend a dollar, you just have to get your iPhone, record some spots, write out the spots, figure out what you would do, then listen to who booked it. And I would listen to it over and over again, and then I'd start to imitate it because that's that's the um that's a professional doing a professional read, even though it sounds very casual or very energetic, or because um I would I would just really take a deep dive into the into the cadence, into the attitude, into the swagger, into the nuance of the emotion. Who am I talking to? What's the what's who the client so I never really went went there in the beginning. Like, because that's what that's what they say to do in voiceover. Um I hadn't I hadn't learned those techniques yet, but I but I would but I would really try and pay attention to the nuance of like, oh, he's making a turn there. Oh, it was negative, and now he's a little bit. Kind of like a song though.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

You can you can hear just choruses, bridges, you're like, this is the this is where I've got to bring it home.

SPEAKER_05 47:04

It it is very much like a song. You you can you can hear a you can hear an intro, you can hear a middle, you can hear an end, you can hear a big finish, you can hear a breakdown in sometimes in in some of these spots. But um, but what I did was I would finish that one, it'd take 30 minutes or so. And you probably remember me sitting around in these I like I was gonna say in these weeks.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

I I was gonna say I clearly remember because we were pretty like hard in the point. It was like Red Bull, vodka, Red Bull had really just come out then too. Remember that? Yeah, we're like, what is Red Bull and vodka? We'd be like, yeah. And so we would go down to the clubs, we'd argue over who's gonna wear the pole jacket, which is this really cool leather jacket uh that I got at a gifting suite, and we would we would argue over because we just thought that was the jacket. If you wore that, you'd like meet girls. Who's wearing the pole jacket tonight? And Skips like me, I'm like, dude, you don't need any pole. You are you are just fine.

SPEAKER_06 47:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Um, and uh, but then it all of a sudden you locked in, like you. I will never forget this. I've never seen anybody eat pretzels the way that you do. Yeah. You will get the big pretzels and you just cider the van over there. Yeah, and you'll you lay down, you had your copy out, and you would have the TV on, and they'd be playing in the because I'd be studying lines in out in the outdoor uh uh pergola area, and I would hear the the commercials on repeat, and I would come in and you would you have your t-shirt like kind of oh yeah, the crumbs, crumbs I like the the outside. And you would just eat the salt off it. The bottom, I'd eat the bottom, and then I'd eat the knot from the outside from the outside. Every time the same it would just be all in your shirt, and then you were had the the um uh thing, and we then we hung like blankets over we didn't have curtains, but you hung blankets over the thing so we could see the TV because you were like in the zone, and it was like all the copy that Skip had around the house, you'd like compiled. Well, no, it was it was my notebooks.

SPEAKER_05 48:49

Those notebooks were my I wish I had kept those because what it would be was 30 minutes of just remembering that one, remembering that learning everything about it, practicing it, being able to do it top to bottom, and then I'd turn the page and I'd write a new spot, find a new spot, record it, do that for 30 minutes, turn the page, and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. when I'd have to go park cars, yeah, I would do that. And I would park cars from five to one, and then I'd sleep a little bit and get up and start again at 8 a.m. And I'd do that like five, six days a week for those seven weeks. And at the end of those seven weeks, if I was probably doing 10 to 10 to 12, maybe 15 pieces of copy every day, yeah. I had like 400 spots in those in those seven weeks, it was like that thick of um of just those notebooks filled with stuff. Yeah. And I went back to um and I'd and I'd go to the three hours of stuff. I'd go do the class every Tuesday from uh from 11 to 2 and um and then do the three hours thing and read with the people, and there were eight other people in the class and go up and read and then sit down and then go, and then for those next six days, just boom, boom, yeah, boom, copy, copy more. And and I I what it was, I don't know if I always think about this. Did I actually improve the technique and my speaking and all that sort of stuff? I think it was an and this is what I was gonna say about I think less than like what am I who am I talking to? What am I doing? That is a great technique. What is the stuff? I think there's just an inner confidence that just starts to build brick by brick on the bottom, just knowing that you're doing the work and something in you knows you're working harder than than than the next person.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Outwork everybody in the room.

SPEAKER_05 50:42

So I think, and I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I had to be doing something.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Let me ask you a question. Do you think because in every hero story there's a drago, right? There's the enemy. If that agent hadn't told you you're never gonna make it. I still think about it. I think I don't think you would have had that moment. Maybe you would have, but not in the the verocity that you came at it with. Like, I am going to like, because I'm the I've had things like that, people were like, ah, and then I was like, I'd never forget those. And I'm like, I almost think like God puts those people in your life at the right time to test you to see like, are you, do you wanna you wanna you wanna go? You wanna you wanna you wanna let me see what you got, kid? And within that proven ground that you had to show yourself, you know, because nothing comes easy, you gotta put the work in. If that person didn't come in with their flipping attitude, like, yeah, you're you're not gonna it's not gonna work out for you, kid. But you were like, not even so much because you didn't have the confidence that you just talked about that, but you were like, I'm wait till I get in the pocket. Wait till I get in the pocket. You do you have did you think that was a big part of that?

SPEAKER_05 51:50

And you're just saying today, like too, it's like to-25 years ago, yeah. Basically, I still remember everything about where I was standing, yeah, and what he was wearing.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

And that's so important. So I almost think too too. It's like for people that have had those, it's like, use that. That is like your that is the the gasoline on the fire. If that stuff does not wake you up, you don't want it bad enough. Right. Like you just don't want it. I think when even like when I talk with my kids, like if they lose at something, I'm always like, if the loss doesn't make you want to come home and train harder, right, and get back and and and and win, whether you win again. Right. But every time you lose, right, it should fire you up, not with anger, but like, I want this. Right. I want this so bad. Right. Um, it's something my dad always taught with me with acting or with it. He's like, you gotta put the work in. It is not, and you will separate yourself from the pact by just applying yourself. And you did I didn't really realize it till later on. Like you really just put things, but it's a moment, and when you I think when something clicks within you where you're like, Oh, I want this is where I'm supposed to be right now. And I don't care who's there's no such thing as competition anymore. It's me doing my path, and no one's gonna get in my way. Right. Like the I've just it's like I'm gonna do this. Like, there's no backup plan. I always say to people, like you know, talking with people, did you ever have a backup plan? I've never once had a backup plan. Because if you have a backup plan, you end up doing the backup plan.

SPEAKER_06 53:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Because it gets so tough, you're like, oh, I'm uncomfortable, I'm gonna go and do that. I mean, fair play to anybody that went to their their backup plan, that's their choice. I didn't have one, I didn't have one deliberately because I was gonna figure it out by hell or high water. And I think you kind of were cut from the same cloth that way. It was like, no, I'm doing I'm I'm doing not only when I do it at this level, but I want that the the I see the mountain that I have to climb, right? And I see who's there, and I'm coming for you. Right.

SPEAKER_05 53:56

You have to you have to have something in you that when you experience a rejection or a setback, some sort of failure. I mean, it it stings. Winner alert like everybody sting, but it can only sting for a second, get up, and then there's just gotta be something in your head that that goes have her cry and then get up and get after it. Right. Yeah, there's there's gotta be something that says now now is the time to now's the time to work harder. And for the doubters, I mean I think about the doubters all the time. Oh, I do too. I love it, I love it. And um, and and it, you know, it's whatever, whatever motivates you. I mean, yeah, I love listening to Jordan and Brady and and everybody, and they their fuel was anybody who said anything that that was gonna knock them down.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

It's crazy too. I I didn't know Brady's story till I saw like that 30 for 30. So it's amazing. It's one of the coolest he I mean, he has the chip, the biggest chip on his shoulder.

