Hustle The Most

Hustle The Most Episode 21: Constant Motion

In the last episode I talked about kind of making choices in order to chase your passion, follow your dreams and make it happen. I talked about how I packed up my drums and headed down to Florida to live and play in a band called Until The End.

I don’t know what it is but something about Palm Trees has always fascinated me. Maybe it was because when I was a kid all the TV shows or movies that were shot in LA or Miami were always so cool and it was always summer. Who doesn’t love summer when you are living in Michigan. 

 

Before heading down to Florida I was trying to line up a place to stay. I had a friend from Flint that had moved down there a few years earlier. She and her boyfriend lived in Lantana which was just outside of West Palm and they had an extra room in their apartment that she offered up to me while I was there. I really didn’t have much of a plan other than just getting down there. Looking back on that I probably should have sorted a few more things out before heading down but sometimes you just gotta go. So I get down there and move my stuff in. I didn’t have much just whatever fit in my car at the time along with my cat. We shipped my drums to John’s house so they were down there waiting for me. I remember being there for a few days. I met up with some of the dudes in the band then went hunting for a job. The first place I went looking was Whole Foods in Boca Raton. It was about 20 minutes from where I was staying so not a horrible commute. Side note traffic in South Florida is horrible so that 20 minutes could sometimes be 30-45 minutes depending on the time of day. So I walked into the produce department and asked one of the guys if they were hiring. I had a resume in my hand. This resume had a little produce experience from working at a small shop for about 8 months before I left Tacoma.

He looked at my resume and walked me to the back and upstairs right to the manager and said “hey I think this kid will be great, let’s get him going”. That was the best interview I have ever had. I started in the produce department like 2 days later after my background check came back. I deci ded that after about 9 days of making that commute to work I needed to move farther south. I had a friend Alex that lived in a 3 bedroom apartment in Boca with 2 other guys. I told him I was looking for a place and asked him if he knew anyone that was looking for a roommate and he didn’t but he offered up his floor. So I paid like $250 a month to sleep on a mattress on the floor of this guy’s bedroom. It was about 7 minutes from work and no highway so it was a pretty quick drive and that was all I was after. Alex was a good dude. He ran a record label called Undecided Records and they put all kinds of cool bands. I think I met him on tour with one of my bands and we quickly became friends. That was one really cool thing about touring a lot is that I would always meet so many amazing people and everyone had a story. You come to town and hang out and meet them and the next time you come to town they come and hang out and it just happens over and over again. I have met so many amazing people on the road. 

Staying with Alex was fun. We always had bands coming through and staying with us some of them I was friends and some not but it was always fun.

I mentioned earlier that there were 2 other dudes that lived with Alex. Thinking back I am not sure how these 3 misfits ended up living together but it was quite a cast. The second guy was another guy named Rob but they called him “Captain Extreme” because he was way into mountain biking and techno and working out. Then there was the last dude. His name was Anthony but they called him “The Incredible Weirdo”.

He was also a cool dude but he was tall and lanky and worked a lot on his computer. He had a huge desk and all of these music instruments crammed into his room. He has keyboards, a bass, a few different amps and no bed. I think maybe he had one but it was in pieces and stacked against the wall. He would stay up super late and then just crash on the floor. I remember walking by his room in the morning and his door would be open and I would just see feet and the bottoms of some weird dress pants. Alex was a straightedge hardcore kit that was way into puting out records, Starwars and Halo. It was weird that these 3 lived together but there they were.

Anyway I slept on the floor for about 6 months until I saved up enough to get my own place. Captain Extreme and I actually became really good friends then moved out together. We moved just a few miles down the road to a cool little apartment complex. He worked like 3 jobs and I work at Whole Foods and played in the band so neither of us were home all that much. I remember doing Florida stuff. Like I went to the beach alot and wore flip flops and board shorts. I was way into it. I loved florida. We started band practice a few weeks after I got there and it was pretty cool. Cool except for the fact that we were practicing in a storage unit in South Florida. I was hot as balls in this 10X20 storage unit that we shared with another band. 5 dudes plus band gear and drumming a million miles an hour for hours on end. Ugh it was brutal.

 

About a month after practicing we went up to the north east to play some shows. It was cool this band didn’t really tour so when we did play people would come out. We went up and played like Philly, NYC, NJ and then cruise home. It was cool because I’d get to see a lot of friends and just hang out with people I didn’t get to see much anymore. When you are touring a lot it seems like you see the same people a lot so you didn’t really lose touch that much. It had been a while since I had been out playing so it was great to get back out there! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R660eOviTa4&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR25PhUUI4DGrzoyLlqFCc75s2hvZs6rrydtKypmnVDJ7i7UE8HfnHtqYF4

 

So just like every other weekend warrior band it was back to work on Monday. Back to slangin celery on the weekdays. I liked working at Whole Foods though it was fun. The store was a new store so it was bright and vibrant and the Boca Raton clientele was all kind of fancy. After working there for about 6 months I heard that our store graphic designer was going on maternity leave and they were looking for someone to replace her. I guess they picked this girl named Sam that said she was a graphic artist. It was funny they got like 2 weeks in and I guess she didn’t know anything about computers. She could sort of draw but that was the extent of her graphic design abilities. One morning I was talking to her about how it was going and she said not good and she wasn’t super stoked to leave the store in her hands and that they were going to start looking for someone else. I asked more about it and she said “it’s hard to find someone that knows how to work on a Mac apparently”.

I laughed and told her that I worked exclusively on a Mac and I knew photoshop. She got super excited and within a week I was offered the job as store Graphic Designer.

It was awesome! I went from slingin celery to making a salary. I got my own office and got to work on a sweet double monitor blueberry iMac that was running OS9! I had a quick crash course in Quark and I was on it. It was a sweet gig.

I worked that job for about 2 years before I started to get the itch to tour again. UTE was doing shows here and there and we did a Europe tour and a few more Northeast runs but I just wanted to be on the road. I missed it. I missed playing my drums every night and driving from city to city. I remember I flew up to try out for a few bigger bands but it just didn’t pan out. I just wanted to tour. A few weeks later I found myself talking to a few new bands that needed drummers. Next thing I know I was packing up my stuff and moving out to hit the road.

 

 So let’s talk about what did I really learn from all this

This just seems crazy. I had a great job. I lived fairly close to the beach. I had a cool old Porsche that I used to bomb around in. I didn’t own any socks. I had it good. I had made something for myself. I created a life and stability out of nothing. So why would I give it all up to go out and tour again. To be a nomad and have unstability? 

I have learned since why I do these things. For me it’s all about doing something. I am always trying to do something. Whether it’s playing drums, selling drums, collecting new things like bobble heads, basketball cards or writing a book. I am always doing something. This podcast is exactly that. This podcast is me doing something. I think that when I feel unsettled or uneasy about something I always have these things to play with to put my mind at ease or keep me busy. I have always felt like my mind is sprinting until I go to bed at night. It’s like a race and it’s exhausting. Today I can tear down a drum kit and put up a different one or change out some snare heads or look at drums online and think about how I can sell this to get that. It’s all constant motion. It’s all about constant motion. Constant Motion.

