Insights In Sound 206 Whiteline Fever: Staying Grounded on the Road (Live at NAMM) S21 E6

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0:044 secondsbehind the technology, and behind the music. People you may not know, but you should. And please check out insightsandsound.com for a full list of our podcasts and YouTube series.
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0:2626 secondsOur next panel will discuss some of the lesserk known challenges of touring, specifically taking care of your health,
0:3434 secondsboth mentally and physically, as well as staying grounded in a world where so much changes from day to day. Leading the discussion is producer,
0:4343 secondsvideographer, composer, digital marketing strategist, musician,
0:4848 secondseducator, all one, and the host of Insights and Sound, a podcast that showcases the best and brightest creatives behind the scenes in music.
1:001 minutePlease welcome Daniel Listen. Hello there.
1:101 minute, 10 secondsI’m going to introduce my panel starting from the far side appropriately enough.
1:161 minute, 16 secondsMr. Derek Zler Peters. Hi.
1:251 minute, 25 secondsVery nervous right now. Robert Scoville. I’m not nervous.
1:331 minute, 33 secondsAnd Jerry Bulo.
1:341 minute, 34 secondsI’m not And Jerry’s not there either. receiver.
1:421 minute, 42 secondsA nerve receiver. What? So, u this is a very kind of intentionally loose conversation here because that’s kind of
1:501 minute, 50 secondshow I roll anyway. But the name of this panel formally is um white line fever.
1:591 minute, 59 secondsStay grounded while the ground moves beneath you.
2:032 minutes, 3 secondsAnd each of these people has spent an inordinate amount of time on the road. Is that fair to say?
2:112 minutes, 11 secondsVery fair.
2:122 minutes, 12 secondsI would say that between this group of people up here, there are more frequent flyer miles and road miles than
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsyou can possibly even imagine. I’m not going to come up with a metaphor for it.
2:262 minutes, 26 secondsIt’s just Yeah, it’s too out there. But each of them has a unique perspective and each of them handles it differently,
2:342 minutes, 34 secondswhich is one of the things I find really fascinating. Um, so I kind of want to go through a little bit of how each of you does this. For example,
2:452 minutes, 45 secondsum, I’m going to start with Robert because Robert is a really, really scary case study.
2:532 minutes, 53 secondsNot like that’s never been solved. Well,
2:552 minutes, 55 secondsyeah, Robert is scary to begin with anyway, but Robert has had uh a history of being um a very physically active
3:033 minutes, 3 secondsindividual. Uh what have you done? Like the the the mudman something or other. The Alcatra Alcatra swim.
3:133 minutes, 13 secondsYeah. Things like that.
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsYeah. So, he’s he’s a very very sick individual is what I want to say here. And um I know that that does contribute.
3:233 minutes, 23 secondsWell, rumor has it that that contributes to your mental well-being as well as your physical wellbeing.
3:303 minutes, 30 secondsUh only if I’m doing it right, you know.
3:323 minutes, 32 secondsSo, uh but yeah, you know, I I’m not here to preach on it by any stretch of imagination. It is what works for me. Uh
3:413 minutes, 41 secondsbut I use a physical activity as a way to get myself mentally fit for the environments that we’re going to be
3:493 minutes, 49 secondsworking in. I mean, it sounds kind of crazy to say it, but you know, I I hope we’re okay with language here, you know.
3:563 minutes, 56 secondsUm, yeah, there’s this uh for cyclists,
4:004 minutesguys that do extreme cycling, Iron Man and these long cyclists, they have a whole set of rules for what they go through mentally, and one of them is
4:084 minutes, 8 secondsrule five. And it’s like, you know, wear the Red Sox, wear all this stuff, you know, do this thing. And rule five is harden the [ __ ] up. things are going to
4:164 minutes, 16 secondsget tough and you got to be mentally ready to take on that challenge. And I know for me, again, just me personally.
4:244 minutes, 24 secondsThat’s what I use physical fitness for as this way to challenge myself mentally. And the people that I’ve kind of coached into doing it, you know, of course, you kind of look at it and go,
4:334 minutes, 33 seconds”Oh, yes, I’m going to go run the Great Wall Marathon or something like that.”
4:364 minutes, 36 secondsIt’s like, no, no, it’s not about that at all. It can happen right where you are today physically. You’ve got to find yourself a way to challenge yourself
4:454 minutes, 45 secondsphysically and train yourself mentally to overcome that challenge. It doesn’t matter if if your challenge is walking
4:524 minutes, 52 seconds12 stairs without getting winded. That’s your challenge. Let’s let’s conquer that and come up with a mental fortitude to
5:005 minutesto ch to do that. And I promise you, it translates into your work because we get into situations that are
5:075 minutes, 7 secondsconstantly challenging us. and you’re either going to fold or you’re going to mentally overcome it. You’re going to overcome that thing. I mean, it’s I
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsmean, I don’t want this period now to military training where you’re training people to be mentally fit to be able to handle the stresses that they’re going
5:235 minutes, 23 secondsto come up with. And you know, in the concert world for sure and that the stresses pile up really, really quick and working under pressure really quick.
5:325 minutes, 32 secondsAnd I I’m just here to tell you for me it made all the difference.
5:375 minutes, 37 secondsIt’s like my breakfast serving when I get noodles.
5:405 minutes, 40 secondsWell, and and you know, one of the things that I think we all have in common here is that the mental
5:495 minutes, 49 secondsthe mental state of mind is really really important to the other aspect of mental health which is having good
5:575 minutes, 57 secondscommunication skills. being able to communicate, you know, each of you communicates with a team of people um that is both vast and varied.
6:106 minutes, 10 secondsAnd the communication skills are more than just a little bit essential. They’re absolutely mandatory. Um I mean,
6:186 minutes, 18 secondsJerry, I know you deal with a lot of very very um how shall I say this nicely?
6:256 minutes, 25 secondsinteresting and diverse individuals.
6:326 minutes, 32 secondsTalk a little bit about what you do and the people you work with.
6:366 minutes, 36 secondsWell, I am not Robert. You know, first of all, we all love each other a long time, either here or outside of here.
