February 3, 2025 • 42 mins
This episode unveils the transformative power of music therapy in enhancing mental health and well-being through the story of Todd Kunze and his work at Innerwave. We discuss the innovative intersection of art and science in NeuroArts, the personalized approach to music therapy, and the promising future of healthcare interventions driven by music.
• Todd Kunze shares his journey from facilitating charitable events to leading Innerwave
• Overview of NeuroArts and its integration of science, technology, and music
• The significance of music therapy in memory care and mental health treatment
• Real-life stories demonstrating the impact of familiar music on patients’ memories
• Discussion on the importance of personal music preferences in therapeutic settings
• Future plans for Innerwave and the role of technology in music therapy interventions
• Todd's advice for aspiring creatives and the need for digital detox to spark creativity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, thank you for joining us on this
episode of Stay Modern withMurray Today.
I'm your host, Matthew Taylor,and we are in the Murray studio
speaking with Todd Koons,Interwave president and CEO.
You're going to want to sitback, relax and take this one in
, because it could change yourlife, Todd.
Thank you for joining us, man.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Absolutely, brother, absolutely.
Hey, first and foremost man,before we kind of get into the
ins and outs of what you do, canyou tell us a little bit about
who you are, where you're fromand how you got to where you are
today?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, well, you know it's interesting, this journey,
right.
And so this started back in theearly 90s.
I mediated between nationalrecording artists and their
charities of choice.
And you know, a nationalrecording artist wanted to do a
philanthropic or charitableproject.
We did a forum and they lovedit because they didn't have to
(00:52):
touch anything and we would.
You know, we would set it upand come and they would show up
and you know whether it was afood drop or St Jude's
Children's Research Hospital.
I did a lot of projects withthem and a lot of a lot of
different, you know, radio andfestivals.
So I got kind of started in allof that in the country.
Music festivals, music festivals, right, and so that all kind of
(01:16):
transpired and did that forfive or six years.
We did projects from the sizeof a lemonade stand up to the
daytona 500 and uh, what's livenation today used to be back in
the day, it was paceentertainment.
Then it was, uh, sfx.
(01:37):
Robert silverman bought thatand became sfx and then clear
channel communications boughtthat and and it just it just
kept going right.
So four years of corporatechanges every year there was a
corporate change in the musicindustry and uh, we, I survived
all of that.
It was at a the charlotte uhblockbuster pavilion at the time
(01:59):
, uh, when that was happeningaround 2000, and then went to
Birmingham and opened anamphitheater there.
And so between all of thatjourney, right of doing music
festivals for that, and theamphitheater, charlotte,
birmingham and the nonprofit,I've done about 700 events.
Oh, wow, and they all hadsomething to do, we all.
(02:23):
My wife asked me one time whatdo I tell people you do?
And I said, well, just tellthem I'm a charitable instigator
, right, so, so, so we, wereally anytime we had
conversations with artists,artist management, people in the
you know industry or whateverlabels, publicists, festival.
It had to have somethingphilanthropic with it.
(02:43):
Right, we do something.
And just over the years it justkind of, you know, progressed
to uh after covid, right, andall of us have, everyone has a
covid story of what changed ordirected your lives, your
business, whatever it is thatyou do.
And uh, we were uh ready to uh,you know, I went back to college
(03:06):
and we're almost got away fromall of this.
And and uh, we uh were indiscussions with a friend of
mine in nashville.
I said, well, let's, let's getthe band back together, kind of
if you will like, kind of startdoing this again.
And we had the letters,documents, everything was ready
to go.
I sent it off at 1030 in themorning, march 13th this would
(03:27):
have been what 2019?
.
And that went right in thetrash can Because 30 minutes
later, everything shut down andeverybody's lives were changed
because of it.
A lot of doors had to be closedin Nashville and the music
industry in Los Angeles and NewYork because of it.
A lot of doors had to be closedin Nashville and the music
industry in Los Angeles and NewYork because of it.
And so, as we redirected andthe reason I'm sharing all of
(03:51):
this is because of technologiesthat were available that came
out of COVID and streamingplatforms and all kinds of
interesting ideas that weretrying to come out of this
post-COVID scenario we reallywouldn't exist if it wasn't for
COVID.
We just kept exploring andexploring ideas and
(04:12):
opportunities available with thetechnologies around and kind of
what we do now.
So we're sorry for the reallylong answer here, but it kind of
sets up you know how we got tothis point and along that
journey we've been able toestablish just an incredible
team and an incredible boardlist of board of advisors of
(04:36):
what we do in that space.
You want me to share with youreal quick what, what we, the
space that we operate in.
I'd love that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'd love that for our listeners too the space that we
operate in.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I'd love that.
I'd love that for our listenerstoo.
Yeah, so there's a new medicalfield that Johns Hopkins
University created along withthe Aspen Institute called the
NeuroArts, and NeuroArts wasformed basically, I think now
it's hitting three years ago,this initiative, and I mean you
can look it up online, andNeuroArts Blueprint is what it's
hitting.
Three years ago, thisinitiative, and I mean you can
look it up online.
The NeuroArts Blueprint is whatit's called, but it's the
(05:08):
convergence of science andtechnology and research and the
arts and all the arts dance,music, expression.
It just takes and encompasseseverything in a wellness
platform, and so I had alreadystarted working on what
Interwave has become today.
I already started working on itbefore I knew what NeuroArts
(05:30):
was or what it meant, or theyeven coined that.
I'd been doing this for a while,and so I had some really great
conversations with Dr SusanMagsman on video conference and
what we were trying to do, andso we really formulated
everything we do kind offunctions around new
technologies, new neuro artsinterventions like music therapy
(05:52):
interventions, art therapyinterventions, virtual reality
therapy interventions and we'vecome up with a patent pending
process that combines multipletherapy interventions into one
modality, and so I wouldn't beable to, just just because of
the patent, I wouldn't be ableto dive into all of it.
