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Nov. 10, 2021 - Viva & Barnes
01:22:17
Sidebar with Five Times August - Viva & Barnes Live
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Time Text
People, right on time, as in two to three seconds early.
And can we appreciate, first of all, I hope everyone appreciates up front, we're not going to be talking about Kyle Rittenhouse tonight.
This is going to be, the dog is barking already.
This is going to be a break from the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, although there may be a couple of minutes here and there on it.
This is not about Rittenhouse tonight.
This is about five times August.
Brad, and I'm going to, Brad, Brad Schematis.
And I'm not doing that to be funny.
I spent the entire afternoon practicing his name.
Eric Hunley gave me a monomic thing to remember it by.
It would rhyme with Christmas.
It's Brad Schematis.
Got it.
Booyah.
This is going to be off of the Rittenhouse trial.
And then I might have Aviva on the street where I go over some of the highlights of the day, which was Binger getting zingered by the judge.
For conduct that I have not met any attorney who does not reflexively say Binger is a sneaky deaky, to put it politely.
But for anybody who doesn't know Brad from Five Times August, he is the musician behind some of the music that I've been sharing around on Locals ever since I've discovered it.
Not ever since, recently.
Because some of the music is beautiful.
I shouldn't say some of the music.
The music is beautiful.
Some songs I have more of a connection to than others.
Tonight, we will probably only indirectly talk about Rittenhouse.
From what I understand, there's still 30,000 people with Nick on the panel, watching the panel, I should say, talking about it.
But that is not tonight.
So, what I'm going to do, I'm going to bring in Brad.
We're going to start going.
When I see Robert, who I saw Robert earlier today, yeah, he was excited.
Today was a big day for the trial, but...
He'll be here.
When I see him, I'll bring him in.
Oh, yeah, standard things, by the way.
Super Chats, 30% goes to YouTube.
If you don't like that, we're simultaneously streaming on Rumble.
Rumble has these things called Rumble Rants.
Like Super Chats, Rumble takes 20%.
Better for the creator, better for the platform, yada, yada, yada.
Super Chats are not a right of entry into the conversation.
If they're abusive, I will try.
I may or may not bring them up, although I've been pretty lenient in terms of what is considered abuse.
But if you're going to be miffed, if I don't bring up the super chat, don't give the super chat.
I don't want people feeling miffed.
Very importantly for this stream and all others, no legal advice.
But I suspect for this particular stream, also I should highlight no medical advice.
I'm not a doctor.
Pulling a tin pool.
Yada, yada, yada.
Consult with your doctor.
Okay.
Now I'm going to slow down.
I'm going to bring in Brad and we're going to start talking.
Brad, how goes the battle?
You know, I want to say to you.
Thanks for having me on, first of all.
Thank you for coming, and yeah, thank you.
This is going to be good.
Second of all, Schistamus is the last name.
I apologize.
I'm bad with names in general.
Schistamus.
I was watching.
I was like, come on.
You can do it.
Come on.
I don't even know what you said, but it was wonderful.
I was over here going, that was great.
Fantastic.
So yeah, Brad Schistamus.
It sounds like Christmas.
Christamus.
Yeah, well, that's what I was trying to...
That might have been what...
Yeah, that might have been what you said.
Is it of Greek origin?
It's Lithuanian.
Lithuanian?
Yeah.
Hold on.
Who do we just...
We're Legal Bytes.
A lead-up is Lithuanian.
One of the lawyers on the panel on Raketa.
Yeah, that's the second time this week that the Lithuanian connection has come up.
Does it mean anything?
Oh, I feel like when my parents a long time ago said something that had to do with cherries or something like that.
I can't remember.
That might have been like a secondhand of a secondhand explanation of where the name was coming from.
Now that I've been told, I have to go get my mic up.
Hold on one second.
Advanced options.
No, that's the audio.
That's the video, which we already have there.
Audio.
I've been told to bring up my mic.
I'll bring it to 80. People tell me if that's too loud.
And while you do that, I'm going to bring in Barnes, who is in the house.
Robert, how are you doing?
Good, good.
Other than the lying, cheating prosecutor, Binger, who should be disbarred, fired, then disbarred, then tarred and feathered.
We should bring back that old equitable remedy of public tarring and feathering.
Leave him in the public square for about a year.
Because of what his illicit, unconstitutional actions, which evidence professors online, were lying about, misquoting.
That's the nature of the legal left these days, lying about the law.
A guy that has no business being a professor at the University of South Carolina, citing other people that are lying also about the law.
They can't just lie about this kid.
They gotta lie about the law along the way.
But hopefully we'll see some remedy.
Kyle Rittenhouse did a great job today.
Stood up against a lying, cheating, thieving, bottom-feeding prosecutor throughout the entire testimony in a very admirable way.
Some people didn't think...
You know, he clearly has post-traumatic stress.
The emotional reaction, that's what you saw.
You can't fake hyperventilation of the kind he was going through.
That was a pure panic attack reaction because of what he went through.
I mean, he spent three weeks vomiting in jail after what happened.
And, you know, he was pale as a ghost and white as, you know, just completely almost no skin color, as other witnesses described him.
That's who he was.
He was an innocent kid.
Anybody who has an honest heart and honest mind and an open soul knows that.
And the only reason he's being prosecuted is because of a lying, corrupt, unethical prosecutor that if the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation has an iota of conscience and isn't complete cowards, will disbar by the end of the year.
But other than that...
And I'll say this.
We're going to talk about this in detail on Sunday.
And by then, we'll have some more news.
Although Sunday might be a holiday, but we might do it on Monday.
We'll see.
But Robert, is it your birthday today?
It's not your birthday.
Oh, no.
Okay.
I'm a fire.
I'm an Aries.
Okay.
Now, people said your audio is low.
I don't know how to bring your audio up because I don't yet have those skills.
But with that intro, Robert, yes, it was a day and a half.
Brad, we're going to start with you.
For the elevator pitch for those who don't know who you are, elevator pitch before we get into childhood memories.
Geez, I've been a singer-songwriter for 20 years with Five Times August and toured the country, seen the world.
And this year, I've sort of started speaking out with my music.
Using my voice to speak for others, I guess, through my music, you know?
I mean, I say this because I don't know everything about music, but you're, by all objective metrics, a very accomplished musician before we're going to get into the political sort of Bob Dylan-esque shift.
But some of your successes that people might recognize, you were on MTV, you had a bunch of big songs, I don't know how long ago, but what's your career been like?
Yeah, I mean, when you say elevator pitch, I go like, oh, geez, the last 20 years.
But it's had its different kind of sections.
So I started right out of high school.
The name Five Times August was like a one-man band.
I was trying to be like Dashboard Confessional at the time.
It was cool to be like a one-man band thing.
And the name came from August 5th, my birthday.
And that's where that came from, in case anybody's wondering.
And then I was just playing local coffee shops, recorded CDs out of my bedroom.
I had a music supervisor from MTV find some of my music early on through a website called CD Baby.
He's placing it on all kinds of MTV shows, reality shows, teen dramas, and things like that, which really just opened up the whole...
I was on MySpace at the time, number one unsigned artist in the...
I met my wife working in radio at that time.
Basically, we were just kind of like a mom-and-pop operation, indie operation.
Before it was really cool to be independent, we were just doing everything ourselves, booking shows and traveling the country, playing college shows.
Did that for a really long time, and then we started a family.
