06: Radio and the Musician’s Journey (w/ Ken Apperson)

My name is Ken Apperson, former rodeo clown, current musician, and I’m on the run for double homicide. Okay, well, that’s a wonderful way to start this off. You’re welcome. It’ll be a first.

Thanks so much for coming on, Ken. This is awesome. My pleasure.

Boy, have the turntables, because me and Jordan here to my left have been on your show in two different bands. Jordan on PM Tiger. I was with kind villain at the time, and what a cool experience that was.

So you host a radio show. It’s the live music showcase on WMNF. You’ve done your research.

Yeah, 88.5, but, yes, but maybe we start there. Unless you want to go back to your childhood.

I’ll follow in your lead. Right on. But what brought you to being a radio host? Well, like so many people during the pandemic, I went through a little panic mode and said, what am I going to do with my life? What if music doesn’t come back? What if it doesn’t come back the way that I know it? What if this? What if that? And I went through about a month or two of that, and then I said, okay, I got to get to work.

What can I do? What am I good at? What can I try that I’ve never tried before? And I, you know, among other things. I mean, I tried selling insurance for about a week. That was soul crushing.

I tried to. I built a set of shelves for someone, very large, industrial set of shelves. I call them industrial because they were ugly.

And I would not recommend hiring me to build shelves again after that. I then, you know, found some people, one person in particular in St. Petersburg, recording musicians. Not recording, sorry, live streaming musicians, to perform for an audience who would tip them while they were performing.

And I went and did that, and I got a nice little chunk of change due to the generosity of the people that were watching that, a lot of friends and family, and then was like, wow, this is really cool. I want to help out with this. And so she kindly let me help out behind the scenes, and I saw a lot of potential in that, and I was like, oh, this would be really cool if there was a hosted version of this where you had a host who could help the musicians maintain their energy level in between songs.

Because when you’re in that live streaming environment, there’s no audience to feed off of. You tell a joke and no one laughs because no one’s there to laugh. I mean, people maybe, hopefully, are laughing somewhere else.

Point being, you know, I thought, okay, well, what if we put them in a situation where there’s like a host and the whole, and they can have someone to kind of talk to. And, you know, she was like, that’s a great idea, but, you know, I think I’m gonna stick with what I’m doing. So I was like, well, I’m gonna do that.

So I had a friend who had a, has a video production company, a good friend, and I pitched the idea to him. He loved it. So we started a live stream.

The livestream was called the Sunday Sesh. Every Sunday I brought in a musician that I knew and had them come over to the house and I had them play some music in a live stream format. And it kind of sort of took off a little bit.

It looked good enough that everyone wanted to be part of it, which was cool. And then we ended up changing the name to Coda project. And then Coda project became a place where a couple of pretty noteworthy people ended up being on the show.

We ended up getting, I don’t know if you know who do she is. She’s a rap, she’s hip hop. She’s on tour with Doji Cat right now.

She actually just opened for Beyonce a couple weeks ago. She’s from here, she’s from Tampa. And I ended up getting to do an episode with her the day before she moved to LA and things like that.

So all of that to say, fast forward a few months, the radio station was doing program changes. They had some things going on internally that made them want to switch up who the host of that show was. Live music showcase.

Because live music showcase has been around for a long time, over a decade in one form or another. And they asked me to do it, which was different than how they normally did things. It used to be at the station, the only way to get a show was to volunteer for two to three years, sometimes longer, doing the work of, you know, doing outreach events and essentially, like, the basic level of, like, volunteer work.

And I did not have to do that. They offered me the show. They, they brought me in, they interviewed me.

They saw the Dochi episode. That was the biggest, I guess, turning point for them because they saw someone that could host it and could book it as well. And that’s essentially the origin story of me on live music showcase as a host.

I’ve been doing it now for two years and a couple of months. In the first year of doing it, I got the station’s best new programmer of the year award. And I also.

I can’t say I, we, me and the crew on the show managed to get the best radio show, second place in creative loafing in a category that had nothing but other commercial radio stations and radio shows. We actually lost Drew Garabo. Sorry.

No, we lost to Mike Calta. We beat out Drew Garabo because I campaigned by calling into his show and telling all of his listeners to vote for us instead. And he encouraged that.

So that’s probably why we won. Thank you, Drew Garabo. If you ever somehow listened to this, that’d be cool.

Nice shout out to Drew. So that’s that awesome. That’s really cool.

It makes sense. So it’s cool. You hit on something where, you know, you tried several different things.

We’re all musicians in this room, and there is some sort of, like, tug that you feel. And the most passion is within the musical realm. If I had to guess, in your life, that’s an enormous passion, enormous driver for why you wake up and navigate your day.

And if you’re selling insurance doesn’t quite scratch that itch. And so, I don’t know. It’s just that maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe it was cool. But you didn’t. It didn’t work out.

But I. No, it was not cool. It was very boring and. And just.

I just didn’t want to. I just didn’t want to. Yeah.

Didn’t want to. Yeah. And also, another thing is that the timing of it, where you are looking for a change, you were looking for something new.

You generated this opportunity. I just think that’s. That’s awesome also that you went and made your own thing and then it progressed into what it is now and got you even bigger opportunity.

But I remember seeing Coda project way early on. I was like, what’s that? And now here you are actually on the radio and interviewing. How many bands have you interviewed? Do you have a count? I should.

I have a spreadsheet with all the bands, but they’re not numbered two years. So two years, 52 weeks, minus six or seven of those. So we’re probably coming up on our 100th live episode pretty soon, actually.

I should probably count that and then celebrate that at some point. That’d probably be a good idea. That’s exciting, though.

That’s huge. I mean, that’s cool. That’s a lot of talent that you’ve been able to be in front of and interact with.

And it’s such a cool setting. Both Jordan and I have been there where it’s just us in the room, you know, and there’s something intimate about that. And you are the closest to all of that talent and energy.

And I’ve watched several episodes, if you call them episodes, and you can go back and watch them. But first off, I wanted to mention you do a great job because it’s not easy. Okay.

They’ve just finished the song. How do you transition from the song that they just heard into maybe some questions about their life or, you know, and it’s quick. It’s like in an hour long session.

So fitting all that in, there’s. There’s a lot of dynamic that goes into that. I wanted to kind of get your feedback on what are the most challenging parts, like technology and making sure that things are running smooth, sounding good, but maybe it’s the questions or doing the research.

Well, okay. There’s a lot to unpack there. Transition.

Transitioning. So something I identified early on, before even I was on the radio show, like with Coda project, was that it’s very difficult to have a show that has a mixed audience. And what I mean by that is, generally speaking, if people are listening to something in an audio environment, like a podcast, for example, they’re either listening for talk, for conversation, for what we’re doing right now, or they’re listening for music.

And it’s two very different styles of listening. With music, you can be an active listener, or you can be passively listening. It could just be filling in the space behind you while you’re working or whatever.

With podcasts, it can kind of be the same thing, but the interview style, it can kind of do that, too, but it does it in a different way. And there’s absolutely different audiences that prefer one to the other. So having a show that is both means that we had to figure out a way to try to satisfy both of those audiences in a way that would hopefully keep them around at least long enough to hear the portion of the show that they came to listen to, and then also give them a way to expect when they
can dip out of it if they want to and come back when they want to.

So, in other words, I’ve crafted the interview segments. I try to make them as interesting and entertaining as possible. But we used to do it where it was just kind of very free form.

It was, you know, we’d do the show open. We would chat for a minute or two sometimes. Sometimes we get to the music faster.

Sometimes we wouldn’t. They’d play a song. I would interview them for like, five, seven minutes.

Then we’d do another song and another. Sometimes we’d get to five songs. Sometimes we’d get to, you know, eight or nine.

It was very free form, and I realized that that wasn’t conducive to. To satisfying both audiences. So we changed it and we created a more rigid format.

PM Tiger, I think, experienced this the last time they were on the show, where the first half of the show now is just all music, with me doing quick resets in between songs and little plugs, too. You can listen to our podcast, you can watch our livestream. Their show is coming up at the tickets for that are available just very quick, like no more than 15 seconds, and then into the next song.

And they can storytell however much they want, but they’re setting up the song so it’s different. And then at the half, we do a condensed 20 minutes interview. And that 20 Minutes interview has a singular, focused idea or a singular theme.

I always like to use summer Hoop, for example. You know her. I don’t know if you know her.

She’s a local singer. Yeah. Her episode was perfect because her interview was perfect because it was focused on the duality.