(06:14):
But but it's really interestinghow well received this has been
the conversations that I've had, and and so we're we're really
excited about, you know, some ofthe technologies that we're
creating, what we're working onto improve music therapy
intervention outcomes andcombine some new technology.
(06:35):
So that's the.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's the short version Well, music therapy
intervention.
I mean kind of break that down,if you would.
I mean let's, let's, I'm goingto play dumb here, right, act
like I have no idea what you'retalking about?
Tell me a little bit more aboutmusic therapy.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, right now we've we've partnered with uh, this
will be a little bit of a longanswer, but we, to set that up,
we we've partnered with um, theInstitute for Music and
Neurologic Function in New York,and Dr Conchetta Tameno.
She was like only the secondmusic therapist in the world and
(07:16):
she, if you remember the movieAwakenings oh boy, do I, yes,
sir, yeah, robin Williams, robinWilliams movie and that movie
was about Dr Oliver Sacks andshe founded the Institute in New
York with Oliver Sacks in NewYork and what's exciting about
(07:38):
that?
She's on our board of advisorsand the institute that they have
at Wartburg there in New Yorkand Mount Vernon is incredible.
But she's been a really greatsounding board for those music
therapy interventions and mostlyelder care, right, with memory
care residents there and herwork with the elderly and elder
(08:01):
care.
But music therapy in itselftraditionally over the years has
been, you know, playing musicfor someone or having music.
Music and memory is also mergedwith the Institute there in New
York and they have soundtracksthat are created for, you know,
(08:24):
their elderly residents andaccess to people you know that
want to build a soundtrack fortheir loved one if they're a
caregiver.
Here's the interesting thingabout music therapy
interventions now is they createsoundtracks for music that
someone loved, right?
So your elderly parent has amemory or Alzheimer's issues or
(08:48):
a memory care issue, you canplay their favorite songs on the
song list and they know all thewords to the songs, but they
might not know their daughtersitting in front of them, right,
right.
And so what happens is thisexercise helps them to have some
sort of sense of something tolook forward to or something to
(09:12):
hopefully can create someneuroplasticity neuropath new
neuropathways could be possiblycreated in the space.
In the space, and uh, they'realso, uh, we participated in
this music therapy.
Uh, it was a music circle,right.
So we had an artist friend ofours, uh, artist, he's our
business partner and on ourwebsite, board member.
(09:35):
But, uh, greg barnhill, uhwrote trisha yearwood's breakout
hit walk away, joe, and has wonmultiple emmy awards and is a
grammy nominated guy, a greatperson to work with.
Well, we stopped in and weplayed for these residents,
these at the mental uh facilitythere uh, for memory care
(09:55):
facility, sorry.
And there was a accordion, apiano player uh, I had a djembe
drum, uh, that mickey hart fromthe Grateful Dead donated, so I
got to play Mickey Hart's drumand we had, you know, a couple
of other people there in thecircle and they brought in a
couple of residents and weplayed and he was basically
(10:19):
almost catatonic in thebeginning but we played John
Denver Country Roads.
He woke up and knew all thewords to the song oh my gosh,
and he was clapping andeverything and then when he'd
stop and then he would kind ofrevert back and so this is not a
common story where elder carepatients and memory care
patients can sing the words likehappy birthday or songs from
(10:42):
the 40s or the 50s, but theydon't remember lots of connected
things next to them, meaningthe family members and events.
So our hope is in this musictherapy intervention is that
we've created and sometechnologies that we've added,
that we can take new musicdelivery technologies and
(11:06):
combine them from a listeningstandpoint and have these
residents and people listen tothis new soundtrack.
Originally.
We've recorded two proof ofconcepts in the recording studio
in Nashville and they'reoriginal content pieces and
(11:27):
they've been overwhelminglywell-received by the people that
we've played them to and themeeting neurologists, people you
know, doctors and people thatare in the space and so like
there's music therapy as a wholeis such a great, it needs to be
(11:49):
tapped in so much more becauseof the therapeutic benefits of
music and sound.
Resonance, uh, um, sulfageascale, uh, ohm, right, resonant
frequency ohms like you can ownthat you know, four, 32 or or
(12:10):
anything like that that can calm, calm, uh, your, you know, calm
someone down or or or be there.
So anyway, all we're exploringthese new music therapy
intervention technologies insound, how the sound is
delivered, how the people hearit, that will help break through
and help create, hopefully,some of these new, you know,
(12:34):
neuropathways.
Also, pain management, right,pain management, anxiety
disorders, ptsd, all of those.
So this applies to all of thatas a whole.
So that's a long answer.
But music, music therapyinterventions with with, you
know, musicians and playing andcomforting someone and helping
create a sense of not justbalance but of calm and healing,
(12:56):
uh, there's other you knowproperties to it.
It probably take another twohours to dive too deep, I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think, honestly, honestly, todd, I think this
could change a lot.
I mean you, you've seen thebenefits.
You've seen, you've seen it onyour end.
I mean for our audience here inthe Nebraska, omaha, our area.
I think this is huge.
I've always said music, musiccan can make or break my day.
If I'm riding into work and I'mlistening to something, let's
(13:23):
say, that wants to get me pumpedup, that will take me
throughout noon, at least youknow, if not through the
afternoon, and I will carry thatsame attitude throughout the
day.
And I mean I coach a lot ofbaseball, right, and it's the
same concept with our pregame,with our postgame.
I mean music changes the waythat you feel, it changes the
way that you act.
It changes even the simple taskof walking right.
(13:48):
If I'm going for a walk and I'mlistening to something soothing
, that's going to calm me down.
I can't imagine the way thatit's changing people's lives on
your end of the spectrum too,man.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, I think this is worth sharing, based on what
you shared, and I shared this onthe stage.