Hustle The Most Episode 20: Chasing Your Passion To The Palm Trees

We all know that having passion and drive is important. We all know that it takes work and dedication to pursue your dreams. There is always a turning back point that exists that’s different for everyone and it’s usually based on a number of variables. How far will you go to chase your dream? Entrepreneurs often go broke chasing their dream. The dream to be a business owner and be self employed. Lots of barriers become very apparent when taking that entrepreneurial leap becomes a reality. Things like time, money, family, bills, age, and knowledge all the sudden become larger than life. Sure you can go open up a cupcake stand and make some money if you already have things like a house, a car, a home kitchen, and resources. These things are usually being supplemented by the day job. But the question is could you do it if this was your only gig? 

Your cupcake stand now has to pay for things like space, supplies, industrial kitchen, staff members, advertising. Could you still do it? A  logical person would probably do it part time for a number of years until they cupcake stand could survive on its own then you could make the transition from your day job to your passion project because your passion project can now pay the bills. I have seen this over and over again where someone has so much passion that they can have blinders on so the reality doesn’t quite hit them until it’s too late. The point I am getting at is that it’s our passion that drives us to create and go the extra lengths and just grind it out which is completely amazing but it’s also our passion that alters our perspective and makes us see things through a different lense. 

 

 

I spent a lot of years chasing my passion. Everything in my life for 15 or so years was all about drumming. I was a drummer. I toured and lived the life of a touring musician along with all the good and bad that came with it. In the last episode I talked at the end about moving away from the Pacific Northwest and having some great opportunities that had come my way that allowed me to continue chasing my passion. Just before I left I was kind of set more or less to move to NJ and I was talking to one of my boys from Detroit that was now playing in the band Sworn Enemy.

They were a hardcore band form Jersey that needed a drummer. I don’t really remember sorting out where I was going to live while I was there but I just knew I was going to go there and drum and I would just figure it out. This is something that happens when you are willing to do whatever at any cost to follow your dream. I was going to move 3000 miles to the other side of the country and I had no idea where I was going to live. That’s just bananas.

 

This was December and my plan was to drive back to Michigan and spend the holidays with my family then head out to NJ just after Christmas. I didn’t think much about it at the time but December is not a good time of year to drive I-90 across the top of the United States. There is so much snow and tons of mountains and it’s overall pretty dangerous. At the time I was driving this old Porsche that was a 2 seater with a hatch so I shipped all my drums to my Dad’s house in Flint and I packed up the rest of my stuff and headed out. I do remember getting some wire chains for my tires that were packed absolutely last and right on top of all my clothes right as I shut the hatch they were there if needed. I had my cat with me so the front seat was all dedicated to him. I had his carrier in the front seat and his litter box on the floor. He mainly sat on top of the carrier on a blanket and he would have food and water when we stopped for gas. He was pretty amazing! We got like 10 hours into our 40 hour trip and the highway was shut down in both directions with state troopers and cones guiding everyone into this gian truck stop. There were like 100 trucks there and tons of cars. They were selling sets of chains like they were going out of style, it was crazy. We sat at the truck stop for about 14 hours and I would stay in the car with my cat and he would just sit on my chest and sleep as I reclined in my seat. Every few hours I would go in and see if they had any updates. They had a big chalkboard inside that had the latest road closures and weather forecast. After about 14 hours I turned on the local radio station and I heard that they opened up a road around one of the mountains for commuter cars only and I looked at my map and it was only a few miles away. I took off for that road and once I got to it I drove for about 20 miles down the road and it linked me back up with 90 and I kept going. The rest of the trip had some twists and turns and some “I’m going to die” moments but I made it to Michigan safe and sound. 

 

Before I left I told some people that I was going to be home for the holidays and so my old band Spit decided to do a reunion show in downtown Flint. We did the show and it was awesome. It was just like old times. I’ll say this: I have never had more fun playing in a band then I had playing in my first band. Everything was so new and fresh and we were young and figuring it out. We were all learning and growing together, it was awesome! Playing that show just took me right back!

 

 

So anyway back to the move. I was home and preparing for New Jersey. I even went with my dad and bought an old blazer to drive out there. I wanted something that could hold my drums and had 4 wheel drive. I was going to be living back in the snow so the porsche wasn’t going to be the right car. I bought the blazer and I put the Porsche in the garage. This was the funny part because if you remember me talking about the garage in prior episodes you know that the garage didn’t have a door on it because it was converted to an apartment type space for my brother. So in order to get the car into the garage we had to take off the entire front of the garage and drive the car in and then seal it back up like a time capsule. 

 

I was all set for NJ and I had about 3 weeks until I headed out when I got a phone call from a friend. My friend John Wylie was a  label owner of a label called Eulogy Records based out of south Florida. I met John years ago when our bands played shows together.

His label also re-released one of the first Walls of Jericho EPs that we put out on this European label. Anyway he had this band in Florida that he was playing guitar in called “Until The End”. He asked me what I was up to and I told him and he told me that I shouldn’t go to Jersey and that I should instead come to South Florida and drum in his band. I had to make a choice. Go to Jersey and play in Sworn Enemy and live in the snow and the cold or move to Florida and play in Until The End and hang out at the beach. Anyone that knows me knows that I will pick the beach over pretty much anything. So now I had to sell the Blazer, pull the Porsche out of the time capsule and find some new flip flops! 

 

I was headed to Florida to hang in the sun and obviously catch some waves! I packed up the Porsche with all my necessities and got my drums ready to ship down to Florida. Now that I wasn’t driving I had to quickly ship my drums. 

 

 

Let’s jump off topic for a minute but I’ll thread it back together in a minute. My mom was a little ummm, different. I’m not going to say that she was crazy but she definitely have a few chemical imbalances happening in her brain. I lived with her for a few years in highschool because I flunked out of school in Flushing and didn’t want to go to Flint schools. Her and my Step Dad divorced about a year into me living there. Then we moved to a townhouse on the other side of Grand Blanc. I didn’t live there long. I think it was like 2 years total. Once I turned old enough to drive I moved back in with my dad and just commuted to school. I remember when I graduated she came to my open house. She didn’t have anything to do with the planning from what I remember she just kind of showed up. She told me that she gave me some money in my card and she knew I was saving up to get a new car so if I needed money to just let her know and she would try to help me out. 

 

A few weeks later I called her and told her that I was like $500 shy of getting this car that I really wanted and that I wanted to take her up on her offer to help me get the car. She said that she would look at her bank account and get back to me. A week or so goes by and I never heard from her. So I went to her house and knocked on the door. Let me step back and say that this was a new house. She had moved and didn’t tell me that she was moving. The only way I found out about her moving was I went to the old house and there was a forwarding mailing address on the mailbox so I kind of tracked her down. So I got to the new apartment complex and I saw her car in the parking lot so I went up and knocked on the door and she never answered. I called her a few times after that and she neer answered my calls. I got frustrated and just stopped calling her. I didn’t hear from her until about 2001 when I was about to move to Seattle. She showed up and we had lunch and said kind of said hello and goodbye and that was about it. While I was there she wrote me a few letters that she sent in the mail just saying hello and small talk stuff. After a few letters I didn’t hear from her any more. 