6:446 minutes, 44 secondsAnd he is the most athletic human being I’ve ever seen that’s out on the road. I don’t think I know where he needs stamina to do.
6:516 minutes, 51 secondsLook at me. Do I look like that? I don’t.
6:536 minutes, 53 secondsYes, you do. little thing. So, I’m going to preface this by saying that uh getting to the concentration part of it,
7:027 minutes, 2 secondswhich is we have to concentrate so much when we’re on the job that for me
7:097 minutes, 9 secondseverything else comes second. Whether I have a good meal, whether I get good sleep, sometimes I don’t get good sleep because we got problems coming up. But
7:187 minutes, 18 secondsyou have to be so hyperfocused that whatever you have to do to get into that hyperfocused state, everything else
7:257 minutes, 25 secondsbecomes secondary for me. Um I wish I was a runner. Clearly I’m not. Um but if
7:337 minutes, 33 secondsI can digress a little bit is the opposite of that is when you first go out on the road there’s a lot of partying, there’s a lot of good meals.
7:437 minutes, 43 secondsWait, what?
7:447 minutes, 44 secondsThere’s a lot of drinking. There’s a lot of people don’t start out with addictions, but sometimes they end up with some.
7:517 minutes, 51 secondsI’m just going to say title of this thing called white line theater had a different meaning.
7:577 minutes, 57 secondsStop. I was like, where’s the white line coming from?
8:008 minutesI swear it was an innocent choice of But with that said, usually people start out because you’re getting paid well,
8:088 minutes, 8 secondsyou get really good for dams, you eat well, you can go anywhere you want, you’re spoiled.
8:158 minutes, 15 secondsAnd there’s a lot of indulgence that happens early on. And then it gets kind of old. It starts to get old. It starts
8:228 minutes, 22 secondsto get tiring. It starts to get, you know, I if there’s a gym, I would try to get to gym. Uh try make healthier choices, which is impossible,
8:338 minutes, 33 secondsright? Um but yeah, I don’t deal with people differently. It’s just different environments. I for for those of you that don’t know, I come from NFL, NBA,
8:448 minutes, 44 secondsMajor League Baseball, w my broadcast side things. So when we fly around, we don’t have the luxury of a bus. That’s one thing that’s different. As tall
8:538 minutes, 53 secondstalking to Ken earlier, you have to strike all night long and have to get on a 6 a.m. flight, which used to make me crazy cuz we’re already dead, you know.
9:029 minutes, 2 secondsUm,
9:039 minutes, 3 secondsbut I mean, do you think I mean that plays to mental state, right? Like I’ve been on tours where we flown where we were, you know, loaded out back to the hotel, sleep for two hours, get up,
9:139 minutes, 13 secondscatch the flight. It’s bad.
9:159 minutes, 15 secondsThat’s worse than It’s worse than us any day of the week. Yeah.
9:209 minutes, 20 secondsAnd I want to talk about that a little bit because that has to do with circadian rhythms, which are very, very essential for maintaining both physical
9:289 minutes, 28 secondsand mental well-being. And if you know if you get on a bus at least the time zone changes are gradual enough that your body can sort of handle them.
9:389 minutes, 38 secondsWhereas if all of a sudden you know you’re like you know right after the next show you’re tomorrow somewhere you
9:469 minutes, 46 secondsknow and you get there it’s you know your body is the middle of the night your brain is in the middle of the night and everybody else is like you know 4:00
9:539 minutes, 53 secondsin the afternoon you know that’s kind of that’s stressful too. can tell you never say what circles.
10:0010 minutesWell, one of the things that happened to me was I used to never be able to sleep on planes and um when you go through
10:0810 minutes, 8 secondsthat when you have like 2 hours of sleep before you have a lobbying call you get in the plane and fall asleep before it sleep. That’s coma.
10:1910 minutes, 19 secondsYeah. You’re going to go and take the coma ends when the plane lands later. So you so now I can travel anywhere and I can now sleep on planes since I couldn’t before. That was a benefit to me.
10:3310 minutes, 33 secondsNo, but it really is true and I think that’s part of it. Um, the whole idea that when you are so offkilter and off
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondsrhythm like that messes with both your your your bodily functions of you know of all sorts and also your
10:4910 minutes, 49 secondsjust your ability to really communicate clearly with people.
10:5310 minutes, 53 secondsYou you’re kind of in fight or flight there. Yeah, you you are that way.
10:5910 minutes, 59 secondsIf you are not built to handle I mean the stress on the show is certainly one thing but if you can’t handle the stress of the travel and the hours that
11:0711 minutes, 7 secondsabsolutely impacts your ability to communicate. No question about it. It does. You know it does.
11:1311 minutes, 13 secondsWell I have to admit that I have a little bit of a crutch when that happens and it’s sitting right under my seat right here. It’s called matcha.
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsMatcha.
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsYes. I’m a matcha freak. That’s my worst vice now on the road is that it became a joke when we were on the road. It’s like
11:2911 minutes, 29 secondswhere can I get the best matcha without sugar? So I finally started cutting the sugar out where I could get my focus on
11:3711 minutes, 37 secondsbecause sometimes you don’t have the luxury of that circadian you’re grabbing it wherever you can get.
11:4311 minutes, 43 secondsSo it’s heard here first if you want to get on Jerry’s cassette bringing the box.
11:4811 minutes, 48 secondsOh yeah. He had a story with his crew on the Tonight Show. another panel that you know. So, the other thing that I want to
11:5711 minutes, 57 secondsget into here a little bit is that each of you works with a completely different type of group of people. You know, with
12:0512 minutes, 5 secondsJerry, it’s sports people who are their own brand of crazy. Uh with Daniela,
12:1212 minutes, 12 secondsit’s uh it’s basically you’re sort of you’re sort of the adjunct to a lot of crews, right? I mean, you sort of have
12:2012 minutes, 20 secondsto find a way to fit into everybody else’s craziness a little bit. Yeah, it I my background was I used to work I mean for a touring
12:2912 minutes, 29 secondssound company I did a lot of f very a very well-known one in fact sound systems if any you were in the industry
12:3812 minutes, 38 secondsall in the Yeah, exactly. Crazy one is what I meant to say here.
