Mike and Kristen Make It - Art, Love, Beer, Podcasts and Truths Behind Creative Survival - Afternoon Pint

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cheers, cheers, cheers.
Everybody, gotta get you.
I missed you.
Perfect, there you go.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Welcome to the Afternoon Fight.
I'm Mike Dobin, I am MattConrad, and who do we have with
us today?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I am Mike Ryan, member of the musical group the
Town Heroes, co-host of thepodcast Make it with Mike and
Kristen yeah, lifelong creativeperson.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
And I am Kristen Harrington, outnumbered by the M
names, but happy to be here theother half of Mike and Kristen
and owner of Togetherland ArtGallery and lots of past lives
behind me.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Well, guys, it's a pleasure to meet you both, yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
Yeah, so I mean.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I've been a fan of your podcast, and I mean of the
Town Heroes, obviously, thankyou.
And when I knew you were comingon, I got to do a little bit of
research right.
So I learned about Togetherland, which was you know.
Really I love the name and Ilove the idea about that and
we'll get into that in a littlebit, but I guess the first, the
big news that you guys got goingon right now is this podcast.
So you did 159 episodes.

(01:01):
Then all of a sudden you said,hey, I'm going to stop for a
minute.
We're going to kind ofrecalibrate, change the name,
change the direction a littlebit.
So maybe the people that mightnot have heard of the Mike and
Kristen show that ran for 159episodes tell us a little bit
about that show, guys, and aboutthis new venture that you're on
.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, it's funny.
When we decided to take the I'mdoing quotes break, everyone
just assumes like we're steppingaway from it.
But we actually had to worklike twice as hard, put in twice
the time behind the scenes toactually bring this rebrand to
life.
And mike and kristin was justboth of us I'm mike, that's
kristin and we interviewedcreative people, interesting

(01:46):
people, just kind of people fromNova Scotia.
All our interviews were done inperson and one thing we learned
from doing all those episodesand chatting with other people
on podcasts, going toconferences, is that it's good
to have a really specific niche,like everyone just says niche
down, niche down.

(02:07):
And we were covering a prettywide area of topics Like
creativity was always a big one,but it's kind of like that was
your home right With Mike andKristen.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
It always did kind of seem to go inward into arts and
stuff.
I mean our creative people andspirits.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, it definitely did.
But there was also we'd have Idon't know just people who we
thought were interesting.
Yeah, and that's we love that.
But just from all this stuffwe're learning, we realize we
have to just be more specific inwhat we're trying to put out
there, what even just ourelevator pitch like when we
would run into people atconferences they're like what's

(02:48):
your podcast?
like mike and chris.
Well, we interview people fromnova scotia and we just like it
was never streamlined.
So the whole, I guess, point ofthe rebrand was to streamline
that and have it more narroweddown.
Really focus on creativity, theartistic side of things and the
name Make it.

(03:08):
It's about actually creatingthings, making things.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Like making it yourself.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
And, yeah, what is making it?
What is success to someone?
Because that comes up withevery person.
We could ask you guys what'ssuccess with your podcast?
What would it mean to make itfor you?
So for us, we, we, we thoughtwe, we almost went in about
eight different directions, likeyeah we had a different name, a
different idea.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
We just will pull the trigger multiple times cool,
cool like kristin, so like youguys went, and then you guys
went down to SXS South bySouthwest SXXW right.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Yes, yeah, you got it .

Speaker 3 (03:45):
And like so how did your podcast get down in there,
like what's the story behindthat?
Because I thought it was superinteresting.
I always thought of that aslike where all the best rock
bands go and stuff like that.
So a podcast down there ispretty cool.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
It is that as well.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
And South by Southwest was founded on the
music industry essentially, andhas since expanded into all
kinds of creative industries,podcasts being one of them,
because, as you know, it's oneof the top media platforms and,
like listenership throughoutNorth America in particular, has
skyrocketed over the last fewyears.
So South by South West actuallyintroduced what they call a

(04:19):
podcast stream, which meant theybrought in a number of speakers
that specialized in that area,which meant they brought in a
number of speakers thatspecialized in that area.
So we applied for funding andwere successful to help support
the show go down to Austin in2024 and 2025.
And we took in information fromall of the experts so they
would cover things like data andstatistics that we could then

(04:40):
come back and use to ouradvantage.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Were you guys doing that already like data,
statistics stuff?

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean you monitor how the show is going,
but I also try not to get toocaught up in that.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
We're not really big numbers people.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
You just make it quote unquoteand just kind of put it out
there and see, we make it whatwe want to do really, but to
like Mike was describing, weconsistently heard two things
One was niching down and theother was the importance of the
video component Right, which weweren't doing with the Mike and
Kristen show.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
Are you doing video now?

Speaker 4 (05:13):
So we have since adopted the video component.
We're on YouTube now and peoplelove that, For whatever reason.
They like to see our faces.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
It's the same thing.
It's like my bane.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I really don't want to do it, and I feel like we're
going to get forced into doingthat at some point yeah, I, I, I
want to like stay away fromvideo, just because I for me,
just how I kind of envision thisis like, well, first of all, I
listen to podcasts when I'mdriving yeah, I'll never watch
your podcast, but I will listen.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Right, and we were that way too, which is part of
of the resistance.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
This isn't how we consume podcasts, but apparently
YouTube is king now more sothan any other listening stream.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
No, you're right.
And my other thing is how Ienvision us.
You're listening to us.
You don't necessarily need tosee us.
You sit down, maybe pouryourself a drink or a tea and
just listen.
It's almost like you'relistening to the conversation at
the table next to you, andthat's how I really wanted this
to be consumed.
Fly in the wall, yeah, yeah.
So it's like going in there assoon as that camera's going to

(06:14):
be on me.
I'm going to be like, oh man,I'm twitching weird or something
along those lines.
Right?

Speaker 4 (06:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
No, now I get that.
We extensively had thatdiscussion because I think
everyone, even if they'regetting their photograph taken,
kind of turns into this statueversion of themselves.
You posture a little differentRight now.
I'm relaxed and I'm slouchingand I just you know it's not
such a more relaxed vibe onaudio for me, I know.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
We'll see how it goes .
It's like we're learning aswe're going.
Neither of us are big videopeople, but you figure it out as
you're going.
But an episode I was editingtoday.
I'm looking back and I'm likeI'm pouring sweats in it tonight
.
I'm releasing this to the worldtomorrow.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
There's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
There's one with a mic stand basically through the
guest's face for the entireepisode.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
But you get used to we decide our first.
We had our first interview backyeah and we decided we weren't
doing video.
Actually because we were in avery small space there's hardly
any room and, like right beforethey came, like do you want to
just try it?
Like I almost are you allowedto curse on?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
it.
Yeah, yes, yeah so do.
We said fuck it, let's go forit.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
And so we just used our phones.
We set up our current phonesand an old phone.
We kept it around at differentangles trying to figure out what
looked good.
Threw on some retro 60s filtersafter the fact what software.
Did you use Final Cut Pro?
Okay, cool, I do editing forsocial media stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
I wanted to explore Riverside because I heard that
was really good for podcasting,but I haven't yet I just
downloaded it and I'm afraid tostart using it.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I think it's supposed to be awesome.
Yeah, if you don't have theother programs yourself.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
I tried it and I took one of our podcasts and I
plugged it in and this is one wedid on video because it was on
zoom.
Yeah, and I said, you know,whenever you hear like an um or
an r, a blip or whatever youknow, just edit that out and use
their ai christ, I mean becausewe're maritimers.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
It took about you know almost the entire
conversation episode 40 minutes.
Wow, how an hour.
Episode 40 minutes.
I was like, wow, how did that,get 15 minutes long I thought we
talked about a lot more stuff.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
But, no, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
You were talking about.
So this is the funny thing is,you guys are talking about the
two things that you learned fromtaking away from going to these
trips, which we'll talk moreabout as well, but just for
anyone listening, because you'retalking about video and then
you're talking about nichingdown.
Yeah, also another thing wedon't do- yeah, we're doing
everything.
We're like behind you guys,doing all the things that you
know.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
You just corrected you've got your niche, already
our niche is the pub being inthe pub and we got to plug where
we're at, because we alwaysforget to do that.
Yes we're at one of my favoritebreweries, like generally
favorite breweries.
So so north um matt, I wantedto do a rant because I thought
malternate reality was gone.
It's the number six beer on theboard.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Matt's drinking it now I'm drinking it because it's
one of my favorite beers.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
It's our favorite beers and like I mean, what's
weird about it is matt's like areally I would say you know,
upper scale beer enthusiast andI'm just like it tastes good,
like, I'm just kind of like, butthis is the beer that we agree
on, is the best beer.
Right, the multi-tribe, that'san excellent plug.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah this place actually, so every year we do a
podcast party and all the guests.
From that I'll say season.
But like that year ofinterviews, we invite to a party
and our first year we had itcatered and and North was our, I
guess, like sponsor of sorts.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, we had a buddy, Chris, who worked at the
Dartmouth one.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Hey, we can give you a deal.
Yeah, hook this up.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
So we just bought, like I don't know, $500 worth of
booze from here.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
That was nice.
Everyone got very drunk at theparty and the Dartmouth.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
One got the yeah, yeah speech on it now too.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yes, which is dope.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
They yeah, that's true too.
Yeah, you can just live there.
Oh yeah, mattress on the floor,what else do I need?
Pizza, pizza and a microphone.
Life is good, that's it.
So yeah, so I guess kind ofrolling along to the um, the
niche down.
So yeah, yeah, the.
If anyone doesn't know that Imean talk a little about what
you learned about niching down.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah well, we're two very creative people.
I've been a musician for 20-ishyears.
By this point, we wrote a booktogether, having the podcast
Kristen with her gallery, allthe different types of art she
does paintings, sculptures,furniture All we talk about is

(10:43):
just creative stuff.
And furniture, all we talkabout is just creative stuff.
So when we were at this pointwhere we had to figure out what
our podcast was going to be andniching down is essentially just
finding a very specific topic-you guys are close, though, I
think, to that arts world.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
We're shining a mirror.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Even just our name, though your name, the Afternoon
Pint like you get a general idea.
Are they having a drink in theafternoon?
Like it seems like it's fairlyclear.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Like you know what the hell is Mike and Kristen Day
drinking?
Is it Michael Jordan?