I did a kid's record by another project name called the Juice Box Jukebox.
And that was probably one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life was just creating music with my family.
And then at the beginning of the pandemic, I kind of had to cancel a bunch of shows.
And then I was like, well, what am I going to do?
And I...
I put together, I tossed together this parody of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire called We Didn't Spread the Virus.
It took me like 10 minutes to write.
It was just a joke.
All my social medias were kind of dead.
I wasn't really focused on Five Times August stuff.
I was doing the kids stuff.
And I could have spent less time on anything in my whole career.
And I put this thing up and then boom, it got a million hits.
And then I was like...
Oh, wow.
Okay, so maybe I should do another one.
This was at the very beginning of the two weeks to slow the spread thing.
And so we were all sitting at home sort of, you know, killing time or whatever.
And so I'd gotten this little thing at the beginning of the pandemic where I was doing parody songs.
And I was all of a sudden getting known as a parody artist.
But I did 12 songs and I was like...
I can't keep doing this.
It was fun.
It was nice to do it.
But the longer that the whole thing kept going on and on and on, I didn't really feel like being funny anymore.
So I took some time off from writing.
And then towards the end of last year, I was like, I feel like I should speak up with my music.
Because I was kind of waiting around for my music heroes to sort of speak up and start saying stuff.
And nobody was doing it.
So come January, You know, I released a song called God Help Us All, and that sort of spurred on this next venture of things.
So there's been kind of sections, and it seems like each section, I have to sort of start over my career in a way, because I had this college demographic early on, and then they all grew up and had kids, and then I kind of started.
This whole kids audience thing.
And then a complete 180 of it, which is kind of like a bipolar experience when you're making happy, cheerful kids music with the best and purest intentions.
And then you go and you start making these sort of reflective, kind of a little angry protest songs with just your acoustic guitar.
It's been an emotional rollercoaster to say the least, but here we are.
I don't know.
If any of that made sense.
I want to ask some questions on the children's music, but going back to the very beginning, born and raised in America?
Yeah, Dallas, Texas.
And how many siblings would your parents do?
All that jazz.
So I had a really unique upbringing.
So I'm the youngest of four.
I've got two older brothers and an older sister.
And my dad was an illustrator growing up.
And then my mom and my dad, when I was about seven years old, started their own event decorating company.
And then they started building that event decorating company in a more conceptual way where eventually the company...
Blossomed into them doing parade floats and restaurant openings and very big events.
And I would be pulled in to help my parents do these things.
So I was learning all these really unique creative skills along the way that I didn't really know I had learned until way later.
So that was sort of my upbringing was creating props and signage for restaurant openings.
They did these huge balloon sculptures and, like I said, parade floats that were televised on TV, big Thanksgiving and Christmas parades and things like that.
So that was what I was sort of surrounded by.
And it was like anything creative that I wanted to do as a kid, I could just sort of do it because they had a warehouse with all this stuff that I could sort of play with and create and paints and you name it.
That's what my sort of upbringing was.
And anything creative that I got into, my parents were very supportive of it.
So when I was, I think, in fifth grade, I started dancing like Michael Jackson.
And it was sort of like this thing that I liked.
I just did it on my own.
I just thought he was cool and I was doing it.
But then my mom signed me up for dance lessons.
And she was like, you're going into dance lessons.
I'm like, I didn't really want to, Mom.
She wanted to support me.
Anything that you do from week to week as a kid that you get into, my mom was my number one fan.
My parents were very supportive of that until I picked up a guitar.
I shouldn't say until then, but by the time I picked up a guitar, they let me sort of just, you know, relish in it.
And throughout high school, that's what I was doing was discovering the guitar and songwriting that by the time I graduated high school, that's exactly what I wanted to do.
And that's the path that I've been on ever since then.
Now, Now, you chose not to go any kind of traditional music career path in the sense of, you know, being signed by a label, promoted.
Why did you make that decision?
Well, by the time I had gotten to that, so when you're 18 and you want to become a rock star, You kind of have the idea of what you're going to do.
I'm going to get a record label and I'm going to have my hit radio single and all that stuff.
That's sort of the naive expectation when you start out.
That's where I started out.
But it was at the very beginning of a shift in the music industry, I think.
Everything was starting to go digital online and social media was starting to sort of pick up.
This was 2001 when I started.
How old are you, by the way, Brad?
I'm 38. I've been on this journey for two full decades, which is crazy.
I've got more gray hair today than I did back then.
When you start out, you have these ideas of what you want to accomplish.
The more that I was accomplishing on my own, by the time I was meeting with record labels in 2006 and 2007, I had already had my CD distributed at Walmart stores and Best Buy stores.
I was getting, instead of radio play, I was getting all the TV show licenses on big TV shows and things like that, commercials and film, which sort of took the place of having to battle through mainstream radio, which is a whole other game in and of itself.
So I was just accomplishing all this stuff, and the industry had started to shift.
So much that more and more people were going independent.
I was kind of trying to stay at the forefront of what you could accomplish as an independent artist.
So I sort of decided to stay with it while other friends of mine were signing to record labels.
But by the time that they were off of the...
Off of their contract, they were sort of celebrating that they were off the contract because they couldn't release all the songs that they were writing.
In fact, they would stash them away so by the time they were let loose of their contract, they could release all their music again because they were essentially songwriters.
They thought they were getting sort of like a record label deal for them as an artist, but ultimately it was just sort of like a songwriting deal or something.
How many kids do you have?
I have three kids.
I have two boys and a little girl.
And now, the music industry itself is kind of interesting.
I don't care about the ages of the kids, but you're doing this before you have kids.
How do you go about actually...
How does that work, practically speaking, for anybody who might be out there thinking they want to strive for a suffering of a living by succeeding as an artist?
How do you go about doing it?
How do you make money and how do you have the prospect of supporting a family?
So much suffering.
So much suffering.
You know, it's an ongoing thing.
I call it the chase.
And that's kind of just what it is as an artist.
You have these ups and downs.
You know, points in your career where you're doing a lot, you're accomplishing a lot, you're touring a lot, and then you've got these times in between, for whatever reason, where you're not as busy or people aren't looking at you, you know, as much as they would be if you had like a popular song that was out right then and there.
So you've got to be creative with it.
I think like the thing with being an independent artist these days is that you're not just a songwriter.
You're not just a musician.
You're doing all these sort of things.
So I do my own music videos.
I do all my own graphic design work.
I do all my own merchandising.
I've been mailing out every CD that's ever been ordered off my website for 20 years.
It's a one-man show, essentially, outside of my wife, who has helped me on sort of the business side of things, taking care of contracts and scheduling and things like that.
But if you look at these guys now, like Tom McDonald, he's doing all that stuff.
He doesn't have kids right now, so he's got the time, but he's pounding away, and I can tell.
I know exactly what he's doing right now.
He's doing what I was doing 15 years ago during the height of MySpace stuff, where you're just going at it, and every day you're hungry for it, and you're pushing, and you're pushing.
But you just have to sort of...
Be ready to pivot and do other things.
I've done some work with a lot of session guys that have accomplished so much in their career.
And you hear their stories and you go, you know, wow, you know, that's incredible.
But at the same time, when they're not on the road with these bigger artists, they're playing any gig that they can get because a gig's a gig.
And yeah, those big gigs pay well, but if there's, you know...