 

Here is where we thread this needle. When I came home before heading to Florida my sister told me that she saw my mom and followed her to her house. She had moved again and not told anyone where she lived. So my sister gave me her address and I went over to her house and just knocked on the door. She opened the door and was just like “hey how’s it going”? Like no time had passed, like she didn’t move and not tell anyone where she was moving to. I was kind of weird. She was living in a trailer park and when I walked in everything looked the way it did when I was 10. All her furniture was like 80’s style wood and her kitchen table had her makeup mirror on it right next to a pack of winston light 100’s and a diet coke. There were pictures of my brother and I on the walls. It was like stepping back in time. Anyway, this was around Christmas so she had asked me “what do you want for Christmas” like I was 10 years old again. I told her that I didn’t need anything. I just wanted to say hi and spend some time with her. She asked me a few more times while I was there and I said well If you want to get me something I need to ship my drums to Florida that would be helpful. I said it would be about $300 to get them down there. She said no problem and that she would love to do that for me. She told me to come over in the morning that I needed to ship then and she would give me a check. So the day before I was heading out. I cruised over to her house to pick up the check. Her car was in the driveway so I walked up and knocked on the door and no one answered. I looked in the window and her stuff was all on the table along with a burning cigarette in the ashtray but she was nowhere to be found.

 

I called a few times later that day but I never got a hold of her. The next day I woke up and was trying to figure out how I was going to get my drums down to FL. I was pretty strapped for cash. One of my best child friends from the neighborhood stepped up. I had been hanging out with him while I was home. He’s one of these dudes, we went down very different paths and lead very different lives but we have always been friends and we always will. I talked to him that morning and was telling him what happened with my mom and just kind of venting and he said “Dude I’m on my way over.” He came over and picked up my drums and cases and loaded them in his truck and took them to UPS for me. No questions asked. No you owe me. No words required. He just said, “I got you dude”. He told me to drive safely to Florida and that my drums would be there waiting for me when I got there. It was just an amazing showing of friendship that I will never ever forget.

 

 So let’s talk about what did I really learn from all this

Let’s jump into my favorite part of the podcast which is what I learned from all this looking back some 20 years later. 

 

I learned that sometimes your passion can take you down unexpected roads and it can cause you to make choices that you never thought you would have to make. Here is the trick you have to be open to it and you have to be ok with being uncomfortable for a while. Your passion can sometimes cause you to sleep at truck stops in Wyoming in the middle of winter. I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson that said “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey”. Well it’s 100% True! The journey, or the process is what seasons you, it's what gives you perspective, it educates and informs you, it’s how you learn. This is why the ending of things like movies and books are created to be great. It’s the process in our brains where we put it all together and then it hits you like a ton of bricks! 

 

I think this is where I started to learn about managing expectations. Although I am still learning and working on that I think at this point in my life is where I started to understand not the why but the what. I think the why is always harder to get than the what. The what being, what I will now have to do to get from A to B or pick myself up or figure out a new plan. I only expected my mom to help me ship my drums because she said she would as her way of helping. I expected her to follow through. It’s funny looking back I am not really sure why I expected this  knowing how hard she burned me in the past. I guess she was consistent.

This podcast has been interesting looking back at things through this adult kind of retrospective lens. Sometimes when I look back I see mistakes or maybe other choices that could have been more beneficial. I am a pretty big fan of the phrase: “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s easy to look back and think to yourself “well that was dumb”. But ya know its like hindsight is 20/20 and ya know forrest through the trees and any other cliches you can think of for being ignorant. short sighted probably just young and foolish.

Years ago while on tour I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Seattle Washington is one of my favorite places in the entire world. The views are from the I-5 bridge are some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The people are great, the food is fantastic and rain is absolutely brilliant. I really moved there just looking for something different. I had these visions at one point of being stuck in Flint or Detroit, working a job and playing in some band. I think it just wasn’t for me. I have said this before that If I had never picked up a set of drum sticks when I was 14 years old I would probably be in Flint at 40 years old working at a fast food place or something equally as outlandish. I mean maybe not because I like to hustle and try to make something out of the nothing but I think that part of successful hustling is having a positive attitude and when I was living in Flint and Detroit I don’t think I had the right attitude or outlook to successfully hustle the most. I remember when I was talking to my Dad about moving out west and I said that I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to be so far away from him and he told me to just go. He said I got stuck in this town years ago. He was talking about Flint. He said he wished that he had moved out of the city years ago but he got stuck there. He got married and had kids and we were in school and he just settled down there and he kind of always regretted it so it said If I had an opportunity to leave I should take it.

Hustle The Most Episode 19: Life Moving West

This podcast has been interesting looking back at things through this adult kind of retrospective lens. Sometimes when I look back I see mistakes or maybe other choices that could have been more beneficial. I am a pretty big fan of the phrase: “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s easy to look back and think to yourself “well that was dumb”. But ya know its like hindsight is 20/20 and ya know forrest through the trees and any other cliches you can think of for being ignorant. short sighted probably just young and foolish.

 

Years ago while on tour I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Seattle Washington is one of my favorite places in the entire world. The views are from the I-5 bridge are some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The people are great, the food is fantastic and rain is absolutely brilliant. I really moved there just looking for something different. I had these visions at one point of being stuck in Flint or Detroit, working a job and playing in some band. I think it just wasn’t for me. I have said this before that If I had never picked up a set of drum sticks when I was 14 years old I would probably be in Flint at 40 years old working at a fast food place or something equally as outlandish. I mean maybe not because I like to hustle and try to make something out of the nothing but I think that part of successful hustling is having a positive attitude and when I was living in Flint and Detroit I don’t think I had the right attitude or outlook to successfully hustle the most. I remember when I was talking to my Dad about moving out west and I said that I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to be so far away from him and he told me to just go. He said I got stuck in this town years ago. He was talking about Flint. He said he wished that he had moved out of the city years ago but he got stuck there. He got married and had kids and we were in school and he just settled down there and he kind of always regretted it so it said If I had an opportunity to leave I should take it.

 

So I moved the Washington in 2001 and lived there on and off for about 10 years. It’s crazy to me how far away Seattle is from everything. I mean look at a map and just look at Seattle and then look at everywhere else. It’s so far away. I think it was really good for me to move so far away. I think anyone in their 20’s should move away or travel and just get out and see stuff. I honestly think it was the best thing that I could have ever done. I remember on the way out the biggest skies and some of the coolest landscapes that I had ever seen. It’s interesting because I had traveled that same path in van a good amount of times while on tour but I this was different. I had all my stuff in the back and I was on my way to something different. I had no idea really what was ahead for me but I was taking a leap and it felt pretty amazing. I moved to out there in April and if you have been the Pacific Northwest in the spring you probably get it but the Puget Sound is so beautiful in the spring. Big bright blue skies and you can see for miles. Mount Rainier boldly standing tall and snow capped all summer long, it’s just brilliant.

 

Anyway so I moved out there and kind of fell into the same scene that I was in in Detroit. Hanging with a bunch of hardcore kids that were in bands and ate at vegan restaurants. This wasn’t a bad thing it was what I knew so of course I just gravitated to it. I felt like things were much lighter there. This was my first real experience just inserting myself into another scene. I mean I guess I kind of did it when I moved from Flint to Detroit but there was some overlap so it was similar but this was like a full on self immersion. I had a few friends that lived out there but I didn’t really see them very often. I had this weird epiphany after being there for a few weeks. I thought that when I moved there it would be very much like it was when I was there playing shows where everyone came out to hang out and it was like a party but the reality was that once you live in a place and you there there there. It’s just like everywhere else. People have jobs, girlfriends and responsibilities and my assumption that the party never stops and people would go out of their way to hang out was completely wrong. This one actually hit me pretty hard. I had an assumption and I was completely wrong and it actually took me a while to figure that one out. 

 

Let’s talk about assumptions for second. Assumptions are pretty dangerous and of course we all do it but it’s kind of like making a bet. When you make an assumption you’re betting that something is going to happen and most of the time we act on it thinking that we are right. We have this process in the design world where we question all of our assumptions so we can make informed decisions. If you are designing a car or a building or a city something that is going to have some longevity you want to question every assumption you can think of and then some. I think that making assumptions is like skipping a crucial step in a decision making process. 