SPEAKER_05 54:51

It was but it's that moment. Yeah, yeah, and I just saw something even just a couple days ago that's where he credited, he said, I'm so glad that I wasn't drafted in the first or second round. I'm so glad that he was he was not the starting quarterback. Um you know, I don't think he even got to to play until his senior year any significant time. And uh, but he's like, if I had if I had gone into college and was just the man, if I had been drafted in the first round and was just on the way, he's like, I don't think I'd have that fire that was burning that that made him watch the that that had him watch so much game film and had him that that had him in there earlier than everybody and later than everybody because he's you know he was saying something about how he'd be looking at his face at himself in the mirror at like 5 a.m. shaving and just thinking of of of looking off every single D back and like what he was doing. He was just so locked in. And a lot of that is because he had so many, so many challenges that he had uh he just constantly was was uh pushing back on all these challenges and growing and growing and growing. And that's what that's why now with what I'm doing with this shoe biters thing, which is rock music meets growth mindset that I get to talk about with kids, um, that I'll tell you more about later. But um that's why it's so something so special to me because it's it's it's so deep in my DNA without me even knowing it, of just like I had so many, so many times when it was stacked up against me, not only not only voiceover, which I was able to push through, but with a bunch of other stuff, that there always was something in me that would just would would would run into a wall and then get knocked like that, but then just go like figure out a way through it and around it and and and not stop. And that's why I feel like the the moment that I saw these kids' faces when I was doing my first assembly two weeks and two days ago, um I was like, this feels really good. I feel like I genuinely have something to share with these kids that could that could improve their lives, and that that was that's now my mission and motivation.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Yeah, it's it's uh it's a crazy thing. Like with the my company Born of Discipline, I uh one of the first shirts I ever made, and I always just because it was a statement I said, I was like, it was Born the Underdog. Uh-huh. And it's like Born the Underdog, people are like, Why'd you make it's like no being being the underdog is when you're looking, there was a there's a parable about uh um the wolf that's at the top of the mountain and he's looking out over the valley. And that wolf sits there and he's just looking over the valley, but he doesn't realize there's a young wolf that isn't there, and he's he is climbing, getting stronger. And that that wolf that's at the top is just letting his foot off the gas and is getting I'm I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

He's no longer looking to the next mountain to climb. He's he's just well, this is I'm good here.

SPEAKER_06 57:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

And that underdog that like I'm like whatever that is, and and what that that that that other wolf at the top is not an actual person. I think it's it's with it's you in the mirror. Yeah, it's like, are you gonna push through? Are you going to the question is can you dig deep today, son? Can you push through this? Is this moment in your life? Are you gonna be a little bitch and say, oh, I didn't get it, but or are you gonna dig deep and let this define by your how you come out of this and not by it like destroying you? Right. And the more that I got into that mindset of like, oh no, I'm I'm I'm gonna use this. I'll have my moment, take a breath, get back, get, get up, and get after it. And it's it's a it's a really like you have those things, and there's been all of us we've gone through. I remember your very first voiceover one we were talking about. I clearly remember you were it was for uh like uh you that you lost, you were up for it out of the gates.

SPEAKER_05 58:42

Oh, oh I know the one I know which one you're talking about, one that spun me out. Yeah, so so uh and we've all had that, but it was like then you're to switch to uh yeah, but let me let me go back one one second there. I um because that happened after this agency. Yeah, yeah. So the classes ended. I went in. I I read uh I I read for them again. Yeah. And um on that November 15th or whatever it was after 2 p.m. And as I was walking to the elevator, this time the booth director, um she I think her name was Becky, she was very sweet. Um she came out to the elevator and she said, Wait, hang on a second, actually. Just give me give me a second. I'm gonna play it for the agents right now. So while you're here, just give me a second. And I said, All right, okay. She went in, and like three, four or five minutes later, um Anna Rodriguez, who was an agent at Sutton Barth and Venari, came out and she said, Hey, I just listened to what you did, and it sounds good. It sounds really good. You've been you went you went to class, you you did the classes, and in my mind I was thinking, like, yeah, I went to the class, but I also like you know I was doing six.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

You know how many boxes of pretzel I've eaten? I didn't eat 900 boxes of pretzels because my lips are all cracked, I'm so dehydrated.

SPEAKER_05 59:58

I was like, Yeah, the the the class is 18 hours long, but for the last seven weeks I was doing 60 hour weeks. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I did the 18-hour class, but I also did like, you know, whatever that whatever that is. Nobody sees 200 hours of uh of uh of stuff with 400 spots. And so she's like, uh she's like, you sound good. We'll come back in tomorrow and and and let's start doing auditions. And I went back in that next day, and uh, I think it was the second day of it I booked. Uh um uh they called up and said, Hey, good news. Like literally the the second the second day, hey, good news, you booked Final Fantasy X II, a TV commercial. You get to do two of them. I was like, great. They're like, drive down to Wilshire, sign this thing, and I guess I was driving down to Wilshire and signing something and got Taft Hartley and put in the union. I didn't know any of these words. I just continued on to the section. Taft Hartley, is that a dessert? I don't, I don't even know what it is. I didn't know what it was until years later. I didn't realize what had what had happened. I didn't know about the pension and the health insurance and stuff. I just went down and signed something that just kept, I was just just cruising along, um, putting one foot in front of the other and um went and did that spot. And a couple days later, um uh I went in and and uh got a bunch of commercials for Goodyear, like 12 national TV commercials for Goodyear within within within a week of that. And my life totally changed within within nine days of that of going back after um after that class.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

And um Do you know where I knew where where your life changed too? Because we'd all been struggling then. I'll never forget this. So there's a a uh here this ruck is in the uh doorway, and there is like a hundred-inch TV screen coming through the door, and it's and the TV was like it was wide, it was like super wide, it wasn't like flat screen, like this is thing is wide. And before the thin, yeah. So this is probably like it is it's probably like three feet uh um in depth, and then it was it was a hundred inches.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:54

Maybe not, I think it was I think it was like 80 when 80 was ridiculously. It was the biggest TV you could get. It was Jeff, your friend from Sony. He went down and he continued.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Yeah, he had a 50% discount or something. I was like, oh. So you show up, and I'll never forget this, and your your bed was hooked up the entire room. Yeah, you put this TV that was almost the width of the entire room on your nightstand that you had to push for it to balance it. Yeah, and you basically your feet were touching the screen, and you're like, I got a T. I'm like, What the hell? But you I'm like, yeah, I booked all these like uh 10 days prior, 20 days prior, like you had no money, and then you like got this giant TV and and tons of press. I always wanted a big TV.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:32

Yeah, that was that was the I really only bought one. I bought a mattress, yeah, because my mattress was still on the floor. I bought a bed frame, a mattress, and a TV. That's all that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

Yeah, I'll never forget that. I was like, oh, dude, I'm like, the pool, yeah, you're like, yeah, I booked that. It's so crazy. It's like instantly, because there's certain things. I remember when I got my very first check for CSI New York, and uh I went and bought it because I I had I was I'd always go by this uh uh place that had a pool table, pool table, and I just love pool.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

And I would stop in and look, and I always told the guy, I'm like, one day I'm gonna come in here and buy it. He was like, All right, son. He was an older guy. And the day I showed up, and as I walked through the door, he's like, You're buying one today, huh? And I was like, How do you know? He's like, You came in here to buy, and I was like, That's the one he goes, I'll have it delivered. And I was like, I was like, yeah, and my parents came down to visit.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

Um, and they were gonna help me shop and stuff. And my mom walks in, she's like, Where's the furniture? I'm like, I didn't get it. She's like, You got a pool table? And I remember that. That's it, and I'm like, that's all I needed. That's because that's all I thought about. It didn't have dishes, didn't have anything. But yeah, it's a crazy, it's crazy how that goes. And then it's you, there's a journey, then then it's the next level. Then it's that next mountain that you're gonna look at.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:49

