Social Media & Music: Love It, Hate It, or Use It?

Social media has completely changed how musicians share their work and connect with fans — but not everyone is here for the endless scroll. Some artists are over it and have even ditched it altogether. In this episode, we dive into the love-hate relationship musicians have with social media. Hear from Chinasa Broxton, Carlos Dashawn […]

The post Social Media & Music: Love It, Hate It, or Use It? appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I'm Elizabeth McQueen and I'm MilesBloxson, and this is Paul's play
the podcast about live music, whyit matters and what comes next.
In the last episode, we talked aboutall the things that musicians have to
do to stay afloat in this town, but

(00:22):
we didn't talk about how peoplepromote all the things that they
do to keep that money coming in.
And one of the main tools, musicians.
Use is social media.
Some
people love it and some people hate it.
So we talked to a few musiciansto see if social media is still a
must have in the world of music,
and some of their answers,well, they might surprise you.

(00:43):
Let's kick things off with two music.
Who don't just post, they study the game.
The hiphop
duo, who you might have heardin our last episode, really
make social media look easy.
They've put in the time, donethe homework, and figured out
how to make it work for them.
Tribe Mafia.
Jana Broxton, I'm an artist, uh, soundengineer, temporary videographer, while

(01:06):
our creative director is not in town.
I'm the other half
of Tri Mafia, CarlosDeshaun Daniels Moore.
And I'm a artist too.
Tribe Mafia has over 107,000followers on Instagram.
I've even gone to Chinasa forhelp on getting my own Instagram
engagement up for my personal page.
So when I asked them how they feltabout social media and whether

(01:27):
it was still an effective tool,I was surprised by their answer.
Yeah,
it just, it just keeps on changing.
So at this point, nobodyknows what they doing.
I can't, I used to have all the,all the ideas I used to write.
He used to send me all these reels.
He still do.
Like of ideas that we could try out, likelet's try this, let's try this, try this.
And that's at the, we're atthe point where we just trying

(01:47):
things we don't even know.
We just throwing things to see what stick.
I don't know.
It is, it's
ever changing.
Everything's different now.
One thing that they have learned isthat you have to put a lot of time in a
social media if you want good results.
Of course,
I was telling Carlos, I was like, I waslike, we gotta post probably three times
a day, five times if you want to be.
Own it.
I was like, 'cause if you onlypost it one time a day, it's your

(02:09):
Instagram automatically doesn't wannashow it to none of your followers.
We have 107,000 followers.
I don't even know if it's that, ifour stuff is being shown to 10% of it.
Yeah.
Or 5% of it becausewe're not posting enough.
So I was telling Carlos, I was like, wegotta post at least five times a day.
He was like, I'm not doing that.
That's spammy.
I was like, yeah, I don't, Idon't wanna do that either.

(02:30):
But if.
If our stuff is only being shown tolike 10 folks or a hundred folks and
we have a hundred thousand followers,that means we're not doing our job.
Even though they do post a lot, they feellike it doesn't always necessarily work.
So they've been using theold fashioned approach.
You gotta interact with them almost
every damn day.
Yeah.
That's why we're always like insomebody's damns under, or the inbox.

(02:51):
You gotta, you gotta be a bug.
You gotta actually get intosomebody's inbox and say, Hey,
could you like my profile?
Or could you like my comment?
I've gotten one
of those messages before I know.
And I just like, double tap, get off.
We apologize this, but,but that's good though.
'cause it makes me feel like, asanother user, like, well, good and bad.
Good meaning like as another don't userthat doesn't really use it as much.

(03:13):
I'm like, dang, they're always on it.
Yeah.
And then the other part of me islike, that's great that they're
always on it because like that's whaty'all supposed to do for your stuff.
Yeah.
It just sucks.
Yeah.
I, I like it, but at the sametime it's just like, dang, I
don't want to bug this person.
Like, what if I got anotherone I gotta send out to them?
And we do.
It was just like.
It's like, dang, I don'twanna send them another one.

(03:33):
But then after that I'm just like,oh, well I'm gonna send it again.
I don't care if theyignore it, they ignore it.
And if they don't, cool, youknow, some people are really
going to support you and do it.
And they've realized everyoneis not going to participate.
You know, they don't have to do that.
They don't have to comment,they don't have to do anything.
And if they do, do it perfectand if they don't, like, don't
feel bad about it because like.
Maybe they're too busy.