12:4312 minutes, 43 secondsAnd then now I work for JBL um on the tour sound side and my job involves a ton of travel but it’s also talking on a
12:5212 minutes, 52 secondsdaily basis to the touring sound people and there’s a lot of pressures there.
12:5512 minutes, 55 secondsI’m under a lot of pressure paying up gigs finding things on certain days to arrive. there’s a lot of stress on their
13:0313 minutes, 3 secondsside that comes over to my side because I’m part of that equation of helping
13:1113 minutes, 11 secondsthem do a really good job and the communication and you talk about like mental health and communicating right I
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondscan feel in my body when I’m getting stressed and you know there was a situation that a
13:2613 minutes, 26 secondsguy had ordered something it was during the the government shut found planes weren’t on time. things were like not
13:3513 minutes, 35 secondsarriving exactly when they should and he had overnight something and it was like
13:4313 minutes, 43 secondshe was on site expecting it to arrive and it was a critical piece in hanging in the speakers and he was like my gear
13:5213 minutes, 52 secondshaven’t arrived you know and I was like well when’s your gig and he’s like we were on site loading in and I tracked this thing and it was still in the airport like and it’s just like, okay,
14:0314 minutes, 3 secondsyou got to pause because all of my bad mental health moments, a lot of them come from if I’ve said the wrong thing,
14:1214 minutes, 12 secondsrushed up, I’m stressed, my you know,
14:1514 minutes, 15 secondsand it’s just pausing like taking a minute to respond and then coming up with a solution. And we get
14:2314 minutes, 23 secondsreally creative in solutions when you’re on the road, right? So absolution there was somebody down the road they like
14:3014 minutes, 30 secondscarried it to the gig blah blah blah but it’s just on a daily basis you’re dealing with the stressful environment
14:3814 minutes, 38 secondson the tour side and if I could add to that that is I’ve been on the the other
14:4514 minutes, 45 secondsside of that where gears are showing up and what I have found and it’s people really Ken will because Ken’s worked on some of these big shows with us.
14:5814 minutes, 58 secondsYeah. Where um dear something’s not working. You know, a really good example of that was when the Super Bowl after
15:0515 minutes, 5 secondsSuper Bowl went down in New Orleans a few years ago. That was that’s a panel for another time. But anyway, it things
15:1215 minutes, 12 secondsdon’t always work. And I just what you said it’s it’s the you cannot get emotional
15:1915 minutes, 19 secondsin these situations with the people that they it might be their fault. It might be my fault. Some piece of gear isn’t working.
15:2815 minutes, 28 secondsNobody’s fault. Sometime most of the time here just live and we we don’t have time for fault right now.
15:3315 minutes, 33 secondsWe don’t have just not needing to fix it or move on or find a way to work around it. You just can’t get emotional with
15:4115 minutes, 41 secondsit. And and if if you’re not used to that level of adrenaline and I kind of pointed stress cuz people are going to
15:4815 minutes, 48 secondsyell at you, but they’re not yelling at you personally. They’re like, “Oh my god, why can’t I go to the field? Why can’t I go to the field?” I’m like, “Cuz the mic’s not working. You don’t want to
15:5715 minutes, 57 secondsgo down there right now.” Well, what’s wrong with it? I don’t know. We’re going to We’ll fix it and they’ll eventually go down to it. But I think the biggest
16:0616 minutes, 6 secondskey in these high pressure environments is just not to get the emotion of the vault. if you can find a way.
16:1216 minutes, 12 secondsI mean, you’re you’re covering such an important piece of this and it’s going to kind of understand it in what you’re saying and that is that stress rolls downhill, right?
16:2116 minutes, 21 secondsYeah.
16:2216 minutes, 22 secondsIf you are stressed and you’re in charge of dictating a troubleshooting process,
16:2716 minutes, 27 secondseveryone in that situation is going to be stressed,
16:2916 minutes, 29 secondsincluding the band. Well, I don’t even yet, but yes, absolutely. I call that the client face. You know,
16:3616 minutes, 36 secondsit’s like you can be as stressed as you want inside your head, but when you’re talking to and and I’ll I’ll preface
16:4416 minutes, 44 secondsthis by saying the reason that I chose these people for this panel is because they in my mind are exemplary of good
16:5116 minutes, 51 secondscommunication skills because when those crises are happening, every choice of words matters matters. each of you know
16:5916 minutes, 59 secondswas that I’ve seen I’ve seen each of you in action and I want to just say right here and now every single one of these
17:0617 minutes, 6 secondspeople knows how to fuse have to become kind of monklike yes and it’s almost like a meditative
17:1517 minutes, 15 secondsstate and and that’s like I said rolls down the hill and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had crews thank me for not
17:2517 minutes, 25 secondsscreaming yelling derating just having a a fit that just in my philosophy it’s it’s just a problem and let’s get it
17:3417 minutes, 34 secondsdone. Like if you lose your cool with somebody and get you now stolen away their ability to think.
17:4117 minutes, 41 secondsThey’re acting emotionally now. And I what I need them to do is think.
17:4617 minutes, 46 secondsSlow down. The bigger the problem, the slower you think. You know, it just has to be that way.
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondsYou have to have the space to do it stress.
17:5417 minutes, 54 secondsAbsolutely. But you talk about why you need to prepare. I kind of mentally go it’s it’s not really a meditation there
18:0218 minutes, 2 secondsphysician that you know but I mentally well I can stretch that’s one thing I can do but it’s it’s preparing yourself
18:1018 minutes, 10 secondsfor that and and I always approach every situation I’m in is everyone’s there to have a great show. We are all here
18:1918 minutes, 19 secondstogether to have great shelving. Don’t want to get in the way of that and you want to support that and you get whatever everybody has to offer. It
18:2818 minutes, 28 secondsbecomes the mantra that you know take what it I might not agree with what someone says hey I want to do this here you know uh no but you know okay thank
18:3718 minutes, 37 secondsyou and just don’t do it but you you know you it’s a team thing at that point you want everybody to work together.