The um that was interesting because that that TV I bought with the Final Fantasy check that came after like five days or something. The Goodyear stuff, um the Goodyear stuff kind of I I remember this pretty clearly. I was back in Virginia. Now it was Christmas time. Um my parents were still living in Virginia. I was downstairs in the basement. I was playing ping pong um with my dad. Oh no, the the day before the uh a check came to the house and it was X amount of dollars. Um actually I have to probably just say it because uh you can find out how much these things were. It was it was uh, I think it was like four grand or something like that for a check. And I was like, wow, which is a lot of money. Four grand for an hour and a half of doing it's time to get your good year, sketch your local good year deep, you know, all that sort of stuff. Like, that's great for for an hour and a half of work to do 12 swaps. And um the next night, my dad and I were playing ping pong downstairs in the basement. My mom comes down and she says, You got some you got some mail, and she puts 11 more envelopes down. It was it was four for every commercial. I thought it was four for one, it was four each, so it was whatever, four times twelve. And that's when I went right back, went on Craigslist, looked up buy a house on Craigslist. Yeah, and I bought a house on Linforth that you lived with me with. Yeah, yeah. Um, I found it on Craigslist. The a realtor was selling it on uh on Craigslist, and it was like, you know, it was because back then you that was in 2008.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

It was like just before the market crashed.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:26

Yeah, it was I think it was 2006.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Six, two thousand six. It was two thousand five. But it was right at the every you could like you you had fifty thousand bucks, you could put a house down.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:35

Five percent down on a million dollar house. So you have to like I had no anything, and no nothing. Just uh uh the real estate agent that listed it on Craigslist said, Call this guy. His name's Rocky. I went he's a lender.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

I went with you to in the car. We went to the guy's office on Wilshire or whatever and did all the signs. I was like, Oh, this is crazy. Right. That's right. I remember he walked in there, he was like, Yeah, we're gonna there you go. There you go, here's the thing, sign this. And then we went to uh um what was the name of that uh Mexican taco place that we'd always go to to celebrate? Oh it was it was by the standard the cop book cantina cantina? Yeah it was right there it was there it was yeah we went there and we got the Cadillac margaritas and we're just cross out that's right, yeah and and uh and that's yeah that was the that was the very first that it happened so fast that all happened by the end of January.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

So November, um November, middle of November, I went back, had no agent, boom, within like two and a half, three months, it was like here's checks, here's a down payment, here's a thing, and here's a house, and there's all it happened so fast. Music, I was always like pounding on doors. Hey, check this out. Hey, I got another demo, hey, I got another thing, hey, I got another song, hey, I got another band. Yeah, and nothing would ever open. I would just be like trying to stick my foot in the door and it would slam. Oh, can't even get a toe in the door. Yeah, voiceover, whoosh, whoosh, doors flying open. It was like, wow, this is what I'm this is what I was meant to do. And that's why right and I hadn't had that feeling again until just recently when I started playing these songs for kids in front of the kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

So how how did the whole um like, you know, obviously during this time you met your wife and you had kids? Yeah, you have two boys, yeah. Two boys. Um and you've got your voiceover thing in the in your back house, and you know, you you live in Santa Barbara.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:37

Yeah, my studio is right right in the back, and a lot of life has happened between then. I sound like that's that's 20 something years like since that right around that time when when we moved into Linforth, yeah, I sold some amps. Yeah, I put I think I sold guitars, I kept an acoustic guitar and that's it. And and and an electric guitar. Not even an amp. And um, and that was a dream that was extinguished, totally extinguished. In fact, for 10 years, I only listened to AM radio. I couldn't even listen to to K-Rock because it would be it was it just reminded me of a career that I had totally failed at. I wanted to be a musician, I wanted to write songs and play shows, and I I tried hard. I worked at it really hard, had so many bands and played a lot of gigs and just it didn't it didn't happen. And so listening to all the great successful bands like on the radio and stuff, instead of being like, ah, this is such a killer song, it just made me sad. It was just like it was kind of painful. So I I listened to a lot of AM radio for like 10 years, and it was a dream that um that I gave up. I mean, I I gave it up for a new career that I was very passionate about.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

It wasn't like I I um you know, I I I substituted it for another thing because and plus you have kids, and it's not like you know, when you're uh band you're on the road and you know, right, right. It couldn't be like you had to be, you know, and then the blessing in a sense is like you couldn't work from home and right.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:08

It's a bet it's a much better career for a family. I didn't have a family until much later, as you know. But but I did substitute the passion in music for the passion and voiceover because right when I kind of like the wolf we were talking about, after after I got Linforth, you probably remember this. I didn't, I wasn't like, great, I've made it in voiceover. I took every single voiceover class in town. I joined, um, I was like, okay, now is the time to really learn. I I would go to um to to practice workout sessions with people trying to get agents and people who had agents and people who were working and just go to workout groups on on Mondays in Santa Monica, on Thursdays in the Valley. I'd take Joyce Castellano's promo shop. I'd take this guy. I took every Maurice Tobias, was a great teacher that I take a lot of privates with and take her seminars. And just I wanted to learn everything that I wanted to take classes from every single teacher there was out there. And um, and just kept kept learning for like for years after. In fact, I still take take classes. I just took with Tina Marosco, who's an amazing teacher. Um, just last year I took I think 10 classes with her or so privates, because just like I'm a you know, I'm a big believer in coaching. Yeah, when I wanted to try and beat you in pool, yeah. Which I don't think I ever ever ever did. We uh uh Day Peco, the Marilla Cup, the Marilla Cup. Day Peko won it. Ah yes, yes, still angry about it. A silent Canadian. But uh, but I took I I took pool lessons, ping pong lessons. Uh you know, I'm a big believer in having a trainer at the gym and uh and any of that sort of stuff. I mean, LeBron James has coaches. Everybody who's yeah at eye level, I I believe in coaching at every single level. Um anything that can make better. I mean, even the the MMA fighters, they all they all got coaches. You gotta always be learning. There is no like you've you've know everything and you're not having coaches.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:58

So I think I think when you again it goes back, there's always again it's the metaphor of when you go to a place where you're like, I don't need it. Like that's where you you lose that right. You become you come you become fappy. Yeah, like you just are you are no longer looking up, you're looking down and saying, look at what I've done, as opposed to I want to get there. And you be becoming um uh um what's it sedentary where you're you're sti staying still? Sedentary? Whatever that word is. It's like we're we're we're when you because we're always supposed to be moving, we're always we should always be have that hunger. And I feel like when when when you start to take that foot off and and bathe in it, which is good to do to uh enjoy it, but me in my internal drive has always been get up, get after it, get up, get after it. And I feel like and I love it. Like I I don't like I think for some people, they're like, oh it's so exhausting. Right. I don't like yeah, there's days, but it hasn't, it's not exhaust. I fucking love doing this. Are you in that same sort of situation?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:07

Yeah, with with voiceover, yeah, yeah. I luckily, voiceover, I've I've had a passion for it and loved it from the first second. There've there have been so many friends throughout the last 25 years that have said, hey, you gotta listen to my friend, or can you give my friend advice on how to get it? And I I meet with everybody, I have so many people in the studio so that they can read for their first time and stuff. And I tell them the same things, hey, go home, write down five commercials off TV, practice them over and over again, come back in, read them to me, and we'll record a sub. And no, nobody ever really does it. But um, but sometimes people will read the first piece of copy and I can just see it in them when they go like uh McDonald's 99 cent this and that, and you could just tell that they don't like for some reason. I was able to just click it off in my head.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