(03:54):
And I used to, like, I used to take,I used to take things like the wrong
way, but I used to be like, dang,I probably bugged them too much.
Like, you know, it's, I don'twanna, especially if it was like,
if it was like another artist.
Yeah.
Like, you don't wanna make them feelbad about not doing enough either.
And I used to be like, okay,hey, we got new placement.
Could you, could you go check this out?
And I don't want another artist to feellike, oh man, I ain't doing enough.

(04:15):
I ain't finna go commenton that person's stuff.
For what?
So they can give more placementsand get more attention.
And I, I see that.
'cause I play those scenariosin my head and I'm like, oh
yeah, I don't wanna do that.
Maybe we don't send theseout to artists anymore.
And we just find out thepeople that we can send it to.
But now I'm just at the points whereit's just like, you know, I send it
to whoever I send it to, and if theywant to interact with it, perfect.
And if they don't,

(04:35):
that's okay.
And they continue to use socialmedia every day because that's
how they get more opportunities.
Yeah.
To, because that's, that'sliterally how we find like more
people to interact with placements.
And that's how we, you know,just keep building and growing.
You never know who you'regonna run or talk to.
They've interacted with people thatlove what they're doing musically

(04:55):
and visually, and that leads to morecollaborations and business opportunities.
But he was like, I liked what you guys aredoing, like the music you guys are making.
I want to help you guys do a showthat I'm gonna be putting together.
Would you guys like to come on?
I was like, oh yeah, that's it.
I just gotta post more.
And I was like, well, yeah,
but it's not that easy.
I was looking up other videos and they waslike, they were saying like, if you don't

(05:17):
post enough content on your videos, yeah,you're gonna get shadow banned apparently.
And if you get shadow banned onInstagram, it's just basically
saying you're in timeout.
They're not gonna show you all ofyour content to all of your followers.
And I think that's just, that sucks.
That's messed up.
But it's just like, and then ifyou wanna show your stuff to your
content, to your, to your followers,you gotta pay money for ads.
So it's just like now you gottapay money just to get your

(05:37):
content shown to the people
that already follow you.
Yeah.
To the people that already follow you.
Exactly.
That's crazy.
See, even they know that it is, it'sgonna be a money pin no matter what.
Even if you don't do music, Sage isjust doing your podcasting thing.
You still gotta pay foradvertisement and all that stuff.
Wait miles,
what is that really a thing?
Yeah.
I totally have experienced this before.

(05:59):
I post on my stories often,but not always on my feed.
And it's interesting what happenswhen I take a break from either one.
It takes a while for mynumbers to ramp back up.
It only happens through consistency.
For example, I might post a story andhave about 300 views in 24 hours, and
then I'll wait and not post a story forlike a week or so and only get like 70

(06:20):
views, and I have about 5,000 followers.
So I'm always like, whathappened to my engagement?
Why has it dropped so much?
But there are things thatyou can do about this.
They're saying you have to docontents in fives every single day.
The last one could be a video or aphoto, but it has to be like in fives.
And then the last one thatyou do has to be narrating.

(06:40):
Yeah, like a narrating video.
Like you're, it's like behind thescenes, but you're doing like, you're
doing that in like in five piecesevery single day, which is crazy.
Like five different pieces ofcontents of the same thing.
But you
gotta have one photosand you gotta have one.
Content piece that's just photos.
And I think that's crazy.
But that's, that shows it toyour actual following though.
And then where did you get
this information from?

(07:01):
You just,
I just see it off of Instagram.
Yeah.
I started following a lot of, it's likea bunch of like content creators that
like gives you like these like advice.
I was like, oh, and I triedit when I post photos.
We did get a lot more attention engaging.
And then when I post, when you postres, those go to your people, the
people that's not following you.
So re's reach are like, it's likeoutreach and in photos it's like the
people that's already following you,but it might not show you all your

(07:23):
stuff if you're not posting constantly.
And then once you stop posting, it resets,you have to start it all over again.
And they agree it's not the best,
it's, it sucks, but it's just likeit is what we have to do now until.
I don't know, to one of us go viral.
Chasa admits he doesn't use socialmedia as much as he used to in the
past, unless it's for business.
And Carlos, he uses it a lot, but notfor the reason that you might think