Speaker 1 (11:17):
and Kristen Stewart from Twilight together.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Oh yeah, mike and Kristen yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Like what does Mike and Kristen mean?
So we wanted something that Idon't know represented what we
were actually doing in the name.
That's just one aspect that wewanted, and our art for our
podcast was originally thisawesome picture we love, but
it's just us, I don't know,dressed up.

(11:43):
We have a cake in front of us.
I got a bottle of whiskey in myhand it just doesn't reflect
anything to do with what ourpodcast but it's fun though.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
I love the way they look.
Yeah, like yeah, yeah, but Iget it though.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, it's kind of like all these little things
have to add up to like ifsomeone quickly looks at your
picture here's your name, orwhatever reads your bio, they
can know in 10 seconds if theywant to listen to it.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
People kind of know what they're getting now with
the Make it name.
Are you going to?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
change at all your guests that you reach out,
because is it just like arebrand and still doing the same
thing?
Or is it like a rebrand andyou're like, ah, you know what
we might have to cut some of thepeople that we would normally
talk to have in the past, andcut that yeah?

Speaker 4 (12:26):
yeah, I love this question because it was one of
the things that we grappled withis does this mean we have to
exclude some guests that wewould really love to have on?
Some of our favorite gueststhat we had on mike and kristin
had nothing to do with the artsworld.
Yeah, yeah, with the caveat ofsaying I think everybody's
creative but, their life was notin the arts and entertainment

(12:46):
world.
So we thought, well, I don'twant to let that go, but it made
sense.
I think this was the topic thatnot only were we most equipped
to talk about, but our networklent itself best to that, and we
were kind of organically allalong asking people about this
concept of making it our successanyways.
And it was actually a formerguest that pointed this out to

(13:08):
us, who had hired us for a livegig, and he had sort of a
concept or an angle that hethought maybe we would take.
And he's like well, you guysusually ask your guests about
what it's like to make it outthere in the world.
Yeah, we do do that.
So it kind of yeah, it wasactually really helpful to have
a listener or a guest point outto us something that maybe you

(13:29):
get lost when you're too closeto a project.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
But I've always liked all along we've kind of done
things scrappy and DIY,including now the video, but
that's also something weadvocate for others to try.
I think a lot of people holdthemselves back from this type
of work because it's imperfector they fear it could be right
so we're like, let's just kindof walk the walk that was a big

(13:52):
fear, like I don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
We both have a little bit of perfectionism in us and
we were worried if we try to dothe video like it's not going to
be perfect and we don't reallyknow what we're doing.
But it was kind of like a a bigstep for us to to just do it,
to go ahead, let's learn on thefly, let's figure out all these
little details, and it's notgoing to be the the best looking

(14:17):
thing right away.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Maybe it never will be probably won't uh, but it's
gonna be a new element, newcomponent and essentially just a
different way to promote it,different marketing and what I'm
learning about and this is nerdtalk here again but, yeah, seo,
search engine optimization whata cool thing that is huh as,
but like, if you think aboutlike the way like youtube works

(14:39):
and it backlinks to somethingelse, like the mike and kristin
website or uh, or something elseabout you guys it all starts to
kind of feed into like your ownlittle universe, right, yeah,
and?
And all those links are quiteimportant, right, yeah?
And then we didn't have aproper website until, uh, sunday
.
Like you know, we've beenpretty scrappy too.
We're like, well, we shouldprobably get a website, yeah,

(15:02):
yeah, I mean, we needed to likea website.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
For sure.
I mean, we needed a website,for sure.
I mean we had our website-ishwhere you could go and listen to
our episodes, but now we havean actual, proper website,
proper site, yeah, but I mean wewere kind of forced into that
because we got involved in otherthings.
So we're managing kind of aninfluencer like social media,
marketing and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Kind of like your site, because I was on it and
you guys showed all yourservices and stuff that you guys
can do, which I thought wasreally unique and and, like you
know, there's a lot more to youguys than I podcast right, like
there's a lot more what you guysdo out there and and and the
things that you serve, and nowthey can kind of really see all
the stuff that they canexperience with you guys, which
is pretty chill right.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
So that was actually.
The original motivation forMike and Kristen podcast was to
give a little clarity to all ofthese things that we were doing,
and we laugh about it nowbecause that meant adding one
more thing that we do to bringclarity.
But the idea was we'd go on andtalk about the book that we
wrote or upcoming shows, and itjust evolved into the guest

(16:02):
interview that we loved andlearned from.
And yeah, what's your originstory story?
Can I ask like, what inspired?

Speaker 3 (16:08):
you to want to start this show.
We've been buddies for 20 yearsyeah uh, I love radio, matt
loves radio, and that was.
That was like you know.
We were really good friends.
Anyways, we're already talkingon like almost every day or
every second day, right, so it'slike the synergies were just
there and I wanted to.
I bought this gear, jesus.
We didn't do nothing with itfor a year, it's not in the
house.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
We were testing things out in my.
I have a pub in my basement andwe were just he brought it over
there like once a week.
We sat and we were talkingabout news, we were joking
around about stuff, whatever.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
We wanted to do a politics, show a fight show.
We had everything going, exceptfor being nice and bringing
people together.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
We're like well, wait a second.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Why don't we just try to be nice, yeah, so we just
kind of came up with this ideaof like again.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
It was like Mike kind of researched early on, like,
hey, they really say you shoulddo niche or stick to a niche,
and I was like, okay, cool, likeyou know, I like politics and
we were talking aboutsubcultures and things like that
within the province and kind oflearned through all these
different groups of peoplethrough their food and through
their drink and through theirbusiness, whatever.

(17:11):
And then we also likedentrepreneurs and things like
that too.
The problem with that is it'sjust kind of like we were like,
oh, we want to do all this.
We can't do five podcasts.
And then we were just like youknow what?

Speaker 4 (17:24):
Let's just sit down and have a drink with people,
break the proverbial liquidbread, yes, and that kind of has
allowed you to have anybody onthe show you want, like this is
your anchor, is this setting?
Yeah, it's really cool, weforced ourselves to start.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
A close friend of ours was our first guest right
and he was just opening a coffeeshop up in a pandemic and that
was a great title for our firstepisode Coffee shop, you know,
startup in a pandemic.
And he's, you know, great guy,loved his dad and you know he
has a beautiful story to tell.
Right, and I think that was thefirst one.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
I wondered if either of you worked in politics,
because I know you've had a lotof politicians on your show.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, well, sort of.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
So Matt's been more in the political realm Me zero.
So Matt's been more in thepolitical realm Me zero.
Right, I'm more in the music-yrealm, I'd say Probably arts and
crafts community here.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, I ran unsuccessfully five years ago.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
And I have been.
What level of government City?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I lost by 2%, yeah, so almost won but did not
win.
And then I've been involved inpolitics quite a bit.
I've been the co-campaignmanager on three elections.
I've been the riding presidenttwo different times of riding so
pretty involved in politics.

(18:38):
I was 14 years old and said Iwanted to be a politician.
That dream is now dead.
I don't think it's dead.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Politicians can start at any age to be a politician.
That dream is now dead, butyeah, I don't think it's dead.
Politicians can start at anyage, though.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
They can, that's true , I feel like our paths may have
crossed in that world, becauseI was involved in politics for
ten years before.
I became a full-time artist sothat was my whole professional.
Like I have a poli-sci degree,worked in the caucus office in a
bunch of different departmentsand I was like that name's
familiar, so maybe we've met onthe campaign trail.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
There is a strong probability that, yeah, I have
no real party affiliate.
I stand behind just good people.
So I've voted all three colors.
Over the last decade I havehelped camp like literally I
helped a progressiveconservative in the last, like
the last provincial election andI helped a federal liberal in

(19:32):
the last federal election andpeople were like dude, make up
your mind.
But as a poli-sci person you'llsee like the spectrums of
things that I'm not loyal to acolor.
I like certain policies and Ijust happen to think that our
provincial government and ourcurrent federal government are
more aligned policy-wise thanideologies yeah, no, I love that

(19:56):
.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
I think the more apolitical outlook is what maybe
we're lacking.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
I agree, well, well you know, I mean I mirrored Matt
Senneman and what he just saidabout the federal and provincial
right, which is odd, right.
But yeah, it totally.
You should totally go forwhat's going to do the best you
feel is going to do the best foryou, your province, where you
know not just your app but yourneighbor's app, right, stuff
like that.
We've got to collectively, youknow, sometimes not always just

(20:24):
pick a team right, Sure and staythere you know Well, good for
you.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
That takes a lot of courage to put your name in the
ring.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, it changed me forever Listening to people
knocking on their doors andhearing so many different people
from so many differentstruggles.
Honestly, I would encourageanyone to do it.
It, even if you don't want torun, volunteer for a campaign
and knock on doors and hearpeople what they struggle with.
You will never walk away thesame person ever again.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
That's right, yeah I always say I'm also grateful to
have a better understanding ofthe infrastructure that we live
in like this is how my taxes areactually used, or this is why a
decision takes a really longtime at the legislature.
Whatever the case might be,just having that understanding
has given me more patience andperspective as nova scotian yeah

(21:13):
, yeah, no, I agree it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So yeah, no, that's uh, that's so, that's
interesting.
I'm sure we this doesn't haveto turn into a uh, yeah we'll
nerd out after these guys cantalk about gear.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, you guys can keep talking about politicians
by all means.
It sounds fun.
I love politicians.
Some of them are great I do.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
I I'm really interested actually.
Uh, you guys, so you guys havetraveled, like to learn more
about this industry.
That's something, mike and I'vereally wanted to do.
Um, I mean, it's great that youguys could find some funding.
That's something else you maybe able to tell us about.
But yeah, some of the bigtakeaways from this talking to

(21:51):
different people that are doingthis must be inspiring.
It must be that you must justgather so much knowledge.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, there's so many parts of going to something
like Southwest or another onePodfest in Orlando, and a big
part of it is just theinspiration coming home.
Parts of going to somethinglike Southwest or another one
Podfest in Orlando, and a bigpart of it is just the
inspiration coming home, like,of course there's numbers and
data you're crunching andspecific tips and things, but
it's also just coming back withthat fire underneath you, you're
meeting people who get amillion downloads a week and

(22:24):
they're like making a hugeliving doing it.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Right, and a little cynicism here.
Do you think that's possible inCanada or in Nova Scotia, or do
?

Speaker 1 (22:34):
you think you have to be in the right market to get
those types of hits, I feel likethe right type of podcast.
It's possible, Right.
But to get those numbers, yeah,you have to have something
incredibly unique about you,whether it's your personality,
your look whatever the show is,If it's video, otherwise it
doesn't matter, right?

