November 22, 2024 • 52 mins
Alex Nasla, the man behind Spectre Media Group in partnership with Glenn Fricker speaks with Ken Candelas on the aspects of taking your career seriously to elevate yourself to new heights. Alex speaks plainly and wholesomely, discussing his favorite pieces of gear, a day in the life, and what you must do (or let go of) in order to achieve success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome everybody to another episode of Metal Mastermind.
I am your host Ken Candelas, andtoday we have a very special
guest. His name is Alex Nasla from.
Spectre. Media Group Alex, welcome.
How are you doing, my friend? I'm good, man.
You know, it's a, it's a morningfor me evening or a new
afternoon for you. Hopefully.
(00:29):
You know, you said you do these a little earlier, so hopefully I
don't mess up your schedule too bad.
No worries, That's totally fine.Alex, it's always a pleasure to
see you. We actually met each other at
Audio Engineering Society in NewYork City at the Jacob Javits
Center. Yes, my first time and
apparently my last time. Yeah, we'll see how it goes with
(00:52):
the AES conventions, man, Definitely the Jacob Javits
Centers has proven itself to be a quite a challenge for the
association. So I guess we'll see how that
pans out. But I know that next year it's
actually going to take place in California where you live.
Right, it is. It's actually like 40 minutes
away from me, which is, which isabout the same as Nam.
(01:13):
Nam is also about 40 minutes away from me so.
Wow, what a party. Yeah, I'm sure you do.
Yeah, that's great. They.
Should just do them all in Southern California.
Well, you know, California is such a hotspot for music.
I think it, you know, it does make quite a lot of sense.
I, I, I'm sure somebody like hasthe numbers out there and, and
(01:36):
did the research, but I would have to imagine it's the number
one place in the world. Yeah, probably I would.
I would assume so. Between Hollywood, like all the
major labels, yeah, I would haveto imagine.
Yeah, absolutely. So Alex, you've been in metal,
(01:57):
the industry of metal for a verylong time.
I want to sort of ask a little bit about, you know, yourself.
I know that when when I met you,it was actually through a mutual
friend. It was our, it was Glen Fricker.
Yes, we, we had a, we had a night out.
It was a good time. I appreciated that and.
I just want to really get into you.
It was. Great.
Yeah, Yeah, that was kind of hilarious.
(02:20):
For those of you guys who are watching the show, the way how
that happened was actually I waswalking out of Power Station
from one of those just, you know, audio demos during the
convention. And right down the block on the
streets of New York, here comes Alex and Glenn walking to
Valhalla. And I'm just like, what in the
world? Yeah.
You're that guy. That was really funny, yeah.
(02:42):
OK, I don't know if you had. I don't know if you had anything
else going on, but I apologize to those people's plans.
I've ruined. I'm sorry, but also not really
sorry. That is quite the definition of
going with the flow. So, but Alex, your, your history
and metal, let's talk a little bit about where your your
journey started. I'm curious as to, you know,
(03:04):
you're you're, you are an audio engineer, but you're also a
musician. I have a lot of hats.
Yeah, talk a little bit about the beginnings of Alex Naslund.
OK, so this is probably, this isusually a surprising thing for
people to hear, but I actually did not get interested in music
(03:25):
or I'm playing music, I should say, until like later in my
life. So I, I, it was after I
graduated high school, like I was 18 and I was like, you know,
I'm going to pick up an instrument.
And I went with at the time keyboards, piano, because
everybody I knew was a guitar player.
(03:47):
And I just was like, what what Imean, everybody knows a guitar
player. I really just going to be
another guitar player. Keywords are cool.
And at the time I was really into like Jordan Rudis from
Dream Theater and, you know, a bunch of other like Yenz
Johansson from Stradivarius and previous of Ingvi and Derek
(04:09):
Schwingen, you know, just a lot of like those super virtuoso
keyboard players. So I was like, yeah, I'm going
to like learn this keyboard. I'm going to do, I'm going to be
a keyboard player. And it worked out pretty well
because I generally, I've alwaysbeen very production.
(04:32):
I've always loved like production even before, even
before I was a musician. I, I didn't, I guess I didn't
realize it at the time that I was, that I had an ear for
production. It's almost like when you hear
like Rick Rubin talk about how he has no technical ability, but
he can hear. It's not, I'm not saying I'm
like Rick Rubin, but like it's similar thing where even though
(04:56):
he didn't really understand the technical side of things back
then, he somehow had an ear for it.
So. Intuition.
Yes. And as a when you're a keyboard
player, there are certain thingsthat kind of like make it easier
to jump onto being like an innerproducer.
(05:18):
Like one of the first keyboards I had was a workstation keyboard
which has a simple audio sequence, audio and MIDI
sequencer on it. You can record multi track basic
mixing. So that's how I started out,
like recording my own stuff. And then eventually, like other
people's like literally I had toroll in Phantom X and I would
(05:41):
literally just record like I still have my demos from that
thing. Yeah.
And it kind of that's kind of like got me interested in going
on the production side of thingsbecause I already had kind of
dipped my toes in it. And yeah, my first few bands, as
you might imagine, nothing to write home about.
(06:02):
I was, I, I practiced like crazywhen I decided to be a musician.
Like I finished high school and I did and I spent an entire year
doing nothing but practicing self-taught.
Like I, I mean self-taught in that I brought a bunch of books
and taught them to myself of howto play.
(06:22):
And I spent like, I mean, I remember at the time I was like
driving my family insane becauseI was spending 10/12/14 hours a
day doing nothing but practicing.
And I would be playing the same thing over and over again
because I sucked and I needed tokeep.
(06:43):
I basically had to like, you know, commit it to muscle memory
in order to like play it halfwaydecent.
And even then it wasn't that great.
But you know, I just started playing an instrument for the
first time, so. Yeah, well, I mean, at least
with keyboards you have the ability to plug in a headphone
Jack, unless this was on piano. This was on P Well, I had both a
(07:03):
key. No, it was on keyboard.
Why? Did you know what I didn't?
I could have done it on headphones, but I didn't.
Oh. My gosh, so you were just, you
were just the rebel. Yeah, yeah, I just and it was
loud too. I'll be honest, that's
hilarious. I, I don't, I don't play like
that loud anymore, but I don't know, maybe I was like young and
(07:26):
angsty for some reason. But so yeah, I spent an entire
year, almost every day, like 12 hours a day doing nothing but
practicing. I'm teaching myself.
And obviously that helped me like maybe get further along in
ability than maybe like the average person picking up an
instrument. But yeah, you know, I was like,
(07:49):
at a certain point after a year I was like, all right, maybe I
should start playing with people, you know?
So I started playing with some people.
My brother plays guitar, so I play with him at first me and
him O jam. And then from there I joined my
first band. And it was a learning experience
(08:11):
because I it was my first time actually playing with a full
band, like to a click track and like being on time with
everybody. And it took a while to get used
to because I had just had been practicing so long on my own.
That first band didn't go anywhere at all, but it did the
(08:31):
IT did the people in it definitely helped me become a
better musician. And my band after that also
didn't end up going anywhere. But it was, it was the band that
I probably like, learned the most from in terms of all the
mistakes, Like, we've made all the mistakes.
(08:51):
Like ego was involved, you know,like, and we didn't even realize
we had egos, you know, like, of course.
Yeah. And and it's not, you know,
nothing. I, I wasn't part of the problem.
I, I mean, I, I definitely had, I definitely, you know, was part
of the problem. It was me and my buddy Devin.
We were kind of like the heads of the band.
(09:15):
And sometimes we, a lot of the times actually, I would say we
agreed. Near the end, we disagreed more
and more. We were both wrong, it turns
out. So that's fun.
And Devin's still to this day, one of my best friends.
But that that band, I mean, thatband did strain our relationship
(09:37):
for a bit and I didn't even realize it.
Well, you know, that is a reallyimportant aspect that you're
talking about, which is like learning from your mistakes.
I mean, as you're growing even as a musician, of course, I
mean, like, even the idea of like just playing with other
people, there's an entire aspectof just learning how to
commingle, be able to also like read people in the moment when
(10:01):
you're jamming. Like there's a skill that comes
from that. And then of course, all the
interplay of the dynamics of theband moving forward, trying to
get gigs, you know, operating yourself, hopefully more in the
eyes of a business, but, you know, everybody's still figuring
it out. So those are so important years.
That's the biggest thing all my previous bands that we just had
(10:27):
no clue, didn't take into account is like treating it as a
business. We nobody in the band treated it
as a business and nobody even knew anything about business.
And that was one of the biggest factors of why I would say any
band fails. Like I know a lot of bands that
had good music, had a good following.
(10:49):
They even even got offered like a record label deal.
But when you get offered a record label deal, then you have
to suddenly treat it like a business.
And I can't tell you how many bands I've seen literally fall
apart at before, like when they got offered the deal, like
because they they all of a sudden they all have to start
(11:12):
thinking about it in a business way and it just falls apart.
So you guys didn't think about this before you like, I don't
know, started playing together? Yeah, right.
So because that that never that never really occurs to a
musician in the very beginning. It's like, hey, I'm here because
I want to create some music, right.
Yeah. So it's almost like the counter
intuitive part of the industry which learns through pain.
(11:36):
Yes, because we're such creativepeople that we want to just be
creative in the moment. But then getting organized, I
mean, how many musicians are organized?
You know, that's hilarious. Oh my gosh.
But you know. It's funny, my band, my bands,
they think I'm the most organized person or one of the
most organized people. And I'm like, guys, if you guys
(11:58):
think I'm organized, poof. Like.
I feel like I'm extremely disorganized.
That's hilarious. Well, actually, you know, Alex,
you know, credit to you because I, I want to say I probably
Spectre Media Group is one of the more successful brands out
there, I think in the metal space.
(12:18):
And, and it's really what a, what a job have you guys done.
And now can you explain how Spectre Media started and like,
where did Glenn fit into all of this?
What was that like? OK, so Spectre Media started as,
I mean that was just started as Glenn in his studio.