Especially look over the last pandemic, over the last two years, the music industry has been hit hard.
So if you're not on the road, if you're not doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing, you've got to be able to pivot and figure out other ways to do things.
And so luckily, I think as an independent artist, I'm able to sort of...
Shift around.
I'm a man of many hats, you could say, because I do so many different things.
It's a slow season musically or something like that, which I have had having kids.
When you start a family as a musician, it's a very tough thing to try and balance because you come from this self-absorbed world where it's all about me and how to get myself out there.
Then you have these incredible little babies, and you're like, oh, it's not just all about me.
And so there have been those times where I couldn't be on the road.
I'm raising a family, and so I had to get a side gig here and there and there.
But it's just all part of that chase that I was talking about.
Brad, I don't want to put you on the spot, but people in the chat who may never have heard anything, are you able to play anything live right now?
I didn't ask you this beforehand.
Well...
First of all, there's a fair bit of frustration in the chat because people came for Rittenhouse and you might have come on a sidebar at the worst possible time.
But I'm going to say this.
Not to be mean.
Too bad, chat.
This is going to come on Sunday and it might come later on and maybe we'll talk about it afterwards.
But tonight it's sidebar and that's what it is.
And it's going to be a break from the Rittenhouse because maybe some people, like Robert and I...
Or Rittenhouse Trial out.
But Brad, if people don't know who you are, they should maybe hear one song if you can do it.
Yeah, I've got to reach around and get some equipment.
Well, okay.
If you're able, I don't want to make it uncomfortable.
Well, I've got to hold on a second.
And now, to placate the people in the crowd.
Robert, while Brad gets set up for the performance, say something about Rittenhouse so that people get their fix of this trial.
Well, it'll be interesting if Five Times August may be able to come up with a Rittenhouse song, figure out some good, maybe a good pair of satire of Mr. Binger, praise of Granbo.
I shouldn't say older, but older lady who testified earlier in the trial.
I mean, it's been an extraordinary trial from a public perspective.
But I do think a good number of people need to and would benefit from checking out from it for a little while because it's a lot of intense emotions, a lot of intense drama, a lot of intense activity.
And, you know, the only way you really survive and sustain those kind of cases, you have to step back.
I do that even during a trial because otherwise you get exhausted.
Now, by the way, Carla Vegas says, just make a new Let's Go Brandon song.
Brad, have you made a Let's Go Brandon acoustic version or something?
Well, you know what's funny is I released a song called Joe.
That was the last single I put out about Joe Biden.
You start off with the, hey Joe, where are you going with that gun?
Who wrote that original song?
Yeah.
I can't remember the original song right here.
It's famous through Jimi Hendrix mainly, but that was actually a cover of another song called Hey Joe.
That line I thought was perfect to start.
For a song about Joe Biden, because it's actually a song lyric lifted from another song, which was sort of my own little nod to his history with plagiarizing speeches.
I thought that was kind of clever.
So I released that song Joe a few weeks before, or maybe even like a few days before the F. Joe Biden.
I drop an F-bomb in the song Joe.
It's the first song in 20 years of my career that I...
I have put a cuss word in my song because I usually try to keep, I've always tried to stay, you know, pretty clean and family friendly and watch what I say.
But my use of the word seemed appropriate, but I had like a long talk with myself about it.
And I was like, should I put that in there?
I don't know.
Maybe I should.
And so I put this F-bomb in there.
And then like two days later, everybody in the country is chanting F Joe Biden.
I'm like, oh, I guess it doesn't matter.
Well, I'd say from a cynical perspective as to content creation, you're saying to yourself, okay, the song is fantastic.
It might be a good one to play for people.
But you're like three days ahead of this now what becomes literally a trend, a meme.
And you're saying, if I had waited a week, maybe I could have formed my song around Let's Go Brandon and caught the wave of the virality that was going on.
Right.
I don't know.
Has there ever been a song about a trial?
Maybe some of the old labor trials.
I'm trying to think, but I can't think of a great folk song about a trial now that I think about it.
It would be a very fitting thing, not to give Brad any ideas, but a very fitting thing about an unfair prosecution.
I don't think anybody who's watching the trial and paying attention can think that this is a fair and justified prosecution.
It might have been necessary for the optics, but it could be the next subject matter.
Brad, you know what?
Do you gauge your song creation based on what is trending at the time, or are you just going on what is of interest to you?
It's kind of been...
Joe kind of came...
I was working on another song before Joe, and then the whole Afghanistan withdrawal thing was happening, and it distracted me, and so I took time off to write Joe, because I was so mad about it.
The other songs have just sort of accumulated.
I think after I was doing parodies last year, and I was sort of burnt out on...
What was happening?
And it just seemed to get more and more ridiculous.
I didn't know what to write.
And so I kind of, honestly, with God Help Us All, I kind of sat and kind of prayed about it.
Like, I've got to write something.
And then I ended up writing God Help Us All.
I released that.
I lost some fans, but I gained some fans.
And then the great thing about it was I started...
Creating this new audience of people that actually thought like me because it was a risk for me to release a song like God Help Us All.
And then I followed it up with Jesus, What Happened to Us.
There are just ways to vent.
Now I feel like...
A lot of us are sort of collectively thinking the same thing.
We're just sort of afraid to say it.
And there aren't very many musicians saying it.
So I sort of decided to enlist my music for this time because it's just important.
I don't feel like I have an option to stay silent.
So that's kind of where it comes from.
But Joe, for sure.
Was a little more topical.
And then I've got a new single coming out Friday.
Which is funny because I've been neck deep editing a video all day.
So I haven't even...
I've been watching the greatest hit clips on Twitter of the trial.
But I've just been focused on editing this video for the last 36 hours of my life.
But it'll be out and ready Friday.
And that song's called Sad Little Man.
And that is about...
America's Favorite Doctor.
So we'll see how that goes over.
What were some of your musical influences growing up?
A lot of my music came from my parents' record collection.
And they had a lot of music from the 60s in there.
I loved the Beatles.
I still love the Beatles.
I've got a lot of...
British rock behind me on the record.
I've got a whole bunch of records down here you can't see.
I listen to a lot of music from the 60s and then 80s.
Around the 90s, I was into songwriters, whatever was popular in middle school and high school.
But really, over time, I love so much music.
I go back to the 40s and 50s.
There's just a lot of class in old music that you don't get today, and there's something real there in a lot of that music that you don't get today.
And that's something, too, that I'm trying to bring back with these songs, because they're just performances for the most part.
I record them take after take until I get the one that I want.
It's not like I'm laying down this, that, and laying down the drums, and then we're making sure they're lockstep with the tempo like you do.
These days, it's very programmed.
I don't know.
I felt like with this series of songs, it's important to give people something real.
I feel like we're kind of missing that, especially in music.
Do I get greedy and ask for a preview of the song that's going to be released on Friday?
Or do we just go with either Hey Joe or my personal favorite?
I think I've watched virtually everything.
God help us all.
Which one are you?
Do you have to go through your head right now before you perform to say which one are you more fluent with in order to perform?
I can play Hey Joe for you because I'm set up to do it.
Okay.
And God Help Us All is like five minutes, so I don't want to bore everybody.
Okay.
I was going to leave me as the biggest one here.
So, Brad, would you be a dear and play the song while we look at me here?
I'm joking.
I'm joking.
All right.
Let's see.
Hope it stays in tune Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?
