Rick Beato

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast, Like
Yesterday is the King of Music YouTube, Rick beat Rick,
Hey Bob, how are you okay? Rick? You do a
lot of analysis in your videos. What makes a hit record? Well,
I think that depends on on what era you're talking about,

(00:28):
But you know, typically a melody. I think the melody
catches people's ears or at least used to catch people's
ears first, and then uh, if they like the melody,
then they will listen to the lyrics. So that's uh,
but there's a lot of there's a lot of other
things that make hit records, and that's kind of my
what makes this sound great series is about there's a

(00:50):
lot of background instrumentation, whether it's a piano line, stringline,
you know, some type of synthpad that has a melodic
hook in it that grabs people's ears, especially at key
points emotionally in the lyrics, typically in the chorus. So okay,
you do certain videos where you'll do like the top

(01:13):
ten on Spotify or iTunes or boomers listening to modern music.
So what's your viewpoint on the modern music landscape? Well,
I yeah, you know, it's a lot different than it
was thirty years ago. Obviously. I just did a breakdown
of kiss from a Rose on my channel that I
put out yesterday or two days ago, seals song, which

(01:35):
is an incredibly great song and was a number one
song in UM. And that's where pop music was then
years ago, and pop music is in a very different
place right now. Obviously, with the advent of pro tools, logic,
all the different home recording systems that there are, people

(01:56):
make records on their own without the aid of professionals typically,
and what you get is some incredibly creative things and
some not so creative things. And I think that, uh,
the lack of experts involved in some ways, uh diminishes
some of the results. And when I say experts, I

(02:17):
mean professional producers, professional UM arrangers. The string arrangement and
Kissed from a Rose is absolutely phenomenal. UM. You used
to have people like Paul buck Master and Dudley I
think did the string arrangement for that, you know, people
that were just geniuses. And Trevor Horne was the producer

(02:39):
of that record, and you had you had these really
talented people like Daniel Lenoian and Brian eno and and
George Martin, just genius producers that could help, whether it's
with parts, with orchestrations, with arrangements, and a lot of
times nowadays people work on their own. Artists work on

(03:00):
their own record things, spend hours and hours using logic
coming up with their own sounds. Some of them are
incredibly creative and you could only come up with them
if you spend hours and hours on your own. But
the level of sophistication of most popular music. When I
say popular music, I mean at the top of the charts.
When I do these countdowns, one thing I noticed is

(03:22):
that there's very little harmonic sophistication, meaning the chord progressions
are very basic nowadays. Um. And you also get a
lot of UM. You don't get the high fidelity like
you used to have. You know, even in genres like
metal rock, there's just you know, badly recorded guitars. Um.

(03:47):
You know. We used to have dedicated mixed engineers to
mix professional records, Bob Clear, Mountain, people that were pros
Andy Wallace, and you still have. For for major label records,
you'll get Serb in Guinea or people like that. But
a lot of records are mixed by the artists, and
some of them sound really good. But I think the

(04:09):
popular music could benefit from having some specialists involved. And
I don't mean people writing the songs, because there's too
many professional writers out there writing the songs. They need
to find kids that can write their own music themselves
without bringing in a bunch of people my age to
to write their hooks and and put a you know,

(04:29):
put put eleven people in a room to write music
by committee. There's my long answer. Okay, that's good. I
like long answers. Going back to your channel, So tell
me about your development of your channel, how it came
to be. So I was producing bands here in my
studio for Oh God. I built the studio in two

(04:50):
thousand five, but I've been producing I had been producing
bands since the mid nineties or so. And one day
I had an assistant. He came in. He said, you
should start to YouTube channel. And I said, who's gonna
watch a white haired guy on YouTube? He said no, no, no, no,
And I said, what would even be about? He said, no,
I'm telling you're an expert at all these different things.
You can talk about music production, music theory, music history, whatever.

(05:15):
I said. I don't even own a camera. I don't
know how to edit video. And he's like, I'll bring
in my camera tomorrow. We'll make your channel trailer. And said,
what's that? He said, that's the first thing that people
see when they come to your channel. They only see
it one time and then they never see it again.
So he brings in his computer the next day with
his camera and he films his trailer does b roll
And I watched him edit it and we put it

(05:36):
up And that was on June second, two thousand and sixteen,
so just five years ago. Actually yesterday was the five
year anniversary of my first video, thank you. So I
just started with with my iPhone making videos, not even
replacing the sound, and doing them at night when I
was producing bands, I would just put up my iPhone

(05:56):
on a stand and I started making videos with no expertations.
But if one looks back at your history, you did
have a viral video prior to this with your son
in perfect Pitch. How did that come to be? And
you've made a few videos before that, Why was that
one viral? And did that give you the idea that
there was a marketplace? Where did you have to wait

(06:17):
for the person working with you to bring up the idea?
So I I have a friend named Shane that was
over at my studio. I was producing a record of him.
He's a country artist and I'm a good friend of
mine and my son Dylan was down here and I
was playing chords and you know, showing Shane. He says, oh,
can you make a thing too so I can show
my wife Angie. And so I said, oh, Dylan, coming downstairs.

(06:40):
I want to do one of these things, you know,
things where I'll just play chords for you, just tell
me what they are. And he's like, oh, I don't
want to do it. And because I was getting ready
to go to a school board meeting, I was on
the school board at his school, I said, just come
down and take two minutes. So we come down record.
I put it and put it on Facebook, and I said, Shane,
I put this on Facebook for you. You can show
Angie and and and then Shane saw it and said

(07:05):
he ended up actually putting it on his Facebook and
it got three million views on mine. It got eighteen
million on his Facebook page. So okay, But you've made
a couple of videos with Dylan before. What was so
magical about this one? Um, it was just the complexity
of the things that he could hear when he I

(07:27):
realized he had perfect pitch when he was three, and
he had an incredibly good memory, and so I just
started teaching a music theory. So I said, Dylan, hey,
when you hear CEG, that's C major. Okay, yeah, I
got it, G B flat ds G minor. And I
just taught him the names of all these chords. It
doesn't matter what order they're in, that's what they are,
says okay and um. And then I taught him about

(07:50):
modes and all these things. So when I would play
then I would play two chords at the same time,
and he could tell what those were. And he just
can tell anything. Twelve note chords, didn't matter how distant
it was. He it here, break apart all the chords,
no matter how distant it is. He just has a
phenomenal ear. Well, how did you discover that he had
this year had perfect pitch. Well, I played him this

(08:13):
really complex music when before he was born, my wife
I was reading you know with my wife, you know, uh,
what to expect when you're expecting, and it says, oh,
the baby can hear it fifteen weeks or whatever. I said,
I'm gonna make a playlist, like said what she said
what I said, Yeah, I'm gonna make a playlist. I
made a playlist of all this really complex improvisation piano

(08:33):
music that a friend of mine i'dness and Turkish genius
improviser did that I recorded back in the eighties. So
I'm gonna make music. And I would put it on
my wafe's stomach every day for about thirty minutes when
we'd hang out together, and then, um, I did this.
I would sit with him when when he was born,
I'd sit with him for about an hour to two
hours every morning and uh and just listen to music

(08:55):
and dance around with him. And then that's all I did.
I never ever played any notes or anything like that.
And then when he was three and a half, then
we had our second daughter, Lennon, and my wife's like,
I don't want to do this headphone in the stomach thing.
I'm like, yeah, okay, no problem. I didn't think anything
of it. One day, I'm in the car and I
had been listening to John Williams soundtrack, so I said, Dylan, hey,

(09:16):
sing the intro to Star Wars, and he sings it,
and I go, I think that's in the right key,
and so I play it. It's like, that's in the
right key, and so it sings the intro to to
Indiana Jones. He's like da, and I was like, that's
in the right key too. I checked that I don't
have perfect pitch, but I have good, really good pitch memory.
So I turned the car around. I come back to
the studio here, and I had to know B flat

(09:38):
on the piano. So one noticed that Dylan because Star Wars,
and he goes Star Wars and Star Wars starts on
a big B flat major chord. Then I had to
know G and he goes Superman and Superman theme starts
on the no G. Then I had seen he goes,
that's the Excavator song. Some tuning, and then I realized
he had perfect pitch, and I taught him all twelve
notes right then, and that was it. It took me

(09:59):
five minutes and and then I was like, can you
what about two notes at a time. He's like yeah,
ce E flat G B. You know, I mean, it
didn't matter. So what's the status? How old is he today?
He's thirteen, So is he's still interested in music? Is
he pursuing this or this is just something he has
the ability to do. This is kind of something he
has ability do. He plays basketball, he plays video games.

(10:20):
Is thirteen year old? You know, he's he's He plays
the oboe in the school band, but he's not um.
And he likes to listen to music, but he's not
He doesn't really play an instrument. He's played, played a
little bit of guitar. He played piano for a few
years to piano lessons, but got disinterested in that and quit.
So okay, so even though you had this viral video,

(10:42):
you had no anticipation, no inkling that it should be
followed up. You had to have the guy working with
you in the studio to say he let's do a channel. Yeah,
so that the viral video has happened about probably eight
months before I started my channel, and they were on
Facebook on YouTube. I had a YouTube channel that I
based there was show videos to to my family. That'send

(11:03):
videos of my kids to my family. That's what it was.
So um um. I had about forty seven subscribers on
June eighth. And how many subscribers do you have today? Uh?
I don't know, almost two point four million. Okay, let's
break this down because everybody's not super sophisticated. What does

(11:23):
it really mean that someone subscribed to your channel? They
just hit that red subscribe button and then edit. Uh,
and it notifies them when I have a new video
come out or any type of release. And how are
they notified? Um, well, if they have the bell icon
there's there's different levels. There's three different levels of of notification.
But if they have the bell clicked, then they actually

(11:45):
get a notice on their phone. It's a you know,
it would be a drop down note notification if you
have your notifications enabled, that you would get saying I
have a new video out. Okay, you have three million subscribers,
but a good number of videos don't reach that quantity
in view, not that the ones that have two hundred

(12:06):
five hundred thousand that thought significant. Do you think those
are all subscribers watching? Do you think that word of mouth?
Why do you think certain subscribers don't watch certain videos?
That's a great question. So when I started my channel,
I started it as a channel for professional musicians, so

(12:27):
very sophisticated harmony. I did a lot of um film
scoring breakdown, I'd break down film cues, James Newton, Howard Thomas, Newman,
John Williams, Bernard Herman. I would take you know, I'd
take a section. Maybe I'd take the opening of the
Shawshank Redemption. I'd do a piano reduction of the orchestra,
and I would talk about it for thirty minutes or whatever.