(07:47):
I follow a lot of things.
Just informational base.
He be like, where do we find, I like,dude, I had to funnel a lot of just um,
follow a lot of just regular people.
And just literally followcontent information pages just
so it could show up on my thing.
I'm like, I come across anythingnow that I, that would like
deal with it musical wise.
So you're content wise, you're not
even using it really personally,Carlos, you're using it to gain more

(08:10):
knowledge about how to work on thisplatform and then just life general
knowledge for as being a musician?
Yeah.
The things
I would share would be personalor anything tied to music.
Or just music based on our otherpage, but like what I use it
for is a whole different thing.
He would show me, like,
if we do like a new song, we gottashow us listening to our songs
instead of just performing it.
'cause a lot of people want tohear your songs the way that you're
hearing it, which is just like,you know, raw and un unfiltered.

(08:34):
They've also invested in a prettynice camera to make sure that they
get the best content possible.
The reason was, was just convenienceand yeah, consistency and, yeah.
It's just how muchcontent we gotta make now.
Exactly.
Because if you gotta push outfive, you know, pieces a day,
which we're gonna start doing now.
We just, I just started, I'mstill building that camera
rig out right now, but, um.

(08:56):
I don't know.
We just wanna be able to push out asmuch content as possible and doing that,
that helps you get more connections.
Chasa and Carlos are putting somuch time and resources into this
marketing machine that doesn't alwaysnecessarily work in their favor.
So I have to know Miles.
How do they feel aboutsocial media these days?
Well,
I asked them, how does it make y'allfeel when y'all use social media?

(09:20):
I don't know.
It's mixed base now.
It used to be fun back then.
It used to be fun back then.
But
it's like, that feels like a job.
It does feel like a job.
It feels like work, and it feelslike a job that doesn't pay.
'cause we're paying because we're paying.
It hurts.
I don't like it.

(09:42):
Stop.

(10:03):
So Chinasa and Carlos use social media.
But they don't necessarily like it, whichI feel like is a pretty common experience.
And you know, some people have setboundaries for themselves when it
comes to social media, like Walker.
My name is Walker Lukins.
I'm a musician and Ihave podcasts as well.

(10:23):
Like a lot of other musicians.
Walker uses social media forpromoting his music, but for him,
things changed Post pandemic.
I put out a record in 2023, andI just realized, I was like, I
don't have the appetite for this.
Like what's required.
I'm like, I don't really wanna do it.
Many of the artists we talked tosaid they felt like they had to use
social media to promote themselves.

(10:43):
So there was like that, there'sjust that kind of fatigue.
And then, and then I was, I toured somuch in my band and in someone else's
band, and I just had this, the, theimpulse to you're, you're supposed
to share every day what you're doing.
I was like, I don't, I don'twant to tell you what I'm doing.
I mean, social mediajust stopped being fun.

(11:06):
So we are getting sucked into it andthey're taking bits of our humanity,
like our human experience and liketurning it into addictive behavior.
So it really criticized for any way whereI'm like, I don't, I don't get joy from
social media the way that I once did.
He spends between an hour or twoon social media a week, sometimes

(11:27):
more if it's work related.
To combat
his use.
Walker has createdboundaries with social media.
I turn off location services.
I, I don't get as much likestuff based on where I am.
Uh, it's not fed to me.
I don't ever look at it when I get up.
Like I, I have to spend thefirst two hours of the day or

(11:48):
if I, I mean I have, so, okay.
So I don't look at it when I get upand I don't look at it before bed.
So there's an hour bumper.
Walker also found another solution,
but part of it is I use this app calledOne Sec, which all it does is mess with
the notification settings on your phoneso that if I want to open any social

(12:09):
media and sometimes I put my email inthere, I have to go th I have to like.
Turn my phone three times or take it likeit Gate keeps your social media from you.
He started using the app two years ago.
I've saved, according to this,in March, 2023, I was trying
to open it 367 times a week.

(12:31):
Now he's tried to open Instagramabout a hundred times a week.
Walker also no longer uses Twitter,and he only has used Facebook seven
times Last week, according to theapp, he saved 1.7 months of his
life since he's downloaded it.
And you know, miles after theinterview I downloaded one
sec. And honestly, I love it.