We were part of the Music hasPower Awards and Symposium in
New York City in Times Square inNovember and Greg Barnhill, our
creative officer, chiefcreative officer, received an
(14:26):
award there.
And then I was on a panel onthe stage and and I shared this
in New York and, uh, it was, youknow, good timing.
It was pretty spontaneous, butyou know, I had, uh, a year and
a half ago, a little over a yearand a half ago, had knew
something was going on.
Uh went and had some, uh, hadsome.
(14:48):
Uh they weren't physical tests,they were tests that you fill
out, you answer these forms andquestions and questionnaires.
There was a stack of them.
There was like 10 of them.
I went to see this clinicalpsychologist and we filled all
these out.
I had a PTSD score of 85.
Oh, wow, it's super.
The way I understand it, it'ssuper clinical.
(15:09):
I think the militarycategorizes their PTSD score
clinical at 40.
And so it gives you an idea ofhow above the scoring spectrum I
was at at the time.
So we went through and Istarted using some of these
music therapy interventions thatI'm working with right now and
(15:31):
some of the other programs thatwe we discussed over the year
and I took maybe a couple ofthree months ago.
I took this test again and myscore was below 30.
Oh my goodness, and so you cutit in half.
Yeah, and so if you look atanxiety disorder and PTSD, as
(15:52):
far as music therapyinterventions, We've been using
the same technique in musictherapy basically since it
started, you know, in the 70s,late 60s, early 70s, and what
we've come up with and I wish Icould dive into it a little bit
more, but we're stillscientifically kind of covered
up by doing that.
I could dive into a little bitmore, but we're still
(16:14):
scientifically kind of coveredup by doing that.
But look, we've come up with away to deliver this that
bypasses the way the brain hearsthe music and it's processed
and goes in and we can put anEEG cap or EEG headphones on a
participant that's in a sessionand run them through that.
And here's a great example Ican tell you Akimoto and his
(16:49):
team, in 2018 did a study.
These Japanese colleagues did astudy on the autonomic nervous
system and the hertz frequency528, 528 hertz the autonomic
nervous system and the Hertzfrequency 528, 528 Hertz and
they put the study with thesePTSD patients and their
autonomic nervous system and thePTSD patients in these sessions
returned to baseline in fiveminutes.
In five minutes Incredible.
So we've taken that andincorporated into some of the
(17:14):
work that we're doing initially,and you have the PTSD anxiety
disorder patients, which you canget real-time results from with
the EEG, with the bloodpressure.
You know just common thingsright from the stats and get
their SAT rates and everythingtogether and gain just as much
(17:36):
information from that as you can.
You know the EEG responses thatare coming out, but we can
pinpoint at four minutes and 32seconds, point two, when they
started to respond to thesoundtrack they're listening to
and what happened when.
You know what happened when thatchanged and why did it change,
and then we can continue toadjust.
(17:57):
You know accordingly, justdepending on, you know what
we're looking at and studying it.
So, look, I I think that theapplications of music within
itself, as you mentioned, aresignificant.
The the changes that are beingmade in the conversations we're
having.
We just our hope is to leave afootprint behind where we change
(18:20):
the positive outcomes andincrease the effectiveness of
what we're doing is our goal,that's, I mean our whole goal is
to increase the effectivenessof these therapy interventions
or this art therapy and musictherapy and combinations of all
of these things and the newimmersive technologies that are
available to us.
We just want to leave thefootprint behind, so it keeps
going.
So we've changed the outcomesfor these people, the
(18:43):
applications in differentmedical genres.
Anyway, that's the long answeron kind of where I see and where
this music therapy and arttherapy, neural arts
interventions are headed.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Now, have you seen on along those lines?
Have you seen a, a higher, ahigher outreach or a higher
income, a higher positivebenefit from certain genres of
music?
I mean, is it like FrankSinatra?
I mean, what are we talkinghere as a music?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I mean, is it like Frank Sinatra.
I mean, what are we talkinghere?
Well, it's the first one in theelder, care is personal
preference.
I mean songs they're familiarwith.
But the research studies haveshown that familiarity with
those patients is beneficial.
They lighten up, they know thewords to it.
And so to answer your question,is there's been research
(19:36):
studies done a pretty good stackof them that there's different
classical music pieces that arebeneficial.
There's certain chants,Gregarian chants I think the
study that was on there wasnumber one.
Believe it or not, thegregarious chance of that is the
(19:57):
number one response.
But people are different.
You have to be careful when youadminister music therapy that
it's not too loud, too low endfrequency, too high end
frequency.
It doesn't create a problem.
You don't want to create aproblem in your music therapy
session.
Uh, you know with that.
So, um, we've approached it ina.
(20:18):
I guess I would call it a genreneutral.
It's almost a new genre of ofsound and music and application,
that that that bypass it, butyet we still need to use what
somebody said.
This is a real quick, funnystory about not knowing what
really.
You don't know what musicpeople are interested in.
(20:39):
You may even know them, but youdon't know what they like.
I had a guy in Charlotte at theamphitheater in Charlotte and
he was every time I ever saw him.
He was in a suit and he was inthe 12th Tower at Bank of
America in a suit and he was inthe 12th tower at bank of
america in charlotte and he cameout to a show one night and, uh
, it was a metal show and hecame around the corner and he's
(21:00):
wearing black jeans and a blackt-shirt and and and he's got a
stack of cups already gone andthis guy was it was a heavy
metal guy, right, and and and heloved that and so just from
appearance you would never know.
And I've heard stories of peoplewho they would listen to.
(21:22):
You know a heavier metal, youknow like Metallica or something
like that, or maybe even kindof like at Lincoln Park or
something like that, and theyreceived a calming effect from
that versus the.
You know something that youwould, you and I would think
would be.
You know some sort of calmingclassical music piece where
(21:43):
you're sitting and relaxing.