(12:49):
So and then or I would do really sophisticated jazz improvisation.
And what I got were pros that followed my channel,
professional musicians that you know, wanted an out letter or
was we're looking for things, and it would suggest YouTube
would find those people that were interested in those kind
of things, And I really did. The algorithm of YouTube

(13:10):
would serve up that video you found. How that that
was how most people coming to your channel as opposed
to independent promotion you were doing yourself. Yeah, I did
no promotion. I've never done any promotion. Everything is based
on the algorithm of YouTube. So YouTube goes out there
and collects every person that looks up um, you know

(13:31):
the mix a Lydian mode, or that looks up Bernard Herman,
film scoring, or that looks up uh you know top
ten songs or or or mixing, how do you how
to mix drums or whatever? Whatever? The videos on it
goes out and finds those people that are interested, people
that like Joni Mitchell, We'll find my videos. I did

(13:53):
a video on the song Amelia, or I did the
song on Seal, so people that follow Seal. But I've
also done videos with you know, I've done a hundred
and five breakdowns of famous songs, So you figure out
the people that follow all those songs bands from Tool
to Boston to Steely Dan, to led Zeppelin, to the Beatles,
to the Rolling Stones too, you know, to Gordon Lightfoot. UM.

(14:17):
So it's anybody that watches Gordon Lightfoot videos will get
served up my video on if you could read my mind,
or people that like Joanie will get served up my
video on Amelia and then they watched that and then
they start getting recommended other videos that they think they'll like.
So that's kind of how you and my channel is

(14:37):
so varied. The content is so varied that it's picks up.
It's picked up. You know, let's go back five years ago.
So it starts out as professional, continue with the evolution,
so start up professional. UM. So that went for um
until the so from the summer of un till g

(15:00):
Annuary tight ofen when I had two hundred thousand subscribers,
and then I introduced this what Makes This Sound Great series,
and the first episode I did was on Blink one two,
and then I followed it up I think with Kid
Charlemagne by Steely Dan and from that first video, and
these are breakdowns of multi tracks of famous songs and

(15:23):
um and that's I started getting a thousand subscribers a
day then, and then eventually, uh in twenty nineteen and
I got up to I don't know, five hundred thousand.
Then I started doing these top twenty videos, Top twenty
Acoustic Guitar intros of all Time, Top twenty Guitar Solos

(15:43):
of all Time videos, and these videos got millions and
millions of views, and then I started getting two thousand
subscribers a day, and that just just pretty much gone on.
And uh So there's a certain segment of audience that
watches videos for that are based on classical music or jazz.
I made videos on My Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, uh,

(16:04):
Jimmy Cobb, West Montgomery, all these famous jazz musicians. I
made videos on famous classical musicians. I did a video
on Martha Argridge, who's one of the greatest classical pianists
of all time who just turned eight years old. I
did that video about a week and a half ago.
That one's got four and thirty thousand, four and fifty
thousand views. Um. And so those people aren't necessarily gonna

(16:25):
watch a video on corn or on h Lincoln Park
or or system of a down, but they're gonna watch
videos maybe on um UM. I don't know what they're
gonna watch videos on. But I have other classical oriented videos.
So it's it's a very segmented audience. Okay, let's go

(16:45):
back to so you start. The big issue that we
see evidenced online is few people have perseverance. How many
videos were you making and what was keeping you going?
I made probably why still make to this day? I
make twelve videos a month. Um. I shooting at it.

(17:09):
I have an assistant, but I'm pretty much shooting at
my own videos. UM myself and UM and I made
I'm the first year I probably made two and some
odd videos. Okay, so you start five years ago in June.
So how do you come up with twelve a month?

(17:31):
I don't mean how do you come up with how
do you come up with the number twelve. I just
started doing about every other day. Okay, And at what
point did you formalize it's like, well, it's twelve a month. No,
it was actually fifteen a month back then, because sometimes
I would make two videos a day. I didn't know
what I was doing, Bob. I would make a video
and I'd be like, you know, I have this idea,
and then I'd go and make do a live stream

(17:52):
after after I put out a video six hours before
I did a live stream because on some idea that
I had. Okay, let's let's slow down. So you start
to make videos. Your engineer second is helping you at first.
Now when you start to roll up, are you doing
it all alone? Or is he yes? No, No, he

(18:13):
didn't help me at all. He never edited any videos.
So I made the videos and edited them myself right
from the beginning. Okay. And what kind of equipment? What
level of equipment were you using the same as I
have now Final Cut pro and and my iPhone, But
now I have a nice sony camera, so I I
used up my iPhone and honestly, Bob, I used the
sound off my iPhone because I couldn't figure out well

(18:35):
I finally figured out how to how to drop in
audio uh into the videos as I got better as
an editor. Um, I just figured it out. It's very
much like editing audio because I've edited in pro Tools
forever doing music production, and uh, it's it's virtually the
same thing. You just look at the wave forms and
edit simple. I can edit very quickly. And if you

(18:59):
were remember how many views did the trailer get and
did you promote that amongst your community at all? I
did not promote it at all. My trailer is at
about a million views now. But then you starting, Oh
my first forty videos, I didn't have one that was
over a thousand views? What kept you going? Um? People

(19:23):
kept writing to me. I got you know, I got
an email from I would get emails from Dweezels, Appa
or Steve I or uh, you know, Victor Wootton or
people like that. I started getting emails from people within
a couple of months. Um, and then I started, you
know people, I interviewed people. I interviewed Steve I was
my first interview, and then I interviewed uh, I forget,

(19:47):
I forget who I remember interviewed Victor Wootton, I interviewed
Dennis Chambers, a little a lot of famous musicians, and
John Petrucci and Jordan Rutis from Dream Theater, and and
people from all different guitar players, bass players, drummers, um
and Chris Potter the Great suggest saxophonist. All these people
were I was doing videos, interview videos, all these kind

(20:09):
of things. And okay, let's let's look a little bit.
You say you were getting email. Were they posting on
YouTube on the channel? Were they literally sending you email?
And how did they get your email address? Literally sending
me emails the address because it would be if people
would ask me questions. I had so few views that
somebody asked me just email me, and I put my

(20:29):
email in the in the comments. Okay literally, okay, so
now you got the naxos, as they say, And yet
it's the good feeling of these legendary people contacting with you.
Are the views ascending five years ago? Um? No, you know,

(20:51):
I didn't have a viral video on YouTube for two
years or so. But I mean as I started getting
within within four months or so, I had maybe forty subscribers,
and then the views would start to you know, there
my big My first big video was Um, a video
called the double Harmonic major scale. Now I don't know why, Bob,

(21:11):
but it got like eight hundred thousand views or something.
It was a completely weird video that had a weird
I would make videos on scales, and it had a
weird composition that I did at the end, very distant.
It sounded a tonal but used only the seven notes
of the scale. And that was my first big video.
And I have no idea why it became a big video,

(21:32):
but um, but that you know, those are the kind
of things that that I was doing, and and the
videos would just start, you know, then every video would
have a thousand views, and then you'd have some videos
to pop up to ten thousand, somebody get fifty thousand,
and occasionally get a hundred thousand, and then they just
started all rising and rising. Were you a student of

(21:53):
the game looking at YouTube competitors if you found any
or what was going on? What were you just working
in the dark. Um. There's a guy that reached out
to me after when I had about four thousand videos.
He had a channel called Piano around the World and
he had he had forty seven thousand subscribers, and I thought,

(22:14):
oh my god, that that I can't even believe. How
did could you get ever get forty seven thousand subscribers.
He had a few videos that had millions of views,
and I remember saying to him, his name is Doton,
I said, I said, Doton, what if I can ask
you how much does a video pay that gets a
million views? He goes about bucks. I said, that's it.
It's like, yeah, he goes, you don't make any money

(22:37):
on YouTube, and um, and I was thinking, well, I'll
never get a million views on a video anyway, said
it doesn't matter. But I was just doing it for fun,
and the videos I would make it would take me. Um.
I mean, I never had to really look up anything, Bob.
I mean, I was a college professor in my twenties,
so I taught music. I taught arranging, improvisation, composition, all

(22:59):
this kind of stuff you raining, so I could make
the videos just on the fly. I never ever script.
I just go off the top of my head. Okay,
So how long would it take you to make a
video back then? Mm hmm maybe hour and a half
at the most, something like. Okay, so was it impacting
your other business to make these videos? Okay, how did

(23:19):
you decide on the length. Everybody told me make short videos,
and I said I couldn't make short videos. I was like, well,
I can't explain the things I need to explain in
ten minutes. So I made long videos. I made eighteen
minute videos, twenty five minute videos. What I didn't realize
was that YouTube actually is based on watch time, what

(23:40):
they look for. That's that's a big thing that you
come to figure out that. Um, if somebody watches fifty
of one of your videos, um, and it's eighteen minutes long,
they're watching nine minutes. Nine minutes is a very long
time for somebody to be engaged in YouTube, and you
tubes things about retaining people's attention and hopefully they will

(24:05):
binge watch your channel or go from your channel to
other channels and um, and just stay in YouTube so
they can sell advertising. I mean, I think that's what
the model is. So unbeknownst to me, making those long videos,
against what people told me to do, it was actually
really beneficial because your video rankings are based on views

(24:26):
and watch times. So if you have a twenty five
minute video that has four thousand views, when you look up,
you know, um, I did a video on compression. What
what what what the pros know about compression or something
like that that's got a million and a half views. Well,
it's a forty five minute video on compression, and it's

(24:48):
a whiteboard presentation with then with examples and pro tools
and demonstrating different compressors, how they work, optical compressors, uh,
you know, and all all different types of compressors and
and what they sound like and um. And since that
has is so long, the video length has so much

(25:10):
watch time and so many views, it ranks up there
when people look up compression on YouTube, that's like the
top video. Can you tell us more about the rankings? Yeah, tips,
So that's really how it's done. It's done through um.
You know, there's a there would be some keyword or
something that um that is in the title. Your title

(25:31):
should reflect you know, if if my video is about
Joni Mitchell, it's gonna say Joni Mitchell and the title.
And if the video has got half a million views, um,
it's going to get a high search ranking and and
um um. And that that's pretty much it with YouTube
is about video views and video retention. Okay, so you're

(25:56):
making these videos, it's essentially eighteen months before where you
have your first vinerl video from moment one, are you
signed up trying to monetize? Back then, UM, you could
monetize your videos immediately. You didn't need to have Nowadays
you have to have UM four thousand watch hours in

(26:18):
a thirty day period to be monetized. So basically, UM
that that's about a thousand subscribers. Because my friends that
have started YouTube channels, they don't get monetized till they
have about a thousand subscribers. But back then, in you
can monetize your channel immediately, so UM. But I found
out very quickly that if you play any music that

(26:41):
is UM has a content I declaim on it, you
don't get any monetization on the video. So I never
really made my channel about making money from views or
anything like that. That was not really the UM. Right
from the beginning, I decided, well, I'm gonna make videos
about the things I want to make them about, because

(27:02):
most of my other YouTube friends would just leave music
out of their videos because they didn't want to get demonetized.
It's like, what's the point of making videos on music
if you can't play music? It makes no sense, Like
I want to make videos on the things I want
to make videos on. So if I have to play
the song, I want to play the song, even if
it gets demonetized. I don't care. Okay, So you have

(27:23):
you have the breakthrough in January of Prior to then,
we would say your viewers were essentially professionals or serious hobbyists. Yeah, okay,
And once again, the breakthrough video was entitled what um
The breakthrough video is called the UM. Well, actually it

(27:46):
was called the Darkest Scale ever and was the but
it says on the thumbnail the double harmonic made double
harmonic major scale. Okay, so the breakthrough video was a
technical video. Yes, and that video got how many views?
Oh my god, it's I think it's now. It's probably
got nine hundred thousand, but it got it probably got
about six hundred thousand, seven hundred views. Okay. Is that

(28:08):
the video we're talking about? When does that? When does
that video occur in your career? That's probably in seventeen
or so, in late something like that. Okay, So you
get four hundred thousand views? What goes through your head?
I thought, why this video, of all the videos I've made,
this is the weirdest video and then like why this one,

(28:30):
you know, so that's kind of I had no idea why.
It was just okay, well, if you have that big success,
like any musical star, then you have the issue following
it up. It's like, but I had made many videos.
I made videos on every mode of the major scale,
Ione and Dorian, Frygie and Lydian mixed Lady Naoli and Locre,
and then I made modes in the melodic minor scale,

(28:52):
harmonic minor scale. This is just one of those videos
in a series of many videos. Okay, so that one
gets four thousand views, the ones that the wit how
many views to those get? Well, then those kind of
drop back down. But but the weird thing was bob
that my um. You know. So then by that time
that I had that video, I probably had a hundred

(29:12):
and fifty thousand subscribers. So then the videos are getting
you know, thirty apiece that would consistently do that. UM.
A good rule of thumb on YouTube is your most
YouTube channels that are successful, we'll get ten percent of
the number of subscribe number of subscribers to the views. Um,
your average video should be ten percent of the number

(29:34):
of subscribers. You have, So if you have a hundred
thousand subscribers, you should be getting ten thousand views per video.
And that's a good performing video. Anything above ten percent
is really good. Okay. January of eighteen, you have the
breakthrough a general audience video and that video once again
is um that was my first what makes this sound great?