Speaker 3 (22:54):
That's why I stay in the shadows.
No, but it still matters, evenlike I don't know like social
media.

Speaker 5 (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
I hate to say it, but things matter.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
You look in there and you see someone who just posts
a picture of himself.
And they're a good-lookingperson.
They have thousands of likesand comments.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yes, he's telling us to hang it up.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
I'm also wondering where this is going.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
I'm just saying there's like mastery
interviewers and that's theirthing.
Oh, absolutely.
There's people who have thecoolest idea imaginable.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
You geek out when you see a good interviewer.
If you're into this stuff likeI mean Sean Evans, the Hot Ones
guy.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
I mean Matt, you'd agree, he's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Every time I watch him ask a question I'm like holy
shit.
Like you know Just such greatquestion acting Laser focused.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
He's got it dialed in he's dialed in and he does a
lot of research and it's deepresearch.
He's good and it's genuine.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, it feels authentic.
It doesn't feel like he's.
I've got to talk to this person.
He's happy to be there.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, I obviously that's a great concept too, like
a really great concept, uh.
But to your point also you canalso be a really crappy
interviewer and, you know, notbe super great, and if you're
incredibly good looking, youmight still get millions of
follows.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, or you have just the right people behind you
pushing it, or you have somemoney to back it up.
There's different reasons.
Anyone who's not good iseventually going to be found out
and it's not going to go for along time.
But certain things can get youto a point where maybe other
people have to rely on grit andhard work and just pushing

(24:41):
through.
But I think it's like anything,anything just from playing
music so long I've just I justtransfer all those, I guess,
idea, ideals and skill sets over, like okay, we just gotta stick
to it, like that's the longeryou do it, the more people you
come across right.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, word of mouth spreads.
I would imagine that is prettysimilar to like, you know,
trying to like make it uh in themusic industry, like podcasts,
it's like how can we get as manypeople to listen to us as
possible?
Yeah, cause that's in the endgame.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Really, yeah, and yeah, I was going to say there's
that, but it's also a lot ofthings that we learn.
As far as coming back with thisinspiration is tapping into
your why and what kind of makesyou feel happy in life.
And so there's a little bit of Idon't want to say disregard,
but we don't put as muchpriority on the downloads and

(25:31):
the reach, and of course thatmatters, maybe at some point
from a business strategy or whatdo we want for this to actually
do for us?
But the people that have comeinto our life through this kind
of creative work is justimmeasurable when it comes to
dollars and cents.
So we kind of keep that in mindtoo.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
So but rick rubin, did you know?
Rick rubin world right.
So he has a book out right theart of creative or the creative
act, both read it like seventimes, dude.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
I listen to it like three, four times.
It's really good.
I'm addicted to it.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
I keep listening to it because I only ever really
bought one audio book on iTunes,so it's the only book I have on
that one on that app.
Now I'm listening to audiobooks on Spotify because they're
terrible too right, you getyour 15 hours.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, you get your 15 hours in.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh yeah, so anyways that one book.
What was the thing he saidthere?
Sorry, it just escaped me.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
The thing is, everything Rick Rubin says
sounds like the fuck A mic dropso smart so wild.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
But he's like you don't make the art for them, you
make the art for you.
And I'm like, damn, that's sick, rick Rubin, I love that.
I love the idea of you know youare making it for them, but
you're really making it for you.
So be honest with yourself.
You're making it for you.
So be honest with yourself.
Right, like you know you'redoing it because there was
something inside of you thatwanted to create this so bad.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yeah, that's true, and you can't be like we can't
compare ourselves to the biggestpodcasts out there, like it's
going to break our hearts everyday Like if we think we're just
going to release an episode andhave the same downloads as
whatever.
Mel Robbins Joe.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Rogan any of those.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
It's just not what we should be going for.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
We celebrate the small victories.
It's like when we do a reallygood episode like this one here,
we're like oh, that was a goodepisode, man.
Yeah, I like that one.
When we're proud of it and wecan stand by it.
We're just really happy.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
If anything, if anything is number focused, I
actually get a little.
The thing that I get mostdisappointed is is that, like
that guest, like such a goodguest, had such a great story
and I wish more people heard it.
Yeah, that's really what Ireally think the kind of like oh
man, like more people should.
Everyone should have heard that.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, we'll have some that do really well and some
that we think are just going todo awesome and they don't do as
well and we're like, oh my God,that was the best episode we
ever did.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, right, you know , and in terms of… the good
thing about this podcast and ourpodcast is that these episodes
are evergreen right.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Someone can go back any time and listen to us.
Because I'll listen to theDaily, which is a news podcast
New York.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
Times does.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
And you would never listen it's fresh for three days
, yeah, yeah you would never goback and listen to one right or
sports ones that are just aboutthe game that happened last
night.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
No one's ever going to listen to those again, but
these types of podcasts aregoing to exist forever and, yeah
, any points we're good at everyweek we focus on this is the
guests we have, so let's promotethem.
And the next week as it goesand keeps going like that right
but we're also talking like, hey, any week or any day we can say

(28:32):
, hey, this episode we did withmatt mays was awesome, check it
out like we're we're allowed todo that okay.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, sorry about that.
We had a little bit of abattery outage with our high,
super good technology here alittle power outage a little
power outage.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah, the candles out exactly yeah, but you were
saying about going back intoepisodes.
But and I think there's also asa result of us having this
experience you're going to be onour show one day, we hope, or
we're going to run into eachother at the grocery store and
high five or downtown and go foranother pint, and this is kind

(29:09):
of the joy that doing the showreally brings.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
We've met so many people that are now friends.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
We had a beer with a premier like me, boy, I mean, I
think that's so cool thoughright, just when you think about
that.
Yeah, oh yeah, we're going tohave I mean, I think that's so
cool, though, right, just whenyou think about that yeah, oh
yeah, two premieres, oh, twopremieres, mcneil and the
Eustace.

Speaker 5 (29:28):
Yeah, pretty cool thing.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
And.
I got to say dumb jokes, right,I mean that's a real honor yeah
.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
You can look at again downloads and all that, but you
can look at the experiences.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Oh yeah, that's.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Whatever it is you're doing brings into your life,
yep, and same thing with playingmusic.
Like the places I've gone, thepeople I've met, like I met
Kristen from playing music.
She's my wife for 10 years now.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Amazing.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
And, of course, if you're trying to make a living
off it, you do have to considerthe monetary side of things.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, I was going to ask you about that later in the
show.
Well, I'll let it get that intoyou now.
So that here.
So you guys I mean both artists, you know doing great work on
both sides.
You know, you're you, youperform at a high level.
Both of you do, uh uh, musicwise and talent wise, painting
wise.
You know how, like it must.
Bills must be a nightmare,though still, it must still be
tough, is it?

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, it's not this day and age 2025, with the price
of everything going up, peoplewanting to just enjoy their

(30:45):
downtime with Netflix more thangoing to a show or going to an
art show Like it's a toughdefinitely a tougher time for
creative people.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
And we've managed to make things work.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
And you're both award-winning artists in your
own right, like you know, whichis crazy, right.
But I mean you know you feellike you know accomplished.
I get a little upset at thefact that you know we can't have
folks be artists in ourcommunity and survive, yeah, as
well as they deserve, right?

Speaker 4 (31:10):
so this is something.
It's funny that this comes up,because it's something I put
thought into this morning thatif it did come up yeah how
honest I would be about thisplease, because I.
Because I, if I'm beingtruthful, this is an area that I
have struggled with the most,and certainly in 2025, with the
word recession floating around.

(31:31):
People are not spending luxurydollars on buying artwork
they're buying a bag of carrots.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
They should be, though.
Sure, yeah, art's better thanfood, and I get that, because,
like we're in the same boat,like we're in the same boat, we
also don't have a ton ofdisposable income to be spending
on things that aren't directlyconnected to our survival.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
So you yourself have to be selective.
In the art you can sell,whether it's one medium or the
next right.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yeah, it's tough.
Mike has more I'll sayemotional experience with this
because he's been a full-timemusician for 20 years.
I spent 10 years getting my twoweek paycheck at a high level.
So transitioning into being anentrepreneur was very much about
lifestyle.
I didn't want to do thatcommute and rush hour anymore
and sit in my little beigeoffice in my polyester pants,

(32:17):
like I was over it, but it'skind of.
I don't want to give theillusion of, I think from the
outside.
Yes, we have had a lot ofsuccess.
Uh, we've had a lot of fun,we've met a lot of people, but
the finances have always beenhard and I don't know if I will
ever find peace with that sothat's my.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I don't want to like no, it's a hard thing to admit,
but that's the truth, because Imean, that's what, that's what
makes us all from just kind ofdoing that creative jump.
So I mean, matt and I, this isour side hustle right, but you
know, I mean, our spouses aresupportive now.
But if I said that's it, that'sit.
I'm just going to try to writerap music and do a podcast,
Andrew would be like oh no, I dowant.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
No.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Nonetheless, yes, you do yeah yeah, but uh, but you
know that's.
That's the problem, right, likewe, you know our passion.
Sometimes it's just so hard toknow what to do.
We live one life, we want tolive the best version of it,
right, and?
And man, I gotta be like that'smy biggest fear is like to do
this all on my own.
Would I just lose, right, like,would I just not make it in any

(33:22):
thing and then just eventuallyhave a worse job than I have now
?
Right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
And we're hosting a show called Make it.
Yeah, and I'm over here like ohGod, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
But I mean the other thing is though it's like levels
of success and we've talkedabout that a lot here already
like the things that make usfeel good.
I mean, you know, there'sdifferent things In my own mind.
I'll never make it, ever, ever.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
There's no imagining he's super negative.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
No, no, that's not negativity at all.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
It's like I'm a realist.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
That's what negative people say Okay, so the town
heroes.
Like perfect thing.
You had the perfect pitch nightat the best auditorium.
You were honored.
You played in front of the.
You had the perfect pitch nightat the best auditorium.
You were honored.
You played, you played.
You know your music got theattention it deserved.
A thousand percent, there's asymphony playing behind you.
If that was me, I'd be like Idon't know man.
I don't know if I did it yet,like I don't know if I would
even be there at that levelright, because it's just not my

(34:18):
way I am.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I'd probably you might need therapy, oh.