So Spectre Sound Studios was Glenn in the early 2000s, sick
(12:44):
and tired of his job at Chrysler.
He used to, I don't remember what he did back then, but he
used to, you know, he used to work on the line at Chrysler
building cars. And he, he had a degree in, I
think it was media arts or something, media related media
arts. And, and he never, he always
(13:05):
wanted to like make use of it, always wanted to record bands.
So he made a studio, turned his garage into a studio.
That was the birth of Spectre Sound Studio right and started
recording bands in the Windsor area in Canada.
His experience is that they mostly sucked.
(13:28):
He mostly mostly did not record things musicians and bands that
he liked. There were a few standouts that
you know were good and and what not the in in terms of metal
woods Evie praise probably the most popular cult following of a
band that he worked on. I think he did both their albums
(13:49):
nice before that band imploded classic story, the band
implosion and then he also like mixed the Queen's right single
at some point as well. So he's done some stuff there,
but eventually he got sick and tired of how horrible the
musicians coming into the band were.
And he just felt like he had to like, rant and just make a video
(14:13):
out there. And he just showed this video to
people like, hey, before you come into my studio, watch this
video. If any of this applies to you,
make sure it doesn't by the timeyou come into my studio, right?
And that was the video of his that went viral, his first
video, which was how to get yourband ready for the studio.
There's two parts, and that video went viral for a good
(14:39):
reason. If you haven't seen it, go watch
it. It is hilarious.
It's still one of my favorite videos Glenn has ever done
because it is. There's two things going on.
You can visibly see and hear hisfrustration with his experience
of with musicians. And the second thing is, is that
(15:00):
it's kind of universal. Like, isn't this is not just a
Windsor ON phenomenon that he's experiencing.
By and large, everything he saysis true for the most part
anywhere. I mean, here in Los Angeles, I
had pretty much the same exact experience.
Maybe not as maybe maybe the ratio of good and bad musician
(15:20):
wasn't as off kilter as it was for him in in Windsor.
But I mean, bass players. He, he harps on bass players.
And there's a reason. It's because by and large,
they're almost always the worst musician in the band, by and
large. Oh my gosh, that is so.
Funny in rock and metal, I should say, because anytime I've
(15:42):
worked with a, a bass player that's in either like soul
music, RnB, pop or anything or jazz, they're the exact
opposite. They're, they might be the best
musician in the band. So, so that's, yeah, that video
went viral at the time, me and Trey Xavier, we had Gear Gods
(16:04):
hadn't just started, but it's been around for like maybe like
2 years maybe at that point. And at the time it was owned by
Blast, Blast Beat Media. Was that what they're called?
Yeah, the company Blast Beat Network.
Yes, Yeah. And they started it and they,
Trey was at the time. Was Trey the head of it at the
(16:27):
time? No, at the time it was Chris.
He was the head at the head of Gear Gods.
And then they brought Trey on and me to help.
Yeah. I think that's the timeline.
That's the correct timeline. And they reached out to Glenn.
I was like, dude, you're hilarious.
You should do more videos. Let's like, let's like, like
(16:50):
work together, right? Like, so you make more videos,
We'll post them on Gear Gods, onMetal Sucks and Metal Injection
to help push and promote you. And then in exchange, just if
you look at all of Glenn's like early videos in like the first
few years, they all say in association with Gear Gods,
right? So yeah.
And then and then eventually, and that went on for years.
(17:12):
So and eventually Glenn came to his first Nam here in California
and I finally got to meet him. And that was the first time I
met him was Nam 2016, I think itwas.
Now in 2016 was well, whatever was Glenn's first now met him.
And yeah, we met him in person and we really hit it off.
(17:35):
Very similar tastes in music. Well, his tastes are kind of
like more closed off to like when he grew up.
So like Judas Priest, you know, Jews piece is his favorite band
of all time. So Jews, anything like that
Metallica, Megadeth and I love all that stuff.
(18:00):
But you know, I'm he's I'm he's like twice my age, not twice my
age, but he's a lot older than me.
So I grew up with like, you know, oh.
Glenn's gonna love hearing this.Glenn knows all of this.
Yeah. Yeah, Glenn, that's great, all
of this. Well, you know, in the, when I,
when I met you guys as a as a group, as a duo, I, I sensed the
(18:23):
balance that you guys gave each other, which is such an
important part of that relationship that I sensed, you
know, you're, you are this like super energetic person and.
Glens like this, you know. You know, kind of grumpy guy,
but he's also hilarious in his own way and he's actually really
down to earth. Very So are you, by the way, I,
when I, when I had the chance toreally like communicate with you
(18:44):
guys, Paul Hal, it was a it was very wholesome conversations
that we were having and it was II could tell like Glenn like
values the time that he has withthe people that he loves too.
And so that is such a important part to this because a lot of
people may forget that out of all the things that we do, I
think like really nurturing yourrelationships is like one of the
(19:05):
most important things here in this industry too.
I would think the most importantthing to be honest, straight up
number one thing it's all about.I 100% agree.
This might not even be just a music industry thing.
This just might be like in general in business really, but
it's especially so in the music industry.
It's really all about really like people.
I've learned, I've learned this over the years as well.
(19:26):
And maybe we'll get to it, but people will rather hire and work
with somebody that is chill, like a good hang and good at
what they do over somebody who'sa Dick and like, like a savant
at what they do. Like like someone, like they'd
(19:48):
rather take somebody that's easier to work with, chill down
to earth and still good over like the this is like the best
person who's ever touched a drumkit, right Or whatever.
As as an educator, I can definitely, you know, I tell my
students that all the time. I say, you know, the the
technical aspect of all of this is kind of the given you have to
already bring that. Yeah.
(20:10):
But what really sets you apart is who you associate yourself
with and how you present yourself.
It's a it's a people industry, really.
Yeah, yeah. And so that's really.
More than others, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Because this is a creative field, right?
Which is the entire thing is allabout psychology and vibes,
right? Subjective.
There's no. There's no objective.
Very subjective. Music.
(20:31):
Yes, and so, I mean, you have been able to educate a lot of
people on the Internet through places like Gear Gods Inspector
and I, I've always, you know, even when I was in college, I
was actually watching Glenn and I was watching, I was reading up
on Gear Gods and stuff like that.
It, it gave me a lot of push. I, I actually graduated in 2016.
(20:55):
So I was right around the cusp when you guys started really
forming together to create Spectre Media Group.
And wow, it's blossomed since then, which is amazing to see.
Now actually, while we're on theconcept also of like gear gods,
I know you were writing a lot ofthings about gear so forth, Yes,
(21:17):
but what do you do you have any like?
On Gear Gods, I handled anythingpro audio related or keyboard
and synth related. Trey handled guitar, bass.
Yeah, mostly that. And later on he started getting
into other stuff too. I corrupted him.
He started getting, he started getting more into keyboards and
orchestration and, and that kindof thing, yeah.
(21:40):
Yeah. Are you, do you have any like
favorite pieces of gear out of, you know, everything that you've
ever touched? Favorite piece of gear?
My one favorite piece of gear. That's hard, man.
I guess that's that I've touchedjust straight up.
(22:03):
Ever used anywhere? Well, how about how about this?
Any maybe memorable pieces of gear for you?
Does a console count? Sure.
The SSL Duality, which is reallynot not an old console, it's an
s s LS flagship. Current flagship console.
(22:25):
Very expensive. I got a chance to use that
recently in Florida I went to. Are you familiar with Moore
Sound extremely. Yeah, they're.
Using a duality over there. Yeah, anyone who's not familiar
with Moore sound, I mean more, more sound.
And Jim Morris, they recorded all the famous Florida metal
(22:49):
bands and death metal bands likeMorbid Angel.
Not just death metal. He did Cannibal Corpse as well.
He also did Trans-siberian Orchestra, Sabotage, just a lot
of legendary metal bands. And he has a duality.
I've never used one and it blew my mind.
(23:11):
That is a really, really amazingconsole.
Like the tone, like like the recordings we got out of that.
Like I honestly, I, I put them into my session to like mix the
song and I'm like, I look, there's not really much for me
to do here. Like this already sounds like
(23:32):
like it's done like very little and yeah, that memorable because
that's because of that. Like I mean, anything that when
you get the recording, when you get the sound that right at the
recording part of the process. I mean, it just, it lets you
make the mix and then the masterway better than it could
possibly be had it been like a just an OK recording, right, You
(23:57):
know? Because, I mean, there's like
that proverb, which is, you know, you can't Polish a turd,
but you can put glitter on it, right?
So. Right.
Yeah. Exactly.
We don't we don't want to work with with crap.
So when you when you start off and of course it comes down
really to like this to golden rules of recording.
But you know, when you're in that mode and you're working
with high quality components like an SSL duality or, you
(24:20):
know, even some of their more legacy stuff too, it's great
stuff. Oh yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've used, Iused an SSL 4000 for years when
I was working with Warren. Console.
Yeah, Warren Hewitt had, he doesn't have it anymore, but he
had ASSL 4000 console at his studio and yeah, I worked on it
with him for a few years and it's it's a amazing sound.
(24:45):
But just the workflow is just too old school, you know?
You know, like you have to recall everything by hand, you
know? Absolutely.
Like every time you open a session.
And it's, yeah, not ideal. No, no, no.
And I mean, that's one of the pains about, you know, analog in
many ways, but I always looked at analog as a really great way
(25:06):
for tracking because you're getting it up front.
You know, you're it's already before the conversion process.
You know, you can really get in all your the tones that you want
even closest to the mix. I mean like I always pictured
the mix as being like the 1520% left that's left off of what
you've already tracked. Maybe, maybe originally that
(25:27):
used to be the case, right? Like these days it doesn't feel
like it. Like these days?
Well. Why do you think that, Alex?
I'm wondering. Because recording is much more
expensive than mixing. And I say that in terms of like
going into a studio to record, like bands used to spend.
I mean, the bands that have the budget still do this.
(25:48):
They'll spend like a month or two, if not more in the studio.