(29:57):
Which was on all the small things? But link two?
Okay at that time, how many views were your videos
getting prior to that? Probably about um, I'd say probably
fifty thousand on average something like that. Well, what's the
lifespan of one of these things? To what? What percentage

(30:21):
comes up and what? And then the so called long
tail most of them are not do not have a
long lifespan? Now I have, UM, I have videos like
my you know, Top twenty Acoustic Guitar intros of all Time,
which get you know, thirty thousand views a day still,
and I made it in the summer of It's got
thirteen million views. Um My Top twenty Guitar Solos of

(30:44):
all Time gets thirty thousand views a day still. Okay,
So let's go let's go back to a blink two.
Had you done a video about one spece scific track?
By a it's gonna be by a famous act prior
to them. No, as a matter of fact, I didn't

(31:05):
almost I did nothing on any popular music at all.
It was all classical music, jazz music theory, ear training,
things like that. I've done nothing related to music production,
which I had done for my living for the past
twenty years, other than make these videos on compression and
things like that, which did not do well when they
first came out. I made videos on drum tuning. Some

(31:27):
of those were the biggest videos I had at the time.
Just when I would get ready to set up for
a session, I'd say to my system, oh, just film
me while I tuned the drums. I'll just I'll make
a drum tuning video while I'm doing this because I
had to change the heads anyways. So I would make
videos like that and put them up. Okay, so why
did you decide to do the blink one Hitt tube video?
So I actually have a second YouTube channel that I

(31:49):
never tell anyone about. It's called Rick Bato too, that
I still have to this day, and and back then
I told people that followed my channel. I started the
second channel, and I would use it to ust out ideas.
So the night before I have multi tracks, two thousands
and thousands of songs, and I would to that group
of people, a couple hundred people. I played the multi

(32:11):
tracks to a bunch of songs, including the Blink one
eight two, and said, check out this one keyboard part
in the chorus, This dissonant note the flat nine that
goes against the second chord in the chorus. I said,
that is the hook right there. That keyboard part makes
people want to come back and listen to the song
over and over. Yet it's hidden in there. You can't
even hear it. So the same guy, Rhett who convinced

(32:32):
me to start my channel, he was watching on that.
Now he actually has a YouTube channel with about four
hundred thousand subscribers himself. Now he's said to me, you
should make a We had lunch next day. He said, oh,
that last night was amazing when you were playing the
multi tracks. You should make a series about that. I said,
what do you mean? He goes, yeah, this is that's fascinating.
You should make a series playing multi tracks and explaining him,

(32:54):
I said, yeah, I guess, said well, I could call it.
What makes this sound great? He said, oh, it's a
great title. So the next day AI or so, right
after we had launch, I made the first video. Okay,
A couple of questions, what is the content of retz channel?
He makes a lot of guitar videos. Um, he's um,
he makes videos on on he's a he plays with

(33:15):
different groups, so he makes videos like as a session
guitar player, the whole demo, guitars pedals, he's he makes
really interesting videos and M and we talked every day.
Do you feel that there's any competition there? And then
in addition, okay, is you feel there's any competition online
with you? Obviously no one is big, but now that
you're having the success or other people trying to imitate you?

(33:38):
You know, the entire music YouTube community that makes these
kind of videos like like I do. We all are
really good friends and we all talk all the time.
How many people lose that? Oh my god, there's probably
about I don't know, probably twenty five of us are
so all different instruments. You're the most successful. How about

(33:59):
the other people? How is there anybody in your league
so to speak in terms of number, not quality of
co Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so um, there's um, my dear
friend Marty Schwartz, who has been on YouTube since Marty
started his first channel in two thousand eight. He has
a channel with two point eight million subscribers. He teaches
a lot of guitar. He teaches a guitar. It's a

(34:19):
lot of beginning guitar lessons and things like that. And
he'll teach all contemporary songs, famous songs he puts out.
Oh man, he probably has videos on his channel. He's
been been um, but he's been on YouTube for years. Um.
There's one of my dear friends, Paul David's who's got
over two million subscribers, who does guitar videos. He's based

(34:43):
in the Netherlands. Adam Neely has over a million subscribers.
Adams a dear friend of mine. We talk all the time.
He's got a million and half subscribers as a channel.
Music is when he's got a million and half subscribers.
And we're all good friends and we all talk all
the time. So you don't feel any competition. You don't
feel anybody honing it on your space. No, no, no, no,
not at all. We all help each other. It's great. Okay,

(35:05):
let's go back to the blink one video. So how
did you have all these multi tracks already, asked me that.
So UM. Back in the early two thousand's, I went
to a to a session. I won't say where it was,
but it was in a different state. It was actually
in Texas. UH major label called me up to rescue

(35:28):
a record that some other producer was working on that
I had written three songs on and they were going
to use my versions for the record, and they told
him to work on the rest of the songs. They
were just gonna use my tracks. But what he did
was he cut the drums to all the songs, including
my three songs. But he spent the entire budget trying
to trying to compete with my tracks and he's and

(35:50):
he never finished any of the songs. So the label said,
please go down and finish your three songs. We fired him.
Can you go do this? So I said, okay. So
I went down and I sat there and took my
tracks with me. I used the drums that this guy
had recorded, I imported them and put him in with
my my versions of the songs I had done and UM,

(36:13):
and there was an assistant engineer there that had all
these multi that was playing Nirvana UM two Smells like
teen spirit And I said, what is that? He says,
the multi track the smells like teen Spirits. So where
did you get that? That's amazing? He goes, I can't
tell you. And I said um. And I was like,
come on, yeh, I have to have this. And he said,

(36:36):
I said, do you have more of these? He goes, oh,
I have thousands of these? And I said I had
a kick drum sample and a snare sample, just two
samples that no one has from a famous mix engineer.
And he said, um, I will give you all these
multi tracks for um for these two samples is that

(37:00):
we can't um? So I gave him to him, um,
And he gave me these these things. But they sat
on a hard drive for years and years and years.
I never even listened to him. I listened to Vana
and then until that night that I played him the
day before Blank two, I was just going through drives

(37:21):
as I'm talking on the second channel, and I would
had this hard drive up where I found these multitors'
check this out, check that. Oh my god, has this
song too? Oh has this song? Okay? Now what do
you do for multi tracks on songs made subsequent to
that hard drive? Transaction. Um. A lot of the songs

(37:43):
I use in there, I'll get from the artists. For example,
my Seal video. I got the tracks for kissomer Rose
from Seal A little bit. So Seal and I are friend,
and I was. UM. I was talking to him on

(38:04):
the phone last week and I said, Seal, do you
have the tracks to Kiss from a Rose? He just no,
but I can get them from Trevor. I said, I
want to do what makes this sound great about it?
He's like, I'll call Trever and see if I can
get him. I'm sure he has him. So he calls
me the next day He's like, I got him. I
just emailed him to you. I said, okay, will you
be in the video? Said of course. Okay. Have you

(38:25):
done anything where you didn't have a personal relationship? We say, hmm,
I want to do something on this. Let me think
of how to contact that act um Um. Most of
the times when I've contacted people, they've they've been pretty
much anytime I contact people, they will they will give
me what if they have them, they'll give them to me. Well,

(38:46):
to what degree do you do that reach out as
opposed to having a prior relationship? Um, whenever there's a
song that I want to do, I reach out to
the artist or reach out to the manager or whatever,
or if I don't have the songs, and they'll they'll
typically send him to me. And at this point when
you reach out to most people know you. Were they
aware of you? Oh yeah, okay, let's go back to

(39:07):
the blink one video. So you release it. How many videos?
How many views does it get? Then? Probably? Um, that
one probably got a hundred thousand okay, pretty quickly, within
within three or four days. Okay, So how does that change?
You're thinking? Well, I did about five of these in
a row, um, because it was fun. People really like that.

(39:31):
I said, oh this is fun. So I did that.
Then I did every little thing she does his Magic.
Then I did Kids Charlemagne. Then I did um. I
can't remember what I did after that, but I did
three really varied ones and um, you know, people, where
did you get these things? You know? And and the
Kids Charlemagne? So I would I would break down the

(39:52):
track I did. Rosanna was one of the ones. Um,
I think a whole Lot of Love, which got taken
down by led Zeppelin then got put back up. Okay,
I gotta know why I got put back up. I
have no idea I did. I did ramblan, he got
taken down, he got immediately put back up. Well that
one I I did a I did a video a
rand But let's let's stop. That's all another topic. So

(40:15):
you're making you're making these multiple songs, you do like
five in a row. Then what um? And then I
kept making my other weird videos. Um and but I
would branch out. I mean I I would make a
video of the sound of two martial stacks together or
um uh what I mean? I made so many videos.

(40:39):
I did a video, you know, six months ago that
was I took the solo section to Stairway to Heaven,
and I did a I had my friend phil X
and Eric Johnson, famous guitar player play solos. But I
imitated what I thought Peter Frampton would have played. Phile
X did a solo what he what Eddie van Halen

(40:59):
would have played. It actually came out the day before
Eddie passed away. And then Eric Johnson. I called Eric
up and I said, Eric, you, I want you to
play in this. You're interested in playing in a video.
It's a remake of Stairwoid to Heaven. I remade the
solo section, but I want you to play what you
would play on Sterwoid to Heaven. He goes, You mean,
like what solo I would play? Said, yeah, pretend like
your sixteen Stairway to heavens out and you're playing over it.