 

I am just going to go out on a limb here and say that I think making assumptions is basically setting yourself up to fail. Again It’s like a bet. You are betting that a thing it going to happen or that someone is going to say something. Let me tell you really quick how I used to destroy my day by assuming. This is small very small thing that just crushed me every single time and I did it for years. When I played in a band this band in Detroit we would have practice every Tuesday and Thursday and on those days I would think all day long while while at work about practice and different song writing ideas that I had that I wanted to work on at practice. When I would get to practice and someone would say “ I gotta roll early so can we just run through the set and bounce” and I would instantly be in the worst mood ever. Instant attitude shift. Totally not fair to anyone else in the room and it was 100% internal and it just crushed me. I set myself up by thinking something was going to happen, didn’t communicate it to anyone and was totally crushed when it didn’t happen. This completely the dumbest thing in the world but I would be willing to bet money that I am not the only one that does this. I mean it was totally and 100% on me and completely dumb and the lesson learned from that is: that’s what I get for assuming. 

 

I only lived in Washington on that stint for about 9 months. About 4 months in things started to fall apart for me and about 6 months in I got the itch to tour again and get back out on the road playing shows. It’s weird touring is kind of like calling that is always in the background. I don’t know if it’s about the stage or the travel or the excitement but it’s fun and liberating and it’s always there just kind of lurking. When I decided to leave I had gotten a few great opportunities to play in a few bands but they were all from the East Coast. I had a plan but about a week before I left I was presented with some other options and I had to make a call. I was headed East but was I going north or south? I think we will get into that in the next episode. Let’s jump into what I learned from all this.

 

 So let’s talk about what did I really learn from all this

 

We talked a little about assumptions so I don’t think I am going to dive into that too much I think that pretty much speaks for itself. I think what I want to get into is that I learned how to move. That’s sounds dumb and general but let me unpack that for a minute. 

 

I have met a lot people that feel trapped just can’t seem to break the cycle and just can’t get out. It’s scary I get it but I have moved cities more times than I can remember and once I did it once it just got easier every time. It’s not different than changing a tire or building a deck or making a snowman. Every time you do it gets easier. Have you ever assembled something like a bike or a skateboard. After you do 3 or 4 in a row you get in a groove, you get a process and it just gets easier and faster and with way less headache than the first time that you did it. If you want to know more, call me, text me, DM me. I’ll fill you in on how it worked for me and how it can work for you to make the change, get unstuck and just break the cycle.

 

I learned that we all fit into a vibe and sometimes that vibe changes. It’s not as much about location as it is about the types of personalities and scenes that we gravitate towards and why. I have always been stoked on people that like the same kind of music as me or people that are into hardcore and punk. That usually meant that we would have possibly similar view on things like politics, possibly vegan of vegetarian food and which Bane hoodie was the best! I am making an assumption and betting on my past knowledge so it’s pretty low risk but yes it’s an assumption. We gravitate to what we like and what we know because ya know it’s comfortable. It’s a weird comparison but this is the same behavior that makes criminals multiple time offenders. My brother was a great example of this. He would be hanging with his friends, get into some trouble, go to jail or rehab and when he got out he would end up right back with the same friends and it would happen all over again. It’s a cycle that just keeps happening over and over again.

 

So lastly, I learned that for a long time the music scene that I was in really defined me and actually helped me breathe and develop as a person. It gave me a foundation and a circle to share ideas and feelings. For some people it’s sports or church, for me is was punk and hardcore. I think we need these things as kids. I think I needed it. It gave me structure and perspective and taught me that it was ok to feel and it taught me that I was never alone. As I have gotten older and have become more rounded as a person I think it defines me less and less. Don’t get me wrong I will always be a hardcore kid at heart but like a lot of other things in my life its just a piece of puzzle that makes up me.

So let me start out with a few questions. How do you stack up to your friends? How does your career compare to your colleagues? How does your life look when it’s placed next to someone else's? Any here is the most important question. Does any of that really matter?

 

Here is what I am getting at. There is always this perception that someone that has more than you or they are are happier than you or better than you. People place a lot of emphasis on how they stack up against blips that they are seeing on instagram. But the truth is that you never know what happens behind closed doors. When the camera is off that game is much different but the fantasy lives forever on the internet. So what my question is are you happy and what makes you happy?

In episode 16 I talked about Banding In Europe and what it was like to tour Europe for the first time in hardcore band. At the end of that episode I talked about how my band Earthmover broke up and play our last show. This was a pretty difficult time in my life but ya know with every great tragedy comes an opportunity for great triumph. I think at the time we were all just on different pages and wanted to go down different paths. This happens a lot when you are in your 20’s. I think there are so many variables kind of swirling around that just made our minds wander. I mean the grass is always greener right. We would see other bands doing well and just crushing it and you always wonder how and why it’s happening for them but not for us. But the reality is that it’s all about perception. Everyone always seems to judge themselves against someone else to see how you size up but the variables never make it apples to apples. 

 

This is why things like Instagram are so dangerous because it always looks so much more amazing than it is. There are so many people and companies that are doing a fake it till you make it a strategy and all you're getting is just a glimpse of what's happening in their life. It's almost like watching a movie where you never see like the main character stop to eat or go to the bathroom or fill up their car with gas unless it’s somehow relevant to the story. Most of these things are kind of rooted in reality but it's like an alternate 1985 type reality. It's like you're getting a story but just a part of it and the rest of it we just make up in our heads.

So anyway back to the band, when Earthmover came home from Europe a few of us decided to start a new band. We had all done Earthmover for a bunch of years even though it was still pretty fun it just came down different kinds of dudes want to do different kinds of things. It’s funny we decided to start a new band like it was the only option. No one was like yeah I’m going to get this job or start a family. All we wanted to do was being a touring band. When Earthmover broke up 3 new bands came out of it. Andy started a band called Bloodpact, Lenny started a band called Cast In Fire and Mike and Aaron and I started a band called Walls Of Jericho. A few weeks after we got home from Europe we started talking about the new project. We wrote a few songs then we started auditioning members of the band. Earthmover had a good name in Detroit so the new “Earthmover” band had people excited. We had a handful of people that were interested in trying out. Most of them had no idea what we were doing they just knew that they wanted to be a part of what we were doing next and that was a pretty cool feeling. One thing that Earthmover did really well before I was in the band was making things more communal. An Earthmover show in Detroit was always an event. It was almost like a party and everyone just showed up and it was usually pretty awesome. Of course we would have occasional fights or a dude getting pepper sprayed and thrown down the stairs but overall it was usually pretty cool. Earthmover had a lot of friends. Some of them were in bands but most of them were just dudes that we hung out with. This lead to a bunch of calls from people wanting to try out for the new band. We were trying out guitar players and singers. I won’t go into the who tried out for what but in the end we had 5 of us. This was my first time ever auditioning someone for a spot in a band. Since everyone we auditioned were out friends it was nice because we generally only had people in that we liked so it was more about their ability than their personality so I think that made it a little easier. We got our friend Kevin on Guitar who played guitar in this Detroit band called Tank and then we got Candace to sing. Candace was a girl that sang in this cool local band called Apathemy. We didn’t plan on having a girl singer she just happened to crush everyone else that tried out.