And every day like in a, in a big, in like a good big studio,
like a sunset sound here in, in LA, one of the most famous
studios on the planet, you know,did Prince, Purple Rain and did
Van Halen and all this. If I, I think like if I remember
(26:08):
correctly that studios like 1200a day just to record, you know,
and, and that's today like not prices of back then.
So if you're in there for a month, that's a lot of money for
just recording. Yeah, absolutely.
And yeah, to like, yeah. And most bands aren't.
(26:32):
The musicians in most bands justaren't talented enough to be
able to just go into the studio one day, get everything down
perfect, you know, and call it aday.
It just doesn't work that way. And so, yeah, it's, it's a lot
cheaper financially to, to just,you know, do what you can at
(26:57):
home, record DI's, record vocalsor whatever, you know, cheap out
on the recording side of things and then hope that the you, the
mixing engineer can fix it all and then mix it.
Wow, it's so backwards. It really is.
And you know. People, people look at it in
terms of the financial side and they don't realize like the the
(27:19):
sacrifice they're making on the quality side.
They should. And how would they?
They, they're not engineers, they're not producers.
They barely, they barely learnedhow to record themselves at
home. You know, they wouldn't have the
experience or the knowledge of what they're missing out on.
(27:40):
Yeah, because a lot of people probably didn't even go into a
real studio, you know? Absolutely.
I mean, you get in many ways when I, when I speak to people
about it, it's like I try to emphasize, you know, the fact
that you're doing this not for, you know, the, the immediate
financial savings you're talkingabout, right?
(28:01):
You know, a, a legacy that you're leaving.
When you, when you create something like this and it, it
becomes something, I feel like honestly, it's just like we
were, we're talking about when you were first starting.
It's like kind of going through a little bit of the pain process
of saying, you know, why doesn'tsound good.
Well, you know, you didn't take,you know, the steps from, you
know, Part 1 to make it right. You know, then it's going to be
(28:23):
a lot more challenging moving forward, you know, mixing and
mastering. Like people go, Oh yeah, fix it
and mix or fix it and mastering.Well, it's like, well, not
really. It's, it's going to just make
more of what it is. So it's that.
It's a very hard concept to to there's many a bands that will
send. I'm almost at this point, I
(28:44):
might even almost be considered or have a reputation as the guy
that fixes the mix. Because the multiple bands
they'll they went to somebody tomix their album or EP whatever,
and they weren't happy with it. And they, they come to me to
like, you know, get a, to, to mix it better, right.
(29:07):
And you know, and usually when that happens, I know that I'm
about, I'm about to be in for a ride.
Because generally it's not that the person who mixed it is not a
good mixer. It's that generally they were
working with some really hard tracks to work with.
And I've just been working with all kinds of tracks from people,
(29:31):
good and bad for so long that I I have a bunch of like, you
know, the tricks and things thatI can do to help me work with
that better. But yeah, I mean, the amount of
albums that I've like, I actually just got hit up.
It was it was too short notice. But a band that I the the
(29:52):
vocalist from a band that I did their album from his from
Finland. I don't remember the name of the
band was, but he I did their album, his other band's album
and they really loved it and they hired somebody to mix their
his other band's album and they weren't happy with it.
And they're like, hey, could youmix this entire album in like 4
(30:15):
days? I'm like bro, you want me to mix
10 songs in four days? I mean, I could, but I mean I'd
be rushing it. I don't know if it'll end up
being better. Like, and I was like, let me
listen to this mix. Like maybe you're just, you
know, maybe it's not that bad. And I listen to it and it was,
(30:35):
it was not that bad. Like I was like, you know, could
it be better? Yeah.
But like, I was like, yeah, don't worry about it, dude.
Like I, I don't think the average listener is going to be
off put by anything from from this.
I think you're just comparing itto the album that we did
together and yeah, so. Well, I mean, that's a lasting
(30:57):
impression, isn't it? Right.
So it's. Oh yeah.
It's great when that that. Becomes like their benchmark and
it's like, it's got to be, you know, once you've gotten to a
point in, in your, you know, musical career where you, you,
you've really had the taste of, you know, the nectar ambrosia,
right, Nectar of the gods, right?
You're just like, oh it, it can never be the same.
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's yeah.
(31:20):
And it's, it's, it's one of those things where people don't
really like, I, there's another man I'm that I'm currently
working with that for the longest time they went for the
absolute cheapest production that they could get away with.
And, and to be fair, like they, they, their budget is they, they
had no budget like, and they're,they're struggling musicians,
(31:43):
like really struggling musicians, musicians in terms of
like finances and all that. So I understand, but they were
never happy with the production they were doing.
Their fans were never happy withit, you know, and they they kept
and they were like they did an entire album and those and I was
like, guys like like doing an album upfront when you're not
(32:05):
even like that, but big or famous, whatever.
It's kind of point like put, putyour effort into one song, make
one song the way you want to make it with the production you
want to to do that you're happy with, that everybody really
happy with. I think it'll get much further
along than put put putting all this time and effort into an
(32:26):
album, years and all this money and then in the end not even
being happy with the production,you know?
Right, Yeah, in most, in most cases, I think that's, that's a
very smart approach because thenyou can you can stagger the
releases exactly. Can build up the audience that
way. Yeah.
You know, cause a lot of nowadays it's, it's, it's a lot
of exposure. Spotify is the new exposure
(32:47):
platform really. So you're always constantly
working on trying to build playlisting views, all that kind
of stuff. Yeah, you know, doing, doing an
album can be a very challenging aspect for an independent
artist. You know, I mean, I, I even
have, you know, gone that route of doing the album and not
really having the audience for it.
(33:08):
I I totally understand where you're what you're talking
about. So the business side of things
is supposed to come into play, but most people just have no
idea about it. Like, you know, they, they, they
just think that. I mean, they like most of the
bands that I work with don't even they didn't even budget
what the entire album cycle is going to cost them.
(33:29):
Like how do you know you can afford what you think you can
afford if you haven't even planned it out?
You know, like something I always tell, OK, I also manage
bands. There's a bunch of bands in
different man I I manage. And one of the things I always
try to get into their heads is like, hey, whatever, whatever is
the budget that you're putting aside to record mixed mass, like
(33:51):
the whole music production side of things, you need that that
same amount for marketing and promotion.
Literally 50% of the money use you spend on a song or whatever
a release, let's say, needs to be marketing.
Because what's the point of putting all that effort if
(34:12):
you're just going to like, let nobody listen to it?
Like there's this like fantasy that like, oh, you know, when
people hear my song, they'll know and they'll share it
because this song is amazing, right?
Like everybody as a musician, especially something you've
worked so hard and long for and you feel very confident and
(34:35):
optimistic about, you kind of, yeah, you kind of start getting
this egos like this will pop off.
This will people will share thisorganically, wants to hear how
good this song is. And realistically, that just
doesn't happen. Even even songs that are like
amazing songs, life changing, like, you know, that
(34:55):
legitimately are like incrediblesongs that you still need to
market it because it's just going to get buried otherwise.
Like, I mean, think about it, let's just say there's 10 people
that truly let's listen to song and they share it with all their
friends and stuff like that. I mean, those 10 people, like
how far is that going to get in terms of like building a fan
(35:17):
base? It'll take forever if it even
works, you know, And like 10 people, that's not an
exaggeration if you're not, if you're doing 0 marketing, you
know, Yeah. So yeah, it's I always tell
bands. That, I mean, you know, that
kind of, you know, advice is really important to explain in
(35:37):
this case because you're talkingabout how you're basically
creating a launchpad for yourself as an artist.
And right in the in many ways, Ithink one of the challenges is
that people just don't know where or who to go.
And that becomes, you know, a big, big roadblock for for many
bands. Do you usually have like any
(36:00):
advice as to where people shouldstart in those cases?
Like do you think Marco? Yeah, like I said, like, oh,
first build the website, you know, etcetera.
What are What are your thoughts about where they should start?
It depends on, I mean, it depends where you are in your
currently as a musician, as an as an artist, but actually you
(36:20):
were there. The the person I would recommend
easy free, free advice on YouTube is Jessie Cannon, who we
hung out with at Valhalla. He was great.
Yeah, he is a fountain of knowledge.
His what was this YouTube channel called?
If you just search Jessie Cannon, I think it's called Muse
(36:41):
Muse Formation or something likethat.
Yeah, something like that. Yes, I believe you're right.
Jessie Cannon, just search him, all kinds of advice.
He tries to cover as many different aspects of marketing
music as you can, social media, you know, radio, even production
stuff. And that's probably like the
(37:03):
best free place, you know, You know, and it's funny because I,
I, I can't tell you how many times I'll tell people about
like Jesse's channel, for example, like free knowledge.
Hey, look, you can learn how to do this all here.
It's literally free, but a they they're like, I just didn't have
the time to watch it or like, people don't take marketing
(37:26):
seriously, you know, right. Even if you.
Give them the answers, it's not the sexy thing.
Yeah, I, I, it's here's this is where music becomes work.
And people like don't understand, like you it it, it
is work if you actually want to be safe.
Look, if you don't want to be, if you don't care about success
and like growing as an artist and your goals aren't that, then
(37:49):
that's totally fine. You know, make the music you
want, put it out the way you want.
But as long as your expectationsare correct, you know, like, as
long as your expectations are yeah, based, probably no one is
ever going to hear this other than like a few people.
And if you're OK with that and you don't want anything more
than that, that's fine. But if you do, like, you're just
(38:11):
like in denial that people are just going to somehow find out
who you are and like, oh, I needto sign you or you got a I'm
going, I want to book a tour foryou.
It's very, very, very unlikely that that will happen.
Yes, and and it's a slow processtoo, by the way, it's not yeah,
something that I mean like some people have have gone viral and
(38:31):
they've, you know, had some success off of that, but most.
Extremely rare, but yes. It's it's, it's a slow building
behemoth that yeah. Yeah, even the people who like
did. Yeah, even the people who, like,
explode, like if you actually look at it, they've been working
toward. It for a long time, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean like, MMM.