(12:52):
It just.
Interrupts that thing that we all dowhere we get bored for like one second
and we open Instagram and in interruptingthat, you get a chance to like say,
no, actually I don't wanna do this.
And it totally works.
Like I checked my screen time on my iPhoneand I used Instagram 28 minutes last week.

(13:14):
Really?
Yes.
I'm impressed.
Elizabeth McQueen.
Me too,
support for pauses play comes fromMetropolis Apartments featuring a variety
of floor plans, from efficiency to fivebedrooms, as well as a community that
embraces art, music, and creativity.
[e-mail].
One
thing that inspired Walker to slowdown his social media usage was

(13:36):
reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
in that stolen focus book, he, hearticulates it really well, right?
He just calls it Deep Focus.
So like all the most meaningful things inlife require deep focus, whether that's.
Conversing with someone or inmy own life, like really working
on a song with somebody ormyself, you're just deeply in it.
Like those, that is wheremeaning comes from in life.

(13:58):
You're get satisfaction fromsomething like a feed, which
is just really quick content.
Having it broken down that way.
It's like everything I love, everythingwe all love is the antithesis of this.
Yes.
Sometimes I'm so tired that thisfeels good, but like this feels good.
Like eating a Star Wars feels good.
It's like you, it feels good for a second.
Like it's your whole life.

(14:20):
It's awful.
So I don't know, I thought that wasreally powerful and I think when
you are so red pilled on socialmedia and sharing your life on it.
Your everything becomes type two fun.
Like you don't enjoyanything in the moment.
You just enjoy sharingit and watching it back.
Like other artists we spokewith, Walker doesn't think he
can leave social media entirely.

(14:41):
It's hard to imagine leavingit all behind completely.
Like, I love seeing my nieces andnephews, you know, like, that's great.
That's unimpeachably like agood experience, you know?
But uh,
yeah.
Other times it's like,is this really worth it?
I don't know.
Yeah.

(15:27):
Austin musician, Sarah Hauser, who wealso talked to in our last episode,
wants to limit her use of social media,but she still uses it to promote things.
Right now I'm really limitingmy screen time right now,
so I put my hour time limit.
I will say I hit the remind me infive minutes button a couple times,
so I'm really trying not to be onit for for more than an hour or two.

(15:49):
I'm right now also in a unique positionwhere I'm not actively promoting anything.
She feels like social media has hadan impact on her, but I definitely see
the way that social media can really.
Eat at my productivity and my desireto write, which is a huge reason
right now why I am like activelykind of disengaging from it.

(16:10):
And she told us some of the ways shethinks social media impacts musicians.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
It's like you can openyour Instagram app and see.
I can see within five minutes artists thatare doing things that I wish I was doing.
And a lot of that is like,you know, inner work.
I have to, you know, and, but noteverybody has access to resources

(16:30):
to help with boundaries like that.
You know, it's taken me a long time toget comfortable and like not feel that
sense of like, oh, I'm not doing enough.
And not just on their mentalhealth, but also on their music.
The focus has become, uh, moreon content and less on art.
I think there's limited attention span.

(16:54):
I think very, people arevery focused on singles.
People are very focused onthe 15 seconds of a song.
People are very focused on getting theviral moment trends, writing to a trend.
I find all of that stuff very off-put.
I find.
The like needing to put the same 15seconds clip of a song on TikTok or

(17:14):
Instagram four times a day in order toget the algorithm to do what it's like.
Like I'm not gonna go listen to that song.
Sarah is working on her own journey to getin touch with the art, not the content.
I think also, you know, I was mentioning,I'm kind of reading or in the middle
of the artist's way, and one of thechapters talks about output and input.

(17:36):
And there's also a really great SaulWilliams quote about how your diet isn't
just your food and like what you ingestand like mindful consumption, right?
So like what you consume isgoing to affect what kind of
art you put out into the world.
And I think right now I amreally, really protective.
Of my input because I care and I'mdeeply invested in my output, and I

(18:02):
know that if I am doom scrolling forfour hours, that's not gonna give me.
The stimulus.
I need to write theway that I wanna write.
I need to be reading, I need to betouching grass, I need to be swimming.
I need to be clearing my head.
And, and also like, I reallyneed to feel emotionally safe.