Speaker 5 (34:21):
I'm working on it.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Literally, we could have an awesome episode.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
It was entertaining, we could talk to the guests and
he's like.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
I don't know, man, I think it was shit, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
It takes my brain a long time to get to a place
where I'm okay with a lot ofthings.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Is this?
Protecting yourself Only withart.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
With life, with family, with everything else.
I'm totally cool.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
Like with everything else, I'm totally cool.
Like I'm cool as a cucumber Ican go.
I could sail any storm for workand stuff.
Shit don't bother me at all.
Zero art is sensitive, sosensitive right.
I appreciate that honesty aswell and I don't know that
everybody has a visual in mindof what achievement or success
or quote making it actuallylooks like, and some people will
say I didn't know that this wasgoing to be the moment that
made me feel that way until Iwas in it so you can't even
imagine until you're living it.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Maybe that'll be you interesting thing uh, about the
athletes, because every person,every athlete in the world has a
prime where they're at theirabsolute best right, but no one
would ever know that they're init yeah, like it's your last day
, dude.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Oh, it's great you?

Speaker 1 (35:25):
you think you're only going to get better but there's
going to be one particular daywhere every day after that
you're worse 100.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, it's I probably talk about this too much, but
it's one of my favorite quotesof all time from the office.
Second last episode of theoffice, and uh andy says I wish
there was a way that you canknow that you're in the good old
days before you left.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite quotes of all time,
100%.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Well, that's all about just living in the moment,
right Like being grateful forthe things that happen.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Just like we're sitting here.
How lucky are we to be sittinghere drinking a beer.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
This is pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Like think of geez wars all around the world.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, literally in the brink of World War III, in
certain places in this world Isaw videos of that plane crash
in India.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
And, like in Halifax, there's homeless people
everywhere.
People who are working jobscan't afford a house.
Like, how lucky are we to behere chatting, having this
conversation?
You got some cool gear.
We got some craft beer 're justliving life like.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
We have to recognize, and that's the plus side and
that's the plus side of what youguys do.
So we went through the negative, so let's go through the
positive again.
And just to reiterate, if you'rethinking about being an artist
yourself if you're still with usand you want to be an artist, I
can see both sides of the glassor wherever it works, you know.
But yeah, you know, thepositivity is you do have one
life to live.

(36:49):
You might as well appreciateevery moment and do the best you
can to get through.
Yeah, yeah.
Is that positive enough Sure.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
You got it, you nailed it.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
That's more realistic .

Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think what you value, as Kristen stated earlier
, what you value is reallyimportant and knowing your why
in you're doing something.
Are you doing this to makemoney?
Are you doing this to meetpeople?
Are you doing this to justexpress yourself, like knowing
what it is you value, and thenthat is intertwined with what is

(37:23):
your why is you value, and thenthat is intertwined with what
is your why, and then you canfigure out.
Well, I'm doing this because Ijust enjoy hanging out with
people yeah then you don't haveto worry.
Oh okay, then I probably have tohave another job on the side to
support it.
If my biggest thing is I wantto meet people, I'll make money
somewhere else and maybe thiswill turn into something

(37:44):
profitable, but I think everyonejust knowing what it is that
matters to them allows you tofind the direction that you
actually need to go in.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Brilliant advice.
Yeah, good job, guys.
You got through that, yousailed right through that.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
Oh yeah, Amazing Okay .

Speaker 3 (38:03):
I got a little bit.
I want to kind of talk aboutyou, kind of zero in a little
bit, my phone, my notes here,sorry, okay.
So I wanted to talk aboutTogetherland because I think
that sounds like a prettyremarkable place.
So for people listening, whatis Togetherland?

Speaker 4 (38:20):
Togetherland is my art gallery in Ingramport, which
is on your way to Hubbard's onthe St Margaret's Bay Road is on
your way to Hubbard's on the StMargaret's Bay Road and a few
years back I had just put a postout on Facebook thinking I
might have a business that wouldinvite me to do like a pop-up
over the summer.
I wanted a place to sell my artthat wasn't in my living room.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
Let's just kind of move out of the home here.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
And didn't really know what that would look like,
had no expectations but put itout there.
And this friend of ours he's aradio host at Cove FM.
His name is Steve Gilbert, ohyeah, lives right next door to
this old church with a churchhall attached to it and he wrote
me and said I don't really knowif this is what you had in mind
, but if you'd like I canconnect you with the church
people Cool and see what youthink.

(39:04):
So that's what we did.
And as soon as you step intothis room, if any of you have
been part of a church hall inyour upbringing- it was exactly
like you might think andremember and smell, and feel
Classic church.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Everything about it was just like a wave of
nostalgia Church hall you know,like where you have the
sandwiches, bean dinners.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Yeah, so it was that, and it was just this big empty
room and we immediately sawpotential.
So I thought, okay, this isn'twhat I had in mind, but it's
right on the water and it'sclose to home and I can kind of
do whatever I want with it.
It was otherwise just beingabandoned, and it was only so.
I signed the lease on this, andprobably three or four days

(39:44):
later were when the wildfirescame through.
And Mike and I were evac.
The wildfires came through andMike and I were evacuated.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
And we decided let's go live at the church, I guess
because it was close to home.
Of course we had lots offriends and family offer to put
us up, which was very thoughtful.
But we wanted that proximityand we took our air mattress and
we lived in this just kind ofyou know, dirty spider webs.
Whatever, it was not an artgallery at the time it's a start

(40:13):
.
We were there for nine days yeahand uh, you know, I I think
there's kind of some the storythere is like it was our, it was
our savior here.
We were in a church, you know,and that was the, the birth of
togetherland, and so during thistime that we were evacuated, we
weren't allowed to go home.
So I had a bunch of friendsdelivering things in hopes that

(40:35):
I would still be able to open itas a gallery when I had planned
.
I opened on my birthday on june9th that year and we're now
entering the third season andwe've got live concerts and
workshops and, of course, yeahit's just kind of become a
community hub.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
So community's just coming in to learn how to paint
or see a show.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah mike does open mic nights there on
wednesday nights that are younever, know who you're gonna get
, and it's just this reallyanybody can pop down there yeah
and is there an admission, orhow does that all work?

Speaker 1 (41:03):
uh, not for open mic.
Yeah, it's BYOB, so people canshow up, bring a bottle of wine
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Lots of parking.
I thought bread because it wasa church BYOB.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, lots of people bring a loaf of bread Bring your
own body of Christ.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Oh, I hope that happens.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
It's a very very diverse skill set, a group of
people, people who have neverbeen on stage, people who have
been playing for their wholelife.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, people use it for different reasons.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
That's traditional music in a sense.
I love those pub feelings whereyou see a bunch of artists or a
bunch of different musiciansfrom different places get
together and just play.
Yeah, just learn how to playjam the whole night so fun to
watch yeah, it's really fun tosee people have that moment of
bravery as well.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
So for a lot of people that come to the open mic
knowing that beginners arewelcome, they very much are that
make.
In some cases they've neverbeen in front of an audience
before.
Yeah, we had one woman who satin her car in the parking lot
the first night for two hoursbecause she was afraid to even
come in and now she performsevery week oh, wow so like that
is really moving yeah, that'sawesome.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
That's together.
Yeah, no, that's a great thingthat you can do for people.
Right, it truly is together.
Land community, it's just sucha cool thing.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yeah, that's really important, and so you guys do
the live shows too.
I was looking at live shows, sopainting and singing in the
same night music and paintingall together.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
Yeah, we've done some of those.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
We don't, it's not something we promote heavily or
anything.
We did a few.
We were hired, I guess, by somepeople.
They said, hey, can you playmusic when you do live painting?
And it's always super cool,like I'm just playing my sets,
like I would, and kristin's setsup a table and makes a painting

(42:54):
and a lot of times it's at acorporate thing, corporate money
oh yeah, that's the best moneyto take so

Speaker 4 (43:02):
you're just painting some like ceo well, I'm painting
my style, but if they ask forthat, I'd be happy to, for some
reason, just picture some CEOstanding there naked for just a
time.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
We will be updating our website immediately.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
We'll do this for a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
If they offer us enough, we'll do that.
We're just always looking todiversify.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
Hey, if you want to pay us to do this, sure we'll do
that.

Speaker 5 (43:27):
Yeah, we're just always looking to diversify.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Yeah, these are.
Hey, if you want to pay us todo this, well, sure, we'll give
it a whirl, and we've done someand you've done live podcasting
too.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, custom things like.
Yeah, yeah, you did like painthouses, you'd tell people in
their houses and cottages andall that kind of stuff.
I saw that that was really coolyeah yeah getting into
furniture.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
so I'll I uh take old vintage pieces of furniture and
upcycle them, so I'll make myown fabric and just kind of give
them a new life.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
And yeah, we're always kind of dabbling, I
suppose.
My mother-in-law is a painterand she's worked in a few art
galleries and things like thatin Quebec City.
That's where she lives.
So, yeah, she's actually goingto be visiting here in three
weeks, so we will Send her down.
She wants to go to Lunenburgagain because she loves
Lunenburg.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's on the way, yeah .

Speaker 2 (44:11):
And that's what I was just thinking.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
I promise you we will pop down and she's a great
artist in her own right.
Oh yeah, she paints someamazing stuff.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
She does some cool stuff.
There was one particularpainting.
I was like, oh, that's so cool.
When she put it up, I was likethat's so cool.
Then she was downsizing and shewas looking to give away some
of her paintings.
She reached out to herdaughters and me and everything.
So she was like is there anypaintings you guys want Before I

(44:44):
go to sell them?
She was like I'm going to sellthem at a discount rate just to
kind of get rid of them so I candownsize and everything was
like is there anything you?

Speaker 5 (44:48):
want.
I was like I want the trudeauweed one.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
So it's a picture like when it first got legalized
.
She painted this picture oflike trudeau holding the big
joint, like I'll have to show itto you, but it's like I was
like yeah, I want that's prettycool.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
It's so cool because it's it's it's the end of the
draft one.
Was there a draft one?
Uh, there is a draft.
Yeah, it's in my son's room.
I remember that it's a coolthing.
Yeah, it's in my son's room.
That one's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (45:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
She does some things that are very like, that are
abstract, but she also does somethings that you know are like
detailed I don't know the wordfor it, but like, actually, like
, look like the thing they'resupposed to look like.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
But even within that, I'm curious how you would
answer the question of whatattracts you to artwork.
Is it just a feeling, or areyou?