And when I started marketing, itwas probably actually around
(38:53):
when you were starting Spectre Media.
So around 2016 I was like, Oh yeah, I just got through
college. I'm just like ready to take the
world. I'm just like, oh, I don't
really know anything. So right.
I have to, I had to really go out and it really becomes to the
person that themselves, right? They have to pursue on their own
agenda, on their own time. They have to make the time to do
(39:15):
these things. It's never something that's just
going to fall in your lap. You have to go and make the
conscious effort to learn and toput into place these actionable,
you know, techniques because if you don't, you know, you'll
always be wishing. And we don't want to wish, you
know, that's just for dreamers, right?
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's one of those
(39:36):
things that made me, you know, being in bands and trying to get
other band members to, you know,take action on the stuff that I
tell them to take action. Like it makes me understand now
why the with bands tends to be just one person that kind of
does everything and leads everything.
(39:56):
It's because the realistically the rest of the band members say
they want to do something, but in in in reality, in terms of
action, very little happens likeI.
I, I do a lot of things in my day-to-day life.
And so I try to delegate as muchof my band stuff as possible to
(40:18):
other band members, you know, where I feel like they have
their strengths, right? But at the end of the day, it's
almost no one does anything. And I have to end up picking up
the slack, you know, and I, you know, every time I hit them up
with like, oh, sorry, I'm busy. I was like, yeah, but you know,
I, I work 10 hours a day and I still was able to make a social
(40:39):
media post. You know, it doesn't take that
long. It takes like 30 seconds, a
minute maybe, you know, And, youknow, and then, you know, when
you dig down deeper, they're like, like, I just like, I
didn't know what exactly it's supposed to like, OK, it's like,
this is what we're going to do. I'm going to hold your hand a
couple times so you know exactlyhow to do it and what to do.
And then from there, you'll havethe knowledge, right?
(41:02):
And sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't, it works
for a little bit and then it just kind of drops off.
So it's like, and this is this is this is where it gets hard
because some people will get discouraged and like, well, I
mean, nobody else is doing it, so I'm not going to do anything.
But unfortunately you, you don'thave that luxury if you actually
want your band to be successful and succeed, like you actually
(41:23):
have to unfortunately pick up the slack.
And, but that also means that later on, when there is success
with the band, you know, you better be keeping tabs on who
did what because like, it's OK, I asked you to do all this
stuff. I ended up doing it all.
You know, I, I, I did the, I, I put in the effort and the, you
(41:43):
know, it's. And that's where a lot of bands
start having problems because they feel like, you know, maybe
that they it was a an unfair like, you know, it's like, well,
I didn't have time. You had time.
I was like, no, I didn't have time.
I made time. Nobody.
Everybody has to make time. You know, Like how serious.
(42:04):
All this time. Like, that's the thing.
It's just like, it's like, how serious are you about this?
Like really, you know, yeah. Like I, I, I reinvest all my
money as I, I don't really spendmoney on like, things that much.
Like everything I, I spend my money on is essentially to
(42:25):
reinvest into like my music career.
You know, most bands, most members in bands don't really do
that. In my experience at least, you
know? It's so such wise.
Words, man, because. You got you.
You're really touching on. Some real, real topics there.
I mean, personally, I, I, I wentthrough that myself and that's
(42:48):
one of the reasons why, you know, my project home Eric was,
you know, it took the path that it took.
I, I lived with my bandmates andI had the exact same thing,
which is 1 of it. It, you know, what's that other
proverb? It's like you can't help
somebody who doesn't want to be helped kind of thing, you know,
if they don't want. It right you can you can eat a
horse from water you. Can't make them.
You can't make them want it, right?
(43:09):
So if it's going to if it's going to be something like that,
I remember going to I confided in in someone I was working for.
It was on four with a band called the Cringe.
And shout out to John Cusimano, who is who was the leader of the
band because he he offered thesewords for me.
He was just like, you know, at the time I wasn't really
(43:31):
thinking of it like as members of a company or anything, but
he's just like, he's like, if, if something's not working, you
got to fire people. I was like, oh, yeah.
Oh, wow. You know, it was hard to think
of it that way because I was like, these are my boys or, you
know, these are people that I I spent relational.
It's really hard, yeah. And, you know, to make that
(43:53):
decision and move forward, it was one of the most like painful
moments in my life because, you know, you really are cutting
people off that weren't serving you in that case.
So that that in some ways is probably one of the hardest
lessons any band member could learn because from that point
on, for someone like me became this is now the path that I walk
(44:18):
and I and I commit, I've committed to that.
I knew that at that moment therewas a fork in the road and I was
either going to go one way or I was going to go the other way.
And you know it. It's important to recognize
those milestone moments in your life to be able to then, you
know, propel you to move forwardand that decision making and
(44:39):
being, you know, you don't have to to like it, but you have to
do it with confidence in knowingthat that was the right
decision. Yes, exactly.
And that, that's all part of, you know, I guess you could say
that's good character building, but it also does it, it makes
you more tenacious to to be ableto handle an industry like this
(45:00):
because that will happen. That will happen.
And you have to be able to look out for yourself while trying to
still do the right thing. Right.
Exactly. Yeah, Yeah.
That's why, you know, you hear stories about like, Dave
Mustaine being difficult to workwith as a band member or
whatever. And, and, and I have, I have
(45:21):
more sympathy for Dave Mustaine,you know, than I used to
because, you know, like that andthe people that are still in the
band, like, you know, that haven't been let go, are people
that are all understand what we're talking about.
They've all walked that path in their own bands.
(45:44):
So as long as, you know, a band as big as Megadeth and has been
around as long as Megadeth, you know, having people with that
kind of experience might actually could potentially be a
problem because they all feel like, you know, they have real
experience that they can contribute to.
But this is Dave, Dave Mustang and Megan, if it's his band.
(46:07):
So they all also have to understand, oh, hey, this is his
band. He's built it.
It's one of the biggest metal bands on the planet.
I can, I can just chill until Dave needs me for something.
If Dave asks me for something, then I can do my thing, you
know? Yeah, it's a, it's it's tough,
man. I mean, I, I, I, unfortunately,
(46:28):
it's the thing I hate. The two to do to do the most is
fire people like I. There's nothing I hate more than
that. But unfortunately I've had to do
it more times than I can even remember in my own bands, in the
bands I manage, you know, and I and I try to make it as as easy
as possible. I give people multiple chances,
(46:52):
you know, like, hey, this is theproblem.
We don't want to get rid of you.And we're not only not, we're
not only we're going to tell youwhat the problem is, we're going
to try and help you solve the problem, right.
So it was that scene from JeremyMaguire.
Help me help you, right? So, and at that point, if they
(47:12):
still don't come through like it's, it's, it's hard for them
to even like be mad about getting fired.
You know, they're if anything, they're kind of like upset at
themselves. So a lot of communication, like
that's how I've come to now be able to like, hey, like, dude,
(47:34):
like what do you, what would youdo in my place?
Like I we told you what the problems were.
We gave you more time than reasonable to do it and we even
held your hand on how to solve it and you still didn't do any
of it. Like, I mean, just you just like
the priorities for you is just not this band.
(47:55):
And that's OK. You know, there's no hard
feeling, but but like, that's not what the band needs,
unfortunately, you know? And, you know, sometimes it's
like, sometimes it's really, really good friends, you know?
And yeah, you got to do what yougot to do if you actually care
about the band and you're tryingto grow the band as a business.
(48:16):
And it it goes the same thing for even writing songs.
I mean, like, what is it that serves the song right?
You know, where it's not, it's not about like the the drummer
show or the vocalist show, you know, it, it's, it's, it's the
song that matters, right. So it's the same concept here as
well. And that's part of growth.
And you know, Alex, I'm really glad that you came on today to
(48:37):
really talk about that because it shows another side to what
does it mean to be a musician inthe modern metal industry or
even just in the music industry in general.
It's how are you carrying yourself forward and how do you
make the difficult decisions to continue on and to hopefully
finding a fruitful endeavour andcareer and all of that.
So. But Alex, I have one more
(48:58):
question for you. Yes.
Do you have a metal song of the week that you'd like to share
for us? Metal song of the week.
Oh man, there's so many choices,but I, I, I, my band, One of my
(49:19):
bands just released an album andI think there's a really awesome
metal song on that album. The, the band's called the
morning and it's not like the time of day morning.
It's like the sad morning. And the album is called Hush and
the song is called Smooth Seas. It's a really cool song.
(49:39):
It's very, I can't, I don't evenknow how to describe it in terms
of genre. I guess you could say it's some
kind of Prague, but it's it takes you on a journey.
It definitely takes you on a journey.
It's very catchy. It starts off slow, you know,
like smooth seas. And then the seas get rough.
Let's just say, well, they get very rough.
(50:03):
And yeah. Kind of kind of like the topics
that we talked about on this podcast, yes.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's the morning.
The album's called Hush and the song is called Smooth Seas.
Fantastic. Alex, I will be sharing today
Batushka, the Letuzia album, youknow?
(50:23):
Batushka. Oh my God.
Oh, yeah. I don't know.
You know, dude, I saw it, you know, live.
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
My, my, my friend who's who's like from 6th grade, we go way
back. He's he's a big fan.
So he brought me on to Batushka and I I love that album.
That's great. That's amazing.
(50:44):
Well, everybody, thank you for watching Metal Mastermind
Podcast. If you want to learn more about
how to navigate this industry, go to metalmastermind.com.
We have a slew of courses that are available and accessible to
all people of all levels in thisindustry.
So wherever you are in your game, if you're looking to find
(51:04):
resources in order to help you get to the next level, go to
metalmastermind.com. And Alex, where can people find
you on on your on your socials? Or is there a website you'd like
to point them to? I mean, on socials, it's just
mostly just Alex Naslow. Just look up Alex Naslow.
My, my studio website iswaveformstudio.net if anybody
(51:25):
wants to check out like my my studio stuff.