(18:26):
And social media is likenot always a safe space.
You don't have a filter.
I don't have control what I'mseeing when I'm scrolling.
I'm just kind of like inundating my brain.
So, um, so yeah, it, it definitely,I think of it as an input output.
She's really noticed a changefrom when she was younger.
I, I would not be the musicianand the writer I am today had I

(18:48):
had social media when I was 15.
I mean, when I was, I startedwriting music when I was 14.
I didn't have cableinternet until I was like.
We were like, my dad didn't get cableuntil I, like, absolutely needed it
for school or something like that.
So like, I was not on the internet veryoften, but, um, but yeah, I mean, I was,

(19:11):
yeah, I was, I had limited distractionsand so I came home from school and I
wanted to play piano for four hours.
Like my parents would kick me offthe piano to, you know, so they
could watch the news or whatever.
Um.
If anything was a distraction fromthe schoolwork I needed to get done,
you know, so it's a different time.

(19:32):
I mean, I'm obviously like learning andworking as like a 38-year-old versus
when you're like 15 and you don't haveto hold a job and you have a place to
live, and all that kinda stuff is very
different.
And she's noticed how social mediais impacting younger musicians.
I see it with my students at a CCall the time too, where it's like.
Uh, this, it's a real, a real, um,paralyzing fear, and it's keeping them

(19:56):
from writing, like, keeping them fromdoing the thing that like they're chasing.
However, Sarah does see somebenefits of social media.
Millennials were quick to embracethe positives of the internet.
I mean, I think we were thefirst ones to really learn social
networking and how to use it, uh,to meet people, stay connected.

(20:19):
I've moved to four differentstates over the course of my life.
It's great.
To be able to see what my friends backhome in Florida and South Carolina
and Boston and stuff like, whatwere are doing and you know, like,
I think that that's really great.
It's also great, um, in that itlets you tap into a global community
that you otherwise wouldn't haveaccess to without heavily touring.

(20:43):
And even with that, youknow, it's like, um.
You know, I, I think that kind of coupleswith streaming obviously, but I think
the perk is, is that it, it gives you achance to put art out without having to
physically travel, you know, anywhere.
So I, I would say like the interpersonal,like kind of social social connectivity.

(21:03):
And then global communityaccess to information.
Obviously we've seen the,there's a downside to that too.
I feel like at this point, I, I haveworked really hard to like, make a
lot of boundaries with myself with it.
Um, but, uh, for the mostpart, when I, you know, when
I, it feels good to be liked.
I mean, it's, I think that's.

(21:24):
You know, all us artists are somewhatbroken people deep down, and we wanna
be loved and seen, uh, and for the workwe're doing and all that kinda stuff.
And so, yeah, getting, gettinglikes, getting shares and all
that stuff, uh, feels really good.
Um, on the other side of it, itcan, uh, feel like, you know, you're

(21:46):
screaming into the void sometimesbecause there's a lot of people doing
the same thing out there for now.
She won't step away,but she reminds herself.
It is a tool that works for me.
I don't work for it.
How

(22:13):
I.
Some musicians have decided to leavesocial media altogether, like Robert.
Uh, I'm Robert Ellis and I'm a musician.

(22:36):
Among other things,
we got right into it.
We wanted to know why did hedecide to leave the virtual world.
The short answer to your questionis what made me wanna leave
social media like it is purely.
A personal decision, you know, like myexperience as a user was really kind of
the driving factor in, in my decisionto just completely pull the plug.

(22:59):
And then the main reason that I,that I just finally quit and you
know, just decided to completelyget off was just 'cause I don't like
the way I feel when I'm using it.
Robert didn't just leave, he wrote agoodbye post and when he did that, he
deleted his entire social media history.
I just, I wanted some accountabilityand, you know, with, with a, a post

(23:24):
like the one I made, uh, I thinkit would look quite silly for me to
say, jump back on tomorrow and startmaking like, Hey, here I am guys.
Um, making posts again.
So I personally just, I stopped reallybelieving all of the things that people
say about social media in regards to, um.

(23:45):
You know, how I could benefit a musician.
Um, and I, I guess just making thatpost, it was like, this is gonna force
me to actually be done with this and,and not have the option to go back,
uh, without looking quite silly.
So,
so the post was kind of like you'reaccountability partner in a way?

(24:05):
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know that ifI had just decided to like.
Take a break from it and say,delete it off my phone or whatever.
I, I just don't know that it wouldhave the same sort of cleansing
feeling that it did by, I mean,literally, I, I signed out, I.