Speaker 2 (45:29):
looking for it.
Yeah, it's a feeling that's howyou would make that decision.
Sometimes I'm very much like Ilike things to look like they're
supposed to, kind of thing.
The struggle I get and as anartist, you can maybe educate me
on this but the thing is when Ilook at something and I'm like

(45:50):
my three-year-old could paintthat and it's like that's ten
thousand dollars, and I'm like Idon't understand that.
That I struggle with right,sure, because my three-year-old
like when, especially when hisgrandmother's in like they'll do
some painting.
We have a couple really bigpaintings that she'd worked with
him to do and everything andI'm like, yeah, that looks like
the same that I see in artgalleries.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
So I'm kind of like you know, maybe we should just
pop this up, you should beselling a three-year-old art,
then I should be selling a storyfor 10 grand and see what
happens right, but so that Idon't get.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
But sometimes I do see something that's really
abstract and I'm like, oh, thatlooks really fucking cool.
Though, like really, there wasone that I saw at an art gallery
that she was there, that I, she, she.
I was like I'm looking up at itand I was staring.
And she caught me staring at itand she was like do you know
what that is?
I was like, yeah, it's a reallyzoomed in like painting of the

(46:41):
red line on a hockey rink.
And she was like, yeah, you gotthat's exactly what it was.
You could just see the circleof like the point and then the
red line and everything.
And she's like, yeah, that'sexactly what it is.
She's like not everyone knowsit.
Right off I was like well, Ican see clearly the white was
kind of a bluey white.
That thing was selling for$18,000.

Speaker 5 (47:00):
And I was like no way .

Speaker 2 (47:03):
I think I can do that .
I don't get it.
Please explain Wow.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
Explain to me why some art?

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Just a light conversation over an afternoon
pint here.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Why does some art, don't art?

Speaker 4 (47:18):
I can only speak for myself, I suppose, but how I
would answer that question isthat I think art that you might
feel that way about is about theconcept.
So I'm going to give a coupleof examples to explain what I
mean in that.
I wish I could remember thisartist's name, because I've
referenced this before on ourshow, how he was.
He was given, uh, I think,sixty thousand dollars.

(47:40):
He was commissioned to do thispiece for a gallery and he
showed up and it was just his,his piece, his quote-unquote
piece, was just an empty space,like he didn't even bring a
canvas.
There was nothing on it.
I saw an article on this Rightand his concept was he called it
take the money and run.
Yes, and so it was his idea,essentially, that he sold for 60

(48:03):
grand, so he actually didn'teven physically have something
for you to buy.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yep, but he gave you a certificate, right, maybe?
I believe I read there wassomething yeah, you got a
certificate of authenticity thatyou owned this nothing.
Right that you owned thisnothing For $60,000.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
And.
I don't know for the rightbuyer.
Maybe they like being able totell that story, Maybe they like
the sort of philosophical wayof looking at that.
Like that's, that's how I mightthink about that.
I know what you're saying, howthere are paintings that look
like a three-year-old could doit, and and I think that artists
would probably say, well, do itthen and see if it turns out

(48:41):
the same.
But yeah, and there was anotherartist I remember us seeing in
Seattle and the paintingpainting was just blue.
It was just a blue canvas,again worth probably millions of
dollars yeah but I laterlearned this was a blue, that he
invented that particular colorokay, so I don't know jay-z blue
, jay-z blue, jay-z blue.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
yeah, yeah, no, I get that.
I mean art is a lot of theconcept, I mean because there's
like living art and all thatstuff too right, so I struggle
with it.
There's also the fact thatthere's a lot of money
laundering, so you should trythat.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
Yes, I am doing.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Yeah, church Perfect Best place to do it, man, best
place to do it.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
The money laundering.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I was actually reading an article about this
recently, about how billionaireshide money through art.
It's crazy.
It's like they buy somethingfor like $10 million and then
they basically hide it away andthen it goes up in price, kind
of thing, and then they resellit.
I just washed a bunch of money.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
Brilliant it is brilliant.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
Thanks.
That was Matt's mobster tipsfor tonight.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
We did just talk about diversifying, just joking.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Clearly I'm not doing it, all right.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
So, mike, I want to talk a bit about you, yeah,
award-winning songwriter, studioowner right.
You know you're truly a townfavorite.
You've won, like the coast, somany times over for for being
one of the best bands in halifax.
Right, you're your top list?
Yeah, I've been listening toyour music.
I'm now a genuine fan, which iscool, and I fell into it very

(50:17):
honestly.
I was playing music in thekitchen one night, playing your
latest album yeah and and the 13year old.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
She said your music was cool right, so you're
basically Taylor Swift now.
Yeah, yeah, you're there.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
She just started playing guitar too, so she was
actually hearing the music alittle differently than before,
and she's like no, that's prettygood, like she said, which is
like the highest compliment youcan get.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
It means a lot.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
So what was I going to ask?
I mean, I guess, for you, oneof my things particularly
listening to your latest album,sorry, the name of your latest
album was Singing, singing, yeah, singing Okay, yeah, no G.
That album in particular, Ithink, is kind of the easiest,
most tap-worthy album you'vemade.

(51:04):
These songs are very accessible, very easy to listen to.
I mean, you know radio gettingon radio, getting getting more
publicity, so more people hearthese music.
Because I I think that thatthis is some really good stuff,
some easily digestible music.
I mean, what, are therechallenges on getting it on the
radio stations here in halifaxor yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Uh.
Well, I'm competing againstevery other musician and artist
that's ever put out a songessentially yeah uh, so nowadays
, every single day, there's 120000 songs released on spotify.
Really well every day like inthe 70s I think it was like
around 12 000 a year.

(51:49):
Wow, like that's and this is.
This is partially becausepeople can record much, uh, more
cheaply.
People have home studios andlike there's there's.
There's obviously a hugedifference between someone going
to the studio spendingthousands of dollars and someone
just whatever setting up a micand playing a song and releasing
that, but it does give theopportunity for every single

(52:11):
person in the world.
If they want to releasesomething, they can and that's
great in lots of ways, like wehave access to to put out music,
to show our videos to people,to create any type of content we
want and put it out to theworld.
But so does everybody else.

(52:31):
So we're and I don't look at itlike well, I'm in competition
with them, but that is thereality yeah um, so it's, it's,
uh, it's a kind of adouble-edged sword where, yeah,
we have the access to do that,but so does everybody else.
Right Back to radio.
Radio, isn't that?

Speaker 5 (52:52):
big a thing anymore.
It's not the end all be all endall.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Some people focus on it more than others.
Some younger people probablydon't even know what radio is to
be honest.
You have to pick what'srelevant to you and try to go in
that direction.
Yeah, Because at one point intime there's a very specific
model of this is how you existas an artist.
As you record your music, yougo on tour for X amount of time

(53:18):
you get a label da-da-da-da-da.
Yeah, you do all these specificsteps and now there's no real
model that exists.
So everybody's just trying tofigure things out on the fly,
and you can tell what the latesttrends are in two seconds, even
in podcasting right everyoneputs their clips on youtube with
the, the captions like that'sif you put a video up without

(53:42):
captions, you're like crazy nowright yeah, it does.
I don't know, trends just comeand go and I try to not do the
trends like I don't want tofollow what other people are
doing.
But sometimes you, it'sinevitable that you're going to
go down those paths.
And you look at someone likeneil young.

(54:03):
He's someone who always wentagainst the trends and had a lot
of success.
Then you look at other artistswho would have followed exactly
what the template is in thecurrent moment and became
massive through that.
And I guess it all comes backto what is your?
Why?
Again, what are you valuing?
Why are you doing this as acareer?
Or is it a career?

(54:23):
Is it a hobby?
And what do you want toaccomplish from this?
And sure, I'd love to be onradios around the country in the
world yeah that would mean somany other things have grown to
right achieve success.
Like anyone you hear, ifsomeone's on the radio here,
they're probably not playing theradio because no one listens to

(54:43):
radio anymore, yeah.
Or listen to a spotify playlist, yeah.
But if you're driving the carand you turn on your radio and
you hear a song and that bandisn't from the area you're in,
like they are probably massivelysuccessful, because if a band
from iowa is on the radio here,that means that they're probably

(55:03):
on the radio everywhere right,yeah, they would have likely a
lot of streams, likely a lot butstreams likely a lot of fans.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
But it used to be so much more with the CRTC.
But I found the CRTC.
You'd hear some Canadianartists but you would hear kind
of a.
And this is just perceptionfrom the radio.
I'm not a big radio listenereither being transparent here.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Yeah, I'm not either.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
But I spend a lot more time with Spotify, Yep, but
when you do plug on the radio,you know you're hearing
Nickelback.
You're hearing a lot of thosetraditional, tragically hip.
I'm not saying there's anythingwrong with any of them I like
most of these bands but you knowyou're still hearing the same
old same and you're just likewhat's this?
It's true, why am I not hearingnewer artists that are in my

(55:49):
hometown or in Toronto oranywhere across Canada, as much
as I'm hearing that great hitthat was 20 years ago or 30
years past?

Speaker 2 (55:53):
I wonder about that, and you can probably speak to it
better than I could, because Iwonder could radio really
reinvent themselves by goingmore local, as opposed to just
playing the same thing I canhear on Spotify?

Speaker 1 (56:06):
I think there are stations that are more local and
they're having a tough time.
Yeah, it's just.
There's so many other ways toconsume.
Yeah, at one point that was theonly way you could hear
something was whether if you ownthe CD or vinyl or tape, or you
turn the radio on and theyhappen to play it.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Now we have access to that music all the time.
Even talk radio CBC has somereally cool shows, but I can go
find a podcast that's trying tobe very similar to that, exactly
to what I want to hear andconnect my phone through
Bluetooth as soon as I get inthe car and listen to that on

(56:45):
the drive, which is bittersweetbecause I saw you out.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Obviously because car and listen to that on the drive
, yeah, which is bittersweetbecause you know I sought you
out.
Obviously because you know Iknew you were coming on the show
.
I said I've seen these guysbefore, so I checked out your
album.
I really enjoyed it, right, youknow, and that's what sucks now
, though, in a sense, because wedo get siloed, right, and this

(57:13):
is what you.
So when I'm introduced to newmusic on my Spotify playlist,
even it's just sending me moreof what I've already kind of
heard or they know is going tokeep me listening.
They're somewhat afraid to sendme things that you know might
be from left field or might benot from what I'm already
listening to, Right, so it's aweird thing for artists right
now.
I just don't know how it'sgoing to keep going.