I think I’m using that word right between how toxic and essentially unhealthy for someone’s mental health social media is, versus the fact that a modern musician has to engage with it on a heavy, deep level on a regular basis in order to even have the appearance that they need to have in order to be attractive to not only an audience, but to people that are higher up the food chain where they want to be operating. And so her episode was very much about how she essentially, and it was really clear
in her social media, too, she had to create kind of a Persona that she could kind of put on like a suit of armor to be who she was on her social media. And this did a couple of things.

It gave her a little bit of compartmentalization to protect her a little bit from that. And it also protected her from the negativity that inevitably comes anytime you’re especially a woman on social media and especially a female musician on social media with all the trolls telling you you’re garbage. Even they don’t even know.

They just say it because it’s fun for them. So it gave her a little protection because they’re like, well, they’re not attacking me, they’re attacking that Persona. And we ended up diving even deeper because we started saying, you know, I remember at one point in the episode saying, you know, telling her, you know, we’ve had conversations.

You’re a smart person. You’re insightful. You have things to say that people would find interesting, and I understand the protection that that Persona affords, but I have a feeling that if you showed a little more of your real personality on there, that your audience might engage with that more.

It’s risky and it makes you vulnerable, but it might come with its own rewards. So all of that, to say the transitions and all of that are now scheduled. This show actually has an SOP.

It has a show, has a run up show now in a document that anytime I have a guest host, I give them that document. I say, stick to this. This is how the show runs now.

And they do, and it works fine. Awesome. Yeah.

So logistics, because I know the technology of it is a whole nother beast in making sure that it streams well, you know, from the mics to people’s cars or ears, or ultimately their ears. Luckily, I have a great crew that I work with that are all volunteers. That’s the other thing people don’t realize is that everyone, including myself, that works on this show is volunteer.

That’s all volunteer. It’s a nonprofit radio station. Everyone that you hear on the air on that radio station is volunteer.

They’re all volunteering their time and energy. And when I first started, that was the most daunting thing, because there’s a crew of 123-4567 at any given time, between seven and nine people that are working on that show every weekend. And I managed them.

I managed that, and I’d never managed anyone before, even with Coda project. It was a partnership, and it was a two man operation. And I was audio and the other guy was video.

I was audio and production behind the scenes as far as scheduling guests and all being a producer, and he was video. So that was the scariest aspect of that show, was figuring out a way to do that, how to do it effectively, how to come into a role where I. Where there was already a bit of antipathy because I was younger than most of the people at the station. And at the time, there was a bit of a changing of the guard, I guess, kind of a thing going on, which, you know, that was more of a
perception thing than reality.

But I, you know, the goal was come in, do the job, make it really clear that it’s not about me, that it’s about the musicians, that it’s about the radio station, and it’s not about me. Do everything I can to prove that to them, because that was the reality for me, too. It’s like, if I make this about me, then it’s not going to be good.

Like, that’s that’s the Ken Apperson show. The Ken Apperson hour is like, I can host a thing and I can stand next to it, and I can go, look how cool that thing is. And hopefully people will enjoy that aspect of it.

But I can’t be like, look how cool I am. That’s awful. Click off.

I don’t want to listen to that. Sure. You know, so luckily, I think I gained most of their trust.

Only a couple people ended up leaving, and they were just, they’d done it for so many years. They were like, I think it’s time to go. But new people came in, and my favorite thing about that radio station is the community that exists within it.

I didn’t really have a good understanding of that concept before working at that station, of how a group of people that don’t know each other, that don’t necessarily have much in common, can simply come together for a common goal to make something better without. Without any, if not little, personal enrichment. You know, that’s enormous.

It’s fantastic. I think that shines through to the quality of the show, how authentic it is. I mean, when I was on it, and I’m sure Jordan feels this sitting next to me, and when we’ve listened to it, we’ve listened to it individually, and we watched an episode just, like, two weeks ago together, and it was, you just.

It’s. It feels good to watch that in so many ways. And I would imagine even not being a musician, it’s so cool.

It’s such a cool format. But you, you hit on that. That community.

It’s amazing that that is volunteer based. That passion likely makes it a success because they aren’t getting paid to be there, so they’re extra passionate in order to show up every Friday. At least most people, my crew.

Yeah, I can absolutely vouch for them. Sure. Right.

And I say, and to be clear to any of my crew that might happen to be listening to this, I don’t say mine as a sense of ownership. I say mine is a sense of belonging. Belonging.

Same way I would say my family. Right, totally. That’s what I mean by that.

Yeah. I’m sure they understand that. I hope so.

And I like your approach. Same with this show. I do my very best that you are the star right now.

People are tuning into you. They know me, maybe, and I’ll chime in here and there, but it is about you, and especially when it’s a musician, it’s about that talent. But I did want to go back and speak a little bit about me.

I am involved in the world’s largest computer graphics organization. I’ve been involved in it since 2008. It’s changed my life, allowed me to travel the world.

All volunteer based Pixar showed their first short animation there. Nvidia, Dreamworks, Sony. Big players are there.

15,000 people attend this every year, and now there’s one in Asia every, every winter. So there are two a year. It’s enormous.

And guess what? It’s all volunteer based. You know, the people at the very top get paid to keep running it, but, I mean, it’s. It’s run by volunteers, and that fact changes all those volunteers lives, because just like you said, the people on your crew, they have different walks of life, but yet they come together with this common goal and crush it together.

That’s. There’s a strength there. And so I just want to point that out, that that happens all over.

There’s something really special about when that happens with the product that’s created is unlike anything else, like from a business standpoint or for profit. There’s an extra energy behind it. Well, there can be in, you know, my experience.

There’s my limited experience, there’s a lot of there. There’s plenty of toxicity that exists within the nonprofit world, too. Sure.

You know, I’m proud to say that I haven’t experienced much of that with WMNF, but I hear about it. I hear about it from other organizations, and, you know, one of the things that is rampant in the nonprofit world is the scarcity mentality. You know, there’s the difference between scarcity mentality and abundance mentality, or whatever it’s called.

But the difference is, you know, scarcity mentality is I just need to make enough to scrounge together. You know, I just need to scrounge together enough to get by. Just got to get to this.

The end of this week or the end of this month, at the end of this year, I just got to. Just got to get enough. Just got to get through.

And it’s a mindset. Dave Chappelle, I think, said that there’s a difference between being. I’m going to say this wrong and paraphrasing, but he said something.

This was in an actual, like his father said this. He’s like, there’s a difference between being broke and being poor. Being broke is how much money you have in your pocket.

Being poor is a state of mind, and I think that it’s very relatable to musicians. I think that musicians, because the psychosomatic games that we play in our own head. And I can say this as a musician for the past 14 years.

You know, we build our own walls, we build our own obstacles, and we spend so much time in our own head, because that’s where creativity lives. That’s where all of our songs get written. That’s where all of our demons live, too.

And they’re crafty. And if you spend enough time worried about where you’re gonna go, where you’re gonna be, or just worried in general, maybe you don’t have a source for that feeling. But you spend enough time that way, you start to believe that it’s the only way.

And the nice thing about bringing it back to Debbie is they’ve got some new leadership who’s been in now for, I want to say, a year and a half, probably a year and a half. I’ve lost track of how long she’s been there. Randy Zimmerman, who is the best thing, in my opinion, to have happened to that station in a very long time, and I don’t see that mentality with her and with the way things have changed at the station over the past year and a half.

And furthermore, the results speak for themselves. The station is now number 17 in our radio market. Uh, beating out Hot 115, which actually just had a.

They just had a program change, another r and b station. Um, but they beat out, you know, Debian, MaNF, beat out Hot 115, which is the top 40 station. Uh, beat out 95, seven.

The beat, uh, right behind NPR. Wow. And, uh, which is w usF.

And we have longer listener retention than they have. So this little engine that could. That started literally in someone’s house by people going door to door and asking their neighbors for donations so that they could buy equipment.

44 years ago, almost 44 years ago, birthday bashes later this month has grown into this thing that is community run and operated and loved, hopefully embraced. Oh, I think it is. That’s clear.

Depends on who you ask. There’s a whole camp called Save WMNF. Well, it’s loved by the people in this room.

And hopefully, you know, people listening to this will now start to tune in to just get you more listeners. Cause it’s well deserved. I wanted to revert back to what you said about the poor versus broke mentality.

Sure, it’s a mindset thing, and my wife and I talk about this a bit, but also about rich versus wealthy. I’m not wealthy. I’m working on that, but I feel rich.

Or maybe it’s. I don’t know which way you would put it. But my life has richness in it.

I feel good every day when I wake up and I feel accomplished when I go to bed. I’m getting by and working to build capital, but ultimately, that’s just money, and as long as I can live. But my, my mindset is that we’ve got what we need.