18:4618 minutes, 46 secondsI’ve had this before. Go ahead.
18:4918 minutes, 49 secondsJust like, you know, I kind of eventually that’s how I do it. I rarely go to the gym when I’m in a hotel. I always think I’m going to and I never
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondsdo. And I’d love to go to the gym or doing, you know, the funny thing about it for the physical activity when I’m doing that. My mind is so not not there.
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondsYeah. I’m going through the show. I mean, usually I’m listening to the show.
19:0919 minutes, 9 secondsI’m listening to my work from last night.
19:1219 minutes, 12 secondsBlah blah blah. That’s my moment to reflect on the last 24 hours, you know,
19:1619 minutes, 16 secondsand I I mean, I’m always trying to get across to my crew guys all the time. You don’t want stress in your life. Stress is defeated by preparation.
19:2519 minutes, 25 secondsOh, Jerry here. Absolutely. Prepare. Go through every mental scenario you can think of that could possibly happen here and develop your solution. What would I
19:3319 minutes, 33 secondsdo if this happened? If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing all of your job.
19:3919 minutes, 39 secondsI don’t Well, you go. I I to tack on to this. I have I have a saying and I say it all all the time.
19:4919 minutes, 49 secondsFail to prepare, prepare to fail. I live that motto because it’s high stress. And then I have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan
19:5819 minutes, 58 secondsD for everything that could fault like RF. We all know RF is hostile and
20:0620 minutes, 6 secondsunpredictable. No matter how good you are at it, it’s just the way it works.
20:1120 minutes, 11 secondsAnd where’s my backups? Where’s my backups? How close can we get to the backup? So, it’s seamless. So, fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
20:2020 minutes, 20 secondsAnd sometimes all those points fail anyway. But my other motto is,
20:2520 minutes, 25 secondsand I’m not ticking away because we’re all under high stress. If it’s a Super Bowl, if it’s a live broadcast, if it’s
20:3320 minutes, 33 secondsKenny in a big stadium, either Kenny’s um if it’s, you know, your Vertex not
20:3920 minutes, 39 secondsshowing up, which is a silver coat or whatever. What do you got now? VTX. Well, Vertex are not on your Oh,
20:4720 minutes, 47 secondssorry. No longer shows up. The branding, right?
20:5020 minutes, 50 secondsThe branding right started on. But anyway, yeah, they’re not they’re not there. Those are a big deal, right? All
20:5820 minutes, 58 secondsof it’s a big deal. But my motto is if the plane goes down, nobody dies.
21:0621 minutes, 6 secondsThat’s the truth.
21:0821 minutes, 8 secondsIf the plane goes down, we’re going to feel bad. We’re going to look and see why the plane failed. Why this failed?
21:1621 minutes, 16 secondsSuper Bowl in New Orleans is a good example of that.
21:2021 minutes, 20 secondsWhat were the failure points? But nobody died. So the reality check is at the end of the day
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsthere’s people doing heart surgery and brain surgery that have a lot more stress than they do.
21:3321 minutes, 33 secondsYou know my my saying is to calm down artists when things are going bad like this especially I had to pull it back in recently was I used to say something
21:4021 minutes, 40 secondsalong the lines of look I flipped up way bigger shows than yours. Okay so you know and then we calm them down.
21:5021 minutes, 50 secondsSo, but I actually had that happen where I had a huge mistake at Rocking the Hall of Fame here a couple couple of years ago and I started to say that and I was
21:5821 minutes, 58 secondslike, I don’t think I’m talking to a bigger one than this right now. It’s just my self-direct,
22:0522 minutes, 5 secondsyou know. And speaking of [ __ ] up space, if I can say that just to tag along with that is, you know,
22:1222 minutes, 12 secondsspecialized stress, we all do it, you know, and I used to go the the model of you’re as good as your last. We’ve all
22:1922 minutes, 19 secondsbeen distributed, but we’d all be unemployment. Think about it. We’ve all had gaches. Something goes wrong and and usually we’re the only ones that know about it unless it’s really a big deal,
22:2922 minutes, 29 secondsright? That that also comes with experience and that’s why it’s so successful. you’ve been there, you’ve figured out your plan B, and now you have them in your back pocket, you know,
22:3922 minutes, 39 secondsand that’s why um you know, I’m sat um at another trade show the other day
22:4622 minutes, 46 secondsspeaking to a bunch of young people and like one person was like, I want to be like a um front of house engineer and I
22:5522 minutes, 55 secondsmean I keep applying for front of but she was right outside college, you know,
22:5922 minutes, 59 secondslike never, you know, and that’s that’s where kind of paying you dues and learning learning and over time and experiencing those mess ups over time
23:0823 minutes, 8 secondsyou just you intuitively know how to handle them you know and back to your other thing about sleep do you work out
23:1523 minutes, 15 secondsduring the day or during the night or it’s my first thing in the morning okay yeah because that’s really helped me about being on the boat I figured out
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondslike my body because sleep is super important to me and it’s not quite as easy when when you’re actually on a tour and you’re actually at a gig and you’re
23:3223 minutes, 32 secondsfinishing your loading out etc But at least when I can, like simple things, I eat earlier. I don’t go to bed on a full
23:4023 minutes, 40 secondsstomach. I will try and have if I have to go to a business dinner, well, I’ll try and avoid it, but if I have to go,
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondsthen I will try and put it at 6:00 instead of 8:00 and and turn your computer off. Especially nowadays,
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondsthere’s so many time zones like international, east coast, west coast.
24:0124 minutes, 1 secondYou could be up all night thinking and ruminating. So, it’s just about like,
24:0524 minutes, 5 secondsokay, what is my wind down time? What is my boundary around that? Like, and just breathe, relax, and try and have a good night’s sleep when you can.