You stripped the right from an American believe it locked and loaded for the Taliban Hey Joe, I Where you going with that blood on your hands?
I heard you say it.
It was on the news.
You're the president.
The buck stops with you.
Now there ain't no mommy and there ain't no dad.
Cause you wrapped them up in the American flag.
Thirteen kids, but you stopped a war.
There ain't no sense going back for more.
Cause hey, Joe.
We did it.
81 million votes.
Hey, Joe!
Where you going?
Why you moving so slow?
They'll prop you up on the TV screen, but forget your job.
What flavor ice cream is that?
And hey, Joe!
Where you going?
Do you even know?
Well, come on, man!
Not a joke!
Here's the deal!
The country's broke!
You ain't no leader and you ain't the boss.
You wander around like you're fucking lost.
So check your watch.
Turn your back.
You set us up for the big attack.
'Cause, hey, Joe!
We did it!
81 million votes!
Hey, Joe!
Where you going with that gun in your hand?
And hey, Joe, where you going with all that blood on your hands?
That is phenomenal.
Back in the day when we had...
Let me just move this over here.
Nobody wants me in the center.
Back in the day when we had freedom in lives and you had live performances, when I was studying philosophy at McGill, I used to love going to the Irish pub and listening to this exact type of music live.
It's beautiful.
But this is political, Brad.
This is political, and that song cost you friends.
It had to have cost you friends.
All these songs have cost me friends.
Every time I write a song, I lose a friend.
Do you gain a new one, though?
You gain a new one?
I gained 10 new friends.
That's the great thing about it, is there's more people out there thinking like this than there are not thinking like this.
And that's very encouraging to me, because, you know, as I said, it was...
I spent most of my career behaving myself.
I've made friends on both sides of the aisle.
I'm in a very liberal music industry.
I never identified as anything.
I just was going along making friends.
The irony of it, I posted about this last week or something, but the great irony of my entire career after 20 years was...
Making so many friends and accepting so many people in my life who may think different than me or whatever, becoming good friends with them.
And the moment I started speaking up about what was important to me was when they stopped talking to me.
That was when I got pushed out of the way.
I've lost industry relationships and friends.
But at the same time, every time somebody would write me saying, I'm deleting your music, I'd get 10 more people that would write and say, thanks so much for speaking up.
By the way, perfect segue.
You're on Locals as well, just so everybody...
Yeah.
While it's up.
Yeah, thanks, Ziggy.
Ziggy was my first Locals subscriber over there outside of Eric, I think.
Eric turned me on to Locals.
I signed up for Locals.
It's growing, slowly but surely.
Thank you, Ziggy.
I'll bring Robert back.
How do I bring someone out of the...
I'll leave him there for now.
My question is, once you start...
You make the decision to go political.
Going political is like going nuclear.
But you're in an industry where it's traditionally more lefty than not.
How immediate is the impact?
Do you have sponsors?
Like, how immediately does it hit you before you can actually see the net positive?
I think now is where I'm starting to see things kind of really turn around where, you know, I've stayed with it.
I didn't let anybody sort of scare me away from speaking up.
In fact, every time somebody sort of, you know, tried to bring me down about it, it just sort of fueled me even more.
And you can sort of hear, I was listening back to the songs that I've released throughout the year, and you can hear my voice get rougher and more aggressive with each subsequent track.
And you'll hear it especially with my latest single, Sad Little Man.
Because there's just so much frustration packed in there, just with what's happening in the world and everything.
But yeah, I mean...
I released God Help Us All in January.
For me, that was like, okay.
I had sort of started getting a little more vocal on my social media sites and saying sort of things that fans weren't used to hearing.
And then I put it in a song.
And I think that took a lot of them back.
And so you start getting these emails from people that...
Or Facebook messages or something where they tell you they're deleting your music and whatever and you're a grifter or whatever.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
But then that was who was already looking at me at that time.
Then you get people who start discovering you and hearing that message.
And then more and more of those people, it's sort of been snowballing.
And the fans that I'm making now...
And the fans that have stuck with me after all this time, the people that were actually on the same page after all this time, like all these, these are the people I want to keep.
These are the fans that I want forever because we all get it.
And we can be each other.
We can be ourselves with each other.
So it's pretty incredible.
Have you been surprised that the music industry as a whole, those groups like Rage Against the Machine, not allowing people into their concerts unless they have an experimental drug stuck into their body?
I mean, they really should change their name.
I mean, just a complete mockery, a complete joke.
They are the machine.
They should rage for the machine.
Have you been surprised that the music industry is supposed to be out with independent creatives, your Bob Dylan types, which is what your music reminds me of?
You know, and now it's, you know, corporate sponsor.
I'm just waiting for Bob Dylan to come out and saying, God bless the vaccine.
Please take experimental drugs.
You know, Pfizer is wonderful.
You know, changing the cards from the old videos into rolling with the machine rather than rolling against it.
Have you been surprised at this, that these creative musicians have become so institutionalist, corporatist, statist, authoritarians?
I can't say I'm surprised by it.
I never felt like I was in the industry.
I always felt on the outskirts of the industry.
I never felt like I...
Part of me goes like, oh gosh, I'm so glad over the last...
I don't even know.
Over the last 20 years, I never signed a contract with anybody because in hindsight, I'm like, oh God, who would I be as a person right now if I had...
I don't even know.
Maybe I would just be...
The same person.
I don't know.
I've become a better person outside of it, staying outside on the outskirts, I think, because I've been able to focus on what matters more.
But no, I'm not surprised by that.
The thing that surprises me more is that I'm now a rebel.
I never would have considered myself to be any kind of rebel ever in my career.
clean-cut acoustic singer-songwriter singing love songs.
And so, you know, to...
To be called, you know, dangerous.
The things that I'm singing about are dangerous, you know.
That's crazy to me.
This is probably the best segue into this aspect of what you're doing.
I mean, how long have you been on YouTube for?
And then did you notice any...
I mean, you'll notice an increase when you start making this type of music, but have you noticed censorship issues?
Have you felt like you've been targeted on the platform or elsewhere?
Because of the message you're conveying.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
The second video I released, Jesus, What Happened to Us, has been suppressed by YouTube.
I've had my own battle with that on YouTube.
That video was just clips of viral videos, news clips, handheld videos that were circulating.
And it's just sort of a reflection back on everything that's happened.
That video I posted in April originally.
I got an email saying, congratulations, your video's been approved.
And after an independent review, it's ready to go for advertising because you get these little notification emails from YouTube.
And four days later, I get another email from YouTube saying, after another independent review...
Unsolicited, by the way, right?
It's not like I wrote them back after the first one was like, are you sure?
Can you look at it again?
I don't know what their standards are, but the fact that it made it through and then the algorithms gave it an okay and then four days later they were like, oh no, we're going to...
Four days later they decided to do partial monetization.
Limited monetization.
Yeah, which means nothing.
For anybody who doesn't know, it's about 10% of what the video or whatever would otherwise get in terms of YouTube ad revenue.
Yeah.
So then four months goes by and I get a notification for that same video that I had uploaded in April.
And they now had decided that it was for...
18 and over.
18 and over for restricted audiences.
So they docked it.
So what I decided to do was go, well, what's the problem here?
Because you sit there and you try to communicate with YouTube and say, well, what is the problem?
What can I fix about my video?
And they don't give you any tips.
So I was like, well, I'll just edit the video with what I think.