So we officially had a band and we quickly wrote 4 or 5 songs and jumped in the studio recorded a Demo. It came out pretty sweet. It was raw and gritty and angry it was everything that it should have been at the time. Our first run of cassettes was 250 with maybe blue, yellow and red tape covers. Of course we did them at Kinkos at 3AM this was when all the genius happened. The goal was to get the tapes ready to sell at the last Earthmover show. This was a great strategy because we knew there would be hundreds and hundreds of kids there to see Earthmover so it was a perfect time to drop the new stuff.

I talked a little about the last show a few episodes ago and how the show was just absolutely crazy. I think there were 8 bands that were playing but only 7 of them showed up. This is where the stars aligned. We had our demos in the back and were selling a good amount. Then once we heard that one of the bands weren’t going to make it, we had a small meeting and decided that we would have Walls of Jericho jump up and play 4 quick songs. We didn’t plan on having the new band play but it just worked out so we got up and played. From the opening note the place just went nuts. It was hot and sweaty and there were bodies flying everywhere. We played 4 songs and after that we sold every demo that we made. 250 demos were gone! 

We thought we had something good so we put it out into the world and performed like it was the last show we were ever going to play in the world and people were stoked. We played one show and got offers for 3 or 4 more, then weekend shows on the East Coast then we recorded a 7” and CD EP and tour offers started coming in. Then we got signed to a record label and recorded a full length. Then more tour offers came in. Things just kind of snowballed. This is where you wish that you had a crystal ball to see what was coming next. 

You can only make decisions based on the knowledge that you have obtained right up until that point of decision time. There are some things of course that you can assume like getting hit in the face with a hammer, you know it’s probably going to hurt. But like matrix stuff like Red Pill Blue Pill you just don’t always know what’s coming next. Our goal was to keep the machine moving. These decisions came quick and often and you just have to roll with it. Our goal was to play as much as we could. The more we were out on the road the more we didn’t have to be at home working our crappy jobs. Touring obviously takes a huge told on your personal life, it’s hard on relationships, friendships, family events, you miss weddings, funerals, births of babies and pretty much anything that’s really important because you are grinding it out on the road. The booking agents kept calling and so we kept going out. I think the more variables you have in your life the more difficult it is to keep the dream alive especially if you are trying to balance it all. These variables of course being relationships, friends, family, kids, jobs and so on. Once you start questioning yourself and asking is it all worth it you are usually halfway out the door. Most of the bands that are out touring and playing small venues aren’t doing it for the money so when the bad outweighs the good the choices get much easier. Your PMA  is a hard thing to keep alive when it’s no longer fun and your belly is more empty than not.

 

For me, I had a lot of variables and I was still trying to do everything at once. I lived in a cool house in Detroit with amazing roomates, I had a girlfriend that was fantastic, I still had my job at FedEx whenever I was home and I was still trying to go to school on top of playing in a full time band. It really didn’t make sense for me to really burn every candle at every end possible so I had to start making hard choices. 

 

I realized that I needed to do something different. I needed a change. My drive had been replaced with the feeling that playing on stage was no longer fun, long van rides and arguments on the phone were taxing and awful. I needed a change. I had a plan to move out to Seattle and finish school but then quickly realized that  I still just wasn’t ready. Even though I moved out there with the idea that I wanted to finish school I still had the same itch to play music, and tour and do everything but that.

 

I think I had this perception that If I eliminated all of the distractions in my life I would be able to focus and finish school and start a “career”. The distractions were not the problem. I was the problem. I hadn’t found the things that made me happy. It took me a lot longer than others to find the things that truly made me happy. What makes you happy and how long did it take you to find it?

 

 So let’s talk about what did I really learn from all this

I learned that if you try to go down 10 paths at once you are not setting yourself up for success and you will fail before you even think about starting. It probably will not be a fail forward where you learn something unless you are really able to get out of the forrest to see where things really went wrong.

 

I learned how to better navigate change. I think when I was younger I wasn’t very good at change. I think kind of starting over gives you a new perspective but with more knowledge behind you so you at least have a chance to not make the same mistakes over and over again.

 

I learned that my drive now comes from a place that incorporates my variables instead of working the variables working against me and that burning the candle at both ends is ok if you understand how to prioritize and manage your time as well as understanding your primary, secondary and tertiary goals.

 

 

So are a few questions for you. What did you learn? What’s makes you happy? Why do you do what you do?

Shoot me your answers at hustlethemost.com

Not too long after coming home from Europe I was about to move into my first apartment and start school at Eastern Michigan University. I’d spent the 2 years prior going to Mott Community College in Flint and trying to get all my basic classes out of the way. This was the plan that I had kind of proposed to my Dad a few years back. Community college was just highschool but not my highschool it was more like what we saw on TV shows where you rarely saw people in class but you would always see them sitting out in the quad. Of course since I went to school in Michigan and not California people were only hanging out on the quad about a quarter of the time. Community college was fun because there were a lot of high schools around town and if people went to community college then they probably went to Mott. The classes were good and I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on what was going for and which classes I was taking and why. I was going to school for Marketing.

 

Not too long after coming home from Europe I was about to move into my first apartment and start school at Eastern Michigan University. I’d spent the 2 years prior going to Mott Community College in Flint and trying to get all my basic classes out of the way. This was the plan that I had kind of proposed to my Dad a few years back. Community college was just highschool but not my highschool it was more like what we saw on TV shows where you rarely saw people in class but you would always see them sitting out in the quad. Of course since I went to school in Michigan and not California people were only hanging out on the quad about a quarter of the time. Community college was fun because there were a lot of high schools around town and if people went to community college then they probably went to Mott. The classes were good and I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on what was going for and which classes I was taking and why. I was going to school for Marketing. 

 

It’s funny I remember a few years back when I was in High School we had career day and it was ok. You basically went to the career lab and talked to this lady about your interests and told her what you were passion about and then you had to take a short quiz on the computer. I remember answering all the questions and then I clicked submit and it printed out my results. I imagine that some people got things like fire fighter, retail store manager or normal things. Me on the other hand, I could never get something normal. No police officer, magazine editor, designer, for me it was Acrobat. The machine told me that I should become an acrobat. Thinking back I don’t recall any questions on quiz like “Do you enjoy doing flips”, “Do you often tumble gracefully”, “Have you ever walked on a wire”. Nothing like that but somehow someway I get Acrobat. I remember the lady printing it out and just looking at it and then looking at me with this face of confusion mixed with disappointment. It was a pretty awful experience. 

 

So I was taking classes in the marketing program which was like Marketing, Management, Advertising and stuff like that and it was awesome. I loved it and I was pretty good at it. It was community college so it was pretty easy. I think I learned a lot there but not really about marketing so much but more about navigating the system, balancing time and effort with my classes as well as working full time and playing in a band. 

 

So after 2 years of going to Mott Community College I did the Euro tour then in the fall I headed off to Eastern Michigan University to live with Phil and finish up school. I think I have talked about this is some other episodes but Eastern is located in Ypsilanti MI which is right next to Ann Arbor where the University of Michigan is located. Eastern is a pretty typical University campus it had a lot of the same things that Mott had but it was way bigger and there were lots of dorms so everything seemed much farther away and parking was a total nightmare. I remember these commuters would show up in the parking lot like 3 hours before their class so that they could find a spot. They would just sit in their cars and read and study and wait for someone to pull out. I would call them hawks because they are just circling their prey and waiting for them to move to they could pounce on their spot.