(41:20):
You're but you're you, but you have to video. He's like, okay, cool,
and so that video has done incredibly well and he's
gonna do a million and a half views. But that's
I do these kind of interesting what if videos like that, Okay,
But my real question is when you do these more
mainstream videos and they have a spike in viewership, do

(41:45):
you then say, m I should do this because it
will enlarge my audience. Um. I do things because they're
fun to do. That's that's the Let's go back, because
scal it's four years later or whatever, three and a
half years later, and you're not You're not as successful

(42:05):
then as you are now. Okay, and now you've reached
a certain level on some level, you know you have
a great freedom as a result of your success. But
before then, what's going through your brain? Um? Well, since
I'm making so many videos, Bob I'm doing. I'm just
going from topic to topic whatever I think of during
the day, because I have no videos saved up ever.

(42:28):
I mean, I was gonna put out a video today,
but I have four different topics and I couldn't decide
what to do, so I didn't do anything. Okay, when
do you come up with your top twenties or top tens? Okay,
so my countdown videos, as I call those, I started
doing UM in the summer of twenty nineteen. I had

(42:48):
a friend of mine. UM, my friend, Marty Schwartz, had
told me that six months before. He's like, Rick, why
aren't you doing four K videos? I said, what do
you mean? I said, I do. I'm doing ten a
DP because well, YouTube can you can make four K videos?
And I think that they they actually want you to
make four K videos, like they'll actually push your videos harder.
I said, really, I said, well, I don't even have

(43:11):
a camera that can make four K, and so, um,
six months later I got a camera that did four K,
and so my first four K video was my Top
twenty acoustic intros and that's my biggest video ever. Now.
I don't know if that's random or what, but that's
like YouTube, Hey, make more like this, you know. Okay,
how many views does that have today? That's thirteen million? Okay,

(43:36):
So on a video like that, because you're using other songs,
you don't make a dime, correct, Okay, well that video,
that video, I make a little bit of money because,
um because not every song because I'm covering the songs,
so not every song is is uh not everything is demonetized,
but pretty much all the rest of my top twenty

(43:58):
videos are demonetized. Mean I don't make anything on any
of them. What is your most successful video financially? Um
m hmm, I'm not sure. Well how much money was

(44:19):
the most you ever made from a video? One video? Um? Probably,
I don't know, eight thousand bucks something like that. Okay,
so if you watch your channel, that's over the course
of years. Though you know, I understand that you watch

(44:42):
your channel. You say, Hey, this is really about not
about money making the videos, but if you want to
support me by by my books. When you started, have
you written books only created and created merch subsequent to
the channel? No, so my book I only have one book.
I only really sell two things. I have a book

(45:03):
that I wrote when I was a college professor called
the Beatto Book back in it was a music theory
and improvisation textbook and it's five pages long. And um,
I used to use that with my students for years
when I was a college professor. So I that's what
I sold. Starting at the beginning of my channel to

(45:24):
go along with the videos, I have these advanced theory
videos and for people that want to learn more about
these topics, you can only cover so much in uh,
you know, in a minute video. Um, there's a lot
of stuff you have to actually, you know, it's helpful
to have a book to to follow along with. So
I sell my book and then I have an ear

(45:44):
training course that I developed since I started my channel.
And I said, how many copies have you sold of
these items? Um, I'm not sure how many copies I sold.
When I first started selling them, I um, um, people
would just email me and I would just send him.
I didn't even have an automate automated not for I

(46:06):
didn't even have a store bob for um. Probably a
year into my channel. As a matter of fact, I
at rick Byatto dot com, which is where my story is.
I hadn't even logged into in four years. So um,
I got an an intern I got a guy, Aaron
who's um uh was did an internship from Berkeley. He

(46:30):
called me up he wanted to come down to his
internship here. He's a recording engineer major. And he came down.
The first stass, you don't even have a website. And
this is like I had at the time, seventy five
thousand subscribers on my channel. I said, I said, what
do you mean? He says, you rick Byatta dot com.
When's the last time you went there? I said, oh,
probably four years ago. He goes, yeah, it looks like

(46:50):
it's hasn't been updated in years. I said, okay. He goes,
you you probably get thousands of people there every day.
I said, what said I get? You're getting you know,
videos with a hundred thousand views. People are going to
ricky otto dot com. Well, how are you selling your book?
And I said, well, people just email me and I
they bay me on PayPal and I send it to him.

(47:13):
So he built my store and remade my my um
my website, my rick Byatta dot com and um so
I sell so as far as how many books I've sold,
I don't know how many books I've sold Um, Aaron
actually still works with me and he handles all the
stuff through my store. And um, he actually did all

(47:36):
the created my the your training course we did together. Okay,
let me ask you this. When you have a video
and you say go to my store and by the book,
how many books do you sell now off video? I'm
not sure that I could. Um. Um, it really all depends.

(47:58):
It's uh. Um, I can't most of the stuff that
I sell or from my live streams when I do sales,
so um, I don't really keep track of what of
how many books I sell or anything like that. I
I make enough money to keep making videos and um

(48:22):
uh and and do this full time. And like I said,
I have one assistant, so I have enough to pay
my assistant and and uh and keep doing this at
least until I I can't do it anymore. Okay, a
couple of questions. One, Okay, if you watch the videos,
it really talks about selling the book. So the income

(48:43):
from the books is it's significant or insignificant? Um? I
make enough, like I said, to support my family. My
my wife works a full time job. I make enough,
to you know, to keep the change the channel in
the p number the merch. Okay, that is your main

(49:04):
income at this point, and that's support your family. Yeah,
A couple of couple of questions. There's some other merch
on your site, coffee cups, etcetera. Is that a significant
businesses that sell? Not? Not really? Okay? Now, prior to
doing the YouTube channel, what was filling your days? Um?

(49:28):
Producing artists? That's all I did for you know, full time? Okay,
do you do that? Do you do that now? No?
I don't. I don't How long ago did you give
that up? Like about a year into my channel, I
just couldn't. I couldn't make the videos and keep doing

(49:49):
it. It It was just too much. I was on the
school board at my kids school. I was um, it
was just uh um, it was just too difficult to do.
And frankly, I you know, there were there were no
budgets for anything anymore. Nobody got record deals and um
and um, and I just got to the point where, um,

(50:15):
I just had been, honestly, Bob sick of producing. You know,
you can only make so many records of other people.
I believe me, I understand. Uh. If you're making twelve
videos a month now, yeah, how much time does it
take to make those twelve videos. It depends, like what
makes the sound great. Videos take a long time. They

(50:36):
usually take about twelve hours to make altogether. The more
complex the song, the longer it takes. Some songs are
very easy. Kid Charlemagne was not an easy one because
I notated that Bernard Purty strump part. I notated the
baseline I played Larry Carlton's guitar solo. I uh, I
notated the keyboard part. I forget who plays keyboard keyboards

(50:58):
on it? Um. And so those videos take longer because
the transcription takes time to do and you have to
include it in the video. UM. Some of them are
very easy. Blink one eight two is very easy because
it's only four chords or three chords. Okay, is it
harder when it's a song you're unfamiliar with, because there

(51:19):
are certainly videos where you watch you to listen to
the song and you start to play. Or is this
stuff you're so experienced you can just do it on
the fly. I can pretty much do it on the fly. Okay,
When do you decide to do a live video? And
why I do a live video once a week because
I've always done it because it's the only place, uh,

(51:40):
YouTube is the only um or when you live stream,
it's the only way you can actually communicate with people
that watch your channel. And it's really if you think
about it, it's like it's like TV that's interactive and
there's nothing else like that. You can't talk to somebody
on a talk show at the same time, you know,
if if you're watching whoever it is you're watching, you

(52:02):
can't ask a question and have it answered right there.
That's the beauty of YouTube. I mean, YouTube is a
place where people go to learn stuff and there's a
there's an incredible community out there um that UM that
people that follow my channel, people to follow other channels,
and people that are just enthusiastic about music in general
and follow a bunch of music channels. Okay, so when

(52:25):
you have a live stream, if you watch it on
YouTube occasually, you know it's going real fast. So if
it's in real time, how you know, how do you
discern you know what you should address? Well, you do, UM.
You put it in slow mode, which means that people
can only ask a question every thirty seconds or so
any one person, but it still goes really fast. I

(52:47):
mean I've had live streams with twenty people on it,
but um uh and those, it's it's just about impossible.
You know, people do super chat even but those even
you know where where will be highlighted. Those moves so
fast it's hard to even see those. So my assistant
Billy will usually be sitting about ten feet away and
he'll be of hole come up with questions that he

(53:10):
sees as it's going along. Okay, let's go into the
whole issue of demonetizing, etcetera. Because you've made whole videos
on that topic, so expand on that. So the right

(53:31):
um early on, I did a video very early on
where the sound was removed from it, and I was like,
what what is this? And it was a story that's
told about a famous saxophonist, Michael Brecker, who passed away
in two thousand nine, And I was talking about a
record that's one of my favorite records. It's a Klaus
Ogreman record. Claus Ogerman was a famous jazz arranger. He

(53:53):
passed away about three years ago, was eighty six. They
did a record called um Uh City Escape that came
out three I believe, and the first I told the
story of meeting Michael Brecker at Avatar in New York
City in two thousand nine. I did this whole send
up and then I played the first two minutes of

(54:13):
this piece title track, which is one of the most
beautiful things I've ever heard. It's just saxophone and string orchestra.
It's absolutely beautiful. I put out the video and people
I started reading the comments. What happened to the sounds?
So I go to the video, I watch it and
there's no sound. It's just me sitting there listening to it.
No sound. That's like, what's going on? I checked my email.

(54:36):
The sound has been blocked. It's like, what is that?
It detected this this thing? And then I then um
and I got a content I declaim also. So it
was back then they didn't take the videos down. They
would just mute the audio, and so I became started
to become aware of things like that, and then I

(54:58):
started getting content. I d alims. If I'd play just
a snippet of something, um, I would get a content
I declaim and I looked it up and it says
that they take the money from the video. It says
ineligible for monetization. So um, so then I had to
make a decision whether I was gonna make videos that

(55:19):
I wanted to make or videos that we're going to
make money for the channel, And I said, I want
to make videos that I want to make, because there's
no point in doing this if you're not going to
do that. You can't teach people about music by playing
your own examples. People learn from listening to the masters

(55:39):
to whoever it is. You know, if it's led Zeppelin
or if it's uh Bach, whoever it is, Beethoven, you
know that, and and anything that you play. Now, now
a lot of people tell me I should claim fair
use for these things. I mean, I get demonetized for
I did this video about this pianist Martha Rgret. She

(56:00):
just turned eighty years old, and I played, um, I
had her playing bach Bach Partita in there, and and
the video got demonetized by that, and um yeah, so
I just ignore it. I mean, it's like, yeah, okay,
I wanted to make the video about Martha Archridge. I
love Martha ar Gridge. I want people to know about her,
and that's the you know, I don't care if it

(56:21):
gets demonetized. But I have made videos about video about
having videos blocked. That to me is ridiculous when when
they actually do takedowns of videos. Um, it's one thing,
it's if take all the money, just leave the video
up like you know, if so. And in my What

(56:43):
makes Us Sound Great Series A hundred and five videos,
there's one blocked video. That's it, just one, and it's
Lindsey Buckingham blocked Go your Own Way. It's episode twelve.
It's the only video that's not been reinstated. I've had
many blocked, but they all it reinstated. Why do they
get reinstated? I have no idea. Okay, you're just sitting

(57:05):
at home. It's blocked four days later reappears. No, It's like, okay,
so I did, I did ramblean. I spent twelve hours
during the video, spent all this time recreating the guitar songs,
talking about everything. You know, I put up. The video
blocked immediately, so I can't believe it. And then I

(57:26):
went on and I did a rant about how, um,
the irrelevance of of uh the something about the error
we're talking about the era of perfect the irrelevance of
classic of you know, rock in the era of perfect
music or something like that, In the era of of

(57:48):
of time correction, pitch correction, auto tune. Uh. I'm trying
to show people this masterpiece Ramblan and it gets blocked
by this band that released it in you know. Yeah,

(58:09):
so that makes no sense, Like do these bands artists
want to be relevant? So I've made this I did
this rant video that and then that video got half
a million views in one day and I posted it
on Twitter and then the next day, all of a sudden,
the videos unblocked. It just uh and it's ineligible for

(58:30):
for it's it's just becomes a demonetized video. They're monetizing,
but you're not making it correct. Yeah, and I have
no problem with that, Okay, to a great degree. Is
that that one company in Germany that's doing it? No? No, no,
all the companies do it. Okay, So have you ever rented?