Speaker 5 (57:33):
And earlier we talked about podcasting.
Like you have to have somethinggoing for.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
You have to be an amazing interviewer, you have to
look a certain way, whatever,yeah.
Yeah, he was probably more soin the music industry.
Yeah, um, if you're just anabsolute exceptional talent,
you're going to rise no matterthe top yeah yeah, um, if you
have a bunch of a label with abunch of money backing you, like
that's gonna help you, likeyou're independent.
We are now yeah we've been ondifferent labels at different

(57:56):
times.
With our last two albums, wereleased ourselves cool but it's
, yeah, it's definitelyconnections help.
And again, anyone you're hearingon the radio someone's spending
tens of thousands of dollars toget that music out there, right
, like if we want to get.

(58:17):
Still today there's a personcalled a radio tracker.
They promote your music tostations and get it played.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
And you can do that yourself.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
But I'm not going to have a connection with whatever
400 radio stations.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I'll know they want to play our song on the radio.
Remember how hard I tried math.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
I knew someone who worked at the radio and I went
to them.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
We wrote a funny little Christmas song and we
sang it.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
It was terrible.
Was this your?

Speaker 5 (58:42):
rap debut.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
No, no, the rap debut came like 15 years ago.
This was in our Christmasspecial.
This is for the podcast.
We sang a Christmas song.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Mike wrote it and we sang it and then we released it
as part of our Christmas special.
And I actually know someonewho's fairly well into a
particular large radio networkand I actually help her with a
lot of things for the year forfundraising.
I'm like, don't hurt her, Ihelp her out all the time.
We said half those people do wedid send to a bunch of people.

(59:13):
But I went directly to her andeverything and she was like I
will take this up the chain,we'll do it and everything.
I was like alright, cool.
And then she came back she waslike I'm sorry, I tried All
right, we suck.

Speaker 5 (59:21):
Well, you should have spent $15,000 on a radio show.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Oh, is that all $15,000.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
I could have got that song down there.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
And then you'll get .003 cents back per stream on
Spotify.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Right, I love that we did put it up on Spotify.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
So here's the other thing.
So I'm a guy who loves music.
I love when I find somethingnew, it really makes me happy on
and then jump to the nextindependent guy.
As long as I got theirpermission to play it, you don't

(59:58):
need permission to play if it'sindependent music.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Yeah, yeah, I don't think on any like radio format.
You wouldn't, because they'resupposed to be getting paid on
the back end of that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Yeah, because I always thought like a podcast,
like mixtape, would be cool.
Right, so say you did a mixtapepodcasting might be a little
different.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Yeah, uh, you, because I I hear I listen to
podcasts.
Yeah, and if that person's on alabel oh yeah they often won't
play it.
But if they're independent,that person will just say oh
yeah, play it.
Yeah, but if they'reindependent, that person will
just say oh yeah, play it, butotherwise you're going through
multiple channels and they mightbe like well, give us a hundred
bucks.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
This podcast itself will get flagged for the music
that's playing in the background, probably.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Because I thought about that.
You just got to keep talking,so it never gets on there.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Yeah, cool.
Do you want to get into radio?
Is that something you'vethought?

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
about.
Another radio is that somethingyou thought about another hobby
, yeah, I mean, eventually thisis kind of a version of that.
This is this is what I wantedto do was like a talk radio type
thing, so so, yeah, this istotally modern radio, like radio
if radio wants to exist, it hasto adapt in some way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Like 100.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
I agree with you there, yeah it's, uh, it's dying
like drastically it is right,and you know what, I love old
radio still like.
I like 90, was it 95, 7 or 97 5or whatever, yeah yeah,
listening to the.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
The callers call in and complain about the, the
current events and usuallythey're about nine years old
that.
But honestly it's like the same10 callers bitching about the
same stuff and I just got soover it I enjoy it but you can
do, you can do that essentiallyexact same premise on like a
YouTube live or something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Like give out your phone number it's the same with
music Like you used to have tohave a label.
Who would pay the whatever$80,000 to go into one of the
eight studios in the country.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Producers, engineers used to be like to make a record
that sounds as good as yoursyou probably would have needed
the entire A massive team behindit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
You either had to come from money or have the
label doing it, but it's thesame.
With radio you could make aradio show.
This is a radio showessentially, for however much
you paid for that Zoom recordera couple hundred bucks and the
mics a thousand-ish bucks youcan make a radio show that
sounds as good as what people inthe 70s essentially could do,

(01:02:12):
but they had to have a hugestation, all this technology
that the average person couldn'trecord 100 so the advancements
in technology are allowing thesethings to happen, but it is
killing off other mediums butthen you also have, like the
other flip side of it to radio.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
You have the Seaside FM.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Oh yeah, I love Seaside FM.
I think it's such a brilliantstation in its own right.
I think it's great.
I don't listen to it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
But I do think it's great because I think that
having community radio that cangive community local voices I
think is fantastic.
Again, I just don't listen toit because when I'm driving
first of all, either drivingwith a three-year-old- doesn't
want to listen to that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Their antenna won't get to you anyways, out where
we're at.
I don't think their antennagets that far Seaside.
Yeah it does, does it?
Yeah?
Is that where you used to pass?
I can listen to it now.
Oh, yeah, I can listen to it athome.
My uncle, who lives fiveminutes from all he listens to

(01:03:11):
oh, I keep telling, like youknow, turn that off every once
in a while, put in the afternoonpint.
That's the uncle that I toldyou not to get the address 100,
okay, but yeah, like I thinkit's great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
I mean I just like said I don't listen to because I
have a three-year-old.
He's like play radioactive forthe hundredth time.
You know, pretty fly for awhite guy.
You know my kid likes a lot ofthat good taste in music oh no,
I have.
We got for his third birthday.
We got him a karaoke machinebecause he likes to sing like.
I have video of him singingsuperman's dead on his third
birthday.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
He loves it, he's born.
He's born artist.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Well we'll see, but we'll see.
I I would love for that right,but uh, but this is the thing is
like.
I love the fact that thiscommunity radio exists.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
And.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
I often wonder if that's the way it should really
be going.
Instead of these bigconglomerates that are playing,
I can hear If you turn on Q104,it's like, oh great.
I can hear Thunderstruck forthe 15,000th time, kind of thing
.
Or your music can be played onSeaside and really thrown it out
to someone.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
For sure, those community stations are awesome
Cold FM, which you referencedearlier same idea.
They are amazing, but all thiscomes down to money, like
anything.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
They have to work hard.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
How are they?
Most of the people who workthere are volunteers, yep.
How are they making their money?
They're doing fundraisingthrough the year.
Yeah they're doing their 50-50sand all that other stuff right.
So I love those stations andthey are amazing to have and to
promote.
We chat with those stations allthe time, in different

(01:04:38):
capacities, but it's a challengefor them to exist because
advertising is down Like it'sjust yeah, it's just hard for
them.
Advertising is down, it's justhard for them.
But I hope they can adapt, likeI said earlier, and find a new
home, a new way to exist, a newway to thrive, because they are

(01:05:02):
great voices for people who wantto add something to the
community.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
It seems like all traditional media formats are
kind of struggling now.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
You know, television, radio, whatever.
Yet I'm thinking back to whenTrump was first elected and the
viewership of CBC justskyrocketed as they were
releasing details on the tariffs, like it happened again, and so
I think in a time of crisis, weactually rely on those old

(01:05:29):
favorites for media.
We trust them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
They're the place that everybody goes, and so
there's also this risk in usabandoning that format
altogether and not kind oflending our support when times
are tough, because who are wegoing to trust Two podcasters
talking to a politician?

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Because, you know, at the end of the day, people are
drinking yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
People are.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
they're literally drinking but not only that.
Like you know, you have torespect journalists.
Uh, I mean my brother'sgraduated master's concordia.
He's going to have verydifferent questions and
conversations with a premierthan I would right you know on a
high level.
He's going to know the rightquestions to ask.
He's going to be.
They're going to lean intostuff differently and they're
going to want to really get sometough answers right.

Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
But both are important.
I actually back to.
I don't want to make this allabout politics but, I think it's
so important to give thosemembers of parliament who are
only known for their politicalroles a little bit of humanity.

Speaker 5 (01:06:26):
Let's really learn about who this person is that's
representing?

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
other people.
Yeah, but you're right, itbecomes lost as soon as that.
Both are important, but youdon't want to kill one for the
other.
Sure, it's almost like you needto have that yin and yang or
whatever right.
Like both are so valuable,right, and so I don't know what
you do with that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
No, I think we try to your point.
I think we try to get like,when we bring a politician on,
we actually kind of tell them,like let's not talk policy,
let's not talk about who'sbetter than who.
Like just tell us your story,why'd you get into it?

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Yeah, give them a little bit of a break and see
them as a person, agreed, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Because I do think we's we, we treat, you know, our
politicians really unfairlysometimes, where it's like, just
because you're a politician, Ican say horrible things about
you and like wish death on yousimply because you are a
different color than politically, than someone else may be.
And I'm not saying that there'snot some really bad politicians
out there, I'm not saying thatthere's some really dangerous
politicians out there there are,right.
But I think it's one of thosethings where we have to be

(01:07:34):
really careful about like thethings that we're willing to say
and potentially almost act on,because I think that speaks a
lot about you as a person.
Right, it's like, oh, you know,someone says like trudeau, wow,
someone should like drag himout in the street and shoot him.
And it's like really like,really kind of thing, like yeah,
but still a person.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Yeah, we behave that way towards celebrities at times
you're right they're just kindof these arbitrary people out
there.
We forget that they havefeelings.
We treat.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
We treat others like each other like that all the
time on social media, becauseit's someone who's not a real
human.
They're just a name and ascreen somewhere, not here in
front of me, right?
So I think that's it's someonewho's not a real human.
They're just a name and ascreen somewhere, not here in
front of me.
So I think it's that disconnect.
I'd love to see if 90% of thepeople who say those horrible
things could stare Trudeau inthe face and say those exact

(01:08:20):
same things Some of themprobably could but I bet you a
lot of them would get pretty shypretty quick yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
I agree.