And then just Spectre, Spectre, digital.com, Spectre media.ca
for the Spectre stuff, you know?Wonderful.
Well, thanks Alex, and till nexttime everybody.
See you around. Yep, create.
Your own sound.
Welcome everybody to another episode of Metal Mastermind.
I am your host Ken Candelas, andtoday we have a very special
guest. His name is Alex Nasla from.
Spectre. Media Group Alex, welcome.
How are you doing, my friend? I'm good, man.
You know, it's a, it's a morningfor me evening or a new
afternoon for you. Hopefully.
(00:29):
You know, you said you do these a little earlier, so hopefully I
don't mess up your schedule too bad.
No worries, That's totally fine.Alex, it's always a pleasure to
see you. We actually met each other at
Audio Engineering Society in NewYork City at the Jacob Javits
Center. Yes, my first time and
apparently my last time. Yeah, we'll see how it goes with
(00:52):
the AES conventions, man, Definitely the Jacob Javits
Centers has proven itself to be a quite a challenge for the
association. So I guess we'll see how that
pans out. But I know that next year it's
actually going to take place in California where you live.
Right, it is. It's actually like 40 minutes
away from me, which is, which isabout the same as Nam.
(01:13):
Nam is also about 40 minutes away from me so.
Wow, what a party. Yeah, I'm sure you do.
Yeah, that's great. They.
Should just do them all in Southern California.
Well, you know, California is such a hotspot for music.
I think it, you know, it does make quite a lot of sense.
I, I, I'm sure somebody like hasthe numbers out there and, and
(01:36):
did the research, but I would have to imagine it's the number
one place in the world. Yeah, probably I would.
I would assume so. Between Hollywood, like all the
major labels, yeah, I would haveto imagine.
Yeah, absolutely. So Alex, you've been in metal,
(01:57):
the industry of metal for a verylong time.
I want to sort of ask a little bit about, you know, yourself.
I know that when when I met you,it was actually through a mutual
friend. It was our, it was Glen Fricker.
Yes, we, we had a, we had a night out.
It was a good time. I appreciated that and.
I just want to really get into you.
It was. Great.
Yeah, Yeah, that was kind of hilarious.
(02:20):
For those of you guys who are watching the show, the way how
that happened was actually I waswalking out of Power Station
from one of those just, you know, audio demos during the
convention. And right down the block on the
streets of New York, here comes Alex and Glenn walking to
Valhalla. And I'm just like, what in the
world? Yeah.
You're that guy. That was really funny, yeah.
(02:42):
OK, I don't know if you had. I don't know if you had anything
else going on, but I apologize to those people's plans.
I've ruined. I'm sorry, but also not really
sorry. That is quite the definition of
going with the flow. So, but Alex, your, your history
and metal, let's talk a little bit about where your your
journey started. I'm curious as to, you know,
(03:04):
you're you're, you are an audio engineer, but you're also a
musician. I have a lot of hats.
Yeah, talk a little bit about the beginnings of Alex Naslund.
OK, so this is probably, this isusually a surprising thing for
people to hear, but I actually did not get interested in music
(03:25):
or I'm playing music, I should say, until like later in my
life. So I, I, it was after I
graduated high school, like I was 18 and I was like, you know,
I'm going to pick up an instrument.
And I went with at the time keyboards, piano, because
everybody I knew was a guitar player.
(03:47):
And I just was like, what what Imean, everybody knows a guitar
player. I really just going to be
another guitar player. Keywords are cool.
And at the time I was really into like Jordan Rudis from
Dream Theater and, you know, a bunch of other like Yenz
Johansson from Stradivarius and previous of Ingvi and Derek
(04:09):
Schwingen, you know, just a lot of like those super virtuoso
keyboard players. So I was like, yeah, I'm going
to like learn this keyboard. I'm going to do, I'm going to be
a keyboard player. And it worked out pretty well
because I generally, I've alwaysbeen very production.
(04:32):
I've always loved like production even before, even
before I was a musician. I, I didn't, I guess I didn't
realize it at the time that I was, that I had an ear for
production. It's almost like when you hear
like Rick Rubin talk about how he has no technical ability, but
he can hear. It's not, I'm not saying I'm
like Rick Rubin, but like it's similar thing where even though
(04:56):
he didn't really understand the technical side of things back
then, he somehow had an ear for it.
So. Intuition.
Yes. And as a when you're a keyboard
player, there are certain thingsthat kind of like make it easier
to jump onto being like an innerproducer.
(05:18):
Like one of the first keyboards I had was a workstation keyboard
which has a simple audio sequence, audio and MIDI
sequencer on it. You can record multi track basic
mixing. So that's how I started out,
like recording my own stuff. And then eventually, like other
people's like literally I had toroll in Phantom X and I would
(05:41):
literally just record like I still have my demos from that
thing. Yeah.
And it kind of that's kind of like got me interested in going
on the production side of thingsbecause I already had kind of
dipped my toes in it. And yeah, my first few bands, as
you might imagine, nothing to write home about.
(06:02):
I was, I, I practiced like crazywhen I decided to be a musician.
Like I finished high school and I did and I spent an entire year
doing nothing but practicing self-taught.
Like I, I mean self-taught in that I brought a bunch of books
and taught them to myself of howto play.
(06:22):
And I spent like, I mean, I remember at the time I was like
driving my family insane becauseI was spending 10/12/14 hours a
day doing nothing but practicing.
And I would be playing the same thing over and over again
because I sucked and I needed tokeep.
(06:43):
I basically had to like, you know, commit it to muscle memory
in order to like play it halfwaydecent.
And even then it wasn't that great.
But you know, I just started playing an instrument for the
first time, so. Yeah, well, I mean, at least
with keyboards you have the ability to plug in a headphone
Jack, unless this was on piano. This was on P Well, I had both a
(07:03):
key. No, it was on keyboard.
Why? Did you know what I didn't?
I could have done it on headphones, but I didn't.
Oh. My gosh, so you were just, you
were just the rebel. Yeah, yeah, I just and it was
loud too. I'll be honest, that's
hilarious. I, I don't, I don't play like
that loud anymore, but I don't know, maybe I was like young and
(07:26):
angsty for some reason. But so yeah, I spent an entire
year, almost every day, like 12 hours a day doing nothing but
practicing. I'm teaching myself.
And obviously that helped me like maybe get further along in
ability than maybe like the average person picking up an
instrument. But yeah, you know, I was like,
(07:49):
at a certain point after a year I was like, all right, maybe I
should start playing with people, you know?
So I started playing with some people.
My brother plays guitar, so I play with him at first me and
him O jam. And then from there I joined my
first band. And it was a learning experience
(08:11):
because I it was my first time actually playing with a full
band, like to a click track and like being on time with
everybody. And it took a while to get used
to because I had just had been practicing so long on my own.
That first band didn't go anywhere at all, but it did the
(08:31):
IT did the people in it definitely helped me become a
better musician. And my band after that also
didn't end up going anywhere. But it was, it was the band that
I probably like, learned the most from in terms of all the
mistakes, Like, we've made all the mistakes.
(08:51):
Like ego was involved, you know,like, and we didn't even realize
we had egos, you know, like, of course.
Yeah. And and it's not, you know,
nothing. I, I wasn't part of the problem.
I, I mean, I, I definitely had, I definitely, you know, was part
of the problem. It was me and my buddy Devin.
We were kind of like the heads of the band.
(09:15):
And sometimes we, a lot of the times actually, I would say we
agreed. Near the end, we disagreed more
and more. We were both wrong, it turns
out. So that's fun.
And Devin's still to this day, one of my best friends.
But that that band, I mean, thatband did strain our relationship
(09:37):
for a bit and I didn't even realize it.
Well, you know, that is a reallyimportant aspect that you're
talking about, which is like learning from your mistakes.
I mean, as you're growing even as a musician, of course, I
mean, like, even the idea of like just playing with other
people, there's an entire aspectof just learning how to
commingle, be able to also like read people in the moment when
(10:01):
you're jamming. Like there's a skill that comes
from that. And then of course, all the
interplay of the dynamics of theband moving forward, trying to
get gigs, you know, operating yourself, hopefully more in the
eyes of a business, but, you know, everybody's still figuring
it out. So those are so important years.
That's the biggest thing all my previous bands that we just had
(10:27):
no clue, didn't take into account is like treating it as a
business. We nobody in the band treated it
as a business and nobody even knew anything about business.
And that was one of the biggest factors of why I would say any
band fails. Like I know a lot of bands that
had good music, had a good following.
(10:49):
They even even got offered like a record label deal.
But when you get offered a record label deal, then you have
to suddenly treat it like a business.
And I can't tell you how many bands I've seen literally fall
apart at before, like when they got offered the deal, like
because they they all of a sudden they all have to start
(11:12):
thinking about it in a business way and it just falls apart.
So you guys didn't think about this before you like, I don't
know, started playing together? Yeah, right.
So because that that never that never really occurs to a
musician in the very beginning. It's like, hey, I'm here because
I want to create some music, right.
Yeah. So it's almost like the counter
intuitive part of the industry which learns through pain.
(11:36):
Yes, because we're such creativepeople that we want to just be
creative in the moment. But then getting organized, I
mean, how many musicians are organized?
You know, that's hilarious. Oh my gosh.
But you know. It's funny, my band, my bands,
they think I'm the most organized person or one of the
most organized people. And I'm like, guys, if you guys
(11:58):
think I'm organized, poof. Like.
I feel like I'm extremely disorganized.
That's hilarious. Well, actually, you know, Alex,
you know, credit to you because I, I want to say I probably
Spectre Media Group is one of the more successful brands out
there, I think in the metal space.
(12:18):
And, and it's really what a, what a job have you guys done.
And now can you explain how Spectre Media started and like,
where did Glenn fit into all of this?
What was that like? OK, so Spectre Media started as,
I mean that was just started as Glenn in his studio.
So Spectre Sound Studios was Glenn in the early 2000s, sick
(12:44):
and tired of his job at Chrysler.