(58:51):
And they still took it down? Only only Fleetwood Mac.
Only Lindsey Buckham. And and he's not he's the blocker
in Fleetwood Mac. Actually Stevie Nicks. She had um what
was the song dreams that became a you know, was
a viral hit a few months ago, guy playing playing

(59:14):
it on TikTok writing a skateboard. She doesn't block and
that became a viral hit. So even in the same band, Uh,
you have different because the artists are the one or
their publisher or the people the sound recording. I mean
that I don't think the labels care and the artist
shouldn't care. They're making money. I mean guys like Don Henley.

(59:34):
Don Henley claims that he there's sixty people working on
copyright claims. Now that's laughable, Bob. There's not sixty people
working on copyright claims. There's probably one person. It doesn't
take sixty people. The YouTube algorithm gets all these things,
It finds it instantly. They're not sixty people. They may
be telling him they're sixty people, but there's no way

(59:56):
there's sixty people working at some label taking doing takedowns
of Eagle songs. That's absurd. Okay, tell the Joni Mitchell store,
m um. I love Joni Mitchell. I'm a massively big

(01:00:17):
fan and I've wanted to do a video of hers
um forever and I always say that it took me
ninety one episodes because I cry every time I listen
to Joni Mitchell. I love you know, I love all
of her music. You know the Blue Album, Hissing of Summer,
Lawn's Court and spark He's Era. These records are you know,

(01:00:40):
Shadows and Light. They're just absolutely brilliant mingus all these records,
so different, so creative. So I was like, Okay, I
gotta pick a Jonnie Mitchell signed to do. So I
was like, I'm gonna do Amelia. I don't have the
tracks to it, so I just did a breakdown of
the song from I mean, I know these songs inside
and out from all those things. Because not only is

(01:01:02):
Joanie one of my favorite singers and lyricists her, the
people that she had playing with her are all my
Larry Carlton, Robin Ford, Tom Scott, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock,
you know the Joco Pastoria. She had all the best
players Pat Matheny that played in her groups and um,

(01:01:23):
so I decided on Amelia. But then at the beginning
of the video, I said, well, for those of you
that don't know Joni Mitchell, and I don't know how,
I'm sure there's people out there that say, who's Joni
Mitchell here, I'm gonna play some other songs of hers.
So I played, um, both sides now clip of that, Uh,
help me. I played, Um, I forget what I played.

(01:01:43):
I played clips of a bunch of a bunch of
her songs, the River and h. Then I did the
breakdown on that, and her assistant reached out to me
about a month after and said that Joni watched my video.
Wait wait wait, wait, wasn't it taken down at first? No?
It got eight down later, Bob, okay, keep going. Okay,

(01:02:04):
So Joanie's assistant reached out to me and UM and
said that Joanie watched the video and loved it, and
then she watched more and more videos and she and
Joanie is not one to, you know, uh, to be
impressed with people really, and she just loves my channel

(01:02:26):
and uh so she wanted my address to send me something,
and I said okay, So I sent her assistant my
address and then a Christmas, I get this package, Like
what is this? And I wrapped up thing and it's
right behind me. It's this Joni Mitchell. It's it's right
next to the light. It's her a box set with
an autograph. It says Merry Christmas, Rick Joni Mitchell in it.

(01:02:48):
And I opened my wife. I opened up my wife's
like what is that? I said it's a present from
Joni Mitchell. Like what and um. And then her assistant
said that next time, and I'm in l A to UM,
reach out to Johnny. You should love to have me
come and visit and um. But then after the video
had been out for I don't know eight months or so,

(01:03:10):
it got taken down. It's like what, UM, And I
forget how it got put back up. I did. I
put it on Twitter, did some type of rant, and
then it got put back up. I never know how
these things get put back up, Bob, because I never
find I never do anything. I don't dispute anything ever.
It's from people tagging people on Twitter. Honestly, that's what

(01:03:31):
it is. Okay, So you end up going to l
A tell that story. So I went to l A
and I texted her assistant. I mean I never had
spoken to Joanie. I texted her assistant UM and said UM,
and said I'm going to be in l A and UM,
you know I would love to come and and say

(01:03:52):
hi to Joanie. And then didn't hear anything back for
a week. And I get off the plane and UM,
I was going out there for an interview with a
friend of mine, Erk Weinstein to be on his podcast,
and and Joanie's and her assistant called me up and
she said that Joanie would love to meet you for
dinner if you're free on Saturday night at six pm.
And I said, uh, yeah, that'd be amazing. And we

(01:04:18):
met at this restaurant and it was spent three hours together.
It was unbelievable. Okay, Joanie Mitchell. Conversation with her, shall
I say, is not as easy as it is with
many other people. What I always say without talking about well,
I could talk about specific conversations. You know, if you
start with something irrelevant, you'll want to drill down on

(01:04:41):
the irrelevant point and you say, well forget that. You well,
why do you want to forget about that? What was
your experience of actually interacting with her, having conversation? Oh,
it was amazing. I mean I asked her things. I
mean I didn't really talk about it in my video
that I made the video about having dinner with her,
but I didn't don't really reveal things that we talked about. Um,

(01:05:02):
But I mean I asked her things like, Okay, if
I said, Joanie, of all your records, what is the
one that you think really has the best songs and
the best production that you're that you say, I'm the
most proud of. And she picked two different records, um,

(01:05:23):
one in particular, and I and she, um, um, well
it was Courton Spark. Okay, I'll just say it. She's
that and has you era those two records? She's thought
that the production and the songwriting because a lot of
times artists may feel like they have the their best songwriting,

(01:05:43):
but the production doesn't quite come out like they'd expect it,
you know, and and um, those are just that certainly,
you know, court and Spark had a I hate to
use words slick because it had negative connentation, but you know,
a presence without withinventation and a Gira is just I'm
glad you did Amelia because it's a vastly underrated album.

(01:06:05):
My favorite on that album Swam for Sharon, Refuge of
the Road. I mean, just unreal. But did you know
a lot of times she'll talk to artists and they're
not that familiar with her own career. Was she familiar
with her own career? Yeah? She she told me that. Um,
she she said that, Um that people you know that.

(01:06:30):
When her first few records came out, her dad said her.
I don't know if she said this in other interviews,
but her dad said, you know, there must be a
lot of depressed people out there. And she said that
kind of made her not um think as much about
her early records from her dad's saying that, and she

(01:06:51):
laughed about it and uh, and she said, you know,
people would call me a folk singer. I was like,
I'm in a folk singer. And then she's like, then
I listen. I was like, yeah, I was a book singer.
So okay. Throughout our conversation, here say oh, my friend,
this person, this person, how do you know all these people?
Um well, I've been in the music business a long

(01:07:13):
time and um, um, I don't know. I I I've
just I'm everywhere. I don't know. Um, I have no idea.
I just okay, okay. You have the opportunity to have
dinner with Joni Mitchell. Uh what author opportunities, whether commercial

(01:07:37):
or not commercial? If you had as results of the
successors your channel. Um well, I got to meet Peter Frampton.
I interviewed him um at his studio Nashville, and then
he was in my hundredth anniversary episode. I did a
video on do you feel like we do. UM. That
was one that that my um A friend of mine

(01:07:59):
who actually just talked to who he used to work
at ssl IS was good friends with Peter and he
um my friend Don. I saw don at at Um
at the a S Show back in eighteen and done.
He and I were talking and he said, I saw
your breakdown with Peter Peter Frampton, Um that you did,

(01:08:20):
and um I he said, I'm really good friends with
Peter and and I said, oh man, I'd love to
interview Peter. He's like, I'll give him a call. I'll
make it happen. Next day, I heard from Peter's assistant.
Three days later, I was up in Nashville at his
studio interviewing him. Any commercial opportunities come up as a
result of your success, um, And like, like, what would

(01:08:45):
you What do you mean that's something that we're making
money you wouldn't normally have made because public appearances, endorsement,
I don't do any endorsement. Well, I'm not gonna say
I don't do any endorsements. I have a Gibson signature
guitar coming out that I'm actually donating all the money
to charity. Um a um less Paul special that's coming

(01:09:06):
out in a few months. I don't I don't know
when the release state is. But I don't do any
other endorsements. Okay, let you don't do them by choice
or the opportunities haven't come down the pike, just by choice.
I don't want to. I don't. I don't like to.
It's just for me. It's just not my style to to.
I don't want to be pushing here or anything like that,

(01:09:27):
or pushing any products. I just it's just not my style.
I want to be able to talk about whatever I
want to talk about and have no one um that
I'm accountable to believe me. I understand. Okay, So you're
from were originally from Rochester, New York. Okay, what kind
of environment did you grow up? Was there a lot
of music there? Yes? Um? So I'm from a family

(01:09:51):
of seven. I have have four brothers and two sisters.
Where where wait? Where are you in the heart the
second youngest? Okay? So, um my moms uh, my parents
are both deceased. My mom's two of her sisters were
music teachers. Her dad played the guitar, one of her

(01:10:12):
brothers played bass, and Woody Herman's band. Um um, so
music was very big in their family. My mom didn't
play anything. She played some guitar, but but she was
she never had lessons. But but the rest of her
family were all musicians. And my dad was a huge
music listener, jazz listener. Really, he loved bebop, he loved
really sophisticated music. But it was not a musician. So

(01:10:34):
music was always encouraged in our house. But really, myself
and my younger brother John are the only ones that
ever played an instrument for um for any length the time.
When he's a guitarist, he's an excellent guitarist. And uh,
so we had lessons. Okay, you come of age when so.
I was born in sixty two, So I grew up

(01:10:57):
in one Once you know, you start having the rock
you know, the seventy two Jethrow, Tull, Depurple, all that stuff,
that's your wheelhouse. Yeah. So with having So being the
second youngest, my oldest sibling is sixty eight, so they
I heard the Beatles, I heard the Stones, I heard Zeppelin,
and every one of my siblings like different music. So

(01:11:18):
I grew up in a three bedroom house with nine
people in one bathroom, one bathroom, one bathroom. Yeah, well,
luckily we had a gas station across the street. They
had bathrooms. In case you know, what did your parents
do for a living. My dad worked for the railroad
for forty two years, New York Central, Penn Central. UM

(01:11:38):
started in when he's fourteen, and my mom worked for
the American Can Company when she was a factory worker,
worked on the lines. So they were and who was
managing all the kids? Uh? So my mom started working
when I was in kindergarten. Um, and uh, and my

(01:12:00):
older siblings watched us basically, and my dad was the
only one working before then. Okay, you start taking music
lessons at what age on what instrument? On on the cello?
In when I was in third grades that would have
been nine. Um. I took a test in second grade.
I think it was called the c Shore Test, which

(01:12:20):
was a musical aptitude test that they gave in our
school system. UM, and identified people that had really good
ears for music. Is this pitch higher? Lower? Is this pitch?
This is that? What do you recognize this instrument whatever,
whatever it was, And the people that scored the highest
played string instruments, and then the next group of people
played wind instruments. And they would start a year later.