Speaker 5 (01:08:26):
Trudeau would knock them out anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
He would, I always laugh with a lot of the people
who would say that Trudeau wouldactually beat you in a fight.
Seriously, no, that's true, soyeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
But it's those things .
But I mean the funny thingabout when you were talking
about the money right, and howthe traditional, how that
changes.
I find it so interesting thatCoca-Cola or Pepsi or whatever
Budweiser they'll spend $30, $40million on a 30-second ad for

(01:09:02):
the Super Bowl and I get it, 100million people watch it.
And I get it, 100 millionpeople watch it.
But as a consumer I am notwatching that and going like I
saw Coke for 30 seconds, so nowI have to go out and buy 10
liters of Coke.
You could take that $40 million, probably spend I don't know

(01:09:24):
like 25% of it and hit up everylocal podcast, radio station,
radio station, whatever.
Give them a fraction of thatmoney.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
They're doing that now mcdonald's literally doing
that now with nano influencersyes, so they just had, in the us
, a chicken finger right, andwhat they did is, instead of
paying for a big advertisingbill, they paid like a fraction
of it and they paid all theseessentially young people with
less than 500 followers to do areview of their new chicken
strip yes, what happened is onceeverybody saw those 500

(01:09:55):
followers to it, what dideverybody else do?
Oh shit, I gotta do that videoit's a trend now, so now
hundreds of thousands of people.
It was their fastest sellingproduct off the shelves, day one
, yeah needs to have just readabout that last week.
It's just phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Right, that's the thing.
There's some untraditional waysthat we should go about things
Not just slap your name on theSuper Bowl Right.
Go out there.
People consume with their eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
Maybe that's the new way forward for artists too.
Maybe, I mean, you know, a nanoartist or a micro artist type of
solution where it's likethere's no art better than the
art that's in front of you, likeI mean, whether it's music or
it's paintings or whatever, it'sa, it's a thing that lives and
breathes in front of you.
That's the most, yeah, the mostpleasant experience right, it's
better than anything you canhear on the radio is to go see

(01:10:39):
sure right, and I like the ideaof targeting those with this a
smaller following, I think yeahI don't know, I should speak for
myself on this, but I think theinfluencer culture is getting a
little bit I don't knowuntrustworthy, especially when
it comes to advertising.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
We know these people are just getting free shit or
getting paid to say that this isawesome.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
And then you're trying to measure up to that
person who has all this money tomake themselves look amazing
and do all this stuff.
It's not, that's not.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
And I mean we and we manage it like a content creator
, slash influence or whatever,and I I think a big reason why
we were willing to kind ofpartner with him and take him on
is, yes, obviously, when you'repaid to say something is great,
you're paid to something to saysomething's great, and I think
you gotta be honest about that.
Um, but what I like, what ourguy does, is it's in four

(01:11:33):
minutes in four minutes.
He does like it's almost like afour minute tv show.
Yeah, he goes in, he'll like gosometimes behind the in the
kitchen he'll make the thing andthen eat it, or like he does
some humor with it and thingslike that, and he edits really
nicely and it goes together.
And people have actually beensaying like, like, this needs to
be a TV.
You guys, you need to be likedoing this as a TV show, almost

(01:11:54):
like, you know, like the FoodNetwork or whatever.
Somebody feed Phil, it's kindof like that, but just in really
bite-sized consumable amountstype of thing, and at the same
time people are going to look atit and they're going to go.
Oh geez, those matzo stickslook amazing.
Maybe I'll go to thatrestaurant because this guy made
me laugh and those look great,kind of thing right?

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
No, steve does a great thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
He does a great thing .

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
I mean he's skippy.
In my opinion he's artistic.
He has an approach where hegoes in a restaurant, he breaks
down walls, he breaks downbarriers.
He has a video that went reallywell where he's experimenting
eating Lebanese food, where theLebanese guy said next to him
telling him how to eat itcorrectly.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
Oh, that's fun, but that's authentic.
That's a real thing.
That's happening.
He's not getting paid to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
There's no fakeness.
I don't think Steve wearsmakeup.
Maybe if he's listening he'llcorrect me.
Does he wear makeup?
I'm his cameraman.
There you go, and his makeupartist.
Yeah, so anyway, I would do itway more hilarious if I was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
I think people just need to.
I think companies need to seethat and support local people,
right, like that type of stuff.
Maybe sponsoring, likesponsoring your band, like
that's something that should be.
Something that people couldreally do is, like, you know,
really kind of throwing supportbehind it and having bands kind
of almost be sponsored andsaying like, hey, you know,
thanks to these folks orwhatever, right, uh, and even in

(01:13:18):
the art world and things likethat, getting involved in that
stuff, they can do so much.
Uh, instead of funneling allthat money to the top and giving
a boatload of money spread itout, you could spend less and
hit more people, or maybe notmore people, but at least more
targeted people, because I'm notgoing to buy a Pepsi.

(01:13:38):
I don't like Pepsi, so you canspend $40 million on that, I'm
just not going to consume it, nomatter how good it looks on
screen or whatever, right, nomatter how good it looks on
screen or whatever, right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
Yeah, I think that's kind of starting with podcasts
as well, where people arereaching out to smaller ones and
sponsoring those, and I feellike a lot of things are going
to change in the next few years.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Yeah, look at us, We've got a couple sponsors
right.
Like you know, small businessesyou guys do too.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
And it's a good way to promote them as well, just
like we are with the northbrewing today like that's
another way of just kind of yeahit's authentic.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, you're awesome all right, matt,
I think we got to get to our 10questions, my friend, yes yeah,
because we probably ran on alittle long today, but that's
okay, we're having a lot of funhere, we know how to talk.

Speaker 5 (01:14:30):
You certainly do, but that's what we love.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
So we do 10 questions on this show.
They're just silly questionsSome of them.
These ones kind of go into youguys a little bit.
So, Matt, I'm going to get youto read.
I'll read the Kristen questionsbecause my question has Okay,
I'll read the question questionsand you do the other ones.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
All right.
So, Kristen, your new podcastrebrand, Make it.
What do you hope that listenersget out of the show?

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
I hope that they make it.
I hope that they live a life ofsuccess and achievement and
take away a little learning.

Speaker 3 (01:15:07):
Very good, that was what we call a softball.
I'm just joking, just joking,good answer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Alright, mike, would you be open to record a rap
remix of your song Words forDays with hip-hop sensation Mike
Tobin?

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
It kind of has a lyrical rap vibe to it.
It totally does.
It's on point.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
I think it came on after Ghostface Killer in my
truck after I was playing yourmusic for a few days.
I was playing your music for afew days, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
I've introduced a song before.
It's a picture of if Tupac grewup in Cape Breton in the 90s
and his father was a coal miner.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
There you go.
It's a perfect song.
I love it.
I would love to do that withyou, so this collaboration is
now on the record.
I'm going to start working onit and I'm going to hit you up,
man, when I've got a verse readyto go, okay, okay, give me a
few weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
You guys can work on that.
Yeah, we're going to work on apainting or a policy paper.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
It sounds like there you go.
Yeah, We'll paint a policypaper All right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
Question number three over to you, oh Kristen.
What is the purpose ofsuffering?
I'm asking I really need toknow.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
Okay, so I'm not as funny as Mike and I'm not even
going to try to go in that way.
I have some funny things comingto mind, but the purpose of
suffering is growth.
You come out the other sidehaving learned something about
yourself, and then you'retougher to take on the new
suffering that life brings you.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
Breezed right through that.
Good job, cheers Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Would any of the Rocky movies exist without
suffering?

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
Absolutely.
Absolutely not, we needsuffering.
We need suffering.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
I do know that through Rocky V I suffered.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Oh, come on, it wasn't that bad it was the worst
of the first five, but yeah allright.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Question number four to me yeah, so pretend you're a
zookeeper.
Yeah, you are tasked with adifficult choice of providing
refuge to only one of twoanimals.
Yeah, a lion and a penguin.
Which one would you have tochoose to live, and why?

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
Penguins are cuter he didn't hesitate.
They shuffle around like littleteddy bears, they.
And one of the bestdocumentaries ever was what was
it called?

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
March of the Penguins .

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
March of the Penguins , read by Morgan Freeman yeah,
right, or.

Speaker 4 (01:17:42):
Happy Feet, which were you thinking?
No, march of the penguins.
March of the penguins.
Ray red by morgan freeman yeahright.
Or happy feet, which were youthinking?

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
lions.
Have you know they survived atthe top of the food chain for so
long, so the rain is over, yeahif I had to pick, it's easy go
penguins go penguins.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
That was easy.
They're not a practice.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
Lions kill other things penguins, so I guess
penguins kill fish.
They're both killers.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
I'll still pick penguin.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
Good answer.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
Question five.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
Okay, as a painter, there must be one thing, kristen
, that is frustrating ordifficult to paint, and you
refuse to do it.
What's that one thing you neverwant to paint?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
Portraits of politicians.

Speaker 4 (01:18:23):
Despite that being my next collaboration.

Speaker 5 (01:18:25):
I'll learn.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
I'll go through the suffering.

Speaker 3 (01:18:28):
I think CEOs I think the next corporate event.
If you just painted the CEO andjust did it you know real raw
looking, you know angry lookingand just presented it to them at
the end, that'd be brilliant.
I'd love that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Just paint them all as Mr Burns Variations.
All right question number six.
So, mike, who is a musician,dead or alive, that you would
love to perform alongside with,and why?

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
Jimi Hendrix, oh there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Oh, cool answer, jimi is just well.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
I don't think there's anyone more legendary than Jimi
.
It's like what he accomplishedin 27 years and just the the
lore off him, like everything hedid was kind of like a movie
scene so you think he's?

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
do you think he's the goat in terms of guitarists?

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
yeah, there's lots of people who can play as well as
him, but in terms of just feeland what, what he was at the
time, that's came.
I think he's the goat for sureyeah awesome yeah awesome answer
.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
Okay, kristen, your book, you and me traveled
misadventures and love aroundthe world.
Is there an event that'shappened since the book was
published that you thinkdeserves being in the book, like
if there was a second edition?
Can you think of a quick storythat you can share?

Speaker 5 (01:19:44):
so many do you know?

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):
there's millions.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
I'm trying to think what's one?
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:19:49):
what's one anyone yeah we had.

Speaker 4 (01:19:51):
Uh.
So mike and I went to a artistresidency in columbia a couple
of years ago.
I would say pretty much everyday of that month could be a
book uh but, but we, uh, wewould walk into town, which is
like eight kilometers.
We were in the middle ofabsolute nowhere, columbia and

(01:20:11):
by the time you would reach thetown you'd have a pack of wild
dogs with you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Wow, like friendly wild, yeah, friendly wild dogs
but, like.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
And so there was this one that had a cardboard neck
brace with a phone number on it,so we called him neck brace, of
course, and this dog followedus everywhere in all the
businesses, like we went to getlunch and this dog, so everybody
just thought neck brace was,was our dog, uh, but we didn't
end up coming home with with anypermanently we had like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
We love animals and we, unfortunately the residency
said do not bring any animalsback.
Like that was a one.