 

So this was 1998 and the internet was a thing but nowhere near as versatile as it is today. Today when you go to register for your classes you go on to a website and add the class numbers or search for the classes and once you find the class there is all this information in the body talking about the class. Things like how many credits it is, the days and times that it’s offered, any prerequisites you may need to take and things like that. Eastern Michigan in 1998 and these giant phone books with all the classes in them and these rooms down in the registration area that were filled with phones and you had to register for your classes by looking up the class in the book then trying to register for the class by phone. It was a pretty antiquated system but it was the best they had and they had done it that way for years and years.

 

I remember I had no plan. I never met with a counselor. I just had this book and I was registering for classes under the marketing program. Looking back I am not sure why I did this. I remember I had some pretty bad social anxiety happening at the time and I remember asking people questions made me feel very awkward in my own skin. I would get sweaty and nervous and always felt like everyone knew everything that was going on except me. This was strange to because at Mott I had met with my counselor 4-5 times while I was there and he helped me plan every semester out. He knew every class that I needed to take while I was there and he made sure that I got into the class. I learned how this all worked at Mott and when I got to Eastern I completely abandoned the whole idea of meeting with a counselor and just did my own thing. It was a total bonehead move. Who does this. It’s like I went rogue. I guess I kind of compare to when you are a passenger in a car before you are able to drive and you think you know where you are going all the time but then once you start driving at first you forget how to get places. Like maybe you know the road or the end destination but the details on the turns are kind of fuzzy because now you aren’t just watching the roads you are concentrating on driving and trying to remember how to get to a place. I think my social anxiety got the best of me. At the time if I was in a store or something and had to use the bathroom I would’ve rather ran in any direction looking for a bathroom then ask someone where the bathroom was. It’s like I was nervous about everything. It was just normal to me because I lived with it everyday but looking back I probably should have tried to get some help to deal with it.

 

So I went to Eastern for about 2 years and it never really amounted to much. I don’t think I was ready for school. I didn’t really have much guidance or support from my dad mainly because he didn’t have any money to really help contribute so the way that he dealt with it was to kind of ignore it. I know tons of people that went straight from Highschool to a 4 year college and graduated and went off to join the work force. That was never me. There wasn’t one thing about my life that was “traditional” so I guess why would college experience be any different. Looking back I just wasn’t ready. I had too many other things in the fire that I was trying to succeed at. I was touring in my band, booking shows, designing record covers and working and really just trying to survive. I guess If I went to school and just worried about school and had a clear cut to path I probably could have gotten through it just like everyone else. I mean maybe. Or Maybe not. 

 

I learned that I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself by making assumptions. I would assume that by asking a question someone was going to judge me. They were going to think I was stupid or worse. The people are there and get asked questions all day. That’s their job, they are a resource for me and for us.

 

I talked earlier about how I learned to navigate the system when I was in community college. I learned who to talk to and where and I was comfortable with it. Once I got to a bigger school I felt a lot less comfortable with it and I lost all confidence in my abilities to navigate my education. So what I didn’t know then that I know now is to ask questions. Ask every question you can about anything and everything. Don’t fear being judged by anyone. Just ask more questions. Always

 

The last thing that I really learned looking back on this is that I was never going to be an acrobat. I like jumping on trampolines but I think if I did it for a job I would probably love it less. But really there is nothing wrong with being nontraditional in anything you may do. It’s not so much about the way that you do something but it’s about the fact that you Do Something. The path to your future it’s always as carved out as you would like it to be and you can’t always compare yourself to others. The amount of variables and barriers that you may have to overcome opposed to someone else are sometimes unmeasurable. Don’t be afraid to carve out that road and make it yours.

So in 1998 which was the summer before I moved in with Phil I was drummining in a band called Earthmover. We were a hardcore band from Detroit and we had a few records out and done a handful of small tours and  bunch of weekends all over the east coast. We had just released a new record a few months earlier and were about to head out on our first European tour. I can’t tell you how stoked I was. I was going to Europe to travel and play drums!  had this record label in Europe that we working with that was pressing all of our vinyl. In hardcore this was pretty standard that bands would have a record label in the states that put out there cassettes and CD’s and then in have a label in Europe that pressed all vinyl then it would be distributed to other distros or record stores. It was pretty cool because sometimes you would see records that made it back here to the states from other bands or distros and it would be strange because it would be something that you had never seen before. It would be CD’s that you own but everything just looks bigger. I think the weirdest would be when you would see a record of your own band that you had never seen before. Something about seeing the artwork in a different medium it just really cool.

 

So the label we were working with was called Genet records and they were based out of Belgium. They were pressing all of our vinyl for the new record. The label also had a big hand in this big festival in Belgium called “Ieper Fest”. This fest was great because people from all over Europe would come to this show. Usually on the bill were a few American Bands, and then a bunch of different Euro bands from places like Italy, German, Holland, the UK and all over the place. This was the first time Earthmover had been there so people were pretty excited. Generally people over there were pretty stoked on most american bands. The label put us on the fest and then we worked with a few other companies, promoters and bands to basically book a tour around the fest. So 1 big festival and then a handful of supporting shows. This tour had lots of crazy adventures from the very beginning. We started the tour by driving our van from Detroit to Orlando so we could catch our flight. At the time there was an airline called City Bird that flew from like 5 destinations out of the US and only went to Brussels International Airport in Belgium and only on Wednesdays. The tickets were cheap I think it was like $330 roundtrip.

I think you can find deals like this now for cheap but at the time this was a pretty good deal. I think one of the reasons we booked with them was because they  had less restrictions on luggage so we could bring guitars and drum stuff without paying crazy amounts of fees.

So we drove to 24 hours to Orlando and left our van with our friends in the band Drag Body. We headed off to Europe. It was like an 8 hour flight. The flight was pretty uneventful for the most part. I remember we got there and our driver was waiting for us at the airport and we went right to the label. We didn’t really have anywhere to go so we just went there. We got in like 2 or 3 days early. Since the flight came in on a Wednesday and the first day of the fest was Friday we had a few days to kill. The guy that owned the label was a dude named Bruno and he and his wife owned record store in Gent Belgium called Pryuss and they also had an apartment above the store where they lived. We were shacked up there for few days and we would go out and explore the city and just hang around the front of the store looking like weirdo Americans that completely didn’t fit in. Fun fact: This was the first place that I had ever had the ability to buy waffles in a vending machine on the street. 

The record store was cool. There was so much cool stuff in there. Lots of vinyl and CD’s cool Euro posters and banners of bands that had come over. As far as records stores go this store was the place to be. About a year before we came over our guitar player Andy started swapping records with Bruno. Andy ran a distro and record label called Plus Minus Records. So real quick in punk and hardcore we they used to have these things called “Dirstos” which are basically small record stores but without actually having a store. So when Earthmover released a record like 10% of them would be traded to distro and in return he would get records from other bands and he would sell them at shows. Back before everyones music was online or the bands were small bands and their records weren’t carried in stores this is how we all got new records. He would trade like 10 CD’s to Bruno and Bruno would send Andy 10 CD from his bands. This is how we learned about bands like Liar, Congress, Facedown, Arkangel and all kinds of other euro bands. One of the first dudes we met in Belgium was a guy named Hans who was the singer of a cool Belgian metal band called Lair. They were pretty rad. Hans worked at the store and he was awesome.