We have a home. We have a beautiful daughter and food, and we’re happy, and that’s richness to us. And so, you know, with musicians, and maybe your show allows, you know, other musicians to be inspired.

We’re going to talk about this a bit more because I want to pick your brain a bit. But, you know, bringing other musicians up, wow, they’re on the radio, or, wow, they went through a thing in their life, just like me. I’m in that position, and here they are on the radio.

I can climb out of this. You know, I don’t know if maybe you’ve seen some, I’m sure you’ve heard some really great stories, but I don’t know if any really stick out where it’s like, I cannot believe you’re sitting here in this room with me. Like, is there anything magical like that there? It’s like, whoa, that stuck out.

You know, a theme that comes up over and over and over again with the show. For sure. There’s two themes that come up over and over again to the point where I almost have to be careful to let the conversation go in that direction because it’s like, oh, this again.

And I don’t mean from my perspective, I just want to make sure things stay fresh for the listeners. But two things always come up. One is mental health, and the other is essentially bans not knowing how to and not really taking an interest in marketing themselves or finding someone to help them do so.

And my opinion about that has changed dramatically over the past couple of years, frankly. But as far as, like, wow, big wow moments. Yeah, I’ve had a few.

I got to interview alt j a few years back. That’s huge. They were great.

I mean, it was right after the conflict in you, the war in Ukraine started, and they had canceled some of their tour dates that were in Russia because of it. And if and being like a book, you know, I’m a booking agent, too, and I work on that side of things occasionally as well. Not quite on their level, but I understand, like, from a logistical standpoint, from just a cash flow and, like, employment of people standpoint, the decision to cancel those kinds of shows for any reason has huge impacts,
huge ripple effects on all of the people that are involved.

And usually when you’re on that level, I mean, you’re talking, a couple hundred people are involved at that point because you’re talking about from the top down, you’re talking about the musicians themselves, and then you’re talking about their direct management and then their tour management, their pr person, all of the label people that are involved, and then all of the management people that are involved, and then all of the agency people that are involved. Then you get down the next rung, and
now you’re talking about the talent buyers who are involved and they, they take a cut out of that. Uh, you know, you’re talking about the promoting company that’s involved and that’s not even the biggest bulk of the people that are involved.

And then, you know, you get all the way down into the actual show day itself. And we’re talking about road crew, local crew, you know, unions. You’re talking about management logistics.

You’re talking about upriggers, stagehands, concessions, people like, it’s so many people. So when you’re on that level, and this is, I’m saying all this for the sake of perspective. I want.

If there’s one thing I always want to try to offer listeners, it’s perspective. When you see a band or a musician or whatever, cancel a date for an ideological reason or a political reason, you have to understand the level of belief and fortitude that goes into that person. Seeing all of this on a spreadsheet, essentially, and going, we can, we can’t support this.

We can’t be part of this. I know how it will affect everyone, but I think that it’s better for everyone involved if we’re not part of this. It’s a massive undertaking.

It’s why, it’s why when a lot of bands, you know, get signed or they get, you know, they get big, they hit their stride or whatever, they crack, they fall apart. Because one thing, and this is another kind of moment that I took away from. Who were we interviewing? I think it was radke.

They just come off of a tour with the offspring and they were like, yeah, when you get signed, that’s not making it. That’s just unlocking the door to the next level. And the next level is, you know, sure, it’s, it’s more glory and more, maybe more money and maybe more fame, but it’s also more pressure, more stakes, higher stakes, more at risk, more to lose.

And so it’s, it’s a balance and it comes with a lot. Absolutely. Also, in all of that, you lose control, whether it be creative control, depending on your relationship with the label or that management company or them telling you, you are going to Russia, we booked you there, and you’re like, but we don’t want to.

So you lose a little bit of control in that process on top of everything you can. The reality is, control, in my opinion, is a bit of an illusion in the sense that it goes to whoever hangs onto it. So in other words, it doesn’t matter.

To use a comparison, if you’re an airline, you can scream and yell and threaten a pilot till the cows come home, but if that pilot’s not on that plane to fly it, it’s not flying. They can get someone else to come and fly it, but that pilot isn’t flying. So it’s the same thing.

And the labels and management companies, particularly the labels, they’ve gotten really good over the decades of giving their artists the impression that they are in control. And a lot of artists are figuring out that that’s not necessarily the case, that it’s less of a, we’re in charge of you. You do what we say, and it’s more of a partnership.

And the labels, from what I’ve been told, which could be conjecture, so take it with a grain of salt, but a lot, not a lot. Some of them, and the ones that are doing a little better now are the ones that have figured that out and figured out, we can’t just be an iron fist partnership. There’s a reason why those artists that they brought on, there’s a reason why they brought them on.

They’re doing something right. They’re connecting with their listeners and making great music. So you don’t want to water that down.

Yeah. And part of the vetting process for a management company, for an agency, for a label is not just who the band is on stage, but who they are offstage. Yeah.

And it’s a balance between, okay, well, they’re a little crazy or they’re tough to work with, or, you know, part of artist development, which is, you know, that’s a huge part of, you know, a record label, because there are. There are artists that are signed, and they just send them right out on the road, you know, dump a bunch of money into them, get them on a Spotify playlist, get them distributed, all that stuff, and see if they take off, because they think, okay, these guys are ready to go.
They’ve been on tour on their own.

They, you know, they already understand how to market themselves on social media. They’re basically plug and play for us, and we trick them into thinking that they need us so they’re good. But a lot of contracts are artist development contracts, where they get someone young and they teach them how to do all of that stuff, and they invest in them to do all that stuff, and then they expect them to pay them back once they start actually producing.

But, you know, it’s. It’s all part of that process. Yeah.

And so you’ve been a musician 14 years, you say? Well, I’ve been performing musician for 14 years. I’ve been playing guitar, you know, bedroom and stuff since I was 15. Sure.

So that makes it my. Yep. 21.

21 years. That’s amazing. Guitar, 14 years of performance.

It’s amazing that I’m not better than I am. I should be much better than I am for that amount of time. I think if you ask any person who’s striving to be better and working on things, they always feel like they could be better.

Well, I want to say. So I do a little digging before interviews. I try not to do too much, but I was like, oh, I’m not connected with you on LinkedIn.

Your headline is, every part of my career involves music. It’s who I am, and I really like that. And so you’ve been performing for 14 years and kind of speaking back to what we were just talking about, I was kind of curious, have there ever been stands where you go? I actually.

I can’t play that show. Have you ever run into something like that where you take a stand, you go, actually, I’m gonna need a pull out of this. No, because I’m not good at asking all the questions I should be asking for shows, and then I’m, like, in them, and I don’t want to be in them.

Case in point, you know, I don’t talk a whole lot about politics or ideology publicly, but, you know, I’m pretty. These days, I lean pretty far left. And one in particular, there was a 4 July party, a private party that somebody booked me for 4 July.

And it’s cover music. That’s the bulk of what I do as a musician. That’s how I make a living.

That’s how I’ve made a living for a long time. You know, you think Springsteen, you think country music, you think, you know, whatever, you know, southern rock, et cetera. I’ve got all that.

That’s fine. No problem. 3 hours set, good money.

Go play for the 4 July in the afternoon, go back home, grab girlfriend, go watch some fireworks somewhere. That’s the day. And it was just.

It was like the whole thing was like a Trump rally. The whole. The whole show, the whole place was like a Trump rally.

And I didn’t know it until I was in and set up. And my thing about all of that is, you know, you can wear whatever you want. I don’t care.

Wear whatever you want. If I see something that’s wrong, I tend to say something. So, yeah, it’s just, you know, a bunch of Trump flags.

And this was in 2021, I think, two. So coming off of the pandemic, coming off of all the debt that accumulated from being in the pandemic and everything, and it was a situation where I was like, okay, this is happening. I’m already here.

Let me take their money and go. So that’s exactly what I did. It’s professional.

But luckily, I think I put out a certain Persona enough that someone that would want to hire me for something that conflicts with me from an ideological standpoint is probably not going to hire me for it. I think I was wondering how you handled that performance, if it affected your playing or if in between songs, you put in a jab here, a saying there to try to wake him up. My job was taking their money.

Yep, sure. If someone’s gonna get paid and you’re there. So, yeah, and it was a one time, you know, deal.

If this was like, you know, a restaurant or something where, you know, they were clearly outspoken about their, you know, these kinds of, you know, idol. I’ll stay vague just for the sake of avoiding it becoming a political podcast. But, you know, if they’re doing or saying something that I don’t agree with that I think is wrong, then I’m not gonna be a part of that.