He used to, I don't remember what he did back then, but he
used to, you know, he used to work on the line at Chrysler
building cars. And he, he had a degree in, I
think it was media arts or something, media related media
arts. And, and he never, he always
(13:05):
wanted to like make use of it, always wanted to record bands.
So he made a studio, turned his garage into a studio.
That was the birth of Spectre Sound Studio right and started
recording bands in the Windsor area in Canada.
His experience is that they mostly sucked.
(13:28):
He mostly mostly did not record things musicians and bands that
he liked. There were a few standouts that
you know were good and and what not the in in terms of metal
woods Evie praise probably the most popular cult following of a
band that he worked on. I think he did both their albums
(13:49):
nice before that band imploded classic story, the band
implosion and then he also like mixed the Queen's right single
at some point as well. So he's done some stuff there,
but eventually he got sick and tired of how horrible the
musicians coming into the band were.
And he just felt like he had to like, rant and just make a video
(14:13):
out there. And he just showed this video to
people like, hey, before you come into my studio, watch this
video. If any of this applies to you,
make sure it doesn't by the timeyou come into my studio, right?
And that was the video of his that went viral, his first
video, which was how to get yourband ready for the studio.
There's two parts, and that video went viral for a good
(14:39):
reason. If you haven't seen it, go watch
it. It is hilarious.
It's still one of my favorite videos Glenn has ever done
because it is. There's two things going on.
You can visibly see and hear hisfrustration with his experience
of with musicians. And the second thing is, is that
(15:00):
it's kind of universal. Like, isn't this is not just a
Windsor ON phenomenon that he's experiencing.
By and large, everything he saysis true for the most part
anywhere. I mean, here in Los Angeles, I
had pretty much the same exact experience.
Maybe not as maybe maybe the ratio of good and bad musician
(15:20):
wasn't as off kilter as it was for him in in Windsor.
But I mean, bass players. He, he harps on bass players.
And there's a reason. It's because by and large,
they're almost always the worst musician in the band, by and
large. Oh my gosh, that is so.
Funny in rock and metal, I should say, because anytime I've
(15:42):
worked with a, a bass player that's in either like soul
music, RnB, pop or anything or jazz, they're the exact
opposite. They're, they might be the best
musician in the band. So, so that's, yeah, that video
went viral at the time, me and Trey Xavier, we had Gear Gods
(16:04):
hadn't just started, but it's been around for like maybe like
2 years maybe at that point. And at the time it was owned by
Blast, Blast Beat Media. Was that what they're called?
Yeah, the company Blast Beat Network.
Yes, Yeah. And they started it and they,
Trey was at the time. Was Trey the head of it at the
(16:27):
time? No, at the time it was Chris.
He was the head at the head of Gear Gods.
And then they brought Trey on and me to help.
Yeah. I think that's the timeline.
That's the correct timeline. And they reached out to Glenn.
I was like, dude, you're hilarious.
You should do more videos. Let's like, let's like, like
(16:50):
work together, right? Like, so you make more videos,
We'll post them on Gear Gods, onMetal Sucks and Metal Injection
to help push and promote you. And then in exchange, just if
you look at all of Glenn's like early videos in like the first
few years, they all say in association with Gear Gods,
right? So yeah.
And then and then eventually, and that went on for years.
(17:12):
So and eventually Glenn came to his first Nam here in California
and I finally got to meet him. And that was the first time I
met him was Nam 2016, I think itwas.
Now in 2016 was well, whatever was Glenn's first now met him.
And yeah, we met him in person and we really hit it off.
(17:35):
Very similar tastes in music. Well, his tastes are kind of
like more closed off to like when he grew up.
So like Judas Priest, you know, Jews piece is his favorite band
of all time. So Jews, anything like that
Metallica, Megadeth and I love all that stuff.
(18:00):
But you know, I'm he's I'm he's like twice my age, not twice my
age, but he's a lot older than me.
So I grew up with like, you know, oh.
Glenn's gonna love hearing this.Glenn knows all of this.
Yeah. Yeah, Glenn, that's great, all
of this. Well, you know, in the, when I,
when I met you guys as a as a group, as a duo, I, I sensed the
(18:23):
balance that you guys gave each other, which is such an
important part of that relationship that I sensed, you
know, you're, you are this like super energetic person and.
Glens like this, you know. You know, kind of grumpy guy,
but he's also hilarious in his own way and he's actually really
down to earth. Very So are you, by the way, I,
when I, when I had the chance toreally like communicate with you
(18:44):
guys, Paul Hal, it was a it was very wholesome conversations
that we were having and it was II could tell like Glenn like
values the time that he has withthe people that he loves too.
And so that is such a important part to this because a lot of
people may forget that out of all the things that we do, I
think like really nurturing yourrelationships is like one of the
(19:05):
most important things here in this industry too.
I would think the most importantthing to be honest, straight up
number one thing it's all about.I 100% agree.
This might not even be just a music industry thing.
This just might be like in general in business really, but
it's especially so in the music industry.
It's really all about really like people.
I've learned, I've learned this over the years as well.
(19:26):
And maybe we'll get to it, but people will rather hire and work
with somebody that is chill, like a good hang and good at
what they do over somebody who'sa Dick and like, like a savant
at what they do. Like like someone, like they'd
(19:48):
rather take somebody that's easier to work with, chill down
to earth and still good over like the this is like the best
person who's ever touched a drumkit, right Or whatever.
As as an educator, I can definitely, you know, I tell my
students that all the time. I say, you know, the the
technical aspect of all of this is kind of the given you have to
already bring that. Yeah.
(20:10):
But what really sets you apart is who you associate yourself
with and how you present yourself.
It's a it's a people industry, really.
Yeah, yeah. And so that's really.
More than others, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Because this is a creative field, right?
Which is the entire thing is allabout psychology and vibes,
right? Subjective.
There's no. There's no objective.
Very subjective. Music.
(20:31):
Yes, and so, I mean, you have been able to educate a lot of
people on the Internet through places like Gear Gods Inspector
and I, I've always, you know, even when I was in college, I
was actually watching Glenn and I was watching, I was reading up
on Gear Gods and stuff like that.
It, it gave me a lot of push. I, I actually graduated in 2016.
(20:55):
So I was right around the cusp when you guys started really
forming together to create Spectre Media Group.
And wow, it's blossomed since then, which is amazing to see.
Now actually, while we're on theconcept also of like gear gods,
I know you were writing a lot ofthings about gear so forth, Yes,
(21:17):
but what do you do you have any like?
On Gear Gods, I handled anythingpro audio related or keyboard
and synth related. Trey handled guitar, bass.
Yeah, mostly that. And later on he started getting
into other stuff too. I corrupted him.
He started getting, he started getting more into keyboards and
orchestration and, and that kindof thing, yeah.
(21:40):
Yeah. Are you, do you have any like
favorite pieces of gear out of, you know, everything that you've
ever touched? Favorite piece of gear?
My one favorite piece of gear. That's hard, man.
I guess that's that I've touchedjust straight up.
(22:03):
Ever used anywhere? Well, how about how about this?
Any maybe memorable pieces of gear for you?
Does a console count? Sure.
The SSL Duality, which is reallynot not an old console, it's an
s s LS flagship. Current flagship console.
(22:25):
Very expensive. I got a chance to use that
recently in Florida I went to. Are you familiar with Moore
Sound extremely. Yeah, they're.
Using a duality over there. Yeah, anyone who's not familiar
with Moore sound, I mean more, more sound.
And Jim Morris, they recorded all the famous Florida metal
(22:49):
bands and death metal bands likeMorbid Angel.
Not just death metal. He did Cannibal Corpse as well.
He also did Trans-siberian Orchestra, Sabotage, just a lot
of legendary metal bands. And he has a duality.
I've never used one and it blew my mind.
(23:11):
That is a really, really amazingconsole.
Like the tone, like like the recordings we got out of that.
Like I honestly, I, I put them into my session to like mix the
song and I'm like, I look, there's not really much for me
to do here. Like this already sounds like
(23:32):
like it's done like very little and yeah, that memorable because
that's because of that. Like I mean, anything that when
you get the recording, when you get the sound that right at the
recording part of the process. I mean, it just, it lets you
make the mix and then the masterway better than it could
possibly be had it been like a just an OK recording, right, You
(23:57):
know? Because, I mean, there's like
that proverb, which is, you know, you can't Polish a turd,
but you can put glitter on it, right?
So. Right.
Yeah. Exactly.
We don't we don't want to work with with crap.
So when you when you start off and of course it comes down
really to like this to golden rules of recording.
But you know, when you're in that mode and you're working
with high quality components like an SSL duality or, you
(24:20):
know, even some of their more legacy stuff too, it's great
stuff. Oh yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've used, Iused an SSL 4000 for years when
I was working with Warren. Console.
Yeah, Warren Hewitt had, he doesn't have it anymore, but he
had ASSL 4000 console at his studio and yeah, I worked on it
with him for a few years and it's it's a amazing sound.
(24:45):
But just the workflow is just too old school, you know?
You know, like you have to recall everything by hand, you
know? Absolutely.
Like every time you open a session.
And it's, yeah, not ideal. No, no, no.
And I mean, that's one of the pains about, you know, analog in
many ways, but I always looked at analog as a really great way
(25:06):
for tracking because you're getting it up front.
You know, you're it's already before the conversion process.
You know, you can really get in all your the tones that you want
even closest to the mix. I mean like I always pictured
the mix as being like the 1520% left that's left off of what
you've already tracked. Maybe, maybe originally that
(25:27):
used to be the case, right? Like these days it doesn't feel
like it. Like these days?
Well. Why do you think that, Alex?
I'm wondering. Because recording is much more
expensive than mixing. And I say that in terms of like
going into a studio to record, like bands used to spend.
I mean, the bands that have the budget still do this.
(25:48):
They'll spend like a month or two, if not more in the studio.
And every day like in a, in a big, in like a good big studio,
like a sunset sound here in, in LA, one of the most famous
studios on the planet, you know,did Prince, Purple Rain and did
Van Halen and all this. If I, I think like if I remember
(26:08):
correctly that studios like 1200a day just to record, you know,
and, and that's today like not prices of back then.