 

 Most of the younger people that we came across in Belgium spoke some sort of English. The older people usually spoke Flemish which is this weird Dutch, French, German hybrid language. I can’t believe how many people I met over there that learned to speak English by listening and singing along with Iron Maiden records! The store had a lot regulars that would just come by to hang out so we got to meet a handful of people right off the bat which was pretty cool. I remember being upstairs in the apartment watching some weird Belgian TV show and our guitar player Andy came up stairs and told me that someone was downstairs looking for me and I was kind of like “what” and he’s like yeah come down stairs. I went down totally thinking there would be some half naked drunken homeless guy dancing in the street. So I get downstairs and my friend Jay Parkin from Flint Michigan was standing in the middle of the record store with his arms out waiting for a hug.

I guess at the time his girlfriend lived in Belgium and he was there visiting her and they were looking for this record store that we happened to be staying above. The world definitely got a lot smaller that day! 

So Friday finally comes and we head to the fest and when we get there it’s total chaos there are tents and busses, and sprinter vans and trailers. It’s totally crazy but like a good kind of crazy. I remember freaking out a little because they had these weird outdoor urinal things for dudes that were designed for you to just pee in them but out in the open.

 

They are designed so 4 people can be peeing at the same time. It was pretty weird but when you gotta go you gotta go. I’ll throw a photo of one up on the hustlethemost.com blog. Anyway, we got the fest early in the day and we didn’t play until like 10:00 on Saturday so we just hung out around the fest, watched a few bands. There was another American band that we new from Florida that was headlining Friday night. They were called Culture. We had played a handful of shows with them in the states over the years but they were rolling with a different line up that we had seen before. Actually now that I think about it, they were actually on our flight on the way over and the pilot had to turn on the seat belt sign because we were all congregating around each other’s seats and just talking shopThey were on the same flight as us so when we saw them at the fest it was like we were old friends! They headlined Friday night and when they played it was absolute chaos.

They were huge in Europe I was standing on the stage when they played and it was like 2000 people going nuts and probably half of them had cameras. There were so many flashes I felt like I was watching Rocky 4 when they have that press conference scene with Ivan Drago. It was completely awesome.

I honestly don’t remember where we stayed that night I think they had a place for the bands to stay but I can’t even remember where it was or what it looked like. Saturday came around and we spent another day hanging at the fest. We played at like 10 PM Saturday night as a headliner and it was crazy. I remember trying to carry out gear through this massive crowd of people.

 

 

The place was called VORT'N VIS which in Flemsh translated to “The Rotten Fish”. It was actually an old fish market so it smelled not the best and when the heat got up there from having 2000 people moshing it up in this place it smelled like straight up death. We get on stage, it’s super hot and sweaty and we just let loose! 24 hours in van, 9 hours on a plane and 48 hours of sitting around a record store and 2 days waiting at the fest to play and we just ripped it. People were flying all over the place and it was pretty awesome! 

 

 

 

We started in Belgium then off to places like Germany, Holland, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Most of the shows were OK at best but was fun because we kept jumping from country to country and there was so much to see. We were traveling in a full size Mercedes Sprinter Van with a big sleeping loft built into the back of it. Aside from the backdoors flying open once and us spilling like 500 CD’s all over the autobahn it was pretty sweet. We had a few shows set up in Italy but just before them we had 2 days off. We met up with the guy that was putting on the show his name was Marco and asked us if we wanted to go to the beach. We of course were like YEAH we were in Italy in the middle of summer and it was hot! This guy took us to the beach and we all were so stoked. We all ran out of the van and jumped right in the Adriatic Sea. It was so amazing. We all turned immediately into little kids just splashing each other and being dumb. The beach was cool it was white sand and  it like an on the sand restaurant and all these chairs with the umbrellas it was cool. The little restaurant sold like burgers and fries and other sandwiches. So we were all swimming for a few hours and we came out of the water and Marco who had come to the beach with us was gone.

We followed him there in our van and then he just bounced. So we’re all sitting around kind of waiting for him to come back and then we hear this girl yell out from the restaurant “Americans, Food” so we walked up there and there was a huge spread of pasta and breads and drinks. We were all like uhhh, for us. She said “yes for you” and we all sat down and ate then said thank you and went back out to the chairs and just kind of hung out. Right around dark the placed closed down and everyone left. We were still hanging around waiting for Marco to show back you but he never did. Instead they opened the bar back up for us and started up music and we had this dance party with the people that ran the restaurant and a bunch of their friends and us. We were playing foosball and ping pong and playing frisbee it was awesome. About 3 in the morning we finally called it a night and we all climbed in the van and went to sleep. The people that worked there stayed in these yurt kind of houses that were next to the restaurant on the beach. I think a few of the “Friends” just slept in their cars. The next morning we woke up in our steaming hot van and ran out in the sea again. 10 minutes we hear again “Americans, food” and we walked up and there was a huge spread again of breads and jellies and jams. The girls name that ran the place was Sylvia and her best friend was also called Sylvia. They were pretty great and apparently they were friends of Marco and he told them to take care of us and that he would be back in 2 days to pick us up. No one told us that. Once again we hung out there all day and at night the party started again. That night we ate lots of weird ice creams and listen to lots of obscure Italian punk bands. The next morning Marco rolls up in his little Italian car and asked if we were ready to go. We all piled in the van and headed out to play a show.

 

The show we played was funny because it was at some place that no one really cared that we were there and no one really paid attention. The entire tour we were using backline equipment with basically means that we brought our essentials like I brought cymbals, snare, sticks and my pedal and I would just use what ever house drums were laying around. Andy had to play out this little combo amp that was so small that when we were playing we actually started having a conversation in the middle of the song just because we could. The rest of the tour was fine we were all pretty strapped for cash toward the end. I think touring is tough in general because you have 4, 5, or 6 dudes in a tight space and people just get cranky. It’s really difficult to navigate. People get hot or hungry or tired and other people are yelling when others are trying to sleep and it just get’s tough. The goal sometimes is to just hold it together. You’re in an emotional pressure cooker and you have to try to be empathetic and understanding and also keep calm and just not blow up in every situation. With a bunch of dudes in their 20’s it’s definitely a challenge. Lots of bands break up in Europe. It happens all the time. People get left there, people quit, people get into fights, or go to jail or just get plain sick of each other. Either way it happens it happens. Earthmover was no exception, we went over and basically called it quits before we got on the plane back home. With so many variables that we are trying to navigate it’s much harder to stay in and keep it going. It’s a weird balance of working crappy jobs so you can go on tour and play shows but when you play shows and come home broke you wonder what is it all for. These questions come up over and over again when you are in a band trying to grind it out on the road. 

We came home from Europe and played our last show in Detroit a few months after that tour. It was an amazing show and lot’s of friends came from all over the place to be there. We crammed about 1000 people into a place that holds about 400 and it was hot and sweaty and pretty awesome.

 

 

 

I think the first thing I learned that you have to be open to new things and new experiences. I think we spend a lot of time being safe and sticking with what’s in our comfort zone. Sometimes you have to just say yes and don’t think about it. Once you start thinking about you will start selling yourself on all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it. I think I said this before, its lie trying new foods. The first question is: am I going to die? Hopefully the answer is no and then you can just get to gettin. 

 

This is the band where I really learned the ins and outs of touring and traveling. It seems like common sense but you would be surprised. You need little systems and routines for things like keeping your self occupied, or keeping your headphones close, keep food in your bag or having a book handy at all times. These are little things that keep you sane and keep you together. I think you have to know how and when to retreat into yourself for a while and then come back out when its time to play. Being in a band and traveling around the world isn’t for everyone. You just have take care of your mental and physical state at all times.