(01:12:42):
So I started on the cello with private lessons when
I was in third grade, so seventy one, I think
was third grade, Okay, that was via the school, via
the school. Yeah, okay. How long did you play the
cello and what came after? I played the cello until
sixth grade. Then I took up the I moved to
the base. And my undergraduate degree is in classical bass, okay,

(01:13:02):
and my master's degree is in jazz guitar. So I
played the bass all the way through college. That's what
I literally, that's what I majored in. Okay, you know,
like classical with a bow. So it's okay. So sixth grade,
you're playing the cello, you switch to base. You're still
getting lessons in school, yes, all the Yeah, we're very
all the way through, all the way through high school. Correct,

(01:13:24):
and you're playing in the school orchestra. Correct to what
degree are you playing with bands? If at all? So
I started playing guitar. I broke my ankle summer of
seventh grade. I was laid up on the couch and
my brother had a chord book there. He had a
guitar that it wasn't really playing like a one dollar
global acoustic guitar. I had a Melbay chord book and

(01:13:48):
in America the band America Songbook, and I had the
America record. So I'm I'm laid up. I didn't even
have a walking cast. I'm literally on the couch the
whole summer. So I started playing this America record heard
and you know, I had Sandman and Horse with no Name,
all these songs on. It's the one with the three
of them on the cover with this the first album,
first album, and had a song on there called never

(01:14:09):
Found the Time that I loved. It was in three
four and so I had the chord book there and
I'm looking at playing along. I learned start learning the chords,
but I had dexterity because I already played the cello
and the hand positions spacing is about the same, so
it was very easy. I didn't go through a callous
period or anything like that, so it was easy to
pick up the chords. So I started playing along with

(01:14:30):
I said, this doesn't sound They sound kind of like
the chords, but it doesn't sound right. So anyways, I
get my cast off thirteen weeks and and I just
twisted it like the first day of summer of that year,
I twisted the park I was out screwing around really
bad break um, and I had a limp for about

(01:14:52):
a year and a half after that. I remember, um
and uh. So my mom I begged her to get
me a nicer guitar because this guitar was terrible. So
we went to this music store never been to a
music store really, and I saw a twelve string and
I played it. I said, this sounds like that America
song because it was actually done on a twelve string,
as was most things in the seventies, you know. And

(01:15:13):
so my first guitar was a hundred and twenty dollar
Penco acoustic that my mom said, don't tell your dad
how much it costs. So it's like a week sailor
from my mom. Your first guitar was a twelve string?
Was a twelve string? Yes, how did the hell you know?
This is pretty tuners, etcetera. And you learn how to
tune it. I just I just figured it out, so um. Um.

(01:15:36):
So I started playing on a twelve string and um,
and then I realized, okay, this is song is played
on a twelve string. And then I started picking around
and I figured I was, I had such a good ear,
I could just figure out what the parts were. And
I started figuring out all these songs by ear and
um uh, and then I was really serious into it.

(01:16:00):
And um so I started mowing this guy's lawn that
lived about two blocks away. I got in this program
where you signed up and you would do odd jobs
for people. So I'm owing this guy's lawn, this guy Tom,
and I went in to get paid, and I saw
I had all these guitars. Name was Tom Rizzo. He
has all these guitars in there. Said wow, you play guitar?
Said yeah, I own a music store in town, t

(01:16:21):
Rizzo Music it was called. And he said, do you
play guitar? Said yeah, he gouse, I'll play me something,
So I play something everything I said, well, I said,
play me a song. So he starts playing. And I'm
mean he was a phenomenal player. He ended up going
on and being on played with Maynard Ferguson. He was
on the Tonight you know, sub Don the Tonight Show
and everything, and but he said you should come take

(01:16:43):
lessons at my music store. So I went and took
lessons with him, and I mean, he was a real pro.
Jazz player, fusion player, amazing player. And that was a
great experience. And I hadn't got Mark, Mark Manetta, then
Glenn Cummings. I had teachers at this music store when
I was in junior high in high school, and and

(01:17:03):
my brother John started taking lessons there too, So my
mom would drive us every week for an hour. She's
sit in the car and wait for us and we
come back out. We took our lessons and and it
was great. I mean, you're so incredible, and that we
were just obsessed. Both of us were obsessed playing guitar.
Still to this day, play every day. I love it. Okay,

(01:17:24):
So in high school, you like Dwayne Almond playing so much.
You know he even takes some guitar play in the
bathroom or you know, you have a regular life. Oh no, no, no,
oh all the time. Okay. And when do you start
forming bands with electric guitars? Oh? So I got electric
guitar soon after in eighth grade, and uh started playing
in bands pretty immediately. But I was learning all the songs.

(01:17:47):
I mean, I learned my first song I learned an
electric guitar was Hey Joe. And I learned, you know,
I learned all the Zeppelin tunes and and I learned
everything that came out. I learned Leonard SKINNERD. I learned
the Beatles, I learned the Stones, I learned cream. You're
playing with these bands? Is it just fun? Are you
making any money? No? Not making any money? Just fun? Okay.

(01:18:07):
So you go to college where I did my undergrad
a Itfaca College. UM so I I UM. I actually
made a video about this. So I auditioned at two
schools on guitar classical guitar. You had audition to get
into the jazz program, and I got rejected from both
of them. I made a video about this, and my

(01:18:27):
video is called Fortunes of Failure. I I actually had
a video earlier in my channel called Fortunes of hard Work.
But it's really Fortunes of Failure was a second kind
of remake I did where I connected it to a
different story. So I got rejected from both places, but
I didn't tell my parents. I lied and I told
them that I got into both places for music. But this,
but my grades were so bad, Bob that. But I

(01:18:51):
ran track on the high school track team, and I
went to the state championships all the time. So the
track coach put it at Fredonia State University. Put a
thing in there. If you want to come to Radnia,
you can come and run on the track team and
get a small scholarship for it. Even though my grades
were bad. But I have to pick a different major.
So I went my first semester as a history major,

(01:19:12):
and the classical guitar teacher wouldn't take me on as
a student. So I learned from a freshman guitar player too,
because and I re auditioned for Ithaca College to get
into the guitar program, which I ended up going the
second semester. I passed the audition, I went there the
second semester, and then six years later I was a

(01:19:32):
professor there in the same office that I got rejected
in six years before. Okay, so you're at Ithaca College.
You come from a family of many children. Ithaca College
as a private school. How do you pay for that?
I had a lot of scholarships? Oh, I My first
day of school, I went in, I talked to the
bass teacher and I said, I want to play in

(01:19:53):
the orchestra even though a jazz guitar major, and he's
and he heard me play, said, well, why don't you
just be a base major? And he said, had you
audition a basse, you would have gotten in. Because I
was the first share bass player at my school. I
was a very good classical bass player. So I immediately
switched my major from guitar to bass, and so I
played in the orchestra. I did all that, and I
only just I took jazz guitar lessons, but that was

(01:20:16):
the only guitar thing I did. I take did no
jazz stuff there. Okay, so you graduate from Mythaca College,
then what Then? I went to New England Conservatory in
Boston for jazz guitar for two years. I got my
masters in jazz guitar. What was the plan? I had
no plan. The plan was to learn as much about
music as I could learn, and I was fascinated. I

(01:20:39):
loved classical music. Um, I loved playing bass. I love
playing in orchestra, and then I love jazz two and
I loved rock. So um, I wanted to learn as
much about as many different kinds of music as I could.
So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go get my
masters in jazz guitar. So I went to New England
Conservatory for two years, and then I was like, Okay,

(01:21:01):
I'm gonna go to New York and I'm gonna play
for a living, try and make it as a jazz
guitar player. Moved back to Ithaca for a couple of
months to hang with my friends, figure out what I
was gonna do, how I was gonna move to New York.
And then I got the offer to teach there in
the fall, and then I just took that Staca College. Yes, yeah,
teaching jazz guitar there. Rom eight seven and ninety two

(01:21:25):
and how did you stop? So a buddy of mine
in eighty nine Um asked me if I would play
in a demo of his. His friend of mine, Alan Um,
he had some rock songs. He had an eight track
real to real recorder at his place. He said, how
want you come over and playing sliff? And I was like, no,
I don't. I don't really wanted to just come over

(01:21:46):
and play some guitar on this. So I went over
and played on this demo of his, and we ended
up getting a demo deal with Electra Records. This guy
Howard Thompson signed us. Fully, I know Howard, will Howard
amazing Howard really actually was. I actually made a video
and I talked about Howard and I got back in

(01:22:07):
touch with him. He emailed me and I hadn't talked
to him in years. But one of the reasons I
live in Atlantis because Howard saw me in three playing
at CBGB's based with some nobody band and He's like, Rick,
why are you wasting your time with this nothing band.
You need to do your own music. You need to

(01:22:27):
and you need to quit this thing now. So the
next day I moved out of New York and I
ended up landing down here in Atlanta. Okay, so you
do this demo. Howard is interested. How's the transition? How
do you get to New York? So Howard, um, so
this my friend Alan said, Howard signed us to to write,
to give us money to new demos. But I don't

(01:22:49):
have any other songs. We're gonna write some songs. And
I was like, how do you write songs? Um? I mean,
I'd written some songs with some bands in high school
and stuff. But my buddy Allen was like, well, you
need to have a hook for the signature, for the
intro and all these things, and he was So we
wrote eight songs together Howard gave us five grand and
we went in the studio and in Ithaca and we

(01:23:09):
cut them and then we went down and hung out
with Howard in New York and Howard critiqued all the songs.
Spent two hours with him, three hours. He took us
out the lunch. He said, you guys have to you
guys have great bridges, but this is a song as
this a song as that. Incredibly great critiques on the songs.
He didn't sign us, and then we wrote. We did
a ten song I never I've never even told the

(01:23:30):
story of my channel. We did a ten song demo
every month Bob and went down to New York and
played him for Howard and Howard critiqued him. Never signed us,
but gave us incredible advice on songwriting. UM, you know
you gotta learn how to write a bridge. You gotta
do this. You know this song is is good, but
the the I think the lyrics could be better here.