24:1624 minutes, 16 secondsThe other point that I think is important as far as, you know, when you’re talking about screwing up,
24:2224 minutes, 22 secondsum there’s there’s a famous quote from Miles Davis, there are no wrong notes. It’s the next,
24:2924 minutes, 29 secondsyou know, and it’s more important, you know, my my philosophy is [ __ ] will
24:3624 minutes, 36 secondshappen. It always does and there’s always going to be a [ __ ] up. Question is how do you come out of it? How do you
24:4324 minutes, 43 secondsrecover? And you know, you’re talking about having a plan A, plan B, plan C.
24:4824 minutes, 48 secondsYou know, those are the things that being prepared both mentally and equipment wise. Everything else is so
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsimportant because if you have the ability to to basically sidestep and recover somehow, that’s going to make
25:0425 minutes, 4 secondsmore difference. You know, it’s everybody’s going to see that something screwed up. Question is, how quickly did you find a way to make it right, make it
25:1325 minutes, 13 secondswork? I’m going to make my own case for what I do here because this show that I just mentioned that I was really big and I really screwed it up was the first
25:2225 minutes, 22 secondsmove of the show, the absolute opening of the show. Well done. And I still had another 4 hours to mix, right?
25:3025 minutes, 30 secondsSo the temptation would have been to, oh my god, I’ve just screwed up this entire thing and grind on that for the next
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondshours. But you had to flush it. Like you had to just flush it to go, that’s done.
25:4225 minutes, 42 secondsI’ve got three more hours, 14 more acts to mix here, you know, and the fitness stuff that I do is all about that because you have to push away pain. You
25:5125 minutes, 51 secondshave to push away uncomfortable. You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That’s what that whole routine is about for me.
25:5725 minutes, 57 secondsWho’s I can beat myself up playing,
26:0126 minutes, 1 secondright? But I mean, you know, sorry, I was just going to say, you know, one of the thing that I always try to relay to my guys, especially for new people or
26:0926 minutes, 9 secondsinexperienced people that are coming up and it’s one that my father gave me and I’ve never forgotten that it is
26:1626 minutes, 16 secondsexperience is what you get right after you needed it. Yeah.
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. And it’s like Yeah. It’s public domain. Go for it.
26:2626 minutes, 26 secondsI I always live with that because it’s like that’s the difference between having all the knowledge and having all the experience. You’ve got to have all those experiences at the same time.
26:3426 minutes, 34 secondsThat’s that’s what turns into it makes you a veteran.
26:3926 minutes, 39 secondsYeah, that’s a good one. And also own it, you know, like mistakes happen and it’s like are you going to just like or just like oh my god, you know, I [ __ ]
26:4926 minutes, 49 secondsup. I’m so sorry. Like and then trust is built,
26:5426 minutes, 54 secondsright? And then there’s a lot of grace in the world. I mean, if you own it, yeah. You know,
26:5826 minutes, 58 secondsafter you own it, then the next word should be, “But here’s what we’re going to do to fix it. Here’s my plan B.”
27:0627 minutes, 6 secondsThat I think I think more important. I mean, there’s one thing to be a you if you’re just going to say, “I [ __ ] up.” Yeah.
27:1227 minutes, 12 secondsWell, it becomes a a path to stress. Yeah. If you don’t own it. Exactly. Because then you’re already thinking,
27:1927 minutes, 19 secondswell, if this happens again, what am I going to say? You know,
27:2227 minutes, 22 secondswhat am I going to blame next time? You know, I mean, we have this problem in our in the world of audio. We have this terrible problem of this digital
27:2927 minutes, 29 secondsconsoles where things can happen with them that we may not even understand why. But you have to resist the urge,
27:3727 minutes, 37 secondsespecially with the artist, to blame the technology cuz now you’ve created a ghost of the machine. Now you’ve transferred that stress to them. Now
27:4527 minutes, 45 secondsthey’re standing on stage wondering if it’s going to happen again. So you have to own it and say even if it is I don’t know exactly what happened but I’m going
27:5327 minutes, 53 secondsto find out and then we’ll take it from there.
27:5627 minutes, 56 secondspaper always used to have a a slogan and at the time it drove me nuts but now I use it for myself in in my business
28:0428 minutes, 4 secondsworld and it’s like no problems only solutions because you would hate it when you whine like especially as a business
28:1028 minutes, 10 secondsowner or maybe leader like engineer um production manager people are like oh
28:1728 minutes, 17 secondsthis this like whining whine whine whine you know and so he’s like if you if you come to me and you’re not a wine you
28:2428 minutes, 24 secondscan’t just dump on me come up with a solution. We’ll figure it out. And and I don’t know about your world, but I know
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsin my world, I used to see an awful lot of you once in a truck and I go, “Hey, audio back there. We’re good. It’s fine.
28:4128 minutes, 41 secondsIt’s fine.” They’re fine. Oh my god. Oh yeah. Yeah. Andre director, oh yeah,
28:4728 minutes, 47 secondswe’re fine. He’s like, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” And they’re like, “Well, I don’t want to stress him out.” I said, “Well, isn’t it better just tell them the truth?”
28:5628 minutes, 56 secondsYou’re training them how to respond to them.
28:5828 minutes, 58 secondsHey, I’m, you know, I bet nobody dies from eating crow either. It’s like sometimes sometimes the boards, the
29:0629 minutes, 6 secondsbolts, the what if the RF things fail and and you just tell them just that,
29:1329 minutes, 13 secondsthe truth. It’s like, I don’t know what we’re figuring it out, you know. And it builds trust. It’s not fun at the time,
29:2129 minutes, 21 secondsbut you know, I get water pro and I’m not dead yet. I’m not dead yet,
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondsyou know. And a lot of times just get confronted with things, you know, just now you walk into a venue where all of a sudden you find out something. In fact,
29:3629 minutes, 36 secondsEric, I was just remembering um I came to see you. It was I think it was Wolf Trap, right? And you were saying to me,
29:4429 minutes, 44 seconds”Yeah, I just found out this morning that I had like a 90T dB, you know,
29:4829 minutes, 48 secondslimit or something like that.” It’s like all of a sudden you find out something that you were completely not warned about, not prepared about, and you got
29:5629 minutes, 56 secondsto pivot. You know, I mean, I hate that word, but it’s true. You have to adapt.