That didn't work for them, butI know some people that can
relax and get into a zonelistening to metal.
Yeah, it's rare, it's rare butit's certainly.
I've met them.
And I've met people that say youknow, I know I wind down, you
know, you know listening to thatand I I couldn't do that.
No, but some people are justwired that way and that's the
(22:05):
great thing about the process ofwhere we are in the arts right,
and we're only ourconversations on the scratch in
the service of immersive visualexperiences like the sphere in
Las Vegas, that can be appliedto this process and in arts and
arts and dance in general.
(22:26):
So we're really in a really bigocean of opportunity here to
improve, you know, outcomes inthese processes.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, no, along those lines, lincoln park, I mean.
Just side note.
I saw him up here in Omaha andit was one of the best shows
I've ever seen and it was beforeChester passed away.
Chester Bennington, the leadsinger, and I tell you what man
they you want to talk aboutimmersive they.
It was everything from the DJto the drummer to the guitarist.
(22:56):
I mean everybody had theirshining moment.
And one of the best shows I'veever been to hands down bar none
.
And I'm a pop guy Like you wouldnever know by looking at my
photos or anything, but I'm ahuge Backstreet Boy fan and
here's why, before anybodystarts judging me, I've met all
five of them.
I've met their wives, I'vetalked to the kids of the
(23:16):
Backstreet Boy and they're justdown to earth people and I've
always said, from from whenpeople start giving me crap
about it and everything, I'mlike good music is good music
and I don't care who it is, whatgenre it is, if it, if it's
telling a story and I can getbehind that story and I can
relate it to something in mypersonal life.
That's a song, that that's abanger, that's something that's
(23:38):
going to go on for decades anddecades and decades, and so yeah
, it's, it's they.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
They did have an incredible uh overall production
show.
It is amazing and and I thinkthat you know this diversity,
you know and share with you alittle bit of diverse uh angles
of music on our board uh on our,on our website uh,
interwavesorg.
There's a on our board ofadvisors, andre below, and andre
(24:04):
is a violinist, a almost asavant violinist, been playing
the violin since he was four.
Um, he's uh an amazing I'lltell you where he is at from a
concert violinist standpoint ishe has a 1728 Stradivarius
(24:24):
violin as a $16 million violin.
Holy cow, oh my gosh.
And he's as equally talented inthe visual art.
This is how I met him someyears ago was because of his art
.
It wasn't because of hisincredible violin play and the
(24:46):
band he's in, a band thattravels across the country
selling out shows, which iscalled Paris Chanson and they
play French and Russian musicand traditional music and it's
phenomenal.
I mean, they sell out the citywinery venues across the country
and Herb Albert's club in LosAngeles.
(25:08):
But he has been gracious enoughto be on our advisory board and
helping us.
We're working on a project onhis right now for this music
intervention and visual artspace therapy process.
And so here's the guy, here's aconcert violinist, you know,
that we're going to, we'repairing with, like a country
(25:28):
music producer, you know, andsome other.
You know, it's kind of a grabbag of all of the people that
are on our advisory board orpeople that we're communicating
with, especially in the medicalfield.
They're all musicians and Idon't even ask, I just they just
oh, I play the violin or I playthe guitar, you know.
And Dr Joseph Ledoux that's onour board of advisors is an
(25:54):
incredible guitar player and hasput out some really cool pieces
, and, and so you know it's justa grab bag of, of people who
you want to contribute in thespace.
That are, you know, scientistsand research people map it to
you.
They all seem to play aninstrument or have some sort of
connection in the music worldyeah, no.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So along those same lines how where's somebody that
you've worked with that that youknow maybe would surprise us
here and our listening audiencesomebody that you've worked with
or that's on your advisoryboard that we might know?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
current right, you know, like the, everything I did
with the music industry,artists from an event
perspective, was prior totechnology.
You know the technology that wehave today, which just means
I'm old.
But, uh, you know there's someartists out there and you know
we can attest to was, uh, I dohave a nebraska connection.
I was with shannon chestnut atyork, nebraska.
(27:04):
We launched a radio stationthere with the nebraska world
radio association, uh, the maxcountry, and, and we launched
that and I was there at the timeand and uh, it's, it's pretty,
uh, exciting to be kind of beingable to at least talk about it,
hear the music of people that Iworked with through the
(27:26):
nineties and I think, uh, one ofthe best, uh, uh, you know,
entertainer of the year back inin the day in the late uh,
eighties, whatever, it was RickyVan Shelton, okay, yes, yeah,
ricky Van, we did some reallycool things together at NASCAR
events and we launched theNASCAR Monopoly board game
(27:47):
together and I took him thereand we did that and that was a
non-profit ball.
You know it was an event andyou know, just back in the day,
know the day of, you know,artists you know that were
either in the middle of whatthey were doing that were
willing to help or wanted to dostuff with us.
I don't know if you remember anartist named kevin sharp.
(28:07):
Kevin sharp uh, recordedmeasure of a man.
He won the bmi as cap award, Ithink, for two million plays
that year.
It was in the nineties and hewas the first artist to reach he
was the first make a wishrecipient to reach celebrity
status.
Wow, and, and he uh, his albummeasure of a man was real
(28:33):
excited and his story about hismaker wish.
His wish was David Foster andhe, he, uh, his wish was he
wanted to meet david foster.
I think he was 16 at the time.
So, hopefully getting the storyright and uh, anyway, he met
him and everything, and he gavehim a tape and david wouldn't
listen to it.
He goes I'm not going to dothat to myself or you it's a
(28:55):
pleasure meeting you, but I'mnot, I'm not going to listen to
this just because of theemotional issue that you're
dealing with was being he had abone type of cancer and I don't
remember the name of it, but atany rate, uh, the story goes.
I believe david was on his wayhome and popped the cassette in
the car and turned around andwent back and got it and he goes
(29:19):
no, wait, wait, wait.