When you got what was your copy when you read for when you got Dancing with the Stars? Because you're the you do the voice for Dancing with the Stars.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:01

Yeah. Um, so that one, so the dance, the dance kind of rewind.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

Can you do it? Can you do it for us? That the the voice give us give us some dancing with the stars. Give us some dancing with the stars, Ricky.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Um Dancing with the Stars on ABC. Next day one. When you're wearing the headset, it even like you can totally hear it. Can you hear that, Sean? It's gonna give me one more. Give me one more.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:28

I should I should pull out a piece of copy because I'm just so used to reading it from I need I need a piece of copy in my face, but it's always it's ballroom week. It's Disney, it's always Disney night.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

Pretend if I was on Dancing with the Stars. AJ Buckley's performing the tango. Give me one of those. AJ Buckley's performing the tango. It's Disney night.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:45

I'm dancing with the stars.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:46

See? I need to go do dancing with the stars now. Um, that would be fun. Three pillars of discipline: spirit, mind, body, in that order. That right there is the foundation of a company I started called Born of Discipline. It's incredibly important to me, this company incorporates my faith, the lessons I learned from my father on discipline, pain from regret, or pain from discipline is something my dad always said to me. And I've incorporated that into my life, and I want to share it with you. Go check it out at bornofdiscipline.com. No, it's crazy to just to see that that journey and to to find that you know where we've we've both been in these sort of valleys, but that it's all mindset within that of like, how do you how do you get to that that get the courage every time you knock down to to sort of get back up in that fight?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:42

And then you And it's every it's so it's so often. In fact, we started talking about this because of that e-trade thing early on. So so yeah, the final fantasy thing happened, and then the the Goodyear thing happened, and the the we moved into that thing together. Shortly right around that time, it probably was right right in that time. I do remember because it was early on in my career. It was like down to me and one other guy or two other guys for e-trade. And the agent said something like, Just so you know, this is gonna be a $125,000 campaign, which now looking back at it, you can never quite predict if it's gonna be whatever. But a number was put in my head of what this thing is gonna be. And at that time I had a girlfriend. Uh uh, and um I started thinking, well, now's the time. I'm gonna take that money and I'm gonna get a ring. And I know I want to be a father. I'm gonna get 900 billion boxes of pretzels. Um, and then I'm gonna get married, and then I'll uh I'm getting this house now, and then I'll probably have some kids. And I like I had spun out what this job was going to mean to get me onto the next thing. And then I went in for the thing, and I felt like I froze up a little bit and didn't have as good of an audition as I could, and the other person got the job. And you probably remember it. Like, I didn't even like move for a week. I felt like there was like a cloud of so I felt like I had a path in life, and I messed it up, and now I'm on this thing, and my whole life, like I totally spun out, and that was my first real thing of like what a heavy rejection would feel like. And it was, I just had hadn't had that in that career, and little did I know that that's that's the job, yeah. That's the whole thing. How many times can you get hit in the gut like that? Yeah, now there's been a thousand of those, yeah. Like, but you've got to be able to take that, and yeah, it stings for a second, and then you just keep on keep on going. I remember that when I um there was a time when it was NBC and it was down to like a couple of guys, yeah. And one of my best friends, Reno Romano, got it. And but I remember like I I was ready for that job. I thought I was like primed up and I all that sort of stuff. And um in that one again, like got for a couple days. I just like was like it can be real being an actor, a voice actor, and stuff like that. You take a lot of you take a lot of blows and rejection. You do have to, you do have to. I mean, it's it's what I'm telling these kids is so from the heart. You do have to bounce back emotionally. Your heart has to like take it and then get stronger. And every setback is an opportunity to grow and get better. And it was a couple years later when the same exact opportunity popped up. It was down to the to three guys again. Um, and uh, and it was for the ABC job. Yeah. And um I I read, we all went into the studio and uh and uh read, and there's a bunch of you know, six people on the other side of the glass, and you're reading six pieces of copy, and one of these three people is gonna get a voice of a network job, it's a big job, and um it's high pressure because you know whatever happens in these nine minutes or whatever it is is gonna is is gonna impact you in a in a big way. And I didn't hear anything for two weeks, but that time I do remember where I was and got the call, and Mike Shellbetter and Cam Nist, who are my agents, called up and Mike first said, I got bad news, man, but I could hear Cama breathing on the other line. And I'm like, they're not gonna put me on speakerphone if they're giving me bad news. Please don't give me bad news on speakerphone. He's like, You got the ABC So it's like, and and and I actually cry, I mean, it sounds silly because it's just a voiceover job, but I I see why those athletes cry after like you've lost a championship, you've lost a championship, you've lost a championship, yeah, and then you win, and then you get one, and it's like all of you know, it was it was it was a really moving moment. I'll never forget it. And that that's the job that I still have today. So, how did I get dancing with the stars? Lots of other jobs in between.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:50

If you think about this though, and it sort of you actually you you I think you I don't know if you realize it or not, but you you just I understand even more so why now when you talk to these kids, these characters, this journey, if you hadn't this next chapter that you're about to go in, which I fully believe is going to be the biggest chapter of your life, and I believe even more so in this concentrated com conversation about looking back on the path, because all these doors of our memories are open up, remember this, remember that? I think why you're built this way now was to prepare you for this moment that you're about to go on, and it's so out there, like it's so again, it's just I mean, the shoe biters, it's you know, if you hadn't been able to have heartache and and to be able then to communicate with the kids, and then even just rem being reminded about the album that you wrote working with special needs kids, this has been in your DNA for forever, and you weren't supposed to be a rock star then. Right. But now through the years of voiceover, and now through the the the connections that you have, bringing some of the top animators on planet Earth, producing this amazing cartoon music video uh uh shoe biters that's on YouTube right now that's absolutely exploding, and you're you're getting mobbed at schools. Yeah, that's you know, you know, you go to you you go to uh um to your kids to help with lunch. You don't you you volunteer time and the kids are chanting shoe biter shoe like that's I mean body elementary, yeah, e-body elementary.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

But but it's a crazy it's a crazy thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

But it's it's a crazy thing though when you think about this, Rick. Like as you were saying that, I was like, well, it's all making sense for this moment that is right now. And there's not many people in their life that are like, I want to be, I want the wiggles, I want to be the wiggles. You know, you're like, no, but unless it's inside you, and unless you've been through something and have a story to tell. Because you were sitting in the car there, and you're like, when I played that first show, the thing and I saw the impact I was having on these kids, yeah, and what it did. So take let's let's let's let's jump to the the the this next chapter and where in guy's name did this start?