30:0030 minutesYou have to be able to just make decisions on a time and say, “Okay, well then I’m going to do something different. Make it work.” Right.
30:0930 minutes, 9 secondsYou mentioned the 85 dB. That was a little It’s really hard. It’s like, “Okay, try the focal lights on.”
30:1530 minutes, 15 secondsYeah. We’re talking We’re talking Kenny Logans with a fivepiece. Very loud band. Yeah, good little volume. Yeah.
30:2130 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. Yeah. I mean, there was there was plenty of volume there. In fact, I I suspect you went a little bit over that day.
30:2730 minutes, 27 secondsYou know, I you do have your eye on a little SPO meter and try to work the PA
30:3330 minutes, 33 secondsto try to get as much impact out of it as you can at that volume. So, you don’t
30:4130 minutes, 41 secondsAnd I think the wolf track, they will find they will actually find you a career if you go over. So, I was like, “Oh, yep.
30:4930 minutes, 49 secondsWell, what I saw last day.
30:5130 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. But what I saw that day was that you did not stress out about you were like that’s what I got to do. And I think that’s
30:5930 minutes, 59 secondsI didn’t you look at it in a way it’s like 90 great
31:0831 minutes, 8 secondsI guess I would be pointing a finger at at that point. It’s like you know the other guy we have to do so you need
31:1631 minutes, 16 secondssound limits. So, I had to really So, it’s not really It’s not really pointing a finger, but it is still pointing the finger a little bit.
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondsYeah, that world tell the guitar player shows up with an amp that’s cranked up to 120. 11. Tell the guitar player to turn out.
31:3431 minutes, 34 secondsI have stories. I work at Tonight Show. Oh my gosh.
31:3931 minutes, 39 secondsWe have some Yeah, that’s another panel for another time. But,
31:4331 minutes, 43 secondswhat’s worse, a loud guitar player or a loud bass player? As a bass player,
31:5031 minutes, 50 secondsI will state unequivocally it’s we go through the pH. So, it’s your fault.
31:5731 minutes, 57 secondsIt depends if there’s an amp because I used to work with Stanley Clark.
32:0332 minutes, 3 secondsYeah. Okay. There’s there’s there’s a there’s Yeah. Yeah. Right. Little story briefly story was I was actually mixing lives on
32:1032 minutes, 10 secondsthat show and and there was a mic in front of you and it fell down and I’m like, “Oh, I got to fix this.” So, I
32:1732 minutes, 17 secondswant to talk about being safe on it. I ran out, put the you know, I I should have asked somebody else to do it. left
32:2432 minutes, 24 secondsthe desk, ran out, putting like never
32:3432 minutes, 34 secondssee my ears before I just ran away.
32:4232 minutes, 42 secondsSorry for sorry for the discretion and I didn’t have the mic up. Sorry. God, it’s such a great story.
32:4832 minutes, 48 secondsA friend next another band, a well-known band that shall remain nameless. They’re about
32:5532 minutes, 55 secondsready to retire this year. It’s going to be somebody we love. But anyway, and he’s from house mix of it and I’m
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondsstanding back there with goes, “Watch this.”
33:0633 minutes, 6 secondsHe takes all of the faders down and the bass player and the and the guitar playing gets my whole mixes along.
33:1633 minutes, 16 secondsSo, so which is it for you? You talking or the bass? Now, are you talking about them speaking or playing?
33:2433 minutes, 24 secondsOh, yeah. Okay. Okay.
33:2733 minutes, 27 secondsYes, I know the bass player. You’re talking. Uh, well, I mean, you know, I mean,
33:3433 minutes, 34 secondsguitar players are playing. We see each other, but if if you had to pick one that you you have a ungodly loud bass or
33:4233 minutes, 42 secondsan ungodly loud guitar, you you get to choose one.
33:4633 minutes, 46 secondsI think if I was picking, I would probably pick the loud guitar. Yeah, I think so, too. I agree with you.
33:5133 minutes, 51 secondsI think it would be more manageable to build around.
33:5333 minutes, 53 secondsYeah, but even Yeah, basically there’s no management. You just turn it off. Yeah.
33:5933 minutes, 59 secondsWell, and Robert has a special formula for the base.
34:0334 minutes, 3 secondsYes. Yes. We’ve been perfecting that for years now.
34:0534 minutes, 5 secondsMhm. Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s a whole other that’s a whole that could be a whole tech trap. That’s another panel.
34:1134 minutes, 11 secondsExactly right. Exactly right. Yeah. But but going back to the mental health
34:1834 minutes, 18 secondsissue again for a moment. Um each of you has their own particular way of coping with this. Um and of course
34:2734 minutes, 27 secondsyou know a lot of that also depends. Are you on the road for a long period of time or is it just, you know, one or two
34:3534 minutes, 35 secondshigh pressure gigs and then breathe again?
34:3934 minutes, 39 secondsDoes it make a difference to you in terms of what you’re being confronted with or do you have more of more or less
34:4834 minutes, 48 secondsthe same way of maintaining your own level of sanity both mentally and physically regardless of how much you
34:5734 minutes, 57 secondsknow how often you’re working let’s say or what kind of gig you’re on.
35:0235 minutes, 2 secondsWell, I think Robert and I are probably more similar. Eric has some breaks cuz he he works a tiny long day. He’ll do
35:1235 minutes, 12 secondsthree days on and few off and he’ll fly around and it’s a lot busier. Yes, my case is can be a lot like yours where
35:1935 minutes, 19 secondswe’re gone for a long period of time where I can maybe leave on a Tuesday when somebody else is earlier. I leave on a Tuesday for a Thursday night
35:2635 minutes, 26 secondsfootball game with flying to another place for the Sunday game. I fly back on Monday, I’m out again on Tuesday. And
35:3535 minutes, 35 secondssometimes you’re not home until 3 or 4 months later. You don’t have the right clothes, right? So on situations like that,
35:4635 minutes, 46 secondswhat I do to decompress besides buying new clothes as the as it goes on a girl is right, I have several pairs of
35:5435 minutes, 54 secondsbooties because I had to buy three cents every winter. But anyway,
35:5935 minutes, 59 secondswhat I will do in situations like that instead of going out to dinner or or going out with the guys and the girls
36:0736 minutes, 7 secondsfrom the crew and eating well, I get room service, pour myself a bath, get get my bubbles and just, you know, sit
36:1536 minutes, 15 secondsout and just not be around anybody so I can concentrate on my gig the next day.