(24:26):
Changed my password to one ofthose strong passwords that is
like a bunch of random characters,and then I deleted that password.
So I don't actually know how to get backinto the account if I had wanted to.
So I'm curious for you, did you ever set atimer on your phone or anything like that
before you decided to completely leave?
For an addicted person, thattimer is like child's play.

(24:49):
It's like, oh, you, you've usedyour, your 10 minutes today.
All you have to do is hit like, ignore,and then like the desire to open the
app and look at it, I found to be, I.Just, just so compelling, and this is,
as someone who like consciously would,would say like, I don't like this.

(25:10):
I don't, I don't likethe way it makes me feel.
I don't like being on it.
You know?
And, and still I would find myselffull, fully knowing that it's not
something that I wanted in my life,but just compulsively opening it.
And like, I don't, I, there's definitelya component of this that is like, um.

(25:30):
Has to do with meditation and tryingto generally be more present in my
life without getting too woo woo.
I'm, I'm really into, uh, in the lastcouple years, especially like meditating,
uh, at least twice a day and just,you know, trying to be more aware of
what my mind is like at a given time.

(25:53):
And I, I mean.
I really found in the morning.
I wake up pretty early and Ihave coffee and do like a morning
meditation, and I just noticed areal difference when I would sit.
If the first thing I did when Iopened my eyes was check my phone,
whether it be email or Instagram,or even just text messages.

(26:15):
If I sort of like opened the gates tothat, to that stream and then got up
and had coffee and sat down to try tomeditate, I just, I feel like my mind
was in a noticeably different placeand just feels much more scattered.
When you're, when you're closelywatching the state of your mind,

(26:35):
I feel like the effect of thephone is extremely pronounced,
right?
Because you're being theobserver of your mind.
You know?
Yeah.
And you can actually see thethoughts that are coming through.
And then on top of that, when you open upan app or when you open up Instagram, for
example, now you're subjected directlyto whatever you're viewing at the moment.
Like you didn't even get a chance tothink when you woke up, you quickly

(26:59):
got on the app and now whatever's onthe app is what you're thinking about.
Yeah.
I mean, I, uh.
I don't know why, but likein a day is half asleep.
That is often my first instinctis to like, look at my phone.
You know, like how, how fucked up is that?
It's the availability.
It's like knowing that it'sthere and you could be.

(27:21):
Doing it, you know, youcould be engaging with it.
Like it's, it's just an extra layerof like, um, I mean really like desire
or aversion, like the two things thatyou, that you really think about a lot.
Uh, if you have like a Buddhistpractice, it's like desire and aversion.
And these, these phones are likelittle desire and aversion machines.

(27:45):
It sounds like leaving social media ispart of like a bigger kind of project
for you of becoming more present and,you know, becoming more connected
with your life and, and what you do.
Social media just like kindof takes away from presence.
But you also talked about a little bit andyou, and you kind of referenced in your
post that the way that you felt when youwere actually on Instagram was not great.

(28:10):
And I just wondered if you couldtell people a little bit about like.
Not to take you back to adark place, but like what?
Oh no.
What would happen?
What would happen?
Like what kind of feelings would arisewhen you did engage in Instagram?
I mean, it should boilerplate stuff.
I'm, I'm sure it's the samestuff everyone deals with.
Like if I saw a post, uh, from,and I'm sorry to throw you under

(28:32):
the bus, Ollie, but if I saw a postfrom Shaky Graves about some awesome
show that he was playing, I wouldjust instantly feel terrible sitting
at my house, not doing anything.
You know, like I, I would imaginethat it's the same for every musician.
Like it's just this comparison machine.
Um, and not only is it like a waythat you can compare yourself and

(28:56):
your career to other people, butit's, it's not, uh, it's not real.
Like you, when you open it andyou look at what other people are
doing, you're comparing your lifeto their projected version of where
they are and where their career is.
Like everyone looks.
Very happy and successful in photos.