I'll re-edit the video with what I think is the problem and try it again.
And so I did this.
Over and over again, 11 times, uploading the video, and it would just immediately get docked and flagged as 18 and up.
And I'm like, you didn't even watch it!
I just uploaded it!
How can this be, robot?
So I do it 11 times.
The 11th one got through.
And the funny thing was, I replaced some of the clips with...
There's a few in the new edit of the video, which I uploaded like...
Last month or something.
There's a few clips of some music videos that have had, I don't even know, 800 million views.
We're talking about like Childish Gambino's This Is America, where the video starts off with him shooting somebody in the head and blood splattering.
So I put in clips from these other videos, and that version of the video gets through.
But yeah, my video was too graphic for the internet.
But these other videos weren't.
And that was my whole beef with it.
That's my whole beef with YouTube.
It's like, look, I don't want you to take the other ones down.
I just want you to have some sort of level playing field.
You can't just say my video's bad and remove it without telling me.
But I played the game and we got it through and it's monetized now.
And I think it still tells the same story.
It sends the same message.
It's just...
There's a little less.
I think it was what ended up happening.
It was the blood.
The woman who got her forehead split.
But you know what's funny is the Lincoln Project just released a video on their YouTube page and they had a lady with blood on her forehead.
Don't compare.
How many videos have you uploaded to YouTube on your channel now?
Are you up to a couple hundred?
Maybe.
I was on YouTube way back in 2006 and I had a lot of...
I don't know.
You could call them dark years where I wasn't uploading anything.
But then there were other years where I'd upload a whole bunch of stuff and then I'd take it down.
And so I don't know what's up there right now.
But mainly, I would just consider there's the six videos that I've put up this year, which is what I really want people to watch.
And then there's a few other things from years previous.
And then I've got my whole other kids channel, which is doing just fine, which is funny.
So I just let that roll and do its thing.
Now, if you had been at a label, could you have spoken out on these topics that you now have?
I don't think so.
And I think that's the thing that you see with a lot of these people.
That's why I'm not surprised, is that they've got a team behind them.
They've got a machine running their message.
They've got people doing their social media accounts anyway.
They've got people sending the message to record label once.
And I'm not locked down to that.
Guys like me and Bryson Gray right now, we can say whatever we want to say and we don't have to worry about it, any repercussions.
So it's a nice freedom to have.
But I think for sure that's why you don't see very many people speaking up.
And if you do, it's like a very faint, you know, I don't know.
It's kind of a nod.
It's like Rihanna wore that think now before it's...
Before it's illegal or something like that.
She wore a shirt a few weeks ago and everybody's like, Rihanna speaking up.
Oh my gosh.
It's like, no, she's not.
She's selling a t-shirt.
Because all of a sudden you saw this t-shirt being sold.
There's like crazy t-shirt bots on Twitter now everywhere you go.
But I think we got to be careful with who we're looking at as far as celebrities.
I think we've consumed ourselves with enough celebrity over the last...
You know, 100 years, really.
It's gotten out of hand where we just, you know, at this point in time, for people like us who might be searching for something that's not the mainstream narrative, that when we see somebody who is in the mainstream, who's a famous person, the moment that they say something that we agree with, we cling to it and go, oh, really?
You're one of us?
Are you?
Really?
And it's like, just let it go.
Just don't get caught up in it.
Just be your own person.
Focus on...
For me, it's focusing on the message.
It's focusing on the mission.
It's not really about who's saying what.
It's are they a real person doing the right thing?
So you have three kids, and I think one of them is relatively young, relatively new, like a year?
My youngest is four.
Your youngest is four years old?
Yeah.
And you're in what state now?
Texas.
Okay, so...
Seeing this now going on with the world, you've been locked down.
I don't know how it's been in Texas for the last couple of years.
You see vaccine mandates coming in.
You get vocal about certain issues.
What is the blowback that you actually start seeing professionally and personally?
And how does that materialize?
Well, I had a small group of people that I have worked with over the last couple of years.
You know, decades.
Because I'm not in the machine.
I sort of, I find the people that I like to work with and I sort of stick with them.
But when you say, you know, I started dealing with this before I even was releasing these songs.
But you, you think that you're friends, you think that you're good, you know, you work well together and then you start speaking out and you, all of a sudden, you, what?
You don't.
Like that or whatever the, you know, whatever the difference of opinion is.
Like, it's so divisive.
It's, well, we're not working together anymore.
To me, that's fine.
You know, one of the, I mean, my kids really, at the end of the day, they're the reason I...
Have to speak up right now.
That was sort of where my frustration came from at the end of 2020.
I'm looking around going, this is not what I want to leave for my kids.
This is not going in the right direction for them.
And I don't want them to look back on this time thinking their daddy didn't do anything about it.
They might not understand the music that I'm releasing right now.
And for the first time ever, I have to be like, oh, you can't listen to that song.
But I hope that when they're old enough and they have a little bit of hindsight on this era, that they can look back and appreciate that I did what I could do with what I have.
And I think that's what we all should be doing, whether it's content creating music or whatever skills you have as an artist or anything.
Even if you just are a confident vocal person, use your voice.
Now, what has it been like and how have you explained to your kids going through some of this?
You know, lockdowns, schools closing, mask mandates, all of this insanity.
Yeah.
So, my wife has been part of the medical freedom movement for the last eight.
Nine years.
Our two oldest boys have had issues with their early vaccines.
As early parents, you're going along with things and you just do what you're told.
You listen to the experts.
After a lot of digging and researching and doing all this stuff, In finding the right doctors and consulting with many different doctors, we've come to find that, especially our oldest,
who still deals with the negative impact of his early vaccines, we were sort of in that world already, and it sort of parlayed itself into needing to speak out.
If I may ask, early impact with other vaccines or with this one?
Okay.
This is the amazing thing.
This is the toxic, and I say corrupt environment that this all creates.
You can't even have open discussions about actual issues because of the way the authorities might believe you are contradicting science, promoting...
What's the word?
Not dissent, but promoting upheaval.
And encouraging other people to do things which are unhealthy for them and their environment.
You can't even have these discussions.
I don't even want to get into it, but everybody has their issues.
We have kids with allergies, asthma, yada yada.
Your kids have issues, and now this is an actual question you have to ask yourself.
And by virtue of you asking yourself the question, you're being demonized by those around you.
Right, yeah.
And that's the frustrating thing about all this is you can't have the conversation.
People think they know you.
As soon as you say, well, I'm not going to get the vaccination.
It's not right for me and my family.
You don't even get past that.
I can't even say my family has had, it's cut off.
No, no, you're anti.
You're already anti.
You can already have had our dealing with the...
We weren't anti.
We're not anti.
If you think that that's what you want to do with your life, then do it.
But we've already experienced certain things that speak to us now, make us go, well, maybe we don't do this.
Barnes, you were asking me about how are they absorbing all this?
We were already talking about homeschool prior to the pandemic.
And when the pandemic hit, my kids were doing the distance learning, and it was just a mess.
And we just decided, like, you know what?
Now's the time to do it.
Let's just get into homeschooling.
And it was the perfect time to do it.
So it's kind of a silver lining.
And it's made us closer as a family.
And it's been great doing that.
I recommend it if you can make it work to homeschool.
And don't be afraid of it.
Because a lot of parents are afraid of it.
They think it's going to be frustrating or something like that.