It’s very simple. Yeah. That’s all there is to it, and that’s healthy for you.

It’s honestly better for them as well, because their talent connects with who they are and likely their audience who’s going to be there, and you’re going to be mentally in a better position, taking your talents elsewhere. I’m a firm believer that when it comes to talking with people that don’t agree with what you have to say or what you think, you can talk at them, you can talk to them, or you can just talk in a place where they can hear you and they’re going to change their mind or they’re not.
I don’t agree with the concept of convincing people things I know it can be done.

I can’t do it. I’m not interested in trying. But meeting people where they are and communicating with them on a level where they are is one of the most effective ways to find common ground and hopefully help them see a different perspective.

Me on a microphone with an acoustic guitar on 4 July surrounded by a bunch of trumpers is not an area where I’m going to be effective at changing anybody’s mind or ideology. I’m just going to make myself and everyone unhappy. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s not the goal. Right? Because there’s still some people in there, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

There’s some shills, there’s some true believers, but there’s still people, too. And you hope someday they’ll change their minds if they don’t believe in things that are in line with human rights and decency. Sure.

My buddy, he’s the drummer for Sam Hunt. Shout out to you. Josh Sayles.

An enormous inspiration. He gave my wife and I got us on the guest list, and we went. And I don’t necessarily listen to country, but it’s amazing.

It was an amazing performance. Apparently, they got top 50 shows on Rolling Stone for that show just the other night. Wow.

Which was huge because a couple people were in the audience, and it was an awesome performance. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

And my buddy’s drums sounded. I’ve just. It’s hard to beat what the sound is.

And he’s super good. But, you know, in the crowd, I was like, oh, you know, I should have first wore my tank and jorts because, man, if someone owned, like, a. A jean short cart and sold jean shorts at one of those, my goodness, you’d be a millionaire.

But. Sounds like an untapped market jean short vendor at a country concert. It looked like the uniform.

Yeah, that’s an idea. Rhinestones for the ladies. Yeah.

And some cowboy boots and no, no, no hate on any of that. But also, I looked around, you know, I was just observing. Also, Sam Hunt works the crowd.

He came out several times, and it was really cool. So I looked back and, you know, some of the shirts are just gun shirts and stuff like that, and to each their own. But I was like, ah, you know, this is a particular crowd, but my buddy Josh, he is absolutely thriving, loving it, and he’s been with them for a long time, and, you know, he’s passionate about his craft and doing it, and.

And it’s clear that all the musicians on stage were doing it, so, you know, they can disconnect from who that target audience may or may not be. But, you know, it was kind of clear standing in the. In the crowd, particular directions, but you know, suffice to say, it’s.

It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to comment on that and also shout out, Josh, because, man, it’s like, it’s so amazing seeing someone that I grew up with, and there he is playing in front of 20,000 people. It’s like, is this real? Do you ever get jealous? No.

It’s inspired, it’s motivated. That’s where. Because I couldn’t.

There’s no part of you that gets a little jealous? I mean, maybe, but it’s a healthy jealousy. It’s not like any animosity because I’m so happy for him, and I only wish the best on any of my friends. Well, of course it’s not animosity.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, in that moment, I wanna be on the drums. Like, it’d be cool if Josh was like, hey, you know, at a certain point of the show, I’m gonna call you up on stage.

Obviously, logistically, that wouldn’t happen. But, man, would it be cool to be sitting there? How many times did that thought into your mind when you were watching? Like, wow, I would like to be there, like, every song. Every song.

Because I’d see him up on the big screen and he’s just getting it and loving it, and I can see it in his face, even from afar, and crushing it. And I’m like, what? How does his heart and his brain feel right now? The level of noise that happens after a song finishes is, I can’t even imagine. I played it, like, the hard rock, and it was like, whoa.

You know, but nothing like that. And so, like, some. During some songs, I barely could hear, like, sam singing because these girls were shouting, just screaming.

In Turkey, that happened, too. I just was in turkey, and it was cool to experience. I went to several shows.

I went to a music festival there. My wife got us tickets for our anniversary, and I love experiencing that in a different culture, but I couldn’t believe how loud they were. Every person screams the lyrics and sings along and not like, here, what show in Turkey did you see who was performing? I saw several, to name one, yeni turku.

Okay. And one called Dumon, which is like the turkish strokes, if you will. So both of those have been around a long time, and my goodness, are they good.

I didn’t understand what they were singing about. I could catch words. Cause I’m working on turkish, but it was amazing to watch talent, to listen to the mixing and hear how they did the sound, you know, it was just awesome to see it in a different light when I go to.

Okay, so, fun fact about me, I’m terrible at concerts. I’m terrible at concerts. How so? Because I can’t just enjoy them.

I’m right there with you. I. So my background is, I did stagehand work in St. Louis at an amphitheater for about two years, two seasons. So I did all of the grunt work of all the guys in the black t shirts up on stage, moving things, wrapping cables, all of that stuff.

And then I was actually promoted to what’s called uprigging, which are, you know, anytime you go to an amphitheater. Fun fact for anyone who goes to a concert ever, if you see all the stuff that’s hanging in the back, the big line array speakers, the video walls, any lighting that’s hanging, any. What’s called trusses that are like, the steel framework upon which those things are hanging, all of that stuff comes with the band.

Very little of it is usually already part of the amphitheater. The amphitheater is essentially an empty shell, and the bands truck in all of that equipment. And an upriggers job is to go up into the rafters in the.

In the amphitheater stage. There’s an I beam grid up there, up on all of them. It’s a.

What do you call it? Standard practice, whatever. The I beam grid is where all of those things hang. And the upriggers, their only job is to go up there, hook into these lanyards with these safety belts on in case you fall.

And then you have a big rope, and then you lower a rope down. Someone down on the ground then takes that rope, ties it off, and then you hoist that. And that’s a chain.

You take that chain, you bring it all the way up, and then you fasten it, you fix it to the I beam grid. And then the bottom of those chains, there are motor mounts, and those motors lift everything. Everything.

The whole thing. So, depending on the show, you know, back then, this was 15 years ago now, back then, three doors down, for example, would have 30 points. So in other words, 30 motor mounts would need to be done.

There’s a small team of people doing this. That’s not a big job. It’s like five points per person.

Maybe a country act back then, when country was really taken off at that time, was anywhere from 80 to 120 points. So 120, you know, chains that you’re hoisting and lifting and, you know, doing that whole thing, too. All of that to say.

The point is that, you know, I’m looking at the stage production. And then as a musician, I’m looking at the performance, I’m looking at their stage presence. I’m like, I’m evaluating, like, I have a say in it at all.

I’m like, oh, Radiohead. This is kind of boring in terms of their stage presence. Their production value is incredible, and that’s the point.

It compensates for that. But. So I have a hard time just relaxing and letting go and just enjoying a concert anymore.

You are not alone. My wife, I’m going to put her right to this spot in the episode because we go to a lot of shows, and she looks at me and she’s like, you do not look happy. And I’m like, I’m having a blast.

Exactly. My face is just. I’m just analyzing everything.

Or, like, oh, oh, that tone. Or, ooh, he only has, like, one crash, or, how are they doing the lights there? Exactly. It’s just analyzing.

We can’t not. I’m also a graphic designer, and. Oh, God.

So you’re looking at all of the video elements too. You’re looking at, like, the composition of those, and you’re probably thinking, I wonder how big that file size was. I wonder how much processing power that cpu needs to run that video wall.

It’s probably pretty dang high. Yeah. And this has been my life because also I studied production.

Computer graphics was my undergrad, and so I started to learn how they make movies and animation. So the magic behind the movies. So now I really can’t watch anything and now listen to anything without deconstructing it to.

It’s like, as deep as I can go. Like, oh, that’s why they composed that and then edited it and left my eye there so that then I’d look across the screen there, and they used red there. It’s like I can’t look at a billboard normally anymore, or a logo.

We’re just, I think with creatives and people who create things, there’s an, once you kind of understand the pipeline and all that goes into it, you cannot look at it the same anymore. And so you’re fascinated with it. It’s hard to just.

I’m kind of jealous because, like, some of the people are just taking it in, letting it wash over them. And I do my best. Like, certain songs, I go, okay, I’m just gonna listen to this one.

Just gonna enjoy it or sing along, but it’s really hard. Breaking news. This is Stephen and Lewis from the band discord theory.

We really hate to interrupt episode six of the naming creative show. Featuring Ken Apronson. But we feel this is something you need to hear.