(29:17):
You know, I just, I randomly justthought of, uh, uh, shaky graves as
being a post that I would look at.
But I do remember seeing him, you know,post something at some show in Colorado,
um, and I can't remember what it was,but it looked, it looked awesome.
Um, and I love his music and I love him.
And I think I was playingin fucking, you know, Boise,

(29:40):
Idaho that night or something.
And.
Probably had 80 people at my show and wasjust like, you know, that's an example
of, of where I feel like my mind wouldgo, you know, people just posting their,
their accolades or their, everyone's atsome music festival that I'm not at, you

(30:01):
know, or everyone's, everyone's, um, youknow, at some award show that I'm not at.
Um, and like, I don't think that, uh.
I just don't know that it's healthyfor me to be seeing what everyone
else is up to all the time.
And, and not just from likea personal perspective, but
like on a, on a musical tip.

(30:24):
Um, I just don't know that.
Having that much input at alltimes is good for me as a creator.
Robert went through a majorlife shift a few years back.
He quit drinking, started therapy, got onan antidepressant and leaned heavily into
meditation to work through his depression.
I found myself just feeling totally, Iwasn't finding much joy in, in really

(30:51):
anything that I was doing, and onpaper, all the things that I was doing.
They were really good thingslike, you know, if I had told
someone like, what are you up to?
And I listed off all thethings I was working on.
Like it's all good stuff andstuff that I should be fortunate,
you know, to get to do.
But none of it was exciting.
It was all just like, I, I was, Ithink, depressed and, you know, the,

(31:16):
the real sign to me that it was like.
Too much, um, was that I just, I wasn'teven enjoying playing shows anymore.
At the time.
He was playing music, running a barand a studio, and raising three kids.
But despite it all, he felt disconnectedand overwhelmed through meditation
and a commitment to being present.
He found a path back to himself.

(31:37):
One of the things that was veryhelpful to me was the waking up app.
It's like the Sam Harris started amed meditation app that, um, it's
just really well done and it's, it'srooted in like Tibetan Buddhism, but
it's also, you know, it's Sam Harris.
So it's, it's got a secular bent to it andI think that one could really benefit from

(32:01):
it having no religious dogma attached.
So you, you packed up your Instagram, you.
Deleted everything.
You have one post, you walked away.
Um, how have
things changed for you?
Well, the beauty of this is I haveno way of knowing how things have
changed because I'm not on Instagram.

(32:23):
But see it, I have, I mean,really, like I have no idea.
I have no idea if this islike quote unquote bad for my
career or good for my career.
Like I'm doing the same thingsI was doing before I'm touring.
I'm working on albums.
Uh, you know, I, I play with a bunch ofdifferent people and, and have my hand

(32:44):
at a bunch of different things, and.
So far, like when I play my own shows,I haven't really noticed a difference
in the people that turn up to the shows.
I have an email list.
I send an email out, like maybe once amonth that just says like, Hey, this is
what I'm up to over the next few months.
If you wanna come to ashow, mark your calendar.

(33:04):
Like, I haven't noticed a, adifference in the perceived quality
of my career, but I also think that'slike, that's part of the illusion.
That social media gives you ingeneral is this, this sense of
of control and this sense of likeunderstanding the narrative of your

(33:28):
own life through the eyes of others.
When I asked him how he promoteshis shows, he mentioned that having
the email list of 30,000 peopledefinitely helps, but there's
another element most people overlook.
Back in my day, we used to havea thing called promoters, and
in each town the promoter would.

(33:49):
Would promote the show, it'sactually in the job title.
Um, they would be responsible forletting the community in a given city
know that an artist was playing andgetting those people out to the concert.
And, you know, like.
Social media has definitelychanged how that works.
But it still is the case that ina town, take Austin for instance,

(34:13):
there, there is a thrivingcommunity of people who like music.
Like that's what they do.
They see shows.
If they get a sitter and go out for anight, they're gonna go see a concert.
Those are the same people thatgo by water new to get elbows.
Um, and, you know, they're, they'rethe same people who listen to KUT and

(34:34):
like I do find that these, these sortof, I guess, terrestrial or analog.
Real places, they stillhave an outsized effect.
Like if KUT were to promote my show inAustin, I feel like more people would come
than if I ran a million Instagram ads.
Um, maybe that's wrong, but likeif I do an in-store at Waterloo, I

(34:56):
feel like more people know about myshow at the Mohawk than if I had,
you know, made a hundred posts.
So like, and every town has that.
And I, I will say I've gotten some.
Some pushback from promotersrecently where they're like, Hey,
the show's coming up in a week.
I just, I've noticed that Roberthasn't posted anything and this, this

(35:19):
happened before I got off social media.
And what's great is now I can justpost them to the, you know, I can
refer them to the sign and justbe like, go look at my Instagram.
I don't post anything.
We asked Robert how leaving socialmedia has affected his bottom line.
I mean, like I said, I'm very fortunateand I'm in a different kind of place

(35:39):
in my life and career than many people.
But like, um, I still do, youknow, a number of solo shows.
Um, and I, I play guitar andbass with a number of groups.
Um, so I've been out in the St. Vincentall last month and I'm doing some more
stuff over the summer and some randomsort of normal, normal things happening.