Are you both the teachers to your kids, or do you have sort of a communal you pawn off or share the responsibility with other neighbors who are doing the same thing?
No.
Well, we have some parent groups that we do meet up with, but the primary education is done between...
Me and my wife are the teachers.
And then they are.
That's what we did all last year.
Right now, they're also going to a private school for half of the week for a few days.
So we're kind of splitting it up, seeing how it goes.
So we're just experimenting right now because it is new for us.
But we really do enjoy the freedom.
And as you're seeing what's happening with the public education school system, you kind of just on certain days, you're just like, whoa, I'm glad I got out of that.
But they're very smart kids, and they've never once worn a mask.
They understand what's going on with vaccines.
We've had a lot of open conversations with them about it, and I think that we're doing okay.
I'm just going to say this out loud.
I'm blocking, not because I am offended by the content, but because web...
I don't even want to say it out loud.
There's some clear...
We've gotten back to the Russian sex bots.
So I'm blocking Russian sex bots.
This is not content-based discrimination.
This is spamming Russian sex bot discrimination.
So just so everybody knows.
So you're homeschooling three kids right now?
Yeah.
That's intense.
Now, in terms of that, I think a lot of people's concern about homeschooling was socialization.
And I've often said, think about what...
Social lessons they're actually learning, especially at public schools, but at any set of schools, and whether that's the kind of socialization you really want.
But putting that aside, how do you address that aspect for your kids?
Well, they're in soccer.
They're in karate.
They're in dance.
They've got friends in the neighborhood.
I think they're getting plenty of social.
We've got friends and family.
And my kids will talk to anybody.
I mean, they get along so well with just having a pleasant conversation, especially with older folks.
It's really nice to see.
But I think that that's just an old way of thinking.
If you're an 80s or 90s kid, then the homeschoolers back then were labeled weirdos because they weren't in the public school system.
I'm just going to say...
I'm an open-minded person.
I can admit I've had those preconceptions growing up because in Montreal, in a big city, you never see homeschoolers.
And the only homeschoolers you ever hear about are uber-religious or from small towns out in the middle of nowhere.
And I say that without judgment except for myself.
So yeah, I grew up with that as well.
But then, first of all, seeing what they're teaching in schools now, seeing how we basically were forced into homeschooling anyhow and how beneficial it can be You know, tolerate your own kids 24-7.
But yeah, I suffered from those same misconceptions and have grown a little bit to understand they were wrong.
Right.
Yeah, when I told my sister that, she was like, what?
And this was like, you know, a little over a year ago now.
But now she's like, oh, I get it.
I think that there's a shift that's definitely happening right now.
You can see it happening in the numbers of homeschool.
It's all going up right now.
Private mentoring was a tradition of the oldest, most powerful families in the history of the world.
So, I mean, the idea is you could really nurture and tutor someone with a different set of skills.
It's individualized to who they are, to how they learn, to what they learn.
Do you teach them different things than would be taught in school?
In other words, whether it's music or art or something else, do you explore different aspects of their personality that you can only do because...
Yeah, I mean, that's what I love so much about it.
I was a terrible student in school.
And, you know, if I wasn't interested in it, then I'd do terrible at it.
But I was always into the arts and everything, which has been great for me.
But I understand now, you know.
What a privilege it is to be able to sit down with my kids if they don't understand something in particular and spend as much time as we need on it until they get it, you know, and find different ways to make it make sense.
Because if you're in school and the teacher teaches you something and they hand out the worksheet and you don't get it, there's only so many ways and so much time that she could...
You know, sit down with you and make sure that you know it, which was where I sort of got lost in my education growing up.
But to be able to sit down with my...
One of the first things my oldest said to me when we sat down and did some homeschool math, that when he clicked over and got something that he didn't understand, he goes, I didn't know my brain was that smart.
And that, like, just opened up my world.
I was, like, so happy to hear that, that we were doing something right, that he was getting it.
You know, it's a nice thing.
But yeah, we're doing...
The funny thing is, so I've been doing music my whole life and I can't sit down with my kids and teach them music.
So we've signed them up for piano lessons through a friend where they'll sit down and behave and focus for music.
Well, I've discovered one thing during this pandemic is that that app, I don't know what it's called, not musically, but it's that you've seen the commercial on YouTube.
And you put it on your iPhone or your iPad and it tells you which notes to play.
It's actually working quite well.
Almost better than an adult because adults lack the patience that is required to do that.
Right.
And I'm going to read this one.
Dan Wisnance says, "My wife and I, most of my wife, homeschooled both of our children from K to 12. They graduated college early and now run a 60 million year business with lots of employees who love them." I would ask if that's 60 million gross or net.
I'm not.
I appreciate it.
A lot of people on the block have started homeschooling.
And the funny thing is, for totally diametrically opposed reasons.
Some, there have been the lockdowns and they're angry about it, but they don't want to send their kids back to these mask mandates and whatever.
And others, because they're too...
So, totally diametrically opposed reasons for doing the same thing, and it's bringing some people together while successfully dividing a lot of others.
Do you recommend this experience to others who are thinking about it, or what have been the most trying aspects of homeschooling?
I mean, I recommend it.
My attitude was very easygoing because it was in the middle of the pandemic anyway.
So I'm like, well, every kid's getting pulled and pushed back into school and is like an accordion with the kids.
So I was like, look, everybody else is going to be going through in and out of school.
And it's just all jacked up anyway.
So let's just ease our way into this, figure out, you know, our days until we get into a groove and we'll find our way.
And that was sort of my...
My attitude going into it.
Speaking with other parents that have gone through it, and I've got a neighbor that is homeschooling or was homeschooling their kids for the same reason.
I don't want to put them back in that dirty, infested school.
So we have two different ways of discussing homeschool, which is funny.
No, I think that you just have to be ready.
To not get frustrated as much as you can.
I mean, I am around the kids a lot.
And there are a lot of moments where you're like, I need a break.
And you do get frustrated.
That's just natural as a parent.
But I'm a pretty easygoing guy.
And for us, we were already sort of talking about it anyway, as I mentioned.
So it just sort of parlayed itself into trying out something that we might not have ever tried anyway.
So it's worked out for us.
How else has all of this changed your sort of trajectory?
In other words, because of all the insanity of the lockdowns and everything else that's happened politically over the last year and a half, sort of shifted your musical direction, shifted where and how your kids were educated, what other impact has it had on your sort of everyday life?
I've sort of felt like everything that's ever happened prior in my career and life is for right now.
I sort of feel like...
Everything was leading up to right now, to be able to write these songs and put them out, to be living the life that my wife and I have hoped to put together.
I feel like the pieces are actually coming together.
So I retain a little bit of optimism for as hard as it is during these times where people just feel like it's Groundhog Day or something.
For me, in my life personally, I feel like...
The silver lining is that there's a lot of pieces coming together that I hope on the other side of this, if we work hard enough and are patient and fight hard enough, then our life will be in a good spot in, I don't know, the next year, two years.
We'll see what happens.
Here's the big question.
Does your wife, if I may ask, does your wife work as well or no?
Yeah, she does.
Okay.
And without talking about sustainability, what are you doing from a content creator?
Because effectively, you're a musician, but in this day and age, you're more of a content creator than a musician because I presume you can't or are not doing live shows?
I've been doing private events over the last year.
I've started to do a lot more rallies and sort of...
Truth and freedom-focused events.