And so he signed into his dealand so he made it many, many
years through that.
He's been gone sometime nowKevin has, but he I did a lot of
his nonprofit work with hismanager at the time and we did
some stuff with St Jude's, a lotof stuff with St Jude's, and it
(29:40):
was very rewarding to be ableto do that and to help him, you
know, get his message out towhat was happening and to you
know further our relationshipthat we had at the time with St
Jude's Children's ResearchHospital and the country cares
program that they did.
So there's a ton of know otherartists and people you know that
I could share, but it wasalways more about what we were
(30:02):
doing or the food drop.
You know, at the time there's aamericana country artist named
kathy matea.
A lot of people might rememberkathy, uh and uh.
I got her to sing the nationalanthem at the Daytona 500 when
Earnhardt won oh my gosh.
And so it was very cool on acouple of different fronts, but
(30:25):
obviously Dale went in the 500that year, but it being the I'm
looking at this plaque here.
It was the 40th anniversary ofthe Daytona 500 and the 50th
anniversary of NASCAR, and itwas, you know, february 15th
1998.
And so we got to, you know,spent some time visiting with
(30:48):
Dale and his shop there in NorthCarolina, and so that was just
those experiences that helpedguide me into helping get ready
to, you know, set up thisconversations we're having now
with artists and recordingartists and the music producer
(31:09):
that I have, gajon.
By the way, greg Barnhill andDarren Gajon are from New
Orleans, they're from Louisiana,and Darren, our technology
(31:29):
officer, is incredible.
We've created some tech thatwe're working on right now that
we're presenting, and we'vecreated some tech that we're
working on right now that we'representing.
It's just remarkable, after 40years in this space, that we can
take something that's alreadybeen purposed for something else
(31:50):
, take it and use it for what weneed it for.
And he's just been an amazing,amazing part of our team.
Anytime we talk and we gettogether, all three of us, it's
just something great happens andit's just just very rare to be
able to, you know, put a teamtogether like that or drink
organically and uh, so we're,I'm super excited to be a part
(32:10):
of of uh this with them.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, I think anything's possible, man,
especially when you surroundyourself with, uh, the right
people.
You know, I've always said I'monly as good as the person
sitting next to me, so that'shat off to you and your team and
everything that you guys areaccomplishing there too.
So kind of walk us through whatthe process is for Interwave.
If somebody wants to getinvolved, somebody needs to use
(32:33):
your guys' services.
How would they contact you?
How would they go about it?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, if they go to the website interwaveorg,
there's a, there's a form therethey can reach out and we'll get
the message and we can, we canreach back out, back out to them
.
That's the best way to do it.
And uh, uh, you know, I thinkthat, uh, you know, hearing from
any, uh, music therapists, arttherapist, neurologist, any
(33:00):
counseling people that areinvolved in treating PTSD,
people who are working withmemory care patients, cancer
patients, you got to sit in a.
Some patients have to sit in achemo chair for six, seven,
eight hours and we feel likesort of process that we have
with, you know, pain managementand the projects we're working
(33:23):
on now will here, soon,eventually be able to be
utilized there.
So if you're in that space,right, and there's something
that you want to reach out to us, that's the best way to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Perfect, we'll link that down before when we publish
this.
We'll put it in the commentsection there too, so people can
can go to your guys' sitedirectly and try to get ahold of
you guys that way.
I only got a couple more foryou here, todd, and then we'll
get you out of here.
Man Can't thank you enough.
Um, next steps for interwave inneuroscience, the clinical
music therapy field.
Uh, what?
What's next for you guys inyour group?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
well we're.
We're excited to announce thatwe've recently partnered with
the institute for music andneurologic function in new york.
We're officially partnered withthem and they also have
partnered, after the first year,with a music and memory.
Music and memory has got thatyou know database of of songs
that they provide for caregiversthat creates these soundtracks
(34:22):
for these elderly care patients,and you can look them up,
certainly at the Institute forMusic and Neurologic Function,
or IMMF for short.
That's real exciting.
That relationship andpartnership with what we're
doing with them helps guide usin ways we couldn't possibly
imagine because of the contactsthat Dr Conchette has been
(34:46):
gracious enough to share with usin the conversations that we're
having.
We do have some upcomingmeetings in California with, uh,
some technology companies, um,that are happening in February
and, uh, some studio work thatwe have to do yet and, uh, so,
(35:07):
uh, I think, at the stage ofwhere we are, especially with
everything being so technologydriven, it'd be great to be able
to just, you know, share here's, here's all of it, here's how
it works.
But we're not quite there yet.
We want to be able to get thispart, this phase of it, done and
then move on.
But we're real excited aboutthe meetings that are going to
(35:28):
take place in February.
The studio work that we'redoing right now and the
storyboards that we're workingon for this patent-pending
immersive therapy interventionprocess that we've created is
moving forward.
We have a couple ofphilanthropic families, investor
(35:50):
teams, interested in supportingwhat we're doing, and so, um,
look, we're in the next three tofour months, uh, we'll, we'll
look to change gears and and andmove forward and, you know,
taking the proof of conceptmodels we already have and, uh,
being able to actually starttalking to companies, which
(36:12):
we're doing now about how we canget this to the right
organizations, in the righthands, to, to, to deliver, uh,
you know, this processes thatwe've we've created, and one of
the companies, um, that we'retalking to can do that.
I mean, it's just, it's justfascinating that we've been
talking to them for over twoyears now and they're ready.
(36:35):
So, um, yeah, but that's, youknow, we're really tight window
here of three months, and thenour conversation will change
drastically, probably by June.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Well, once June rolls around and you guys get
everything across the finishline, man, we'll get you back on
and we'll dive deeper into thattoo.
But, Todd, I got one more foryou here, man, Knowing
everything that you know.