(01:23:51):
But we ended up getting a UM publishing deal with PolyGram.
John Tita signed us. UM. He came to a gig
we played at cm GMS. We just we had like
a pickup band, Alan and I we were changed their
names all the time, and he assigned us as songwriters
U and UM. Because of that, I took a leave

(01:24:13):
of absence from Ithaca College and ended up not going back.
And that's how I got out of teaching. Okay, so
the evolution from the songwriting deal to Atlanta so then
UM so so the songwriting deal, um so, the band
never got a record deal or anything, ended up kind
of disbanding and I didn't have a gig then, and

(01:24:36):
I UM, I ended up having going to go back
home to live with my parents when I was thirty
three or so. That was that was tough. My parents
were totally cool and UM. I stayed there for six
weeks or so. It was actually um. I ended up
leaving the day after Kurt Cobain died. He died in
first week in April. And I was a huge grunge fan.

(01:24:57):
I loved Kurt Cobain. I loved all the grunge and
I mean, you know, that was a real even though
I was in my I was thirty years old at
the time, that music really spoke to me because it
was really music of the seventies and and but yet honestly,
some of it was more sophisticated than than the music
of the seventies. Kirk o'bain was a very under is,

(01:25:18):
a very underestimated songwriter, incredibly sophisticated, um harmonically complex melodies
over very weird chord changes. Chris Cornell, Eddie Vetter, Lane Staley,
the guys in Stunt Temple Pilots, all of them wrote
very sophisticated songs and odd times with weird chord changes,
but they were all melodic. So that music spoke to

(01:25:39):
me and I thought, I'm gonna move somewhere else. I
want to start a band, and I ended up in
Atlanta because my old college roommate lived down here. Okay,
presently you have a whole studio in your videos, and
right now I can see all your guitars. What's the
evolution to that in Atlanta? So I um so I

(01:26:01):
came here in November of nine. I started working at
a local music store teaching guitar lessons, and I was
teaching all the hits of the of those days, I
had fifty students a week that I taught from nineteen
ninety four to nineteen UM I started producing bands. Um really.

(01:26:21):
The first band that produced was a band called the
Tender idols. They were friends of mine. One of the
guys in the band is Dave Cobb, who's the producer
up in Nashville. That is the hottest guy there right.
He was in the band in the first band I
ever produced, UM and a dear friend of mine for
twenty five years or so, UM and UH So I

(01:26:43):
started producing bands here and there, and I was in
I started a band called Billionaire in nineteen nine seven.
We got signed in UM by UM London Sire Records,
Bob Biggs, who ran Ash recently. I didn't know that

(01:27:05):
Bob was amazing. I'm just a super interesting guy. And
Peter Kupkey ran UM London Sire Yeah with ro Dreames, Yes,
with Rab James. So they UM. So we got signed
UM and we got forced to use a producer I'm
not going to name his name, and who ended up UM.

(01:27:28):
He stopped showing up at the studio. I've made videos
about this. He stopped showing up in the studio a
week into the project. And so the singer and I
are they're working on the stuff, just recording overdubs, and
he would come in every you know, every few days
and need to race everything that we did. So he
ended up getting fired after four months, and we spent
like four dred and eighty thousand dollars or so, and

(01:27:50):
the guys came in and he got fired by Peter
cup Key and and then they sent the record to
Kevin Shirley in New York UM to try and fix it.
Had no track sheets. It was forty eight tracks analog,
no track sheets, nothing, and Kevin mixed the record. The
record came out for I don't know a couple of weeks,
and then we got dropped because there was the first merger.

(01:28:12):
PolyGram got bought by Universal Um. But after we had
spent our budget, my dear friend read Hunter is who's
who's um, who's my lawyer? And he was, you know read,
I know, you know read. So I went over to
Reid's house and Um, he was working on his roof

(01:28:36):
his backyard. He had a bandana. I was like a
hundred degrees. He's like fixing something on his roof of
his garage and I'm talking to him like this and
I was like, he's like, so, you guys spent your
whole budget, right, And I said yeah, And he said
when's the record coming? And I said August He's like,
what are you gonna do till then I said, I
don't know. I think I'm just gonna go back and
teach guitar lessons. He has, well, why don't you produce bands?
And I was like, and I said, read, I can't

(01:28:58):
make any money producing bands, and I don't. There's no
who am I going to produce? He goes, well, there's
this band that needs a better demo, and go check out.
Pick up the cassette. It's on my kitchen table before
you leave, and tell him that I told them that
they need better demos. They have good songs, but they
needed better demos. And one of the songs I did
from that demo got an American Pie to soundtrack. UM.

(01:29:22):
From the first thing I did, I called up a
buddy of mine that was had a studio in his
basement and I went and produced it there. And then
I started getting project after project and um, all different
genres of music. And and Leslie Fram, who was the
program director at X at the time, dear friend of mine.

(01:29:42):
She started referring bands to me, should ever be out
of you know, do your do your recordings? And um.
She and her husband LANDI are really good friends of
mine Landy. Landy actually brought a band to meet and
that she and he and Leslie came to the studio
and Leslie was we're talking everything and and she was
really instrumental in helping me, um helping my career. It

(01:30:04):
was amazing and we're good, really close friends to this day.
She in in LANDI and I and um So I
just I never stopped producing. I had project after project
from two thousand seventeen. When did you build your own
studio in and you had enough money to do that?
Hid you managed to do it? So um I knew

(01:30:27):
that all the budgets were gonna go um, we're gonna
go away. They were starting to go away at that point,
so I um so I was like, Okay, I'm gon
have to build a studio. UM and UM I built
it with three of my friends. We did all the
construction ourself, planned it out. Red I had had a
buddy of mine that had built a studio that my

(01:30:47):
old band had worked at in town. Uh friend of
mine Jimmy and um and it took like four months
or so to build it and um and then I
started just producing everything here in my studio and um
um So I you know, basically collected all the gear

(01:31:08):
over the course of you know, of years and years
and years all the stuff that's in here, and bands
would come from out of town and they would just
use my all my stuff. And is your where's it located?
Has touched your house or where is it? Okay? So
at this late date, anybody watches your video, you have

(01:31:30):
a slew of equipment. Let's start with musical equipment. How
many guitars do you want? UM? I don't know, probably
probably forty, Maybe I don't know. You of Fender a
Gibson guy. I I'm a Gibson guy, but I have Fender.
I have plenty of Fender guitars. What I what do

(01:31:51):
you think about the new amps? You know, like Line
six brought in? They do all the changes you uh
thumbs upper thumbs down on that. I'm I'm I'm always
into whatever the latest gear is, Bob, I love gear.
I love learning new gear. I I um um. It's
one of my favorite things to do is to check

(01:32:12):
out new gear. Are you a pro tools or logic? Both?
But I use pro tools mainly, but I have I
have both actually, and why would you use one or
the other? Um? Some of the projects that I would
get as a producer would be in logic. Some of
the people would record their demos and logic and sometimes
a lot of times you'd have a part. You know,

(01:32:33):
there's a band need to breathe I worked with I
did three records with them, and sometimes they have demos
where they would get a particular sound you could never
recreate again, so we just take it out a lot
and I would have logic. They would send me the
sessions and I would take the I would take the
that particular sound and we'd use that sound in the session.

(01:32:53):
Something that that that is a one of a kind.
You know, many times you that, Um, it's very hard
to repeat sounds really hard unless you have meticulous notes
on things or don't move things. It's it's it's um,
it's uh extremely difficult, you know, like uh, like the

(01:33:16):
opening to Money for Nothing, Like, how do you even
get that sound? You can kind of approximate that, but
I don't know if Mark Noffler has ever gotten that
sound exactly the same like that. You know. Okay, so
where is music going? Um? It depends. There's there's a

(01:33:38):
lot of interesting genres of music that are progressing. You know,
the the greatest players, at least technically that have ever
lived or alive right now, and because of YouTube, because
of Instagram, they're they're the greatest technicians on the guitar.
And and some of the most creative kids are out

(01:33:59):
there are playing as right now doing things that were impossible.
But because of all the free tutorials that are out there,
kids can learn things at a incredibly fast rate and
incorporate all new techniques, playing on the guitar with two
different hands, things that you would have thought were impossible,

(01:34:22):
that our guitar heroes of the past, you know, never
you could have imagined. And UM and the genres like
progressive metal has a great community and that's kind of
like the jazz of today in a way. This where
a lot of innovation is happening. UM. As far as
pop music is concerned, you know, the there's some it's

(01:34:46):
it's uh, there's some interesting stuff. I love production, and
people hate it when I compliment anything that's popular. They
just the comment sections when I do my top ten
Spotify countdowns and I talked about pop music. When I
compliment things, and I try to look for the good
in music. Sometimes it's very difficult to find. But um,

(01:35:08):
but there's there's a lot of creative production elements in
contemporary pop music. The downside is that you don't you'll
you know, when's the last time we saw a kiss
from a rose like seal? Well, you don't see things
that have unbelievable orchestration with that have, you know, really

(01:35:29):
sophisticated melodies and chord changes and all pro players. You
know this, This doesn't really exist in popular music anymore.
When's the last time somebody spent money on a budget
to hire a real orchestra on a pop song? I mean,
I I don't know, um, but um, most most records
are made by people in their in their bedrooms, you know,

(01:35:53):
Billie Eilish. Interesting records are made by people that are
making them themselves else, you know, and and um, where
is it going? I'm not sure where is it going? Bob? Well,
let's separate it out. Okay, there is the Spotify Top fifty,
which is mainly hip hop and pop. Then there are
all these other genres. What do we know? The Spotify

(01:36:15):
top fifty, literally in terms of the numbers, is less
of the marketplace keeps going down. We we grew up
in arrows certainly in the sixties and in the eighties MTV.
If it was a hit, everybody knew it. Hit today
and most people have never heard it, never mind another
track on the album. But let's just stay with your
great players thing. If we're looking at rock to what

(01:36:40):
degree do we have the Berkeley College of Music paradigm
where you have some great players. But writing is different
from playing and is okay? Go on, Yes, writing is
very different from playing. Um, the the all the guitar
virtuoses that are out there don't write songs necessarily, or

(01:37:02):
they write songs. They don't find singers like you used
to back when I was growing up. You go out
and you find a singer to to so you can
play guitar solos and play parts because you wanted to
be part of writing songs. That's why why I got
into music was too to write songs. Yeah, I like
playing guitar solos. Two. I love playing guitar, but I

(01:37:24):
like songs more. I mean, well, I don't know about more,
but I love songs. So Eddie Van Helen needed David
Lee Roth, you know, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry needed Steven Tyler.
Jimmy Page needed Robert Plant, Keith Richards needed Mick Jagger.
It was never you know, Jimi Hendrix didn't need anyone
else but very few. Air Clapton didn't need anyone else.