If you haven’t heard, we just dropped the most revolutionary album in rock since erosion, so go check it out on every streaming platform. Also, if you want to know more about it and all our dirty little secrets, check out episode three of the naming creative show. I bare my soul for you.

You’ll learn all my kinks. He really does. And now back to episode six of the naming creation creative show with our friends Ken Apperson and Josh Naiman.

All I hear is the chord changes. I hear the chord changes in the way they associate themselves to the melody. I listen for the spaces in between, the melody that enhance it.

I listen for the groove and how that is giving framework to all. Like, it’s obnoxious. So my question is then, do you, do you lament that? Do you wish it was different? Do you wish that you could just turn that off and enjoy it? Do you think that your experience of it would be more enjoyable? No.

It would be cool to have a switch where it’s like, literally turn it off because I think it would be a very valuable switch to have because I could really understand what the audience or the viewer is seeing or hearing. But ultimately, I think being in our position now, we have a much greater and deeper appreciation of whatever art we’re experiencing at that moment because of our understanding of the depth and how much failure and how much work goes into this moment in time. And for film or music,
I could listen or watch a hundred times and still learn something new or hear something new that I didn’t 100 times ago.

So it’s just as exciting. It’s like, oh, my gosh, I never noticed that pause. And they did that intentionally.

That’s a dangerous ledge to walk. Do you. Why do you say dangerous? Yeah.

Because there are two types, I think, of musicians that experience music when they’re not performing it. And there’s the kind that feel that their understanding of it enhances their experience of it. And there’s the kind that lament that fact that they wish they could just turn it off.

I tend to be the latter. I was wondering, but the former is. I mean, both of them are dangerous at the end of the day, because just like with any other hobby or activity or skillset, I think that humans have a tendency to look for ways to feel better than, bigger than, stronger than, you know, more than.

And we as musicians, and we know, we all know a musician who does this. We all are a musician who does this from time to time, sometimes we slip into. We fall off that ledge.

That ledge, which is. It feels. I like music more because I understand it more than this person standing next to me.

And the ledge, once you fall off of it, is, I deserve it more. Oh, sure, it’s mine. It’s more mine than it is theirs.

And as creatives, as musicians, that’s really dangerous, because all art and all creative expression is inherently selfish. It just is. At the end of the day, the byproduct of it is hopefully that people can enjoy it or get some kind of fulfillment out of it or gain a new perspective.

But the reality is, it’s all personal. The best music in the world is a story about oneself that other people can relate to. Because the second you start trying to relate to people and contriving that experience, it feels contrived and people turn off.

That’s a great point. So to any musicians out there, that’s where the ego starts. That’s where it starts.

And in my opinion, that can help. I know musicians that, you know, have gone so far down the rabbit hole of their own ego that they see it as an asset, as a tool. They’re like, this is why I can have the confidence to be on stage and be who I am on stage and put on a show and be, you know, this larger than life person.

That’s the only thing that allows me to do. Maybe not the only thing, but that’s the biggest thing that allows me to do that. And I disagree.

I disagree. Yeah, I completely agree with you on that. That is a fine, and I’ve never put it in that context.

I don’t ever feel like I deserve or like music more than people. I think I have. I’m aware that I have an understanding, like, for instance, of logo design.

I’ve done so many of them. I’ve taught at the Art Institute for six years, been involved in a lot of projects where I can look at a logo, at least quicker than someone, and see what’s going on, what’s strong, what’s weak about it, et cetera. But honestly, in a way, I might argue that someone who doesn’t go down and watch shows like us is probably enjoying the music more than us, because they’re again letting it wash over them.

Enjoying that moment fully, in my opinion. And I don’t know if this is a hot take or not, music is for the non musician. It’s for the person who needs it the most.

And the people that can engage with it the most on an emotional level are the people that do not engage with it on an intellectual level, because that’s what it’s for. Music is, in my opinion, one of the last existing, if there ever was any forms of magic in the world, because it has such a powerful influence over people universally. That’s huge, man.

You nailed it. And with it comes a massive responsibility to not only conduct oneself with as much awareness as possible, but to understand that you’re engaging with your own emotions in the hopes that you’ll inspire someone else to engage with theirs and many more people as well. That’s the beauty of it.

And I think that if more musicians actually internalized that and took that on and said, you know what? My shoulders are big enough to carry that responsibility, I’m going to do it without engaging in an egotistical way, without saying, that makes me better and stronger, which is why it’s such a balancing act and why it’s so hard to maintain that. That’s why I call it a cliff. Yeah, but if they’re able to do that, that’s, to me, there were musicians in the past that did that.

And it comes with it, an air of arrogance. You know, the guys in Oasis, if you ever learn anything about the band oasis, they knew or believed when they were first starting out, when they were teenagers, that they were going to be great. And they didn’t know it as some kind of, like, prophesied thing.

They knew it because they were willing to work hard enough and give enough to it, and they knew what they needed to do, where the work needed to be to do it, and they did it. Liam Gallagher is like one of the most obnoxious, egotistical people ever. Now, if you ever listened to him in an interview, he’s gone full bore.

Ego all the way. But there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and the line is constantly moving based on your own ability. Yeah, the game’s always changing, or that the dynamic of what’s going on in the world as well, the external forces.

I want to reverse back just a tad because you had mentioned the universality of music. And speaking back to when I was in Turkey, that’s one of the things that I was processing on top of everything else, watching those shows where I go. Unless my wife turned to me afterwards and goes, this is what he just said, that’s why everybody just laughed, or that’s why everybody just cheered.

But other than that, I could feel what they’re getting across and I don’t need to understand everything. It was super powerful. But also, she told me some important things.

On, like, this band actually was. They’re so old. They were going through, and Turkey has a huge history, you know, of.

Of revolutions and. And politics and things like that, where the music had extreme power, and here, too, and then just, like, weight on the shoulders, like you had mentioned, there’s an extreme power there as well, where you can. Those people on stage can inspire the people in the audience to, from that show, be inspired to do the right thing or to stand up for what they believe in through music.

And in. In those moments in Turkey, I. It was. It was this rush that I felt through that, because I was experiencing some of these bands.

One of the dudes in Yeni Turku, they were my favorite, and they were, like, old school, but they crushed it. My goodness. The drummer was so good, but they’re all so good.

But you could see this authenticity, and they didn’t have this crazy production and all this smoke and lights. It was just solid performance through and through. And they were.

They were commenting in the past and now on the politics of where things are going while staying true to everything. And so it’s like, that’s them. It’s authentic them.

And I didn’t see an ego, although this old dude apparently is dating or his wife is very young and gorgeous, from what my wife said. So good for him. But it was just.

It was really fascinating, truly feeling that in another culture, I couldn’t recommend if anybody’s traveling to schedule a show, just to buy tickets to a show somewhere, even if you don’t know that music or, like, that music, that’s enormous. But I just wanted to throw that out there that you just nailed on so many points. I’m gonna listen back on this, be like, oh, man.

But I want to get to a fun part of the show if you’re cool with it, which is called the rapid fire. Okay. Pew, pew.

Okay. Okay. So I’m just gonna ask you some questions.

It doesn’t have to be rapid, but try to. Yes, it does. Okay.

One word. Only half a word. Two syllables.

Okay. And you’ll have to decode it later on. You’ll have to listen to the snippets and go into your daw and place them in correct order.

Oh, my goodness. Turns out I’ve been possessed by a demon for the past seven years. And that’s what you’re gonna find out.

I’m just kidding. It’s not true. It’s not true at all.

That’s good. Well, I got a lawyer who can represent you if you need that. I don’t need a demon’s help with a demon, you know? I don’t need it.

I don’t need it. That’s great. That’s a joke.

I’m not demonic in any way, as far as I know. That’s good. I don’t feel that.

I mean, if you are, it’s positive, so we’re all good there. Positive demons. Hey, that’s a pretty cool, like, album.

That’s a band name, as far as I’m concerned, yes. Dibs. I got a list on my phone of names.

It’s just called names. And anytime I’m in a conversation, I go, oop. Writing that one down.

Like, songs or albums. I did that for. I did that when I was trying to come up with the Cotta project.

Like, solid month and a half. Couldn’t think of a name for it. Does it stand for something? Well, a coda is in sheet music.

It’s a. Oh, the coda is a. It brings you back to a certain point al kota, you know, and it’s the little target symbol, which is kind of esoteric looking, which I thought was neat, but bringing people back to music was the concept at the time.

The Coda project. Love it. Geez, that went right over my head, but at least I know it went over everybody’s head.

And not enough. Not just because it was. It was way too vague.