Now COVID's passed, you knowwe're talking to younger Todd.
What's a piece of advice thatyou'd give yourself and any, any
listeners that are looking todive into this industry?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
You know it's.
It's it's about if you, if youfeel and feeling something and
you're passionate about it, thatyou can, something, that you
can make a difference with thefootprint that you leave behind,
you need to do it.
Don't listen to people tell youyou can't do it.
(37:31):
Don't listen to academic thattells you you can't do it.
This is the way you have to doit.
There's no rules, you just.
Hans Zimmer has this really coolvideo that he put out.
That was part of the masterclass on how to produce music
soundtracks.
You can even Google it andlisten to it.
(37:52):
Right, hans Zimmer in thismaster class.
And he's like look, there'ssome kid in the Bronx that can
spit out what I'm doing and andcreate a soundtrack that's just
beautiful and and it's it's.
It's like, if there's a rule inthe space, break it and you
(38:13):
can't listen to the norms.
You have to.
And I'll have one other pieceof advice.
Everything is driven ontechnology.
Young people and millennials,the people that are that use
technology every day.
Every five seconds is put itdown, put the damn phone down,
shut the computer off, getsilent for a bit and listen to
(38:34):
yourself, be creative.
You're not going to be able todo that listening and looking at
your phone, and you're notgoing to be able to do it
looking at your at your phone,and you're not going to be able
to do it looking at your uhcomputer.
Shut it off every day.
If you can disconnect for two,three, four hours, get just put
it away.
Those people, those messagesyou're getting and the you know
(38:55):
whatever, they're still going tobe there.
You have to disconnect from thenoise.
Let your brain settle, let youlisten to the voice of your own
creativity.
That's what I would tell you is.
If you can accomplish that, youcan accomplish great things.
Because you're not going to beable to do it glued to your
phone.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Amen, brother, amen.
I think there's a, there's acalming, soothing presence.
When, you know, a lot of peopleget uncomfortable with pauses,
a lot of people getuncomfortable with with silence,
and I, you know, being a fatherof two and coaching 11, 11 kids
, and it's just being able tojust sit and breathe and think
(39:39):
and process, that to me is huge,it's massive.
It makes a difference in everysingle day.
I mean, start the day that way,you know yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I just think it is hard for some people to
disconnect because of all thefast, rapid transit speed that
everything is happening in today.
Instant technology, instantanswers, instant, everything
like creativity is.
We're built to be creativepeople in whatever you're
passionate about, and especiallyin this neuro arts and music,
(40:09):
space and arts and wherever.
But if you can disconnect andjust let go for a little bit,
our brains aren't designed tostop thinking.
I'm not saying stop thinking,but stop the external noise and
just let yourself be creativeand hear the voice.
In some a little bit corny way,let the universe speak to you
(40:31):
about what you want to do,because the only way you're
going to hear that answer is tobe quiet.
I agree, and if I would haveknown that 30 years ago.
Well, that's just the way ourjourney goes.
But anyway, I appreciate yourtime and appreciate the
conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yes, sir, yes sir.
My advice is always, man, issay yes, say yes, Take the risk,
go out, take the chances.
You're never going to regretthe chances that you take.
You're going to regret sayingno.
And what if?
What if is the biggest, biggestfear I have.
I tell the kids I coach I'm 36years old.
(41:12):
And if I had somebody triedharder, what if I would have
given my all?
What if I would have said yes?
What if I would have done thatpodcast with Todd?
You know that type of stuff,that's, that's huge man.
Well, anyways, guys, this isthe fastest hour in podcast
radio.
Uh, thank you for joining us onthis.
(41:33):
Stay modern with Murray podcast.
Todd, before you go, is thereanything else you want to reach
out?
How do people get involved?
Just go to the website and hityou up.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, that's the best way.
Just go to interwaveorg andthen they can send us a note or
a message and we'll get back toyou as soon as we can.
And just uh, again appreciatethe time and and uh, we'll catch
up with you again soon.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, man, we'll talk to you in June.
Uh, everybody, follow us onyour favorite podcast platforms.
Stay, uh, stay tuned for someexciting announcements coming
soon.
Hey everybody, thank you for joining us on this
episode of Stay Modern withMurray Today.
I'm your host, Matthew Taylor,and we are in the Murray studio
speaking with Todd Koons,Interwave president and CEO.
You're going to want to sitback, relax and take this one in
, because it could change yourlife, Todd.
Thank you for joining us, man.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I appreciate it .
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Absolutely, brother, absolutely.
Hey, first and foremost man,before we kind of get into the
ins and outs of what you do, canyou tell us a little bit about
who you are, where you're fromand how you got to where you are
today?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, well, you know it's interesting, this journey,
right.
And so this started back in theearly 90s.
I mediated between nationalrecording artists and their
charities of choice.
And you know, a nationalrecording artist wanted to do a
philanthropic or charitableproject.
We did a forum and they lovedit because they didn't have to
(00:52):
touch anything and we would.
You know, we would set it upand come and they would show up
and you know whether it was afood drop or St Jude's
Children's Research Hospital.
I did a lot of projects withthem and a lot of a lot of
different, you know, radio andfestivals.
So I got kind of started in allof that in the country.
Music festivals, music festivals, right, and so that all kind of
(01:16):
transpired and did that forfive or six years.
We did projects from the sizeof a lemonade stand up to the
daytona 500 and uh, what's livenation today used to be back in
the day, it was paceentertainment.
Then it was, uh, sfx.
(01:37):
Robert silverman bought thatand became sfx and then clear
channel communications boughtthat and and it just it just
kept going right.
So four years of corporatechanges every year there was a
corporate change in the musicindustry and uh, we, I survived
all of that.
It was at a the charlotte uhblockbuster pavilion at the time
(01:59):
, uh, when that was happeningaround 2000, and then went to
Birmingham and opened anamphitheater there.