So if you're in there for a month, that's a lot of money for
just recording. Yeah, absolutely.
And yeah, to like, yeah. And most bands aren't.
(26:32):
The musicians in most bands justaren't talented enough to be
able to just go into the studio one day, get everything down
perfect, you know, and call it aday.
It just doesn't work that way. And so, yeah, it's, it's a lot
cheaper financially to, to just,you know, do what you can at
(26:57):
home, record DI's, record vocalsor whatever, you know, cheap out
on the recording side of things and then hope that the you, the
mixing engineer can fix it all and then mix it.
Wow, it's so backwards. It really is.
And you know. People, people look at it in
terms of the financial side and they don't realize like the the
(27:19):
sacrifice they're making on the quality side.
They should. And how would they?
They, they're not engineers, they're not producers.
They barely, they barely learnedhow to record themselves at
home. You know, they wouldn't have the
experience or the knowledge of what they're missing out on.
(27:40):
Yeah, because a lot of people probably didn't even go into a
real studio, you know? Absolutely.
I mean, you get in many ways when I, when I speak to people
about it, it's like I try to emphasize, you know, the fact
that you're doing this not for, you know, the, the immediate
financial savings you're talkingabout, right?
(28:01):
You know, a, a legacy that you're leaving.
When you, when you create something like this and it, it
becomes something, I feel like honestly, it's just like we
were, we're talking about when you were first starting.
It's like kind of going through a little bit of the pain process
of saying, you know, why doesn'tsound good.
Well, you know, you didn't take,you know, the steps from, you
know, Part 1 to make it right. You know, then it's going to be
(28:23):
a lot more challenging moving forward, you know, mixing and
mastering. Like people go, Oh yeah, fix it
and mix or fix it and mastering.Well, it's like, well, not
really. It's, it's going to just make
more of what it is. So it's that.
It's a very hard concept to to there's many a bands that will
send. I'm almost at this point, I
(28:44):
might even almost be considered or have a reputation as the guy
that fixes the mix. Because the multiple bands
they'll they went to somebody tomix their album or EP whatever,
and they weren't happy with it. And they, they come to me to
like, you know, get a, to, to mix it better, right.
(29:07):
And you know, and usually when that happens, I know that I'm
about, I'm about to be in for a ride.
Because generally it's not that the person who mixed it is not a
good mixer. It's that generally they were
working with some really hard tracks to work with.
And I've just been working with all kinds of tracks from people,
(29:31):
good and bad for so long that I I have a bunch of like, you
know, the tricks and things thatI can do to help me work with
that better. But yeah, I mean, the amount of
albums that I've like, I actually just got hit up.
It was it was too short notice. But a band that I the the
(29:52):
vocalist from a band that I did their album from his from
Finland. I don't remember the name of the
band was, but he I did their album, his other band's album
and they really loved it and they hired somebody to mix their
his other band's album and they weren't happy with it.
And they're like, hey, could youmix this entire album in like 4
(30:15):
days? I'm like bro, you want me to mix
10 songs in four days? I mean, I could, but I mean I'd
be rushing it. I don't know if it'll end up
being better. Like, and I was like, let me
listen to this mix. Like maybe you're just, you
know, maybe it's not that bad. And I listen to it and it was,
(30:35):
it was not that bad. Like I was like, you know, could
it be better? Yeah.
But like, I was like, yeah, don't worry about it, dude.
Like I, I don't think the average listener is going to be
off put by anything from from this.
I think you're just comparing itto the album that we did
together and yeah, so. Well, I mean, that's a lasting
(30:57):
impression, isn't it? Right.
So it's. Oh yeah.
It's great when that that. Becomes like their benchmark and
it's like, it's got to be, you know, once you've gotten to a
point in, in your, you know, musical career where you, you,
you've really had the taste of, you know, the nectar ambrosia,
right, Nectar of the gods, right?
You're just like, oh it, it can never be the same.
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's yeah.
(31:20):
And it's, it's, it's one of those things where people don't
really like, I, there's another man I'm that I'm currently
working with that for the longest time they went for the
absolute cheapest production that they could get away with.
And, and to be fair, like they, they, their budget is they, they
had no budget like, and they're,they're struggling musicians,
(31:43):
like really struggling musicians, musicians in terms of
like finances and all that. So I understand, but they were
never happy with the production they were doing.
Their fans were never happy withit, you know, and they they kept
and they were like they did an entire album and those and I was
like, guys like like doing an album upfront when you're not
(32:05):
even like that, but big or famous, whatever.
It's kind of point like put, putyour effort into one song, make
one song the way you want to make it with the production you
want to to do that you're happy with, that everybody really
happy with. I think it'll get much further
along than put put putting all this time and effort into an
(32:26):
album, years and all this money and then in the end not even
being happy with the production,you know?
Right, Yeah, in most, in most cases, I think that's, that's a
very smart approach because thenyou can you can stagger the
releases exactly. Can build up the audience that
way. Yeah.
You know, cause a lot of nowadays it's, it's, it's a lot
of exposure. Spotify is the new exposure
(32:47):
platform really. So you're always constantly
working on trying to build playlisting views, all that kind
of stuff. Yeah, you know, doing, doing an
album can be a very challenging aspect for an independent
artist. You know, I mean, I, I even
have, you know, gone that route of doing the album and not
really having the audience for it.
(33:08):
I I totally understand where you're what you're talking
about. So the business side of things
is supposed to come into play, but most people just have no
idea about it. Like, you know, they, they, they
just think that. I mean, they like most of the
bands that I work with don't even they didn't even budget
what the entire album cycle is going to cost them.
(33:29):
Like how do you know you can afford what you think you can
afford if you haven't even planned it out?
You know, like something I always tell, OK, I also manage
bands. There's a bunch of bands in
different man I I manage. And one of the things I always
try to get into their heads is like, hey, whatever, whatever is
the budget that you're putting aside to record mixed mass, like
(33:51):
the whole music production side of things, you need that that
same amount for marketing and promotion.
Literally 50% of the money use you spend on a song or whatever
a release, let's say, needs to be marketing.
Because what's the point of putting all that effort if
(34:12):
you're just going to like, let nobody listen to it?
Like there's this like fantasy that like, oh, you know, when
people hear my song, they'll know and they'll share it
because this song is amazing, right?
Like everybody as a musician, especially something you've
worked so hard and long for and you feel very confident and
(34:35):
optimistic about, you kind of, yeah, you kind of start getting
this egos like this will pop off.
This will people will share thisorganically, wants to hear how
good this song is. And realistically, that just
doesn't happen. Even even songs that are like
amazing songs, life changing, like, you know, that
(34:55):
legitimately are like incrediblesongs that you still need to
market it because it's just going to get buried otherwise.
Like, I mean, think about it, let's just say there's 10 people
that truly let's listen to song and they share it with all their
friends and stuff like that. I mean, those 10 people, like
how far is that going to get in terms of like building a fan
(35:17):
base? It'll take forever if it even
works, you know, And like 10 people, that's not an
exaggeration if you're not, if you're doing 0 marketing, you
know, Yeah. So yeah, it's I always tell
bands. That, I mean, you know, that
kind of, you know, advice is really important to explain in
(35:37):
this case because you're talkingabout how you're basically
creating a launchpad for yourself as an artist.
And right in the in many ways, Ithink one of the challenges is
that people just don't know where or who to go.
And that becomes, you know, a big, big roadblock for for many
bands. Do you usually have like any
(36:00):
advice as to where people shouldstart in those cases?
Like do you think Marco? Yeah, like I said, like, oh,
first build the website, you know, etcetera.
What are What are your thoughts about where they should start?
It depends on, I mean, it depends where you are in your
currently as a musician, as an as an artist, but actually you
(36:20):
were there. The the person I would recommend
easy free, free advice on YouTube is Jessie Cannon, who we
hung out with at Valhalla. He was great.
Yeah, he is a fountain of knowledge.
His what was this YouTube channel called?
If you just search Jessie Cannon, I think it's called Muse
(36:41):
Muse Formation or something likethat.
Yeah, something like that. Yes, I believe you're right.
Jessie Cannon, just search him, all kinds of advice.
He tries to cover as many different aspects of marketing
music as you can, social media, you know, radio, even production
stuff. And that's probably like the
(37:03):
best free place, you know, You know, and it's funny because I,
I, I can't tell you how many times I'll tell people about
like Jesse's channel, for example, like free knowledge.
Hey, look, you can learn how to do this all here.
It's literally free, but a they they're like, I just didn't have
the time to watch it or like, people don't take marketing
(37:26):
seriously, you know, right. Even if you.
Give them the answers, it's not the sexy thing.
Yeah, I, I, it's here's this is where music becomes work.
And people like don't understand, like you it it, it
is work if you actually want to be safe.
Look, if you don't want to be, if you don't care about success
and like growing as an artist and your goals aren't that, then
(37:49):
that's totally fine. You know, make the music you
want, put it out the way you want.
But as long as your expectationsare correct, you know, like, as
long as your expectations are yeah, based, probably no one is
ever going to hear this other than like a few people.
And if you're OK with that and you don't want anything more
than that, that's fine. But if you do, like, you're just
(38:11):
like in denial that people are just going to somehow find out
who you are and like, oh, I needto sign you or you got a I'm
going, I want to book a tour foryou.
It's very, very, very unlikely that that will happen.
Yes, and and it's a slow processtoo, by the way, it's not yeah,
something that I mean like some people have have gone viral and
(38:31):
they've, you know, had some success off of that, but most.
Extremely rare, but yes. It's it's, it's a slow building
behemoth that yeah. Yeah, even the people who like
did. Yeah, even the people who, like,
explode, like if you actually look at it, they've been working
toward. It for a long time, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean like, MMM.
And when I started marketing, itwas probably actually around
(38:53):
when you were starting Spectre Media.