36:2136 minutes, 21 secondsAnd I would do a lot of that where I would just hold up in the hotel room.
36:2536 minutes, 25 secondsI’ll see him the next day or I’ll see later.
36:2836 minutes, 28 secondsDefinitely the same way. I mean, I’m an only kid. So, as an only kid, you know,
36:3236 minutes, 32 secondsyou learn how to entertain yourself early, right? So, and it’s I don’t want to say it’s become a point of contention, but there are times where on
36:4036 minutes, 40 secondstour it’s like when it’s day off, I don’t want to see any.
36:4636 minutes, 46 secondsI want to be I need my space to recover mentally, emotionally, for everything’s going on. You know, in my world, I I I
36:5436 minutes, 54 secondsthink about all the years they toured and stuff. My stress was never about,
36:5836 minutes, 58 secondsyou know, when do I get to go home or or length of time away from home. That was never the source of stress. The source of stress was always the travel like air
37:0837 minutes, 8 secondstravel stresses me out. Way more than bus travel. And you know, even I’ll give you even this perspective. You know, I’ve been working with man as you know,
37:1537 minutes, 15 secondsworking with manufacturers and for manufacturers for about 20 years now.
37:1837 minutes, 18 secondsAnd I would tell you without a single moment of hesitation that business travel is a thousand times more stressful than touring trip, man. I mean, you’re going to get stressed out.
37:2937 minutes, 29 secondsGo do a week of business travel,
37:3137 minutes, 31 secondstraveling by plane and meetings and blah blah blah blah, man. I’ll take touring any day over that. Absolutely.
37:3737 minutes, 37 secondsThat’s what sports is like. It’s like business travel. They give you a car, you got to get yourself to the airport.
37:4337 minutes, 43 secondsYou get premium sports. It’s like you got to get yourself point A, point B,
37:4737 minutes, 47 secondspoint C. And I’m like, man, a bus would be great if I could just go lay down.
37:5137 minutes, 51 secondsThat bus is a constant, you know? I mean, it’s not a variable at the airport and the rental car and all that. That’s a variable down, man. It’s that can be stressful.
37:5837 minutes, 58 secondsThat’s a very uncontrollable variable.
38:0038 minutesThe rest, especially you are not in control on the plane, actually.
38:0438 minutes, 4 secondsYeah. Um, okay. We I I think we’re coming up on on on time when we’re going to get the signal down, and I want to
38:1238 minutes, 12 secondsmake sure that we do have time for any Q&A or anything like that. Um, but if you have any questions for these guys,
38:2238 minutes, 22 secondskind of queue up now so that as we’re kind of including stuff, there’s a microphone back there that you could get up next to and uh, go ahead.
38:3438 minutes, 34 secondsWe don’t have the microphone’s not working apparently. Audio, be nice. Be nice and sound. I’m always stressful.
38:4338 minutes, 43 secondsYeah, we’re here to stress you out. Yes.
38:5038 minutes, 50 secondsjudge. There we go.
38:5838 minutes, 58 secondsHey, how’s it going? You I got a question. Uh your story kind of end like on a cliff almost. Um that show where
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondsthe equipment stayed at the airport. Did the show end up happening? If so, how did you get it? Like how did you figure
39:1339 minutes, 13 secondsthat out? What happened? What’s the t So that’s about relationships in the industry. When you you build up your
39:2039 minutes, 20 secondsrelationships over time, you know, in my case, in this particular case, I knew exactly within a 250 mile radius who
39:2939 minutes, 29 secondsalso own that same equipment. And I just called them and I said, I need you to do me a solid. And they were like, what is it? They said, “This piece of equipment
39:3739 minutes, 37 secondsthat you have, um, could you drive it 7 hours for a gig?” And how many hours till the show started?
39:4739 minutes, 47 secondsIt was a load intake. So I I I mean, I just said to the client, I said,
39:5239 minutes, 52 seconds”Listen, um, these are the options. It’s still in the app board. There’s a government shutdown nor a regional app.
39:5939 minutes, 59 secondsLike there’s no way it’s going to get to you. So, can you push your load out?
40:0540 minutes, 5 secondsLike, and they were like, well, we’ve hired figures and like what like so many different factors about why that wouldn’t work. And it was like, well,
40:1440 minutes, 14 secondsthat’s these are your options. We will drive you a courier and drive it to the gig. And and when you go that extra mile for a client, they were so grateful.
40:2540 minutes, 25 secondsThey they did their part. They pushed the riggers till XYZ time and then they orchestrated things on that time and and
40:3340 minutes, 33 secondsthe show went on, you know. But can I can I just point out something there that you just brought up which is
40:4040 minutes, 40 secondsreally also very very important and I say this all the time. Every single relationship that we have in this
40:4940 minutes, 49 secondsindustry, this is not these are not business relationships. We are all friends. All these people on this stage
40:5640 minutes, 56 secondsI consider longtime friends. We do things for each other. Not because we have a job, but because we genuinely like each other and never ever [ __ ]
41:0941 minutes, 9 secondsanybody over because it will come back you in the ass. If you are a good person, if you are always working to
41:1841 minutes, 18 secondshelp other people and really do nice things for other people, just genuinely be a good human. Guarantee you there’s
41:2641 minutes, 26 secondsgoing to come a time when that person is going to say to you, “Hey, Matt, no problem. You know, I’m I’m willing to help you out the same way that you helped me out.” And I’m living proof of
41:3541 minutes, 35 secondsthat. And so is every single person up on this podium with me. All of us are where we are because we stand on the shoulders of other great people.