Hey, you went for it, and it led you here, so here you are. Oh, no regrets. Yeah.

Have you seen that movie? I can’t remember. Everybody? Yep. Okay.

Like, not one letter of regret. I actually have it tattooed on my perineum, so, you know, you’re ever down there. No regrets.

Okay. So I’m. And there’s some specific questions that I want to ask you during this rapid fire.

Pew, pew. And then I always ask guests the same questions, but I’m gonna ask you a couple extras. Cool.

I’m curious. Yeah. Number one, what makes a band iconic? I have no idea.

No idea? That’s honest. It’s entirely subjective to one’s own opinion. And then eventually, enough people’s opinion culminate into a collective consensus about that.

What makes a band iconic for you? What makes a band iconic for me? If they found major success between the years 1950 and the year 2003, generally speaking, that was when bands could really, truly become iconic. Do you think it’s not possible now, or it’s different? I think that it is evolving and it hasn’t finished, and so we haven’t gotten to see exactly how that’s going to change the dust hasn’t settled yet. The entire music industry has been in such a massive state of flux since the year 2000,
I think it was 2003, that we’re just kind of living in it now.

So we don’t see that because it’s been 20 years. What do you, what happened in 2020 or 22,003 Napster. Aha.

Okay. Gotcha. Music streaming online, right? Downloading changed the game.

It decimated the, it decimated the recording industry for a little while. And then in order for the recording industry to survive, it had to change. And it’s still changing.

It’s still in a state of flux because the Internet and technology have absolutely upended the way that that was done for decades. You know, before the Internet, there were four ways that you could listen to music. That was it.

Four ways. One, you could walk down to the record store, drive down to the record store, and buy the record or the cd or the cassette, and then you could hear that album and only that album at any given time that you wanted to. That was the most accessible music was at that time.

Second way was you could listen to the radio and hope that they’d play your song. And at that time, rotations were maybe once a day for heavy rotation, sometimes less than that. You could call in and request it, and then you could, you know, record it on your cassette tape.

If you had that ability that time, you know, but you could listen to for. Listen to it on the radio. You could maybe catch it in a movie or television show or, you know, on a late night program, for example, something like that, or buy a ticket to a concert, and that was it.

Those were the only ways that people could listen to music. And because of that, music was a labor of love. It took effort to enjoy music every time you experienced it, even if it was just, you know, listening to your record or your cassette, you still had to pull that out.

You still had to put it into your machine. You still had to hit play. If you wanted to skip a song, you had to get up, stop doing what you were doing, go over here, fast forward, or skip.

When it was cds, you still had effort, even if it was a little bit more and became less and less. The second that music streaming came along, you got a band’s entire catalog and all their b sides and every live performance that you could ever find with a click of a button, bam, all that effort’s gone. And with effort comes love and appreciation.

If you’ve ever had a successful relationship, you know, you have to have effort. There has to be effort. There effort is part of cultivating love, and the music industry is no different.

So the second that music became universally accessible to universally, almost everyone in the entire world can listen to any song at any time, on any day for any reason or no reason at all. The second that that happened, the entire industry changed because people’s experience of music changed and their relationship to it changed. Now, people don’t just fall in love with a single song most of the time.

They don’t fall in love with a single song for any band. They fall in love with the band or the musician. When you’re putting your music out there now, the music isn’t the product.

The music is the billboard, it’s the advertisement. If you’re putting a song on Spotify, people are listening to it for free as far as they’re concerned. That’s their experience of it.

It’s free. Even if they’re paying a subscription, they’re not paying for it in that moment, so they have no connection to it. And that’s not anybody’s fault.

I’m not upset about that because with that came the power of control, perceived control back into the hands of the musicians. Because the second that it became possible to record an entire album on your laptop, in your apartment or your house or your hotel room, that took all of the power away from the recording industry because that’s where their power lied. It was, if you want to be famous, you have to sign our contract.

And that doesn’t exist anymore either. It does, but they’ve had to change things so much. The relationship that labels had with musicians back in the day was just about, the recording was just about the record or the cassette or the cd.

And the bands knew that and they were okay with that because it meant, okay, well, we won’t make a lot of money off of our recording itself unless it really takes off. We’ll make all of our money on tour, in our ticket sales and in our merchandise selling. And as soon as Napster came along, the labels went, well, no, hang on.

We want a little bit of that, too, actually. We want all of it. And we’ll give you guys the scraps.

And that’s where the 360 deal came from. And now all of the deals are 360 deals. It’s entirely different.

Yeah. So all of that to say it’s still changing because technology is still changing and people, the exponential rate at which technology has changed is still happening. It’s still happening.

So people’s experience of music and their tastes in music are still changing at an exponential rate faster than they’ve ever changed in the past. So fast that we can’t keep up with it. Most of the time we’re not even aware of it.

Most of the time. It’s kind of like, it’s kind of like when a light is blinking so fast that we can’t perceive it. So it just looks like it’s on constantly.

It’s steady and constant when in reality it’s in such a state of flux that we just can’t track it. Yeah, I think that’s in relation to the exponential growth of technology. Because ultimately technology is that driver of why Napster exists is radio on Internet ROI, why radio is dying.

Right. And it’s kind of interesting that you’re in that realm where you’re keeping it alive. I’m not.

That’s nice, but I’m not. Nobody is. Yeah, you’re doing your best and you’re using the format in different ways too, because you stream live on Facebook.

Radio is a wave that will eventually level out inevitably, like any other form of technology or any other. I mean, you know, the steam engine. Steam engine was the main mode of transportation across any great distance for a long time.

And people at that time thought it was always going to be that, uh, the guy who owned Magnavox, uh, which was a tv company back in the day, he swore and essentially torpedoed his company that flat screen tvs were a fad because they were junk, because they didn’t last very long. Because back then, tvs, you could buy one tv and have it for ten years, 15 years, it’d be fine. Because they were designed that way.

They were designed to last. And then the person, whoever came along and made flat screen said, well, we don’t really need them to last. People still buy them.

They want to watch tv. Yeah. And the technology is changing so much that they’re going to want the new one anyways, the new format, just like phones.

So to musicians that might be listening to this, don’t worry about keeping up. Don’t worry about tastes and trends. Do the thing that’s authentic to you because that’s the thing that will, that’s the thing that’ll last who you are authentically.

And figuring out how to connect with that and figuring out how to put that into four chords in a 90 to 110 bpm groove is going to be your best shot at genuinely connecting with your audience. And that should always be your goal because everything else comes after that. If you don’t do that, then you never leave in the harbor 100%.

If you’ve ever seen a Pixar film? They’re so good because they always focus on story. Story first. Their technology could suck.

Their first short animation that they showed at the conference I spoke about was halfway done. It went to wireframe, but people were so stoked about it because it was the story of Andre and Wally B and this bee and someone chasing it. But story drives it.

The authenticity behind the song drives it that people see and resonate more with. But there is. I mean, we’re gonna have to have a episode two or a version two of this with talking about, you know, does.

You know, just like social media, you know, and music does the access and the easy access. Is that a positive driver or a negative driver to the appreciation and the authenticity of that craft? And it’s both, in my opinion, because same with social media. My goodness, can it be so powerful and positive and at the same time be negative? You know, you’re able to.

Quickly, for me, I get to keep in touch with people all over the world that I’ve met in an instant. At the same time, it could potentially water those relationships down because of proximity or this or that. So it’s this double edged sword.

But you kind of already answered my. You touched on my next rapid fire question, which was, good luck getting me to do shorthand answers, by the way. I’m more long winded than a wind tunnel.

A rapid fire is just a fun name for this segment. I know, people. It’s a fun thing.

I wanted to get your take on what is the future of radio? Where do you see the industry going? Podcast. Podcast. Radio started.

And as far as I know, uh, this is more my opinion than a history lesson, but. But in my opinion, radio started at a time where there was no real time way to connect people across great distances. Radio created that.

Radio came before television happened way before the Internet. I mean, at that point, I don’t remember which came first, the telephone or the radio one. Is it one or the other? I don’t remember.

They. They weren’t too far from each other. I know that.

But the function of radio was to entertain and to inform on a massive scale. It’s been replaced, functionally, by the Internet. It just has.

And the numbers of people that are using the Internet and using and listening to podcasts like this one are overshadowing the number of people that are listening to the radio. Now, that’s not to say there won’t always be a function for radio, because there is. And I don’t know that it’ll ever die necessarily.

Maybe I’m being overly dramatic by saying that I think that it will evolve like all great things typically do in order to survive. And I don’t know what that’s going to look like, frankly. I think your show is one step in the evolution where it’s not just playing a song, it’s adding the level of the band is live right now.