Speaker 4 (01:20:47):
A rule Like the one rule.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
So when we were leaving we actually had to be
like, mean to the dogs, Likeshoo, get away.

Speaker 4 (01:20:54):
But every day we'd come home with 10 wild dogs.
And that was the rule of whatnot to do there.
But yeah, that would make for agood you and me story.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
There's lots of yeah, the tarantula, the near-death
experience on the airplane inAustin.

Speaker 3 (01:21:08):
I hope you guys are keeping notes to put out a
second book.
Yeah, I think a sequel is inthe making.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
I hadn't even thought about that but thank you Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
I think the last two.
Are they for both?
No, we've got question numbereight.
We're not done yet.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
Oh no, but I think these ones are for everybody oh
yeah, but we're not there yet.
Oh, not there yet.
I'm sorry, I have questionnumber eight.
I'm slow.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Yeah.
So, Mike, you have an amazingcatalog of music.
What is one of your mosttreasured songs that warms your
heart when folks tell you thatit resonates with?

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
I have a song called Hercules that I wrote for my
father.
He's someone who works out west, or worked out west in Fort
McMurray back and forth, and thesong's about him waiting for
this particular job to comethrough and it doesn't, and he's
heartbroken.
Anyway every time I play thatsomeone comes up afterwards who

(01:21:58):
you wouldn't expect to come upto you and they're like oh man,
I was bawling tears afterhearing that.
It just reminds me of my ownfather, so that one always
strikes a chord with someonewhen I play it.
So I think that would be.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
That makes sense.
I think people can relate a lotto just the hard work that
people go into.
Everyone has love songs andthings like that.
Never can relate to that stuff.
But there's uh, yeah, there'ssome songs that just hit to that
hard work.
The one that always kind oflike that I have a particular
soft spot is uh, um, uh.
Name of the song christy moore.

(01:22:34):
It's uh ordinary man.
Okay, I don't know if you knowit, but ordinary man, christy
moore.
Uh, was, it's just a song thatyou listen to and you're just
kind of like, yeah, everyone cansort of relate to that.
You work 30 years and nextthing you know you get laid off
and the fat cats are smokingcigars meanwhile.
I'm on the EI line, kind ofthing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
Yeah, it's kind of the same concept as that really.

Speaker 4 (01:22:59):
I love that question.
I don't know if anybody's askedyou that before.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Yeah, yeah, good question, we've got to talk.
We're going to get DeclanMcKenna's song in the mic here.
Oh yeah, there you go, oh we'vegot to talk closer.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
So okay, Question number nine.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
This is for both.
This is kind of both of you,such as Togetherland Art Gallery
and Mike, your work as anauthor, singer, songwriter
proves your dedication inexpressing the importance of the
arts.
Okay, what is something youwould like to see that could
help more artists live acreative and affordable life?
I mean, is there anything youguys think that would just help
with that?

Speaker 4 (01:23:37):
Universal basic income.

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
I think well, AI.
Well, we should tell everyoneright now this podcast is 100 ai
, oh yeah yeah, we're notactually here but in I don't
know, I think in the very nearfuture like a very high percent
of the jobs are going to befucked oh yeah, I believe that,
uh, it's gonna change.

(01:24:00):
I don't know what's gonnahappen with music, with film
like uh?
And these are just artisticthings like think of a law, any
call center right?
yeah, like you know, um, so many, uh, and eventually like truck
drivers.
Like I know, there was a guytwo elections ago in america,
andrew, yang was campaigning on.

(01:24:20):
When trucks are driven by AI,the whole US economy is going to
basically collapse.
After, I think, the military,the second biggest job in
America is truck driving.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
He's like a picture of all those jobs that are
instantly gone, like whathappens.
But anyway, I think AI is isgonna screw up a lot of shit and
I think uh, you know, someversion of universal basic
income would be, will almost beneeded at that point, I think.
I think it's needed now right,yeah, to be honest, like if
there's people who are workingjobs and still can't afford

(01:24:57):
groceries right it's uh yeah, Imean and not a small amount of
people.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
Right, if we're realistic, there's a quite a few
people that can't affordgroceries right now, some of
them with with college degreesand good jobs right out of
college or even been at it for10 years right, yeah, and some
of them in our health caresystem, right, some of them the
most important things that wehave, you know, still can't,
still can't afford.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
So I think, with that , with ubi, every single person
has to get it.
It's not just poor people orjust people like, because then
no one can complain like someonemakes 10 million dollars.
They get their 1200 a month.
Whatever, it's not a big amount.
Some people give it back tocharity.
Whatever, some people will useit as a vacation.

(01:25:39):
Let it be up to the whatever,yeah, uh, but every single
person has to get it, and I'veI've heard bernie sanders,
multiple people talk aboutwhatever you put this little tax
on the, the uh wall streettrades and it funds it anyway.
That doesn't matter no, thereare ways you can do it, and love

(01:26:00):
the idea um yeah I think that'sone way for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Do you mirror that or you have something different in
mind?

Speaker 4 (01:26:07):
I think back to our conversation with rick rubin,
who would encourage you tocreate for your audience.
That at some point becomes achallenge for artists even
successful ones almostironically, probably more of the
successful ones because youlose a little bit of that
newness and freedom Because nowthere's an expectation placed on
you.
I think something like UBItakes that pressure off so that

(01:26:30):
you can more so create from apure place, rather than
necessity.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
A little more wiggle room for freedom.
Yeah, it's like if you have atrust fund, it's easier to be an
artist.
Yeah, yeah, if you've got that.
Fu money you, it's easier to bean artist.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
Yeah, yeah, if you've got that FU money, you can kind
of do whatever you want, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:26:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:26:46):
Yeah, I get that Cool , Great answers.
So the last question, lastquestion.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
So yeah, so this is the question we ask everybody.
All of our guests get this lastquestion and it's for both of
you, so you can both give usthis.
So what is one piece of advicethat you have been given in your
life that you would like to?

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
give to us and our listeners I want to think about
this because I I think that'simportant.
Uh, a good friend of mine andformer podcast guest, and
someone that likely a lot ofyour listeners might know, nancy
regan, has given me the adviceto not worry what your neighbors

(01:27:24):
think would be the way that sheput it I think we often get
caught up in the perception ofwhat others might think of our
lives or, in our case, our art,and that can really influence
your emotion and your work, andshe has been such a great role
model to me in living her lifein a way that is true to her,
and I think the more you behavethat way, the more you might

(01:27:48):
inspire or give permission toothers to show up in a little
bit more of a relaxed way that'sawesome.
Let's cheers to nancy reaganyeah, always, always, she was a
great guest all right.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
And then, uh, mike, do you have one for us too?

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
I can't remember who told me this, but someone I
think it was my aunt or uncle,when they were graduating
university.
This, like I don't know big wigwas the guest speaker.
I can't remember who it was andthey were, like, known being
really philosophical andincredibly wise and they got up

(01:28:28):
to the mic to deliver theirconvocation speech and they just
said buy a good mattress andwalked away.
And then I think some peoplewere pissed.
Oh, I thought I was gonna hearmore.
Uh, but I don't know.
You think about what you sleepon every night.
You're spending the third ofyour life on this particular, in

(01:28:52):
this particular place.
You should probably getsomething that's comfortable
that doesn't hurt your body.
Yeah, you know you don't wantto be waking up with any kinks,
any injuries that you obtain inyour sleep.

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
So I think it's pretty good advice.
To be honest, More important asyou get older too, yeah, being
at the age where you put yourback out.

Speaker 4 (01:29:10):
if you sneeze, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
That's actually really good, great advice.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
First time I got that one First time.
I've ever heard anything likethat that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
I've got to get the details on who said it and all
that Well that was perfection.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
guys, Thank you so much for coming to hang out with
us.

Speaker 4 (01:29:27):
We really appreciate it.
This was so fun.
You guys Thanks for having us,Maybe we can do it again, you'll
be on the make it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Have you on ours you know you have to be in the
process of trying, oh okay okay,cool, all right, guys cheers
working my hands and heartandile with big, strong arms

(01:30:02):
going on a minute he can explainthe Ukraine crisis.

Speaker 5 (01:30:07):
Chopper core would tell you clearly what life is
working out west in Fort Max andtraveling back and forth.
It's hard on the man who'swaiting on a call For a promised
name.
I hope the bastards don't callso he's poor for a while.

(01:30:29):
There's politics.
No matter what you do, it's allwho you know, not what you
prove.
I'm going right ahead.
Open new doors.
You don't worry about thefuckers in the union, no more.
For what it's worth, I thinkyou're doing good.

(01:30:50):
Dad.
I'm proud of you and I'mcertainly glad to call you my
father and tell who I know thatyou're killing some working work
demands clothes.
If I knew God, I would ask for araise Trade in this winter for

(01:31:10):
some summer days.
If I knew Allah, I would callhim a favor, show me the way and
I'll call him my savior.
If I knew Jesus, I would learnsome tricks Walking on water,
making wine for kicks.
If I knew people, we wouldn'thave to worry no more.

(01:31:53):
I'll probably make more moneyif I didn't curse and swear,
saying about blue eyes andpretty long blonde hair, use
words like baby and lines likelove me too, but that's all for
singers With no mud in theirshoes.
I don't care about money, but Ilike some dough.

(01:32:15):
So dad don't have to work Outwest no more.
Mom can retire.
I'll put my niece throughschool, buy my brother's new car
, take my girl to Peru.
If I knew God, I would ask for araise.
Trade in his winter for somesummer days.

(01:32:37):
If I knew Allah, I would callhim a favor, show me the way and
I'll call you my savior.
If I knew Jesus, I'd learn sometricks Walking on water, making
wine for kicks.
If I knew people, we wouldn'thave to worry no more.

(01:32:58):
We saw new the right people.
We wouldn't have to worry nomore.
We wouldn't have to worry nomore.

(01:33:23):
We would have to worry no more.

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Mike and Kristen Make It - Art, Love, Beer, Podcasts and Truths Behind Creative Survival

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mike and Kristen Make It - Art, Love, Beer, Podcasts and Truths Behind Creative Survival