41:4541 minutes, 45 secondsGratitude goes a long way. That’s what I always say. Have real gratitude. It goes a long way.
41:5041 minutes, 50 secondsThat’s my that’s my word to live by right there. Gratitude. You know, I’m so grateful to been in this industry as
41:5841 minutes, 58 secondslong as I have to be able to do what I want to do. You know, somebody said to me recently that they were stuck in the DMV for a few hours and they were
42:0642 minutes, 6 secondsgetting really upset about it and then said I thought to myself, you know, I can’t remember what the last time I was really someplace I didn’t want to be,
42:1442 minutes, 14 secondsyou know, and that’s really I mean, we are so fortunate to be in this industry and be able to do these things and work with other people, like-minded people,
42:2542 minutes, 25 secondscreative people. I’m just grateful every single day and I know I can speak for the rest of us too.
42:3142 minutes, 31 secondsYeah, you you know you have to cultivate that support. Yes. You know,
42:3542 minutes, 35 secondsI mean it’s you know you could you you kind of have a choice. Okay, I’m going to cultivate support from the people around me or I’m going to cultivate
42:4242 minutes, 42 secondsconfrontation, right? Confrontation turns into stress. I mean what stress it just have tons of confrontation in it
42:5042 minutes, 50 secondsand you are not going to get a good result there. And the next time you need a favor from somebody, they’re going to say, “Oh, [ __ ] that asshole.”
42:5742 minutes, 57 secondsYou’d never know who you’re going to pass. I’d never met Jerry in person before today, but I’d heard her name
43:0543 minutes, 5 secondslike 10 years ago and I was sat with my friend Carrie. We’re having dinner and she was talking about a panel that she
43:1143 minutes, 11 secondssat on with Jerry, you know. I remember like just met and like friends, you know, but it was good. I I was I think
43:2143 minutes, 21 secondsit’s time for another old saying, don’t you? Right. Another old saying.
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsOh. Oh. Like like so careful whose toes you step on because they might be connected to the ash. You’re going to have to kiss them.
43:3543 minutes, 35 secondsYou got another one. You’re right. These step. Wow. Those are great.
43:4143 minutes, 41 secondsThat’s Well, well, I did just get 5 minute notice. 5 minutes ago. That sounds like a really great one to close on.
43:4743 minutes, 47 secondsOh no. I think there’s another another question over there behind him. Oh yeah. Okay. Now you have a second. Yeah.
43:5543 minutes, 55 secondsOh. Oh. Oh no. Yes. Oh yeah. Look at this great story.
44:0144 minutes, 1 secondLook at this guy. Yeah. You know, first of all, I want to just expand on what you were saying and you’re saying,
44:0744 minutes, 7 secondsDaniel, about relationships because I agree like it’s not only the people that you make and the friends that you make in relationships because some people likely lucky,
44:1844 minutes, 18 secondsbut also I mean that helps with mental health like I think about co and how we all connected during co like kept each
44:2644 minutes, 26 secondsother safe as well through that whole period. also those relationships.
44:3244 minutes, 32 secondsThere’s opportunities in my life that I I had worked on a national hunt at one point people were like, “How did you get that gig?” I had a friend call me up and
44:4044 minutes, 40 secondssaid, “Hey, work on a national moon with me. You want to do the music for it?”
44:4544 minutes, 45 secondsHad other things like that as well. It is it’s all about relationships and and just the people that are around you. But
44:5244 minutes, 52 secondslike National Ramp, that’s like a fancy for me. That’s going to be some fun.
44:5744 minutes, 57 secondsYeah. ever worked on. I’m very proud to say it’s is rated as one of the eight worst movies ever made. So,
45:0645 minutes, 6 secondsbut it’s national. Come on. I feel you. I have one of those as well.
45:1045 minutes, 10 secondsThey’re going. Um, but aren’t you supposed to get an order? Oh, yeah. Daniel,
45:1645 minutes, 16 secondsare you Daniel? So, for those for those of you that are in here that that are lucky enough to be on any kind of Facebook or
45:2545 minutes, 25 secondssocial feeds of Daniel Keller, Daniel has the worst dad jokes probably on the planet.
45:3545 minutes, 35 secondsAnd Daniel and I have attended St.
45:4145 minutes, 41 secondsDaniel actually sent me a private note about a week or so ago because that really hurt my feelings. And I said, “I didn’t think that was possible.” I said,
45:4845 minutes, 48 seconds”Really, Dad?” No. I said, “I didn’t think that was possible.” So, I decided and and these people were all in on it
45:5545 minutes, 55 secondsthat we’re going to give you the first standing. Well, please don’t write to your senators or drink people up and complain about what I’m about to what’s going to come out of my mouth right now.
46:0546 minutes, 5 secondsBut, um, because it’s all in good fun.
46:0946 minutes, 9 secondsWe have the first annual award that we’re going to give to Daniel. Okay.
46:2146 minutes, 21 secondsSo it’s like every time panel says a big thing it’s like one two three all together.
46:3446 minutes, 34 secondsHere’s your your first annual bod award. Double play. Double play.
46:4446 minutes, 44 secondsand it gets hurt to the human. You should be crying. You should be crying right now.
46:5246 minutes, 52 secondsSo, it’s Here you go. Yeah. You’re going to have that speech. But first, I need to read to you what the what what it says because, you know, I know you work
47:0047 minutesreally hard on these god awful jokes. I understand. I just I just nice. It says Bone Award 2026.
47:1247 minutes, 12 secondsThe first ever Bone Alone Award goes to Daniel Keller. May your dad chose and
47:1847 minutes, 18 secondsshow it the solitude of a old mustard closet.
47:2647 minutes, 26 secondsThank you. Thank you so much. Each speech I make.
47:3547 minutes, 35 secondsYes, you do. I have faith in you. You’ve got so many bad dad shapes. You’ve got to come up with something. Make us go to the internet.
47:4347 minutes, 43 secondsSpeech. Speech.
47:5547 minutes, 55 secondsI’m Daniel Keller. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for Insights and Sound.