(36:03):
In the studio and, and with my soloshows and like, and yeah, I haven't,
I haven't noticed a difference at all.
And the mer, the merchthing, like, hard to say.
I've never been great at social media.
I mean, especially over COVID.
There were times where I likemaybe put up a t-shirt and.

(36:24):
People just, you know, boughtall hundred of 'em or whatever I
made, and it was really helpful.
It helped me pay mymortgage for that month.
And lessons I could say the same about,like, I've, I always would make a big post
around Christmas, like, hey, if anyonewants to do private lessons, and, you
know, I could pretty reliably get like 20,30 people to get private lessons from me.
And that, that was like ahuge, huge financial help.

(36:48):
But, you know, I'm not,I don't do it that often.
I never have.
And.
I was never doing huge numbers,but like this last tour I did, I
brought, I think I was out for aweek and I had 50 t-shirts made, and
they were all gone when I got home.
So I, I don't know, it doesn't seemlike it's really affecting me that much,

(37:11):
but he knows not everyone isable to do what he's done.
I'm in a slightly differentplace in my life and career
than I know many people are.
Like, I'm 36, I've got, I don'tknow, seven some records out,
and a bunch of side projects.
And like I've been touringheavily for like 15 years.

(37:33):
And I do think that as it pertainsto social media, that allowed me to
have, you know, I, I have people thatwill come to my shows in most markets.
I, I feel like I have, I have fans,you know, people that will support
me and listen to my music, and I justdidn't feel like social media was

(37:55):
a, a crucial part of that for me.
Now, I, I think where I, startingout in music right now, that it might
be a totally different calculation.
I, I know a lot of people useit as a tool to get fans and to
create opportunities, but I, I'm,you know, I'm also not convinced.
Uh, of that, either that that'sthe best way to do that, either.

(38:18):
Have you found more joy?
Oh my God.
Yeah, I'm on a tear right now, guys.
I'm like, uh, I'm definitely that.
I, I mean, it's, knock on wood, I hesitateto say, but like 30, I'm 36, 35, and 36.
Have by a long shot.

(38:38):
Been my best, the best years of my life.
I'm just like, I, I don't know.
It's just, um, it's really fun.
Like all of the things that I'vechosen to do with my life turns
out are really cool and fun things.
And once I learned to just appreciatethem, you know, moment to moment,

(38:59):
I feel like, you know, I, I justhave a really beautiful, rich life.
Music and, and people that I care about.
Uh, but yeah, I, yes, I've, I'vebeen very much enjoying myself.

(39:19):
We wanna thank Tribe Mafia, WalkerLucin, Sarah Houser, and Robert Ellis
for talking to us about social media,because we know it's complicated.
It
certainly is.
In the next episode of Pause Play,we'll be talking about streaming.
Most musicians put their music onstreaming services, but not many of
them are getting much money from it.

(39:41):
Are there other better waysto get music out in the world?
What could the future of.
Dreaming look like.
Pauses play is a productionof KUT and KUTX studios.
It's hosted and produced by me,Elizabeth McQueen and me Miles
Bloon, engineering and editing help
from Jake Perlman and Renee Chavez.
Abby Bri Fogle and Tou Thomashelped with production.

(40:04):
Stephanie Federico is our digital editor.
Michael Manasi is our multimedia editor.
Our theme song was created by the talentedJerron Marshall Cosplay is a listener
supported production of KUT and KTF.
Studios in Austin, Texas, you cansupport our work by becoming a
sustaining [e-mail]

(40:30):
Support for Pause Play comes fromMetropolis Apartments featuring a variety
of floor plans, from efficiency to fivebedrooms, as well as a community that
embraces art, music, and creativity.
[e-mail].