(01:37:46):
But for the most part, Um, all the guitar players
that were historically uh you know, you know, the the
people that that that we're revered when I was growing up,
from David Gilmore to Brian Made to Jimmy Page to
Eric Clapton, Hendrix, all these you know, to Albert King

(01:38:08):
to b B. King, you know, all the blues masters. Uh.
The um, it was always about the song and the
soloing was secondary. Even with Van Halen, the soloing was secondary. Um.
Joni Mitchell had incredible soloists play with her, the the
the best player, Steely Dan. They had amazing solos on it.

(01:38:30):
Whether it's Jay Grayden on peg, whether it's Larry Carlton
and Kids, Charlemagne, Elliott Randall on reel and in the
years Denny Diaz on do it again. These were the
top session players in l A playing just unimaginably great solos.
Carlos Rios and brother to brother by Gino Vanilly just classics.
Or David Gilmore uncomfortably number. You know, another brick in

(01:38:53):
the wall. Whatever it is, Okay, So kids today, songwriting
is not necessarily a thing that guitar players do. There's
no impetus to do that. There is no rock movement,
and um, I think that the advent of pro tools
and logic being on every computer. Um, people can make

(01:39:15):
songs so easily. Put a beat here, they write lyrics,
I do this and then it's done. Back in the day,
I didn't know anybody that recorded recording recording studios when
I was a kid. I didn't go to one until
I was in college, and the and the College Fredonia,
My my cousin was the recording major. I went in
my first recording studio then couldn't believe it. Nobody I
knew made recordings. Believe me, I know. So you know.

(01:39:40):
Now occasionally I view the active rock chart, which is,
you know, a radio format. But I I remember when
Black Sabbath was too far out there and led Zeppel
was considered heavy metal. Then the standard became metallica. So
I find unless you've been study the music for ten

(01:40:01):
twenty years, it's indecipherable by the average listener. Right by
the same token he's nodding his head here. Then there's rock.
You occasionally find rock channel rock songs that I don't know,
I don't know where they're getting played. How do you
find this stuff? It's it's difficult. I mean the rock charts,

(01:40:22):
you know, the Spotify rock chart is rock this that's
the biggest playlist. It's got four point five million viewers.
Alison Hagendorf programs that, Um, the most people discover music
on playlists, and the playlists are now the A and
R people of twenty years ago. You know, Uh, they're
the ones at that side what gets played. Or maybe

(01:40:42):
they're the uh you know, the independent radio promoters that
were that all the labels paid to avoid payola back
and then you know, eighties and nineties. Is there anybody
out there in the rock sphere musically who's unrecognized that
you want to say or not recognize enough that you
say people should pay attention to um? Um? Maybe I

(01:41:12):
have my answer, uh, that people should pay attention to um.
You know, it's interesting when i'm um, most of the
stuff I listened to that's contemporary music are things that
are on the charts. When I do my breakdowns, it's

(01:41:33):
the way that I familiarize myself with contemporary music. Okay,
so who's on the charts but not not known by everybody?
You know, it's it's hard to say who knows. I don't.
Let's let's let's leave that because I don't want to
pay on the spot. But one thing I will put
you on the spot. Greatest guitarist of all time, greatest

(01:41:55):
rock guitars whip out Segovia or something. Greatest rock guitarists
of all time? Man, Um, geez? You know, uh, Jimmy
Hendricks and Jeff Beck. Maybe I go with Beck. Okay,

(01:42:18):
let's move on from there. Okay, so what and Jeff
and Jeff Beck? Honestly, Um suffers from not having Um
been in a band. Well, he had bands with vocalists
you know, No, no, I mean listen, you know you
talk about Jimmy Page. I remember going to the Arms show.
So you had Jimmy Page, Clapton and Becked on the

(01:42:39):
same stage. Beck blew him away. This is eighty three,
I think. But Jimmy Page, he wrote the songs those
he didn't we make that we're all ultimately standards and
produced them and you cannot underestimate that. So Jimmy Page.
If one of my friends asked me recently, who's the
one musician I would like to interview, and I said

(01:43:00):
Jimmy Page without hesitation. He said why Jimmy Page. I said,
because Jimmy Page was at the center of all this stuff.
Plus he's not been um you know. He said, why
not Paul McCartney. I said, because Paul McCartney has told
every story he has a hundred thousand times, Jimmy Page hasn't.
I want to know what it was like to sit
down with your Martin guitar when you're gonna start Stairway

(01:43:23):
to Heaven the first and you picked the first note
of it? What's going through your mind? That would be
a great interview. You'd be the perfect person for that
favorite led Zeppelin song. Oh my god, favorite led Zeppelin song.
Um ah, jeez. I would go with Good Times Bad Times?

(01:43:47):
Doesn't that no one ever mentioned the first album that
used to be my favorite? But now my favorite is
ten And I'll tell you and I love ten Years Gone,
but I'll tell you why I love Good Times Bad Times.
First of all, it's the drums sounds on this. It's
just like it's just Zeppelin just the first impression you
get have led Zeppelin right there. It's got a bass

(01:44:09):
solo in it, it's got this one of the best
John bonhom drumbeats. It's got a killer guitar riff, it's
got a great vocal melody, it's got a really great
hook um, and it incorporates all the elements of Zeppelin
and and is sonically phenomenal, like just right off the bat,

(01:44:30):
first song on the first record, so as I just
have to go with that. But there's so many great
Zeppelin songs. But man, that that's a whole another conversation.
So you do twelve videos a week? Is something percolating
in your brain? Now? Yes? Okay? Is that? How does
it work? Do you? Is it work that I gotta

(01:44:51):
make a video, gotta come up with a topic or
is it raw inspiration or the topics in the back
of your head? So I have a list of topics
that I on my phone. So usually I get up
with with my kids. I have three kids. I get
up and I have three dogs and three cats, and
I get up with my wife and you know, we
get all the dogs fed and do all this stuff

(01:45:12):
and get the kids fed, and then I'll go sit. Uh.
I usually I'll sit outside this time of year with
and drink my coffee and I'll start thinking about my
video that I'm gonna make. So I had a uh.
I usually have about ten video ideas going on at once,
and um, I haven't a video that I've been wanting

(01:45:32):
to make on auto tune, and I have about four
different ways that I want to uh that that I
can talk about it. I think auto tune is is
a a horrible thing, be a great thing for certain things. Right.
Auto tune saved a bunch of record projects for bands

(01:45:54):
that didn't have budgets. And you got your the last
day and your they can only be in town for
five days. And I was doing a thing. You have
a couple attitude notes and that you can fix with
auto tune because you don't have any extra takes that
we're with a good one. Right, So it's a lifesaver.
And then you have it where it's just on every
song and a dehumanizes music, you know, it's it's uh.

(01:46:15):
It takes the humanity and emotion out of everything. And
I think twenty years from now, I mean it makes
most music very forgettable because everybody's going through this um
this filter that essentially takes the humanity out of their voice,
all the imperfections, the pitch in perfections, which is actually

(01:46:37):
the character. Um. Yet some people use it for, you know,
with really cool effects, but the fact that it's whether
you can hear it or not is pretty much on
every vocal of every rock song, every pop song. Maybe
not every indie rock song, but a lot of indie
rock songs. You would be surprised that have auto tune
as well. And um, you know. So I'm trying to

(01:47:00):
decide how I want to tackle that topic. I've been
wanting to make an auto tune video for years and
I haven't done it yet. So that's one of the topics. Okay,
so you're like waiting for something to click in your brain. No,
I actually have four different ways that I can talk
about it for there would be four different videos. I
can't decide which video I want to make about it
yet though. Okay, do you ever come up with an

(01:47:22):
idea and say, you're so hot, I gotta run in
the studio make it right now, otherwise it just won't
be as good. Yes, it happens all the time, Okay,
all the time. Oh, my god. Yeah, most of my
videos are like that. Okay, And does it happen at
a certain time of the day, Yes, I I it can.

(01:47:43):
It can be whenever I'll record, whenever I have the idea,
I make it. If it's at night, if it's in
the morning, whenever I just sit down on the camera,
I start rolling. It's all improv always okay, late night
any better? Um my story videos typically go late night.
So in the last year, I've had seven trending videos
on YouTube. That means it's on the top fifty of

(01:48:05):
YouTube worldwide trending list. But they've been They've ranged in
topics from a top ten by Spotify countdown to a
video about my aunt Penny that passed away that had
has like a million and a half views. And it's
an eighteen minute video dedicated to my aunt Penny, who
was I was incredibly close with. It was a massive

(01:48:25):
influence on me musically and otherwise. I don't know why
that would become a trending video, but it was a
huge It was it was great, like the best tribute
I could have for her. So and that was just
a video, one take, you know, talking about her, and
I put a video of us hanging out together I
made in eighteen where she sitting down playing the piano

(01:48:47):
and we're talking about music and she improvised and I
you know, so so yeah. So it's it really depends. Okay,
do you ever feel man, I'm burdened. I just can't work.
I can never make a video again, or it's gonna
take days before I'm hot again. No, so you're always gone,

(01:49:08):
Oh yeah, totally Okay. What's your favorite video? Um? My
favorite video is probably my Stairway to Heaven video reimagining
this the guitar solo. That's one of my favorite ones,
um and my top twenty acoustic guitar intros. It's one

(01:49:29):
of the only acoustic guitar videos I've made, which is
very funny because I love playing acoustic guitar and I've
made very few videos with acoustic guitar, And um, it's
all music of that we grew up with. The songs
in there, I mean, it's got intros of Simon and
Garfunkel and things like that, and um uh saw these

(01:49:50):
classic you know, Stairway to Heaven and Angie and all
the all my favorite you know things that have these
signature guitar intros um and uh, so that was a
that's a video that I really loved making. It was
fun to make. You ever go back and watch the
early videos? Yeah, they're horrible? No, No, I'm just kidding

(01:50:10):
that so no, No, I don't. I don't really. Um.
My question would be to what degree you think you've
gotten better? Uh? And what has gotten better since you've
been doing this for five years? No, no, I actually
do go back and watch the early videos. Um. Some
of the uh, the content is I think is as
good even in my early videos. It's just the production

(01:50:31):
values are not good. I mean I would put text
over my face because I didn't know how to how
to move the text in the final cut pro Um.
There's a lot of technical errors that I had with it,
and the sonics weren't as good because I wasn't shooting
in his high quality. You know, I'm not shooting shooting
in four K. I don't have as nice of a camera.
But but um, um, some of my earliest videos are

(01:50:52):
are are Um I did, I did some good, good videos, right,
I think right in the beginning, you think your delivery
is better. Now my delivery is definitely better, just from
raw experience or anybody giving any tips. No, no, no,
just from our experience. Okay, I think we've covered it
here Rick. For those people unfamiliar with Rick's videos, you

(01:51:14):
gotta tune him in. I mean it's you go right
down the rabbit hole. As I say, I would start with,
you know, acoustic intros is great, you know some of
the top tens if you're not a player, if you know,
if your player, you might want to go to one
of the instructional videos. But I really have to give
you kudos. You've built something out of nothing based on
your experience and talent. Really been great talking to you, Rick.

(01:51:37):
Thank you. Bob. I've been a fan of yours for
so many years and we finally meet absolutely and hopefully
be more in the future. Definitely until next time. This
is Bob left Sex

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Bob Lefsetz

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