So it's a different kind of gig, which has been really cool to be performing on the steps of Capitol Buildings and things like that, which is something I would have never have thought of.
But, I mean, I didn't stop doing shows.
It's just sort of that...
Doing this balancing act of being a dad, which is at the top of the list, and underneath that is the music and the content creating and everything else.
This year, the pattern has been write a song, make a video for it, and put it out, and maybe make a t-shirt for it.
See, I've got one on right here.
God help us all.
It wasn't really about making money or anything.
It was just sort of another section of my career.
And this, I feel like, is the most important music that I've ever written.
So it's just sort of put it out there and see what happens.
From the cynical perspective, since you've gone, let's just say, full politically honest or just full honest, it happens to be about politics, net positive or net negative?
In order to inspire or deter any others out there who are thinking, I'd better hold back and just toe the line.
No, positive.
I mean, it's all positive.
I feel liberated, in a sense.
Because, you know, like I said, I behaved myself for most of my career.
So you tend to hold back a lot of what you wish that you would have said, you know, to certain people at different times.
Now, I'm just saying...
What's important to me because I know that that's what needs to be said right now.
I don't have an option.
I'm not going to hold back.
And I think everybody should be doing that.
I think that we're all going to have these lines to cross in this era of time where, you know, whether you're a musician with fans or you're just a person at a job that you've been at for 20 or 30 years, you're going to have to make a decision.
Do I say and, you know...
Say what I believe in, stand up for what I think is right, or do I pull back and just hope that it all works out otherwise?
Clearly, I don't think it's just going to work out otherwise.
I feel like I said earlier, you have to do your best with what you've got right now.
If you've got to lose your job over it, then...
I believe that things will work themselves out.
I don't know.
I'm always curious.
What do you think was in your background, upbringing, the personality that led to you being what I would call a free thinker?
In other words, an independent person.
The system has spent lots of time studying what creates Neos in the Matrix and trying to prevent them as much as possible.
Arguably, a lot of these mandates are about filtering out.
Who are the potential resistors?
Who are the potential independent thinkers?
Who are the potential free souls that won't do what we tell them when we tell them to do it?
What do you think was in your background or upbringing or life experience or religious tenets that led you to act out on your conscience in the way that you have?
I think being the youngest in my family had a lot to do with it.
I think that watching my parents have their own business growing up, I kind of grew up just...
Watching them was probably the most important thing to my upbringing because I thought you just grew up and did what you wanted to do.
I didn't understand that there was this idea that people go to school and get a job and they don't like their job.
I watched my parents use...
What they're good at doing to create a very successful business.
Once I discovered, oh, I'm pretty good at this music thing.
That's what I want to do.
That's what makes me happy.
That's what was in my brain.
There wasn't anything that was going to stop me from doing that.
I went to community college.
I went to audio engineering school for a little bit because that was the one education where I felt like, okay.
I don't want to go to other school.
I'll go to audio engineering school and music business school and get a little bit of an education to help me get started on this music journey.
And so that's where I put my foot forward.
But everything else just sort of didn't matter.
But I think my mom's an outgoing person.
She'll speak her mind.
My sister's the same sort of way.
And I think that that's just something that's in our DNA.
I think some people are tapping into it now more than ever.
I mean, like I said again, I behaved myself and I held back that part of myself.
But we all in our brains are saying what we really think all the time.
So now it's just sort of coming through now.
I'm going to bring this one up, Brad.
It says, hey, FTA, Louisville native and a fan since 2003.
I was in high school and used to see you live, standing with you and so appreciative of what you're doing.
Oh, wow.
And then I want to bring up this one, Midnight Next Cell.
What did this guy leverage to get on the show?
Did he pay?
No.
I've answered you in the chat, but I actually want to say one thing.
I am happy to have Brad on because I've listened to his music.
I think he's got a message that the world needs to hear.
And I'm, you know, first of all, I'm personally interested in what goes on in terms of doing what Brad does, the risks that Brad takes.
And call them risks.
They work out well for some and they don't work out well for others.
Some people lose their jobs and some people...
Gain their identity.
So these are not like obvious decisions.
And if I can actually explore that and get to experience that as well, that's a net positive for me.
And I just want everyone to know that.
I started watching it.
I binged watched all of your videos.
And I just wanted to get to know the individual and how you go about doing it.
Which actually brings me into the next question, which is how do you...
How long does it take to make one song?
When is the song done?
Do you have that buyer's remorse or do you feel nauseous the second you hit publish and it's out there?
How does that creative process work and what level of insecurity do you always live with even after you've published it?
Gosh, there's so many questions in that question.
So every song comes to you differently.
A lot of the songs I've released this year have sort of come from titles.
God help us all, and Jesus, what happened to us, I will not be leaving quietly.
They were titles, which is new to me, because normally what happens is, I'll get a guitar, and I'll be playing guitar, whatever, and a melody will come out of my mouth.
And then...
Ultimately, I'll hear some sort of word will stick out.
Run, run, I don't know, run.
And then you sort of start to build around.
It's like cobbling together pieces.
But what I really try to tap into is, I mean, my love of music.
And I go, what song am I hearing in my head that is out there floating in the ether that hasn't been written yet?
And I try to tap into that.
And if I'm lucky.
Then I get a good one out of it.
And, you know, I've let go of the idea of perfection over the years.
It's something I was very obsessed with for probably the first 10 years where you'd release my first full album was like something I was super proud of.
I couldn't believe it.
And then after, you know, two years, three years, you listen back to it and you go, oh, my gosh, that's awful.
And then you'd re-record it and you'd make a better version of it.
And then you listen back to that one a few years later and you go, oh my gosh, it's still awful.
So I've let go of that idea that I've got to capture perfection.
And with particularly these new songs, it's about capturing a performance and capturing a moment.
And it's not about perfection.
It's just about creating.
If I feel like I've recorded something that's going to hit other people.
And I've said what I wanted to say, then that's what matters as far as the recording goes.
But yeah, I've got plenty of stuff that I could listen to now that's out there that people love.
The fan from 2003 probably might like some of that stuff from 2005 and 2006 that I just...
Would totally cringe to you these days and go, oh gosh.
But, you know, it's out there and they like it.
And that's the most that you could ever ask for anyway.
It's just that somebody actually likes your work, whether you like it or not.
Like, that means the world to me.
I brought up the baby shark.
I've just discovered through content creation and you put out thousands of videos, the ones that you work the hardest on, you work in the greatest editing.
Okay, so another one where you're walking the street and the lighting is bad and all they can hear is your words.
You know, among the more popular, you can't predict it.
And so at the end of the day, you just have to do what you feel good about and then hope that it sticks with the general public or hope that people find something in it that you found in it in the first place.
Right.
Sorry, Robert, go ahead.
Always a guitar or other instruments in terms of when you're coming up with the song?
It's usually a guitar.
Very rarely do I sit down at the piano.
And then a few times I'll get like a lyric in my head or like a melody in my head and I'll try to build something off of that.
But usually it's me sitting down with the guitar, trying to pretend like I'm a really awesome guitar player.
And then I'll figure something else.
Something will come to me or something.
I don't know.
It's a weird thing because I look back on some songs over my career and I go, how did I even write that?
It's like a channel of energy that I don't even know how to describe.
You get in a zone and then you're creating something and then all of a sudden it exists and there it is.
You look back at it later and you go, when did I do that?