SPEAKER_05 1:21:14

Well, it definitely didn't start with the assemblies that I started to do in front of the kids, and it didn't even start with the actual animations. Um it started with me taking my acoustic guitar out of the out of the hidden away because you paint well I took it out again. Um I only I only played three songs. I wrote three songs um in the last like 25 years. Other than that, unless I had a specific purpose to write a song, I would leave the guitar in the garage until Megan, my wife, got pregnant. Then I pulled it out and I'd play Here Comes the Sun and Harvest Moon and stuff while Graydon was uh my son was in her belly. Um so I pulled it out then, but in the 25 years before that, when I was doing voiceover, never out, I wrote four songs. I wrote one for my friend Brad when him and his wife Aria uh lost uh lost a pair of twins. Yeah, and this and the and the second song that I wrote Where do angels go when they die? Was yeah, yeah, was for your for your father because after he passed away, that was his favorite song. Yeah, and I'd never recorded it, so I gave that to you as a gift. I recorded it with one of my best friends, uh my uh Jesse Siebenberg, who's my musical partner on Shoebiter. So I called Jesse and said, Jesse, one of my best buddies, AJ's father, passed away. He loved this song, Where the Angels Go When They Die. Um Where the Angels Go is the name of the song. And uh I said, Can I bring it in? He said, Yeah, bring it in, which is pretty much the same way that it happened. And I and I wrote a song for Skip's um wedding and one for my wedding. And um, but those are the only four songs I wrote in 25 years. Um, but just like when I called Jesse for your father's song, um, I called Jesse up and said, Jess, I got a song about garbage truck that I wrote for my for my kids. Because when I saw Graydon standing at the front door on Wednesday, trash day, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, he would go to the door. He's one and a half, and uh maybe two, and he'd just sit down at the door and go, Pepe, Pepe, Pepe. And I'm like, what? Oh, he's saying Pepe. And Pepe is our garbage guy who is the coolest guy who would come up, take like, come out, get out of his truck, give my little guy knuckles, high fives, huge smile, say hi, wave. And he was just a hero to my son. Like, he'd take extra time, it's probably late for his next thing. And my son loved him, so I was like, I'm gonna write a verse and a chorus for Pepe, and I did. Chuckka, junka, chuckka, junkka, garbage trucks. And that night, Megan came up to me with the baby monitor and she's like, Listen. And Graydon was in there in his crib going, garbage chuck. And I was like, Oh, this is this is too sweet. So I called Jesse and I said, Um, I got a song. I'm gonna can I come down? He said, Yeah, bring it down. I brought it down. Um, I play the rhythm guitar on acoustic and I do a scratch vocal, and then Jesse, yeah, um, Jesse lays down the drums. He's a multi-instrumentalist, a brilliant, amazing, incredibly talented multi-digit. It sounds like sounds like me. Yeah, just like you. Just like you. I mean, you play organ and slide and pedal style.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:48

Multi-in-instrument it is. Yeah, exactly.

unknown 1:24:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:51

Um, and uh, and Jesse played it, and and afterwards I go to write the check and say, hey man, thanks for having me down. Jesse goes, hey, this was so much fun. Don't even worry, let's let's do more of these together. Don't even worry about it. Um Jesse's super pro and that's how he supports his family. So uh so I he that was a super generous offer. Um uh, but we are partners, and I I'll I'll uh I'll uh you know that's how he supports his family. So um I didn't take him up on all of his generosity, but he's been incredibly generous to me. We're we're we're partners in the sense that um that uh this is this is our music. I write the songs um and he he plays them. I do the I do the vocals and good and uh acoustic guitar down the thing. He'll play everything. I'll go down and and we'll work on it. Um he does a lot of it by himself. And then um, and then I'll go back down and and resing the lead vocal and and that's it. Um and so he sent after I played the first one, I was like, I didn't even follow up with him because I was like, ah, I don't I don't know if it felt right. I think I called him the next day and was like, hey, instead of playing it loud rock and roll style, like I was thinking, I should have done it more like a Jack Johnson song. I should, I was like second guessing it all over. And two weeks later, he sent the thing finished back with my scratch vocal, and I played it for the kids, and I and I loved it the first time I heard it, and the kids loved it, and so I was like, Oh, I'm writing another one. So I wrote another one and brought it down for them. Then I wrote another one, but and I just kept bringing a song every every week or so, and we had like 10 of them, and we're gonna put them out, and then um where did it where did the because then it at what point were you like oh I've got to create these characters?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:29

When did the shoe biters actually happen?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:31

So Megan started sharing them with some of her friends, and it was her friends first that uh that were like, Oh, I heard the garbage truck song, oh I heard the excavator song. Um cool song, and and their kids started liking them.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:44

Yeah, and I didn't think I was gonna ever go out and play these songs because I didn't I didn't think I was gonna be isn't that crazy though, you didn't think you were gonna play these songs because you were doing it because you loved it and you were doing it, you was coming to such a such a pure place as opposed to when you were writing music in the past, all you wanted to do was go out and you were just you weren't connected to the you hadn't lived the life to because I feel like really good musicians, the ones that I like, whether young or old, it's just that some people are connected and they have a story to tell. Exactly right, they're able to connect to the emotional heartbeat of a moment that other people can do. And we were talking about that AI and stuff, right? Like it's soulless. There's something missing from from that, and and the human spirit and the ability to tell a story in a narrative to to to create emotional uh uh attachment. And with songs, right, songs hook you not because of the words, because it puts you in a state where you're like, I'm thinking about something. Right. And it evokes an emotion out of you that you weren't playing. It makes you deal with things, make you think it makes you rem it reminds you of things, and we're built as humans on our memory. Once our once we stop. Remembering somebody or something, it's gone forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:04

And I think music has a way of it's a universal language, which it really is, to connect us all. And it's crazy. Like, I don't think you just you were outside the recording booth for all those years in there. And for the first time, you were in your home going through life, creating something that you were so connected to that was so honest and pure. Right. And then there was a reaction out of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:29

Yeah. This time it wasn't to try and write a hit that would get me the management deal that would land a record deal so that I could do it as a job. This time I already had a job. And a dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:41

You had a job as a dad.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:42

Yeah. I I I well, yeah. I had a job as a dad, and I and I wasn't doing this to write a hit song. I wasn't doing it to make any money. I was doing it for one reason, which was to make my two little boys smile when they heard the when they heard it on acoustic guitar. And then when I recorded it with Jesse, it like it brought it to life. But it was um, it was the the the sole intention was to make my kids smile. It's actually still the any reason I I write any of these songs is just for an audience, pretty much an audience of two. And I like that my wife likes them too. Yeah. But um, but it's not, it has nothing to do with any of the business side, doesn't really have even have to do with the the the animations, doesn't have to do with anything. The music just comes from a really pure place. It's um before when I was trying to kind of force something, it it it that's why I was always having to force stuff. This time it um it's it's just a very very a very pure, honest thing. And it's also it's so interesting because the um just the fact that I'm that I'm now playing music with Jesse again 25 years later, it you would you asked a little earlier, like would I have expected to have seen myself sitting here right now? That dream, if if the dream was a fire, water got poured on it, yeah, it was extinguished, it was gone. I did not think there was even a a spark left, but somehow it's gotten it's gotten fanned, and now my love and passion for music and songwriting and recording and and playing is like even more passionate and genuine than it was back when I was 25 trying to do this for for a living. Now I just I love it so much, and being able to share that with my kids who love music, yeah. Being it them seeing me writing new songs, they're like, Oh dad, you're working on a new song. Oh, let's hear it. I have a video just from last week of a uh one last one last one, and then I then I gotta stop writing these songs because it's like every time I start writing a song, I go into a cave for a week and um and um like Megan's like, oh no, you're writing another song. Yeah, yeah, it's like uh a thing, but um, which it which is a which is a really good thing. But my my kids, they they really love seeing the creative process kind of happen. So the um the the dream and the the passion that got totally shelved, um, it it that also came back in a big way.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:22

Yeah, and I think it's again it's just it's just what what you're able to to see, you you only see things that you're you're ready to see and you're only able to go to the next chapter in your life. When you're reading a book, always use this analogy, when you're reading a book, you're not able to go to the next chapter if you don't understand what you just read. Right. And if you don't actually understand, then you go back and you read it again, and you read it again, and you're like, I don't not get it. And you sometimes you you miss little details, and all of a sudden when you you go, oh, I understand what happened in chapter. I gotta go to chapter two now. And then you're there for a little bit. And I feel like it's chapter, and I feel this next chapter with the shoe biters, like now this is you've got this cartoon, you've got this, the music, you the the kids and stuff, you know, you have, you know, how did how did it how did it end up with the the kids at school and stuff?