 

I think the last thing that I learned was navigating a band is really no different than navigating a group of co workers or members of your team. There are always people that you gel more with than others. There are always the ones that are the loudest or the most demanding. It takes all kinds of people to make the machine work. I think sometimes in our careers we get thrown into that emotional pressure cooker but I think the goal is the same you have try to be empathetic and understanding and also you just have to just stay calm and try not to blow up.

So as you know or if you are listening for the first time the Hustle The Most podcast is a series of short stories that talk about all things heart, hustle, innovation and design and more. One of my favorite parts of the podcast is talking about what I have learned from these adventures and the talking with the guests that I have had in to share and partake in the memories. Some of these stories are 30 years old. It’s weird the things that we remember. The things that stick out in our head as relevant. How is something that happened to 30 years ago still living in my head where I can just access them anytime I want. It’s weird to me that memories that are 30 years old can be just as relevant and as impactful as memories from last week.

So as you know or if you are listening for the first time the Hustle The Most podcast is a series of short stories that talk about all things heart, hustle, innovation and design and more. One of my favorite parts of the podcast is talking about what I have learned from these adventures and the talking with the guests that I have had in to share and partake in the memories. Some of these stories are 30 years old. It’s weird the things that we remember. The things that stick out in our head as relevant. How is something that happened to 30 years ago still living in my head where I can just access them anytime I want. It’s weird to me that memories that are 30 years old can be just as relevant and as impactful as memories from last week.

 

 

Doing a podcast is a total adventure. I have had so many people out of the blue tell me that they have been listening to the podcast. It’s a cool feeling and I am still learning how to say thank you after they tell me. I mean it’s a compliment but some of us are just not as good at taking compliments as others. 

We are only 15 episodes and I have already learned so much about things I hadn’t really thought about before. I have done a good amount of presenting and public speaking but something is very different about it when it’s being recorded. I think when you are live and presenting things just come out the way they come out maybe you have practiced it and maybe you haven’t but it just happens. When you are recording you have the option to go back and listen and a lot of times this is where people get hung up and things die. I think now about things like inflection and being descriptive and keeping a good pace. I had this conversation with someone the other day about doing the podcast and they were saying that they could never do a podcast because they hated the sound of their own voice and it was just weird to them. Here’s the thing, it’s only weird to you. Unless you have some crazy high pitch or crazy low voice that makes you actually sound weird or different to anyone listening it’s just another voice. I think once you can get over that self created hump of weirdness you will be in pretty good shape. 

 

I had a lot of fun this season telling stories and talking with guests. I am really enjoying doing the podcast alone but I really like the break or bringing guests in. I like reliving and then reflecting on these stories and really thinking about what I have learned and how they have shaped me to become the person that I am today. I bet if you think back there are a lot of little parts and pieces that have helped to shape and mold you. For some people it’s school or their parents, siblings, the military or maybe a job or even several jobs. Every little episode of your life can provide you with things like perspective, or manners, or attributes that you carry with you throughout your life. I talked in one of the early episodes about taking acquired skills with your from job to job and applying them to add value to you and to your position. These aren’t things you can buy or learn about in books these are things that you learn by doing and by having on the job real life learnings. 

 

I just had this conversation with a Grad student the other day about kids that have spend their entire lives in school going from highschool to undergrad to grad school and they are looking for their first job ever when they get out or grad school. This is opposed to kids that go from highschool to undergrad and work in their field while going to grad school. Their perspective is completely different and your frame of reference comes from a place of living and working in that world VS just studying and learning about it in school. I am not saying that it’s worse one way or the other I am just saying it changes they way you see things that how you apply your skills.

 

I remember in episode 4 when I was talking about how I had the rug ripped out from under me and I worked really hard for this money to buy a moped then I had to sell it because the cops told me that I was too young to ride it so I traded it for a skateboard that was then ran over and smashed by a car. If that had happened to my friend instead of me I wouldn’t have really learned anything from it. It would have been a cool story that I got to witness but at the end of the day it really wouldn’t have affected me very much. However, since it did happen to me my perspective is completely different. I worked hard and laid in the dirt for days to earn that money, I put the work and the time in and in the end everything that I had worked so hard for was smashed to bits. It’s crazy how many times I have thought about that car running over my skateboard. Whenever I see it happen to anyone else I have complete empathy for them and it just breaks my 12 year old heart all over again.

 

I think we had some fun guests so far. I was pretty stoked to get to do 2 episodes with Brandon and 2 episodes with Phil. The episodes with Brandon were super fun because as we have gotten older we don’t hang out much anymore. I see him every once in a while when our paths happen to cross but those are few and far between. We had so much fun when we were kids and we learned a lot together. First bands, first jobs, first cars. Lots of firsts. I think I’m going to try to have him on for a few more episodes.

 

I think having Phil on the podcast was great, that dude is so wicked smart. He knows so many random things and when he shares them you can’t help but to go home and look them up on google. We have had more debates while sitting at vegan breakfast joints than I can even count. I’d like to have him on again too. We talked about our history together which was awesome but we need to tap into his brain and extract some of the randomness and share it with the world. Phil likes to play this game called “do you know how this is made”. He does let you guess a few times before he tells you that you are wrong but it’s still a pretty fun game to play. Here is a quick 6º of separation  when I met Phil at that house show in Detroit Brandon was probably right next to me but he was never mentioned in the story when I was talking to Phil. I think they are kind of aquantiencies and maybe friends online or something. It’s funny Phil and I actually went skateboarding just a few days ago actually 1 day after my 41st birthday and we were skating this sweet 4’ mini ramp that’s in Holland MI.

 

 

The ramp is like 4 feet tall about 24 feet wide. It super fun to skate. Anyway I hadn’t been on my skateboard in about 2 years so it took me a few runs to actually get my bearings and sure enough as soon as I got a little comfortable I fell and landed on my wrist and broke a few small bones in my hand. I’ve been wearing a brace on my hand for a few days now and it hurts to even type.

 

 

 

 

 

This is kind of dumb and crazy I hurt my wrist on Thursday and my band had a show booked already to play on Saturday and I play the show all tapped up and winced the entire time. Was it worth is probably not, was it fun yea of course, should I have cancelled, probably but sometimes you have to hustle the most even with a broken hand.

 

 

 

I think the first thing I learned is that there is a lot more to a podcast than just talking into a mic especially if you are doing everything yourself. 

I really learned this while I was starting KBrakes but completely applied it to Hustle The Most. A lot of people like to or even have to job things out in order for their ideas to live on. If you don’t have the tools in your bag then of course this makes total sense and this is totally ok but I learned if you do everything yourself you are the only responsible for the output of whatever it is that you are creating. It’s so much easier to say “well I sent the file over to so and so and I am just waiting to hear back”. When you are a one person show the only one that can really slow you down is yourself. Your creation may not always be amazing but at least you are in control of the when the how and the what.

 

I learned that you have to get over thinking about the “what are other people going to think” mentality or the I can’t because my voice sounds weird. I promise you it’s only weird to you and the chances that anyone is going to come up to you after listening to your podcast and tell you that you voice is weird is slim to none.

 

I think lastly I learned that podcasting is fun and it can create engagement, it can educate people, entertain people and most of all it can inspire people. Think about the last thing you heard that really inspired you to do something. Maybe it was a movie, a song, maybe it was an instagram video of Dewong Song skateboarding on a mini ramp and you decided to try to and you broke your hand.

 

Either way good or bad you were inspired to do something and you went out and did it and that’s what hustle the most is all about.