And so between all of thatjourney, right of doing music
festivals for that, and theamphitheater, charlotte,
birmingham and the nonprofit,I've done about 700 events.
Oh, wow, and they all hadsomething to do, we all.
(02:23):
My wife asked me one time whatdo I tell people you do?
And I said, well, just tellthem I'm a charitable instigator
, right, so, so, so we, wereally anytime we had
conversations with artists,artist management, people in the
you know industry or whateverlabels, publicists, festival.
It had to have somethingphilanthropic with it.
(02:43):
Right, we do something.
And just over the years it justkind of, you know, progressed
to uh after covid, right, andall of us have, everyone has a
covid story of what changed ordirected your lives, your
business, whatever it is thatyou do.
And uh, we were uh ready to uh,you know, I went back to college
(03:06):
and we're almost got away fromall of this.
And and uh, we uh were indiscussions with a friend of
mine in nashville.
I said, well, let's, let's getthe band back together, kind of
if you will like, kind of startdoing this again.
And we had the letters,documents, everything was ready
to go.
I sent it off at 1030 in themorning, march 13th this would
(03:27):
have been what 2019?
.
And that went right in thetrash can Because 30 minutes
later, everything shut down andeverybody's lives were changed
because of it.
A lot of doors had to be closedin Nashville and the music
industry in Los Angeles and NewYork because of it.
A lot of doors had to be closedin Nashville and the music
industry in Los Angeles and NewYork because of it.
And so, as we redirected andthe reason I'm sharing all of
(03:51):
this is because of technologiesthat were available that came
out of COVID and streamingplatforms and all kinds of
interesting ideas that weretrying to come out of this
post-COVID scenario we reallywouldn't exist if it wasn't for
COVID.
We just kept exploring andexploring ideas and
(04:12):
opportunities available with thetechnologies around and kind of
what we do now.
So we're sorry for the reallylong answer here, but it kind of
sets up you know how we got tothis point and along that
journey we've been able toestablish just an incredible
team and an incredible boardlist of board of advisors of
(04:36):
what we do in that space.
You want me to share with youreal quick what, what we, the
space that we operate in.
I'd love that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'd love that for our listeners too the space that we
operate in.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I'd love that.
I'd love that for our listenerstoo.
Yeah, so there's a new medicalfield that Johns Hopkins
University created along withthe Aspen Institute called the
NeuroArts, and NeuroArts wasformed basically, I think now
it's hitting three years ago,this initiative, and I mean you
can look it up online, andNeuroArts Blueprint is what it's
hitting.
Three years ago, thisinitiative, and I mean you can
look it up online.
The NeuroArts Blueprint is whatit's called, but it's the
(05:08):
convergence of science andtechnology and research and the
arts and all the arts dance,music, expression.
It just takes and encompasseseverything in a wellness
platform, and so I had alreadystarted working on what
Interwave has become today.
I already started working on itbefore I knew what NeuroArts
(05:30):
was or what it meant, or theyeven coined that.
I'd been doing this for a while,and so I had some really great
conversations with Dr SusanMagsman on video conference and
what we were trying to do, andso we really formulated
everything we do kind offunctions around new
technologies, new neuro artsinterventions like music therapy
(05:52):
interventions, art therapyinterventions, virtual reality
therapy interventions and we'vecome up with a patent pending
process that combines multipletherapy interventions into one
modality, and so I wouldn't beable to, just just because of
the patent, I wouldn't be ableto dive into all of it.
(06:14):
But but it's really interestinghow well received this has been
the conversations that I've had, and and so we're we're really
excited about, you know, some ofthe technologies that we're
creating, what we're working onto improve music therapy
intervention outcomes andcombine some new technology.
(06:35):
So that's the.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's the short version Well, music therapy
intervention.
I mean kind of break that down,if you would.
I mean let's, let's, I'm goingto play dumb here, right, act
like I have no idea what you'retalking about?
Tell me a little bit more aboutmusic therapy.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Well, right now we've we've partnered with uh, this
will be a little bit of a longanswer, but we, to set that up,
we we've partnered with um, theInstitute for Music and
Neurologic Function in New York,and Dr Conchetta Tameno.
She was like only the secondmusic therapist in the world and
(07:16):
she, if you remember the movieAwakenings oh boy, do I, yes,
sir, yeah, robin Williams, robinWilliams movie and that movie
was about Dr Oliver Sacks andshe founded the Institute in New
York with Oliver Sacks in NewYork and what's exciting about
(07:38):
that?
She's on our board of advisorsand the institute that they have
at Wartburg there in New Yorkand Mount Vernon is incredible.
But she's been a really greatsounding board for those music
therapy interventions and mostlyelder care, right, with memory
care residents there and herwork with the elderly and elder
(08:01):
care.
But music therapy in itselftraditionally over the years has
been, you know, playing musicfor someone or having music.
Music and memory is also mergedwith the Institute there in New
York and they have soundtracksthat are created for, you know,
(08:24):
their elderly residents andaccess to people you know that
want to build a soundtrack fortheir loved one if they're a
caregiver.
Here's the interesting thingabout music therapy
interventions now is they createsoundtracks for music that
someone loved, right?
So your elderly parent has amemory or Alzheimer's issues or
(08:48):
a memory care issue, you canplay their favorite songs on the
song list and they know all thewords to the songs, but they
might not know their daughtersitting in front of them, right,
right.
And so what happens is thisexercise helps them to have some
sort of sense of something tolook forward to or something to
(09:12):
hopefully can create someneuroplasticity neuropath new
neuropathways could be possiblycreated in the space.
In the space, and uh, they'realso, uh, we participated in
this music therapy.
Uh, it was a music circle,right.
So we had an artist friend ofours, uh, artist, he's our
business partner and on ourwebsite, board member.