SPEAKER_05 1:32:14

Well, yeah, the the the cartoon came because after after I had a bunch of these songs, then the idea was I'd love for my kids to see like these played live. So I called up some some music friends, uh, Greg Pager, who's um Pager, who is a really talented guitar player that I've known for over a decade. Um, I called him and said, I got he also has a young son. Um, and I said, I got kids songs. They're rock kid songs, but they're meant to be played loud. Um, you want to help me put together a band? So he found Zach St. John, who's a really killer killer drummer, and uh Jennifer Oberly, I hope I'm saying that right, uh, who's an incredible bass player, and Drin Elliott, who is an awesome keyboard player, and they were kind enough, even though they're they're pros that get out and play with real people. I was like, can we dress like these characters? So they did. They dressed up like the characters, like the shoebiters, and and we played uh we went and played the whiskey on sunset. Uh and the the uh had some friends out, but mostly my two little kids that stood right by the stage and were kind of curious right before we were about to play. We're all dressed up. I got this is that's when I ordered this shirt. Um and um they uh they're standing there and they're looking up, kind of curious, and we get out there, and when we hit the first note, the big yeah, I wish I had put a camera on their face because they just went like rock and roll, dad. Yeah, it was it was so awesome. They heard like the first big drums and big distorted guitars, and and they just loved it. Um, and um and they really enjoyed the character too. When I came down the stairs for the first time in this shirt, this is just back in in January for the first time, um, and I came down the stairs, and Roan, my four-year-old, looks up and he hadn't seen me in this shirt yet. And he goes, Growl, the name of the character, and ran runs up to me and gives me a hug. And I was like, Oh, this is special. There's so there's there's there's something about this shirt because they had seen the animations. But um, but uh a year before that is when Megan was sharing them with her friends. Her friends are liking the music. Um, and I'm like, all right, well, I I should do something with it. I'm not gonna, I don't want to become a children's musician going out there and playing them myself, but I would like for these songs to be played by someone, so I'll just I'll come up with an animation. Uh I'll come up with some characters. And so I came up with the shoebiters and um and hired someone off Upwork, you know, Upwork. It's like the thing you can find overseas guys or people from here or stuff. And I found an artist, uh, Paval, um, very good artist, uh, excellent artist, and he drew some some characters, and they were good. Um, and I had, you know, shoe biters and that. And uh I got another great graphics guy named Jamie that came up with the logo, and um, and uh those were the characters. Um and I did kind of like a rough storyboard. Some of my voiceover friends helped me connect with a storyboard artist, and I did that, and then hooked up with uh my friend Adam McAllister, who I knew through doing um Conan promos for the whole time he was at TBS. And then through him, I hooked up with my friend Jason Ubaldi, who I've done promos with forever, and Jason writes for live action stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:31

You you had you had you had because of this journey you've been on, you had all the top because these are some of the biggest people in the in the business.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:38

They're excellent, excellent writers, pro promo writers, yeah, and and then and then also do scripts and and live action and stuff. So we started developing the concept, and then Jason, uh we all we took it as far as we could, um, uh, because now it was time to either like to to make a real animation or find someone to partner with. And so uh Jason connected with um John Zager, who has become a partner on this thing, and he is a bulldog who literally went out to Australia when he heard that Bluey was making a 3D movie and um and uh recruited ex Bluey um ex-Bowie artists. Yeah, and um and uh yeah, and so those are those are who are they they're they're working on the 3D movies, so there were some 2D Bluey 2D artists. Oh my gosh. I was gonna move the mic and I uh sorry, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:37

You're you're looks like I've never seen a microphone before. I know, Jesus. I'm just gonna move it right in front of me. So the the the thing that I I I I because I saw one of the trailers where it goes through all the band names.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:48

What are some of the other band names that they oh the other band and animal band names in Harmony Town?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:54

There's there's like 20 of them. Just give me a couple because they're so good. Um some of my favorites are Grays Against the Machine, goats, you know, Zach's got his goatee and all that stuff. Um, and also Tom Morello is uh rough, there's a character in the shoebiters, Ruffy. He's the lead guitar player. And the guitar he plays is kind of modeled after the Arm the Homeless guitar, but it's called the We Are the Toys guitar, but the lettering and the stuff is is just like a um you know it's a tip of the hat to the legendary Tom Morello. And um and uh so that's one of my favorite. But yeah, Ruffy is and Ruffy also has a bandana, he'll wear a bandana, but when he puts it around his neck and kind of wears it like that, uh then he has then he turns into a rock star. But when he's not, when he doesn't have his bandana around his neck, then he's a little self-conscious. And uh so um so uh Braze Against the Machine. Oh, nine inch snails, nine inch snails is really good. Um let's see, uh Purvana. Yeah, Purvana, cat cobain, and pervana. Um Stink 183 Are they the bad guys? Huh?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:07

Are they the bad guys? Are they the villains?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:08

No, uh Stink 183, they're they're they're they're just they're just good band. Although the the drummer, the prairie dog in shoebiters, is a he thinks he's a dog. Uh he acts like a dog. He he eats he bites shoes. That's where the shoe biters got their name. Uh he likes to eat dogs.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:24

These prairie dogs aren't dogs. They're those dogs.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:26

Right, they're not dogs, but he thinks he's a dog. He's a teeny tiny uh prairie dog that plays big, huge, loud drums, and his name is Barker. So he's he's modeled after Travis Barker. You know, he wears a sleeveless shirt. So yeah. Um and uh and um then there's uh so there's um there who's some there's Hound Garden, there's Weasel.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:52

Weasel, yeah. There's mole. Uh a little bit. There's the red hot chili peckers. They chickens?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:00

They're they're uh they're woodpeckers. Oh nice. And then there's Metallicao. Oh they we we have them as we don't want that. I mean, Metallica is one of my favorite bands. Um, in fact, my kids love, they're always asking to hear one and ride the lightning. So it's so funny hearing these two little kids singing the ride singing to ride the lightning. But that they're into fade fade to black.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:20

Like some of their favorite songs are all. I mean, it's it's so it's so original, it's so it's it's got its own little thing. But within the messaging of, which is what I think is where it's really connected with you on because it's one thing to be call back to what your first love was with music, but then finding this purpose of you know, with these kids and connecting with it, I think is what from talking to you and seeing you talk about is really being what's the driving force behind this. It's like they're where you're creatively stimulated because of this this narrative. So just walk me through this, like what how you how do you tell this narrative and what does it mean? Because there's so much stuff for parents, and I know being a parent, you know, our kids could be watching something. I'm like, what is this? Right. And you're so you're always worried, and we don't have the time all the time to like vet all these these things. So it's nice to know that this is there's actually they're getting a message out of it. And then when you play in front of these kids who these kids know your songs, right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:21

Because it started, it started at my son's school, Peabody Elementary, and um, and their wonderful teacher, Audrey Hughes, um, she said, Come on in and play some songs, but wear the wear the shirt. So I said, All right, I'll come in and wear the shirt. And um, I went in and I played Glow, which is one of our songs, um, and they really had a good time with it, and um and were bouncing around and and and really got into the character because she had been showing them glow, the music video beforehand. And it went really well. And by the end of the day, the other four kindergarten classes had reached out through my wife, who's a behavioral therapist, uh, does behavioral therapy work and works at Peabody. So they reached out to her and said, Hey, so all the other teachers started signing up, kind of saying, come on, come on and do it. So I think like by the next day, I did the other four kindergartens, and then the first grade teachers went to the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:18

Sold out shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:20

Um it happened really organically. The first graders, bring your own cookies.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:28