How did I do that?
I don't know.
Yeah, I've described the practice of law as, well, if it's done well, as part art, part science.
And it often has that, you've got to be kind of like wandering around and somewhere, someplace, you hit the right chord, you find it, and then boom, you find it all in a quick moment.
And it's not something you can kind of create.
It has to be the right setting, right scene, right circumstance.
Now, how much of the music you do is just like pure artistic expression versus sort of the mathematical scientific aspect of music?
It's all expression.
I mean, I've never...
I don't think I've ever sat down sitting there thinking, like, I've got to write this particular type of song or something.
There's been some songs where I've...
I've had to specifically create something for a TV show or a movie or something like that, where it's a little bit more self-contained.
But most everything I've ever written, it's never been to write a hit song.
Maybe early on, I had that in my brain, but I didn't know what I was doing back then anyway, what it took to write a hit song.
So at this point, it's about writing.
A good song, not necessarily a hit song, because that I have understood perfectly clear that it's not about whether a song is a hit.
It's about the people that made that song into a hit.
Now, have you ever written any holiday songs?
I'm a good fan of Christmas albums, everything Christmas.
It's really just near Christmas time.
I got Christmas music going on all the time in the background.
Okay, so I released a...
I've talked about my kids' music project a few times.
I have a song called Questions for Santa that I released.
I also have a song called Thankful, which was a top five in the children's Apple Music charts last year.
And that got out there pretty good.
And I have another song called Happy Halloween that was kind of fun.
But I kind of put all my holiday fun stuff into the children's music.
That project's called The Juice Box Jukebox.
I don't know if I mentioned that or not.
But that was another great project where, you know, I didn't really know what I wanted to say with Five Times August.
I was becoming a dad.
My everyday chit-chat around me was kid stuff.
And speaking of Baby Shark, that was sort of something that made me go, why is that out there?
So I wanted to approach...
Kids music as a songwriter with substance and character building themes that were positive and it wasn't just sort of fluff that you put in front of the kid at dinner on an iPad.
It meant something.
And so that's sort of the backbone because I should have clarified that when I say children's music because people go, oh, children's music like Baby Shark.
And I'm like, no, no, no.
These are actually songs.
Would you agree as a musical expert that Baby Shark is torture?
Yeah.
Why not?
I mean, it does its job as a song.
You know, it's funny because my kids, they're used to daddy writing songs and they're my biggest fans ever.
And so when they hear a song on YouTube that they don't like, they're like, dad, this song's terrible.
Or they'll be like, I heard a terrible song over at my friend's house about something or maybe they were at school or something.
And I'll be like, well, what was it?
And then they'll sing it to me.
And then I'll go, well, the song did its job.
You remembered it.
Well, Brad, the underlying joke was that apparently it was either prison officers or intelligence officers were torturing detainees by standing them up for hours on end and replaying Baby Shark over and over and over again.
Oh, gosh.
I didn't even know that.
So now, Brad, the next steps.
So what are you up to going forward now?
I guess we're going to have to do it.
Where can people find you?
Where can people get your stuff?
How can they expose themselves to your...
By the way of phrasing it, how can they get exposed to your music?
Yeah, you can check out 5timesaugust.com All the latest videos are up there.
All the music's on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you like to stream music.
It's all out there.
YouTube.com slash 5timesaugust is usually the...
The first place the new singles land, the music videos, and like I said, I've got one coming out Friday.
That will be the seventh in this series of singles.
I think the ultimate goal is once I get, I don't know, maybe nine or ten, I'll put them together on an album or something and probably hit the road a little bit more.
I think that it's time for a music revival.
Something that's frustrating me a lot is the idea that...
These bigger musicians in these huge arena shows are doing their fans a favor and protecting them by requiring these passports and everything.
But if it was as dangerous as you think it is, you wouldn't all shovel into a room together.
You would still be sticking to digital shows or something like that.
But I'd like to get back out on the road.
I think that that might be a bigger goal for 2022 is to start getting out there and connecting with people face-to-face.
Very cool.
And so you're on Locals, 5timesAugust on Locals.com, YouTube, Twitter.
I follow you on Twitter.
It's not much music on Twitter.
It's more politics, but it's nothing wrong with that.
Twitter does that to people.
It does.
Yeah.
And so you got the new release coming Friday, which I don't dare ask for a sneak peek preview performance tonight.
Let's see.
Oh, that sounds like a yes.
In fact, I know that's going to be a yes.
It'll be also a good way to close up the show.
This is a first because no one has ever heard this song in real life yet.
Nobody has.
I haven't even heard it in real life yet.
Well, while you do that, I'm just going to change the ambiance.
No, get that guy out of there.
There we go.
That's who we want.
Did the song earlier when I played, did it sound okay?
It just sounded good to me.
It sounded great.
Okay.
I will play a verse and a chorus.
This is a sneak peek for the interwebs.
Everybody should know.
This is a first actual teaser for what is coming Friday.
All right.
All right.
Yeah, so this is called Sad Little Man.
If I mess this up big time, bear with me.
Let me see you.
Sad little man sitting deep in a lie, he's dead in his soul but he'll keep you alive.
Do what he says, not what he do Cause the truth is for him and the lie is for you Sad little man, but he's treated like a god As the faithless prey to a fake and a fraud Worship the man, pledge to his word One shot,
two shot, now you get a third Sad little man, sad little man You better run now while you know you can Sad little man, sad little man There you go.
Anthony Fauci.
Robert, it could be about anybody.
It could be about anybody.
They mean to tell people they could get HIV in their kitchen, dear Anthony Fauci.
Okay, Brad, I just know one thing.
I'm going to cut that bit and I'm going to post that on the social medias to summarize this.
Okay, so we're going to do this again at one point in time and maybe...
Just maybe if you're...
Well, we'll see who can cross what borders when, if ever.
But that's awesome.
The name of the song is Sad Little Man.
Going to be dropping it Friday on your channel, on the other areas for people to acquire songs?
Yeah, it'll be all over the interwebs.
Spotify, Apple, Facebook.
I've got a Linktree somewhere.
I need to post it so you can just follow me.
I think Linktree is useless.
Once they get to one, nobody can find your other stuff from your YouTube channel.
Forget it.
It's there.
Some people get mad and they're like, I don't go to YouTube.
So I'm like, okay, go to Odyssey or something.
I don't know.
There's too many of them, but it's out there.
It'll be out there and you'll be able to find it.
Fantastic, fantastic.
Okay, well, I think we will call this quits tonight and then to be continued because I want to see where this goes.
And yes, Sad Little Man is a fantastic song.
Brad, stick around.
We're going to say our proper goodbyes and make sure we know where to find each other in the future.
Everyone in the chat.
Sunday, going to be the big stream because we're going to have a lot more updates on the Rittenhouse.
I may go walk the dog.
Walk the dog and put out a Viva on the Street with the highlights from today's trial.
Robert, where are you going to be after this?
I got work to do.
Some YouTube lawyers do this full-time and other YouTube lawyers are actually daytime lawyers.
Robert was a trooper in terms of...
You know, joining Nick for the commentary.
But Brad, I'm looking forward to it.
I'm waiting Friday.
I'm subbed and I have all my notifications, so I'll find it when it comes out.
Everyone in the chat, comments, thank you very much.
Stay tuned.
All the news, yada yada.
You know where to find Brad.
You know where to find Robert.
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