They’re hearing it live, and then they’re gonna stop and you’re gonna get to hear about their life or why they wrote that song. And so that’s one of the evolutions of keeping it really neat. But you’re putting it out on the web, too, so, you know, feeding into that machine.

But there’s nothing wrong with that. You gotta do it. If you don’t feed it, it finds something else to eat.

Oh, boy. There’s about 100 quotes in this episode that we’re gonna have to follow. You’re welcome.

I’m nothing if not a soundbite machine. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, being on the radio is that’s necessary. Well, you’ve got the radio voice, that’s for sure.

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Oh, yeah, that’s by radio voice.

That’s the shock jock one. Yeah. I can’t believe that that’s a thing, so I. May I make fun of myself doing that? That’s the late night stripper DJ voice.

Super early morning. Super early morning on a Monday. Yeah.

Yeah. You’re listening to 101 five. I don’t know.

It’s rough. Can’t do that for an hour. No.

My goodness. Okay, cool. What is your biggest source of inspiration? Um.

Boy, I wish I had a better answer for that. Inspiration is a funny thing when you’re just trying to keep your head above water. The reality is I’m doing a lot of things right now that if you’d asked me a few years ago not just could I do them, but would I be doing them, I would have said no.

Are you kidding me? And not for lack of interest in doing them, just for lack of not knowing I could or ever even have an interest in them. Hosting a radio show first, for one thing, I was like, oh, that’d be neat. When am I ever going to be able to do that? And somehow, magically, it just kind of happened.

And I made a lot of decisions that led me to that, and I’ll take credit for that, and I’m proud of that. I guessed right in a lot of ways, and I theorized in a vacuum, correctly in a lot of ways, and that’s luck, frankly. Inspiration, I would say.

Truthfully, I would say the musicians that come on the show are deeply inspiring. That’s probably my most consistent source of inspiration. Every episode, every single one, I talk to these people, and I try to relate.

I try to. Again, in songwriting, inherently, it’s always kind of selfish, but you’re always looking for a way to take that thing that’s inside of you and go, hey, look, this is me. Maybe this is you, too.

And so the questions are always from that angle. I always think in my brain, as I’m listening to them talk, I’m listening, and I’m engaging, and I’m also thinking, hmm, I wonder. I have this thought.

I wonder if they have this thought, too. And often they do. And it’s a sense of connection.

As a person who grew up desperately seeking a sense of connection with the world around me, that’s where I get it. And I guess that’s the thing that probably keeps me going more than anything else. Yeah, I don’t think you’re alone in that, and that’s extremely meaningful for creators of all types.

I’m thinking of, you know, I always. I have these two modes, audio and visual. And, you know, the same thing goes for, if I’m making this, you know, this piece of graphic art or someone who’s a painter, is this gonna connect? Is this gonna resonate? And something that’s interesting about that, both with music and art, is that sometimes those people are ahead of their time.

And so when they put it out there, people go, whoa, I wasn’t expecting this, or, I’m not ready for this. I don’t think I connect with it next. And then they pass away or something like that.

And people are like, oh, my gosh. Wow. Were they ahead of their time? It’s kind of an unfortunate thing, because they don’t get to see the celebration of that amazing work and that creativity in the moment.

And then that’s a thing. There’s a documentary called Finding Sugar Man. I don’t know if you.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, all right, here’s a fun thing that I’ve learned, and, I mean, I can’t ever say anything is true universally, because there’s so much. Everyone’s different. But when it comes to that thing I said earlier about essentially figuring out how to put your authentic self into a song, a lot of people hear that and they start writing, and then they go.

They go. They’ll say, what you just said, is this going to connect with people? Nope. Don’t ask yourself that question, because the answer is a rabbit hole down which you will fall and never climb out of in reality instead.

And the other thing is this. The job is done for you by the music itself. Yeah.

So I always tell you know, something that I learned a few years back about songwriting is that chord progressions. I used to obsess over chord progressions. I needed them.

I needed my chord progressions to be unique and dynamic and different. The reality is chord progressions are finite. They’re not unlimited.

Not even close. As a matter of fact, we’ve used all of the chord progressions. We really have.

All of them. We used them 100 years ago in classical music and baroque music and romantic. All of the chord progressions have been used.

All of them. Don’t think you’re going to come up with a unique chord progression that’s never been done before. It has.

It has. That’s the wrong way of thinking of it. Chords are not the song the same way.

A canvas is not the painting, and that’s what they are. A chord progression is a canvas upon which you write a song. And it should complement and enhance the theme of the song, whatever that may be.

So the authentic part doesn’t really exist in your chord progression. It exists in your melody and in your lyrics and in the way that they have in the. In their relationship to the other elements of the song.

Now, you can take a chord progression, you can put it through a cool filter or a cool effect, and it will now feel reborn and feel more original. And you should, because that will lend itself to the authenticity. Because originality lends itself to authenticity.

It just does. Anytime a song feels new and interesting, even if it doesn’t, because it’s GCD, the three most common chords in the musical library. If it feels new, then it feels authentic and you’re one step closer to connecting with your audience in an authentic way.

And then if your lyrics grab them even further, because the chords are the first thing they’re going to hear, the chords are your melody. Unless you start every song with your lyrics right off the bat, the first thing they’re going to hear is the drums and the music, and they have to engage with that immediately. And then if you’re lyrics, lead them further in that direction than you’ve done your job, because now they’re connecting with it.

Now they’re not connecting with whatever they were thinking about or the girl across the room or the job that they hate or, you know, the. The hard thing that they have to do later on in the week. They’re connecting with the moment, and that’s the goal.

So if the lyrics pull them away from your. That engagement that your chords produced, then you’re working against yourself, you know? So all of that to say the connection will happen in your lyrics. And if your lyrics are true to you and your melodies are true to who you are, let your chords enhance that.

Right. Well put. Not the other way around.

That’s my opinion as a novice songwriter who has nothing to show for it whatsoever. So take it with a grain of salt. 14 years, you’re still a novice.

Yeah. But, yeah. From a songwriter perspective, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But that’s beautiful because there’s a lot of wonderful potential and future ahead of you to create and make and take the advice that you just gave yourself. Oh, never, never take my own advice. I’m so bad at it.

That’s why I’m much better as a radio host than I am as a songwriter. Okay. It’s hard to sometimes move forward in this rapid fire for me because I want to make so many comments, but I’m gonna keep it flying.

Do you have a favorite book? Favorite book? Favorite book? You know, I’m not a favorites guy. I’m just not. I don’t have any singular, consistent thing in my brain at any given time that I believe in or agree with is to say that if I had a religion, it would be doubt.

I love that. And inevitability. But, yeah, I told you guys earlier, I think, before we were recording the podcast that I’m, you know, reading, I’m currently rereading the shining.

Oh, you weren’t joking about that. No, I’m dead serious. Okay.

Also, I’m not. I’m an adult in the year 2023, so I don’t read books. I have some other adult who recorded them, read them to me in an audio form, because I can’t sit still long enough and focus on a book long enough to ever actually finish it in less time than a month or two.

Yeah, I’d rather listen to it in audio form and, like, do the dishes or, you know, whatever. So, yeah, it’s getting spooky season. So, currently, I’m reading the shining.

You know, different categories, different categories. If I. If I’m going spooky, I would say pet sematary was the saddest, scary book I ever read. Oh, you know what? I take that back.

I take that back. I do kind of have a favorite book because I always go back to it. I always forget about this.

It’s the grand design by Stephen Hawking. Oh, awesome. It’s great, dude.

I’ve probably read it, like, five times, and it’s a great crash course in astrophysics. Makes you feel smart when you may or may not be talking by myself. And it also is an interesting lens through which you can analyze the concept of spirituality through the eyes of someone who has no appreciation or belief in it whatsoever.

And I would say I lean more in that direction more than any other, but, again, doubt. So I tend to dip my toes in any waters that are. I go, oh, that’s interesting.

What’s that like? And give it its day court, so to speak. And then if I connect with it, I’ll keep a little bit of it that makes sense to me and discard the rest. Yeah, I think that’s healthy.

It can be. There is something to be said about people that can wholeheartedly and unconditionally devote themselves to a single cause, concept, or value. And I’m speaking about musicians more than any other group, because the ones that make it, more often than not, are the ones that do that.

Yeah. Depending on what realm you’re talking about, that can be extremely dangerous, too. But.

Yeah, but. But there’s a healthiness to it when you’re passionate about. Hey, I’m gonna.

I’m gonna write this album, and I’m gonna finish it. It’s gonna be from my heart, and that’s that. Yeah, well, it goes even further than that.