Um, and after I did the first grade classes, one of the administrators said, Hey, can you do a full assembly? And uh I was like, uh, yeah, I guess. So she meant the the the TK, the kindergarten, the first grade, and there'd be like 225 kids. And I said, Yeah, give me three weeks and I'll and I'll I'll write one. So um, so I wrote Growl's Rockin' Growth Mindset, which is uh um it's got a multimedia thing, so I had the voiceover artists do some new voiceovers where I talk back and forth with them, um kind of talking about some of the some of the songs, and then each song has a power word. So it'd be like when we're talking about the song Firefighter Natalie, I'd be like, wait a minute, firefighter Natalie, that sounds like a powerful word. And and then and I relate it to courage. So the power word for firefighter Natalie is courage, because uh I pretty much say, wait a second, to have incredible music, you need to have power chords on the guitar. But to have an incredible life, you need to have power words in your vocabulary. So um, so it'll be um, it'll be uh I I think I messed that one up, but uh yeah, power power chords, and every time I say a power word, then it's power word. Yeah. So um, and I also took the album that was gonna be a double album with like 24 songs, 23 songs, and split it up. So now it's two different albums, and each song has a power is a power word. So it'll be like glow authenticity in parentheses.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:58

So each song has a um has a word because uh uh kind of naming naming emotions and and um and uh uh having with Megan being a behavioral therapist, she's into like if you know, because with our kids and stuff, when they're feeling frustrated or they're feeling anxious or having like I wasn't taught how to label all these complex emotions as a young kid, but um, but they're uh you know that that's a big thing is being able to And there's and there's and when it when a kid can identify what they're going through by a word or through a song or something, you're like, oh okay, because it's you know, you get caught up in your day as a dad and you're busy and stuff, but then you can see like, you know, maybe they're going through something, but you're like so if you when you can find those words that will at least there's an understanding that they don't feel alone, they don't feel you can go like, oh, I know where, and like it's this is what I'm going through. Like those are I think it's really important, and I think this is where where I believe this is really gonna take off because it it creates this bridge between the kids and the families and the ability to talk, and it's because it's these music videos, it's this great like little like hits of like okay, this is this, and then it's on to the next one. Um, I mean it and it's kind of funny. I think we touched a bit face with it a little bit at at the beginning of of of the show, but like you go now to the school because you volunteer time um during the week and that they've asked you not to come back.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:24

Well, this whole this whole school year uh on Wednesdays from 8 30 to 9 30, I'd go in and help with reading. Yeah, and um it was totally fine. I after after that hour, or I think it's I think it's 50 minutes after that, I'd go to the to the um to the snack time on the out on the out at the yard, and it was no problem. But once I started going in and playing these shows, like like show, it's so funny. Shows. It's on such a it's great. It is though. It's uh these like mini mini things for the kindergarten classes and stuff. Then the kids really started liking liking the songs. And so when I would go out to snack time, they'll they'll come running up and go, shoe by the biggest.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:03

Oh no, there's like four by 30 kids. Like, it's like it's you're like you're like, you know, it's like your Ringo Star pulling up to the thing and being like, Yeah, where are we going at? But it's there, but they're infatuated by that you're growling, you're you know, thing. But I think I think that the lightning in the bottle is you're doing that right now without that there's effort going into it, but you're you're getting this following of parents are are connecting and people are it spreads like wildfire. And I think anything within as a parent, it doesn't matter if if something was wasn't matter how good the marketing is on something. If another parent tells you, you need this, you need to get this right away, you instantly are like, okay, what is it? Because you're in such a fog, and you're like, how do I talk to them? I don't know this, they're speaking another language. But when a parent goes to a parent, you got to check this out. You're instantly that so it's so different because it's that's like grassroots. And I think the fact that you're in this grassroots sort of area and it's just going go, go, go, go, because it's like each time it just multiplies and multiplies. And yesterday, getting to hear you know, you talk about the tour that you're gonna be going on next year, and you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:13

So I just did that first assembly. Peabody needed to push theirs back because of a double booking thing. There wasn't enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:19

There wasn't enough room in the Yeah, we're gonna have a bigger gym.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:22

Um no, they they they had they had something to do with sports day, and so we're doing it at the beginning of the year, but Washington Elementary, which is uh on the also in Santa Barbara, they they had me come in two weeks ago, and um, and that was that that was a lot of fun. Um, and that led to like now there's like 10 other schools that have already called and and and want to do it at the beginning of the year. And we're talking about going to through Texas and going like so that led to so that was just organic. That was just like I did I did one and then 10 more places called, like, hey, we saw this post and and one of the administrators called and a wonderful woman named Rachel from the PT head of the PTSO, uh, I think talked to a few people, and I just started getting calls um just out of the out of the blue and emails out of the blue, um, and have a lot of these, a lot of these bookings. And so uh a place called uh well there's there's two places uh um that are that are like booking sort of places. They they saw the iPhone video that was kind of chopped down, and yeah, this one place is saying you're going viral. That's what the kids call it this day. They um they said, hey, we can we can we can get you like what is your goal? And I said, well, at first my goal is just to entertain my kids, then my goal is to make some cool animations. Then my goal was to play it for for some kids live. And now my goal is to actually share this message that has become my mission, which is when I saw the kids actually connecting to my power words on resilience and perseverance and teamwork and courage and authenticity, um, which relates to each one of these videos. I'm like, that's what this has been about the whole time. I'm making these videos so I can connect to the kids so that I can get in front of them so that I can talk about these principles of growth mindset that I've had to develop over my entire life that I really believe in. And so now my passion project has become my purpose. And I so I I I said, hey, just put me in front of as many kids as you want. So I'm gonna go do a week in Dallas, I'm gonna go do a week in Chicago, I'm gonna go do a week in a week in New York.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:21

You're gonna be booked uh, because Branger asked me this morning, he's like, Is Uncle Rick gonna play at our at our school? And I'm like, I I'm pretty sure I I really feel that this is such a a new chapter. Uh uh you got it there, buddy? Um, I really feel like, and again, I out from outside looking in, um seeing you so close to this, and now even just like I was sort of addressing earlier, the whole journey that you've been on of tasting the music, going through the voiceover thing, that you know, the the ups and the downs and the path you've been on, meeting your wife who's the favorite a behavioral yeah, behavioral therapist behavioral therapist, and just all these different things that have now now sort of sometimes the road of where you think you're going leads you to the road where you're supposed to actually be, you know, and and I think you are exactly where you are right now. And I I'm I'm telling you, and I know when this podcast airs, and you know, you'll you're gonna be booked out across things, but it's gonna go from there because you were talking to me about the wiggles and like what they do, and they I'm like, the wiggles, they're they're like they're still touring, but you're in such a unique lane with this. Of I mean, in the wildest dreams of all of this, never did I think Rick Robles would be selling out, you know, concert halls, stadiums, who knows, with playing growl the in the shoe biters, you know, and the way that YouTube works now, and how Dude Perfect has has taken it on the road. That's where this is, these personalities on you know. This is gonna be something because you play from my kids, I was watching when we were going to have to make a cross came. It's such a great thing to say. I just want to say many of that I know we haven't seen each other so many years. And we all go our own way.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:35

I love you so much, and I'm so proud of you being in your home with your amazing family and the life you've created out here.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:45

Well, I I hope I get I get free tickets to the freaking human because I guarantee you. I guarantee you, Dad, I'm gonna give you a dad. It's not gonna be because it's not gonna be like Uncle Aunt anymore, it's gonna be Uncle Grow. So I I want first row tickets and I and I do not want to wait in line, pal. I love you, buddy. Thanks for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:08