So around 2016 I was like, Oh yeah, I just got through
college. I'm just like ready to take the
world. I'm just like, oh, I don't
really know anything. So right.
I have to, I had to really go out and it really becomes to the
person that themselves, right? They have to pursue on their own
agenda, on their own time. They have to make the time to do
(39:15):
these things. It's never something that's just
going to fall in your lap. You have to go and make the
conscious effort to learn and toput into place these actionable,
you know, techniques because if you don't, you know, you'll
always be wishing. And we don't want to wish, you
know, that's just for dreamers, right?
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's one of those
(39:36):
things that made me, you know, being in bands and trying to get
other band members to, you know,take action on the stuff that I
tell them to take action. Like it makes me understand now
why the with bands tends to be just one person that kind of
does everything and leads everything.
(39:56):
It's because the realistically the rest of the band members say
they want to do something, but in in in reality, in terms of
action, very little happens likeI.
I, I do a lot of things in my day-to-day life.
And so I try to delegate as muchof my band stuff as possible to
(40:18):
other band members, you know, where I feel like they have
their strengths, right? But at the end of the day, it's
almost no one does anything. And I have to end up picking up
the slack, you know, and I, you know, every time I hit them up
with like, oh, sorry, I'm busy. I was like, yeah, but you know,
I, I work 10 hours a day and I still was able to make a social
(40:39):
media post. You know, it doesn't take that
long. It takes like 30 seconds, a
minute maybe, you know, And, youknow, and then, you know, when
you dig down deeper, they're like, like, I just like, I
didn't know what exactly it's supposed to like, OK, it's like,
this is what we're going to do. I'm going to hold your hand a
couple times so you know exactlyhow to do it and what to do.
And then from there, you'll havethe knowledge, right?
(41:02):
And sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't, it works
for a little bit and then it just kind of drops off.
So it's like, and this is this is this is where it gets hard
because some people will get discouraged and like, well, I
mean, nobody else is doing it, so I'm not going to do anything.
But unfortunately you, you don'thave that luxury if you actually
want your band to be successful and succeed, like you actually
(41:23):
have to unfortunately pick up the slack.
And, but that also means that later on, when there is success
with the band, you know, you better be keeping tabs on who
did what because like, it's OK, I asked you to do all this
stuff. I ended up doing it all.
You know, I, I, I did the, I, I put in the effort and the, you
(41:43):
know, it's. And that's where a lot of bands
start having problems because they feel like, you know, maybe
that they it was a an unfair like, you know, it's like, well,
I didn't have time. You had time.
I was like, no, I didn't have time.
I made time. Nobody.
Everybody has to make time. You know, Like how serious.
(42:04):
All this time. Like, that's the thing.
It's just like, it's like, how serious are you about this?
Like really, you know, yeah. Like I, I, I reinvest all my
money as I, I don't really spendmoney on like, things that much.
Like everything I, I spend my money on is essentially to
(42:25):
reinvest into like my music career.
You know, most bands, most members in bands don't really do
that. In my experience at least, you
know? It's so such wise.
Words, man, because. You got you.
You're really touching on. Some real, real topics there.
I mean, personally, I, I, I wentthrough that myself and that's
(42:48):
one of the reasons why, you know, my project home Eric was,
you know, it took the path that it took.
I, I lived with my bandmates andI had the exact same thing,
which is 1 of it. It, you know, what's that other
proverb? It's like you can't help
somebody who doesn't want to be helped kind of thing, you know,
if they don't want. It right you can you can eat a
horse from water you. Can't make them.
You can't make them want it, right?
(43:09):
So if it's going to if it's going to be something like that,
I remember going to I confided in in someone I was working for.
It was on four with a band called the Cringe.
And shout out to John Cusimano, who is who was the leader of the
band because he he offered thesewords for me.
He was just like, you know, at the time I wasn't really
(43:31):
thinking of it like as members of a company or anything, but
he's just like, he's like, if, if something's not working, you
got to fire people. I was like, oh, yeah.
Oh, wow. You know, it was hard to think
of it that way because I was like, these are my boys or, you
know, these are people that I I spent relational.
It's really hard, yeah. And, you know, to make that
(43:53):
decision and move forward, it was one of the most like painful
moments in my life because, you know, you really are cutting
people off that weren't serving you in that case.
So that that in some ways is probably one of the hardest
lessons any band member could learn because from that point
on, for someone like me became this is now the path that I walk
(44:18):
and I and I commit, I've committed to that.
I knew that at that moment therewas a fork in the road and I was
either going to go one way or I was going to go the other way.
And you know it. It's important to recognize
those milestone moments in your life to be able to then, you
know, propel you to move forwardand that decision making and
(44:39):
being, you know, you don't have to to like it, but you have to
do it with confidence in knowingthat that was the right
decision. Yes, exactly.
And that, that's all part of, you know, I guess you could say
that's good character building, but it also does it, it makes
you more tenacious to to be ableto handle an industry like this
(45:00):
because that will happen. That will happen.
And you have to be able to look out for yourself while trying to
still do the right thing. Right.
Exactly. Yeah, Yeah.
That's why, you know, you hear stories about like, Dave
Mustaine being difficult to workwith as a band member or
whatever. And, and, and I have, I have
(45:21):
more sympathy for Dave Mustaine,you know, than I used to
because, you know, like that andthe people that are still in the
band, like, you know, that haven't been let go, are people
that are all understand what we're talking about.
They've all walked that path in their own bands.
(45:44):
So as long as, you know, a band as big as Megadeth and has been
around as long as Megadeth, you know, having people with that
kind of experience might actually could potentially be a
problem because they all feel like, you know, they have real
experience that they can contribute to.
But this is Dave, Dave Mustang and Megan, if it's his band.
(46:07):
So they all also have to understand, oh, hey, this is his
band. He's built it.
It's one of the biggest metal bands on the planet.
I can, I can just chill until Dave needs me for something.
If Dave asks me for something, then I can do my thing, you
know? Yeah, it's a, it's it's tough,
man. I mean, I, I, I, unfortunately,
(46:28):
it's the thing I hate. The two to do to do the most is
fire people like I. There's nothing I hate more than
that. But unfortunately I've had to do
it more times than I can even remember in my own bands, in the
bands I manage, you know, and I and I try to make it as as easy
as possible. I give people multiple chances,
(46:52):
you know, like, hey, this is theproblem.
We don't want to get rid of you.And we're not only not, we're
not only we're going to tell youwhat the problem is, we're going
to try and help you solve the problem, right.
So it was that scene from JeremyMaguire.
Help me help you, right? So, and at that point, if they
(47:12):
still don't come through like it's, it's, it's hard for them
to even like be mad about getting fired.
You know, they're if anything, they're kind of like upset at
themselves. So a lot of communication, like
that's how I've come to now be able to like, hey, like, dude,
(47:34):
like what do you, what would youdo in my place?
Like I we told you what the problems were.
We gave you more time than reasonable to do it and we even
held your hand on how to solve it and you still didn't do any
of it. Like, I mean, just you just like
the priorities for you is just not this band.
(47:55):
And that's OK. You know, there's no hard
feeling, but but like, that's not what the band needs,
unfortunately, you know? And, you know, sometimes it's
like, sometimes it's really, really good friends, you know?
And yeah, you got to do what yougot to do if you actually care
about the band and you're tryingto grow the band as a business.
(48:16):
And it it goes the same thing for even writing songs.
I mean, like, what is it that serves the song right?
You know, where it's not, it's not about like the the drummer
show or the vocalist show, you know, it, it's, it's, it's the
song that matters, right. So it's the same concept here as
well. And that's part of growth.
And you know, Alex, I'm really glad that you came on today to
(48:37):
really talk about that because it shows another side to what
does it mean to be a musician inthe modern metal industry or
even just in the music industry in general.
It's how are you carrying yourself forward and how do you
make the difficult decisions to continue on and to hopefully
finding a fruitful endeavour andcareer and all of that.
So. But Alex, I have one more
(48:58):
question for you. Yes.
Do you have a metal song of the week that you'd like to share
for us? Metal song of the week.
Oh man, there's so many choices,but I, I, I, my band, One of my
(49:19):
bands just released an album andI think there's a really awesome
metal song on that album. The, the band's called the
morning and it's not like the time of day morning.
It's like the sad morning. And the album is called Hush and
the song is called Smooth Seas. It's a really cool song.
(49:39):
It's very, I can't, I don't evenknow how to describe it in terms
of genre. I guess you could say it's some
kind of Prague, but it's it takes you on a journey.
It definitely takes you on a journey.
It's very catchy. It starts off slow, you know,
like smooth seas. And then the seas get rough.
Let's just say, well, they get very rough.
(50:03):
And yeah. Kind of kind of like the topics
that we talked about on this podcast, yes.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's the morning.
The album's called Hush and the song is called Smooth Seas.
Fantastic. Alex, I will be sharing today
Batushka, the Letuzia album, youknow?
(50:23):
Batushka. Oh my God.
Oh, yeah. I don't know.
You know, dude, I saw it, you know, live.
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
My, my, my friend who's who's like from 6th grade, we go way
back. He's he's a big fan.
So he brought me on to Batushka and I I love that album.
That's great. That's amazing.
(50:44):
Well, everybody, thank you for watching Metal Mastermind
Podcast. If you want to learn more about
how to navigate this industry, go to metalmastermind.com.
We have a slew of courses that are available and accessible to
all people of all levels in thisindustry.
So wherever you are in your game, if you're looking to find
(51:04):
resources in order to help you get to the next level, go to
metalmastermind.com. And Alex, where can people find
you on on your on your socials? Or is there a website you'd like
to point them to? I mean, on socials, it's just
mostly just Alex Naslow. Just look up Alex Naslow.
My, my studio website iswaveformstudio.net if anybody
(51:25):
wants to check out like my my studio stuff.
And then just Spectre, Spectre, digital.com, Spectre media.ca
for the Spectre stuff, you know?Wonderful.
Well, thanks Alex, and till nexttime everybody.
See you around. Yep, create.
Your own sound.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com