I mean, because, you know, just because you bake a cake doesn’t mean you’re done, because you got to share that. People have to like it so much so that they want you to bake another one. Right, but different.

Cause if it’s the same cake. Well, I already had that cake. Right? Yep.

And you never know how it tastes until it comes out of the oven, so. Boy, here we are. Yeah.

Ken Apperson give you a book of quotes. Well, I know you said that you don’t like choosing favorites, and this is gonna be a way harder question. Oh, this is gonna be the hardest question for you.

If you ask me what my favorite song is, I’m gonna lose it. Not quite. Okay.

Do you have a favorite artist or album? No, but I do have a favorite song. Do you? Okay, lay it on us. That I cannot believe.

No, I don’t have a favorite artist, because every time I listen to a new musician, I either discard them as something that I’ve already heard, because there’s just not that much originality anymore, which is okay. I don’t mean that as, like, discard is the wrong word. No, it’s probably right, actually.

I do kind of dismiss them, and I shouldn’t, but I do. That’s the superiority thing, the ego thing. But I do have a favorite song, because when you’re a gigging musician in bars and restaurants, one of the ways that people most frequently make requests, they say, play your favorite song.

Play your favorite song. And I had to make my peace with that. In other words, I had to decide on a favorite song.

And I’ve learned a lot about myself in that way because I’ve learned that I don’t. I don’t know. Some people think that the things that define them just happen upon them by happenstance or fate or destiny or whatever.

I don’t believe that because I don’t engage with things like that, typically, mentally. Instead, I’ve found that when I have a concept that I’m not sure about, I decide the rules for that concept because they’re different for everyone, so why not? And then those are the rules, and then that’s how it’s defined. So deciding on a favorite song was how I did that.

I sat down and I said, okay, what makes a song a favorite song? And it’s a song that I. This is my personal rules. I don’t know anybody else’s. I don’t know if anybody else thinks this way.

I feel like a psychopath sometimes when I think about things this way. I say, what’s the outline? What’s the framework for what makes a song a favorite song? Favorite song is a song you can listen to anytime, anywhere. Favorite song is, essentially, infinitely listenable.

You might get tired of it, but you always come back to it. And a favorite song, for me, has to have an early. I have to have experienced that song at an early age, at a time before I had any understanding or concept of music whatsoever, and could purely engage with it on an emotional.

From an emotional place, and therefore would be a decisive moment in my life to the direction that I took now, which is my whole life, is music. And that song is fast car by Tracy Chapman. Whoa.

That’s a good one. My goodness. And the reason for that is because that song is one of the first times I ever remember engaging with a song on an emotional level before I had any concept or understanding about the lyrics.

So kind of contradicting myself to a degree, I connected with it emotionally. I didn’t know what she was singing about. I didn’t have any personal experience with it.

I couldn’t relate to it in any way, shape or form. But I didn’t connect with the song because of the song. I connected with it because I was riding in the backseat of my mom’s Chrysler Aries, which was an old station wagon, and it was on the radio and I don’t know what was going on.

This is more like a dream than anything. But she was crying, she was driving and she was crying, and the song was playing. I connected with her, which then caused me to connect with the song.

And for whatever reason, that stuck, that memory stuck. So, yeah, fast car. That’s a great one.

That’s enormous in what you just said. For me, it’s same with particular smells where you can smell something like, for me, songs as well. Immediately when I hear this one album, any song from it by boy and bear, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them.

They’re from Australia. Oh my gosh. They have a great album called Harlequin Dream.

Any song that I listened to off, that immediately transported to travel. And when I first met my wife, no matter what, no matter where I’m at, I think that is some of the many aspects of the power of music where you just, you could be sitting in this room right now and literally almost transport to that moment as best as possible, just with waves in your ears. Something so powerful, uniquely powerful.

Smell does it to me too. Rose. Rose oil.

I don’t know what it is, but anyways, thanks for explaining that. That’s huge. Do you have a favorite instrument? Guitar.

Yeah, classic. Yeah. Guitar was really important to me, uh, in my teenage years, having a rough, you know, go of it as a child, in childhood, in my teenage years.

And, uh, the pain of learning how to play guitar was a great distraction and a great place to put my focus. It takes so much effort, so much focus. I grew up playing guitar, and then drums found me as an undergrad.

But I remember spending like 2 hours, just me and the guitar in a room, and it’s just this black box. There was no ceiling, and it was the hardest thing I had ever pursued. Now, drums is.

Yeah, drums is the hardest thing, but drum, I mean, my goodness, guitar, but it’s also. It’s amazing what that can do. Same with, again, art.

You could work on a painting for a hundred hours, you know, you could work on a song, writing a song for 100 hours and get lost in that guitar. Wonderful escape if you need it, or a way to harness your energy or creativity. So powerful.

Yeah, I got one last one in this rapid fire. And that is, how do you define success? Happiness. Love it.

That’s it. One word. You did it.

You win. Yeah. I figure, yeah, I mean, ideally, happiness.

I love that. Realistically, many more words. But yeah, I just want to be happy.

I can’t define it for anybody else any other way. I just want to be consistently happy. And I don’t mean euphoric, I just mean that peaceful, calm, constant content happiness that is so elusive.

Couldn’t agree with you more on that. So a couple other things just to wrap it. Sure.

By the way, you won rapid fire. Everybody wins. Well, then nobody wins.

Yeah. If everybody wins, then nobody wins. There’s no competition.

You had to go and say that. Yeah. So you play music, you’re out there, you’re out and about.

Do you write your own music? Is there somewhere we can listen to Ken Apperson? Is it under Ken Apperson on Spotify? Are you under a coda? No, it’s my name. Okay. It’s my name.

It’s my hair. I put out a project several years ago, a decade ago, and never put anything else out since then. And that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down.

But, yeah, you can hear my older music on there. I’ve been saying for probably six years I’m going to put out a new project. I still haven’t.

I have a bunch of music written that I perform semi regularly at all of my cover gigs that you can hear. If you come out and hear me play, I play well. I mean, you know, you can follow me on Instagram or on.

You can go to my website, kenapperson.com, and on Instagram, it’s just enapperson. No spaces, two p’s, no hair. That’s that.

And follow me on there for the most up to date show schedule. I would love to follow my own advice and be really good at advertising and promoting myself, but I’m not and I don’t. So that’s that.

But the most consistent way you can see me or hear me is definitely on the radio, on WMNF’s live music showcakes every Friday at 02:00 p.m. after the news headlines or in podcast form, anytime, anywhere, Spotify or Apple Music, just search.

Live music showcase. That’s great. I was going to ask you, do you sprinkle your own originals into your cover gigs and all your gigs? So that’s great.

Oh, yeah. I’m very glad to hear that. Yeah, you kind of.

I’m going to ask one more question and you kind of hit on it. Halfway through this show. But the best questions lead to other questions.

Yeah, and maybe you’ve already answered that, and I think I already know the answer, but potentially not. But I always ask any guest to kind of leave us with what’s some of the best, biggest, most important advice that you think you could give to anybody listening, even if they’re not a musician, just in general? Yeah. Yeah.

Something that you might want to have heard in the past that would have made a big impression or something that you’ve taken to heart that you’d like to share. Oh, it sounds hokey, and you’ve heard it a million times. Practice self awareness as much as possible and realize that communication starts.

Effective. Communication starts with someone willing to be effective at it. There’s a difference between wanting to communicate and just waiting for your turn to speak.

I think that some of the biggest problems that exist in our world today stem from an inability to effectively communicate with the people that agree or disagree with us. Whether they agree or disagree. Because if we’re just communicating with the people that agree with us, that’s fine, as long as we’re introducing ideas that contradict us in a meaningful way to allow the pathways of thought, the narrow synapses, if you will, that erode in our minds deeper and deeper as we travel them over and over
again to have a different pathway once in a while.

That’s how synapses work. The pathways that get traveled along the most are the strongest connections. Just like the way water travels across a flat plain eventually will erode.

And the longer it travels in that same plane, not only is it harder for the water to travel in other planes, but the deeper those erosions become, thought is the same way. So if you’re not challenging yourself to think in different ways than you currently think, one day you’re going to wake up and the world will be this crazy, awful place that doesn’t make any sense to you, when in reality, the only crazy one is you. I think we can leave it there.

I couldn’t resonate more with you about that last statement. I think I just made a new best friend. But really, I appreciate you being our friend for coming on and digging in with us.

This has been so awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, man, anytime.

Thank you for having me on. In all seriousness, thanks again, Ken. Thank you.