Thank you. All right, and this is called excavators. Power word meticulous. Um We are the excavators, oh chaca, gosh. We groove and move the earth, we can dig it, we can dig it, we can dig it, we can dig it. We're dirt investigators, we are the excavators, on bumchaca gosh. Can you dig it? We can dig it, can you dig it? We can and we're digging it up, we're digging it up, we're digging it up, we're digging it up, we're digging it up, we're digging it up, we're digging it up, and we're putting it down to down to down to down to down to down to down. Pop a footin' it down to down to down to down to down to down to down, put a footin' it, continue to dig it, continue to dig it. We've got to continue to dig it, continue to dig it. We've got to continue to dig it, continue to dig it, we've got to continue to dig it, continue to dig and dig and dig, and don't be afraid of working hard, getting all dirty, maybe getting a scar. Cause at the end of the day, there's nothing more fun than the feeling you get from a job well done. That's why we continue to dig it, continue to dig. So when you need a crew, just call us and we'll move. Anytime, anywhere, we'll be there because we are the excavators, we groove and move the earth, we're dirt investigators, we are the excavators, we are the excavators, we groove and move the earth, we're dirt investigators, we are the excavators. Excavators. My kids love excavators. This song's called Z's. It's about three different kinds of creatures. Uh a zogle, negative thoughts, intrusive thoughts, a ziggle with friends that hurt your feelings, betray you. And uh Zaggles are things in life you cannot control. Break an arm, lose a job, lose a loved one. Um in the end, you gotta you gotta invite these species in, and uh, you're never gonna find freedom, happiness, peace until you learn that they're a part of you, and you gotta live with them. Alright, this one's Z's, Ziggle, Zaggles, and Zoggles. Power word adversity. Z's are these diseased dicky prickly things. They're mean, they bite, they're green with stripes to frighten you and me.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:59

So if you see one run under your sunny day, know their names and games these creatures try to play.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:13

Zoggles boggle up your mind sometimes. You'll need to climb the steepest tree that scares you, dares you, shakes your knees, cause that's where their arrows disband.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:28

Don't fear flying high, or you will never land upon that hill. So you can build permanent castles in the sand. I promise you one day you're gonna understand it's all one great big master plan, permanent castles in the sand.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:10

Ziggles wiggle when you look them in the eye.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:15

They'll smile while they talk to you, then walk away and lie to try and keep their fair hair shiny. So you and I won't think what they already know. It's all quite sad. They'll never have permanent castles in the sand.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:44

The lion lion's just a two-faced fly who can't see it's one great big master plan.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:55

Permanent castles in the sand.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:06

You gotta understand the zaggles of haggle, you spin you round and round, right down to the bone. They're unavoidable and they're just gonna know you till you can finally make peace and release all the skeletons, kicking chins, grinning hand, in hand. Life plays life on life's terms.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:26

That game always stands.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:30

So just lean in, just lean in, just lean in, feel the win, lift up your chin, you can still win and live within permanent castles in the sand stickles and tackles and the girls make demands. But when you realize it's one great big master plan, you'll have your castle in the centers It's one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan, one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan, one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan. It's one great big master plan, it's one great big master plan.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:12

Oh, that's cool. That's cool. I like you. My parents, they say it's not gonna happen nowhere.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:53

He'll eat your socks, so many walks, he'll pee on the carpet and at night he'll bark, but they don't understand the sweet love in your eyes, your cuddles and snuggles at the end of night. My mom and my dad they would never approve, but I just can't help loving you.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:19

Papa puppa puppa puppy love, papa puppa puppy love, I papa puppy love you.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:28

They finally broke down, said okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:32

You and I would run and play the whole day away. You'd lick my face, I'd kick the ball, you'd go chase it, bring it back. You'd crack me up until we'd fall.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:44

But you always could see the sweet love in my eyes. My cuddles and snuggles at the end of the night. My friends and my family would never approve. But I just can't help loving you.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:02

Papa puppa puppa puppy love, puppy love, I puppy love you. Papa puppa puppy love, papa, puppa, puppy love, I puppy love you.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:19

I looked left, I looked right, I looked up, I looked down, and you know what I found Life had always been around You rode your whole eye always right by my side I don't understand why there's a rainbow bridge in the sky. I guess you needed to go, you had something to do. I know when I look up all those colors are you and I'll never forget the sweet love in your eyes. Your cuddles and snuggles at the end of the night. My friends and my family, my mom and dad too. We will all never stop loving you Papa papa papa puppy love, papa, papa, puppy love. We puppy love you Papa papa papa puppy love, papa papa, puppy love I puppy love you, Papa Papa Papa Puppy love, Papa Papa Puppy love, I'll always puppy love you.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:53

Thanks, man. Thanks. Yeah, I misable it and you nibble it well. Yeah, it was a great dog. But I think it's a great song. It's called Watch Me Fly, and the uh power word is melancholy, and it's uh you know, because kids deal with getting bummed out and having uh having tough days and everything, too. Uh so this is about that. Here we go. One, two, three, four. Ever feel like you're walking, but your feet are stuck. I can do it, I can do it. You keep on talking, but your words are coming out as muck. I can do it, I can do it. You're not alone today.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:36

Everyone feels this way. The sun will shine a ray. These are the words to say, you say I I can, I can do it, I can do it, you can watch me, watch me, watch me fly up into the sky. I'm so I finally I'm alive, I'm not afraid to try.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:04

Watch me fly Making friends, it can feel like I'm cracking codes. I can do it, I can do it. Up in my head, I'm peeling down so many lonely roads. I can do it, I can do it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:20

I'm gonna stick to it, cause I I can, I can do it, I can do it, you can watch me, watch me, watch me fly, watch me fly I'm not alone today.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:39

Everyone feels this way, the sun will shine a ray, these are the words to say I say I can, I can do it, I can do it, you can watch me, watch me, watch me, flaugh, boom, feel this fucking pumpkin boom, but I'm feeling like a crack and go and feelin' down some open my jump up and down here, and a bootin' leaves up the trees up in the window, we'll begin to leave this cage, lose my rage, turn on the page, to make a wrap another story of connection Watch me Watch me flach me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me fly, watch me fly, watch me fly. Watch me fly.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:34

Thanks. I'm just glad I got through it. I just wrote it two weeks ago and just about to record it. That was the first time anyone other than Megan and the boys have heard it. I'm about to play it for Jesse. It's either bees and fleas and fleas. Or glow, maybe glow. You want bees and fleas? Huh? Glow?

SPEAKER_04 2:09:08

You shined your light right through me, like a thread in a needle into me. Now everything I do has the colors of you, the colors of you, the yellow in the setting sun, the green in the field you will run. Cause you are rainbow. So let your colours glow, glow, glow. Let everybody know, no, no. You're always gonna show, show, show the true colors of you, the colours of you. You wrapped your hand around my finger, and my world in an instant got bigger.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:53

Now everything I do has the colours of you, the colours of you, the orange in the falling leaves, the brown in your eyes when I see you.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:06

Glow, glow, glow. Let everybody know, no, no. You're always gonna show, show, show. The true colors of you, the colors of you, purple gentle, hot, pink and dark blue, and every shade in between that's the color of you. And the gold turple into the gentle two, and every shade in between that's the color of you. Glow Glow Glow When the world's mad, said in gray, trust your light in the night to find your way. Cause you are a rainbow. So let your colors, let your colors, let your colors, let your colors glow, glow, glow. Let everybody glow, glow, glow. You're always gonna glow, glow, glow. We're always gonna glow, glow, glow. So show your colors now ruby, red, rose, crimson, and maroon, and every shade in between, that's the color of you. Violet, scarlet, confusion of two, and every shade in between, that's the color of you, that's the color of me. Let everybody see that's glow, glow, glow. Glow, glow, glow, glow. Glow, glow, glow, glow. Glow, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:52

Oh, thanks, man. Thanks, thanks, guys. Thank you, thank you for listening to all that. I appreciate it.