(09:35):
But, uh, greg barnhill, uhwrote trisha yearwood's breakout
hit walk away, joe, and has wonmultiple emmy awards and is a
grammy nominated guy, a greatperson to work with.
Well, we stopped in and weplayed for these residents,
these at the mental uh facilitythere uh, for memory care
(09:55):
facility, sorry.
And there was a accordion, apiano player uh, I had a djembe
drum, uh, that mickey hart fromthe Grateful Dead donated, so I
got to play Mickey Hart's drumand we had, you know, a couple
of other people there in thecircle and they brought in a
couple of residents and weplayed and he was basically
(10:19):
almost catatonic in thebeginning but we played John
Denver Country Roads.
He woke up and knew all thewords to the song oh my gosh,
and he was clapping andeverything and then when he'd
stop and then he would kind ofrevert back and so this is not a
common story where elder carepatients and memory care
patients can sing the words likehappy birthday or songs from
(10:42):
the 40s or the 50s, but theydon't remember lots of connected
things next to them, meaningthe family members and events.
So our hope is in this musictherapy intervention is that
we've created and sometechnologies that we've added,
that we can take new musicdelivery technologies and
(11:06):
combine them from a listeningstandpoint and have these
residents and people listen tothis new soundtrack.
Originally.
We've recorded two proof ofconcepts in the recording studio
in Nashville and they'reoriginal content pieces and
(11:27):
they've been overwhelminglywell-received by the people that
we've played them to and themeeting neurologists, people you
know, doctors and people thatare in the space and so like
there's music therapy as a wholeis such a great, it needs to be
(11:49):
tapped in so much more becauseof the therapeutic benefits of
music and sound.
Resonance, uh, um, sulfageascale, uh, ohm, right, resonant
frequency ohms like you can ownthat you know, four, 32 or or
(12:10):
anything like that that can calm, calm, uh, your, you know, calm
someone down or or or be there.
So anyway, all we're exploringthese new music therapy
intervention technologies insound, how the sound is
delivered, how the people hearit, that will help break through
and help create, hopefully,some of these new, you know,
(12:34):
neuropathways.
Also, pain management, right,pain management, anxiety
disorders, ptsd, all of those.
So this applies to all of thatas a whole.
So that's a long answer.
But music, music therapyinterventions with with, you
know, musicians and playing andcomforting someone and helping
create a sense of not justbalance but of calm and healing,
(12:56):
uh, there's other you knowproperties to it.
It probably take another twohours to dive too deep, I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think, honestly, honestly, todd, I think this
could change a lot.
I mean you, you've seen thebenefits.
You've seen, you've seen it onyour end.
I mean for our audience here inthe Nebraska, omaha, our area.
I think this is huge.
I've always said music, musiccan can make or break my day.
If I'm riding into work and I'mlistening to something, let's
(13:23):
say, that wants to get me pumpedup, that will take me
throughout noon, at least youknow, if not through the
afternoon, and I will carry thatsame attitude throughout the
day.
And I mean I coach a lot ofbaseball, right, and it's the
same concept with our pregame,with our postgame.
I mean music changes the waythat you feel, it changes the
way that you act.
It changes even the simple taskof walking right.
(13:48):
If I'm going for a walk and I'mlistening to something soothing
, that's going to calm me down.
I can't imagine the way thatit's changing people's lives on
your end of the spectrum too,man.
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah, I think this is worth sharing, based on what
you shared, and I shared this onthe stage.
We were part of the Music hasPower Awards and Symposium in
New York City in Times Square inNovember and Greg Barnhill, our
creative officer, chiefcreative officer, received an
(14:26):
award there.
And then I was on a panel onthe stage and and I shared this
in New York and, uh, it was, youknow, good timing.
It was pretty spontaneous, butyou know, I had, uh, a year and
a half ago, a little over a yearand a half ago, had knew
something was going on.
Uh went and had some, uh, hadsome.
(14:48):
Uh they weren't physical tests,they were tests that you fill
out, you answer these forms andquestions and questionnaires.
There was a stack of them.
There was like 10 of them.
I went to see this clinicalpsychologist and we filled all
these out.
I had a PTSD score of 85.
Oh, wow, it's super.
The way I understand it, it'ssuper clinical.
(15:09):
I think the militarycategorizes their PTSD score
clinical at 40.
And so it gives you an idea ofhow above the scoring spectrum I
was at at the time.
So we went through and Istarted using some of these
music therapy interventions thatI'm working with right now and
(15:31):
some of the other programs thatwe we discussed over the year
and I took maybe a couple ofthree months ago.
I took this test again and myscore was below 30.
Oh my goodness, and so you cutit in half.
Yeah, and so if you look atanxiety disorder and PTSD, as
(15:52):
far as music therapyinterventions, We've been using
the same technique in musictherapy basically since it
started, you know, in the 70s,late 60s, early 70s, and what
we've come up with and I wish Icould dive into it a little bit
more, but we're stillscientifically kind of covered
up by doing that.
I could dive into a little bitmore, but we're still
(16:14):
scientifically kind of coveredup by doing that.
But look, we've come up with away to deliver this that
bypasses the way the brain hearsthe music and it's processed
and goes in and we can put anEEG cap or EEG headphones on a
participant that's in a sessionand run them through that.
And here's a great example Ican tell you Akimoto and his
(16:49):
team, in 2018 did a study.
These Japanese colleagues did astudy on the autonomic nervous
system and the hertz frequency528, 528 hertz the autonomic
nervous system and the Hertzfrequency 528, 528 Hertz and
they put the study with thesePTSD patients and their
autonomic nervous system and thePTSD patients in these sessions
returned to baseline in fiveminutes.
In five minutes Incredible.
So we've taken that andincorporated into some of the
(17:14):
work that we're doing initially,and you have the PTSD anxiety
disorder patients, which you canget real-time results from with
the EEG, with the bloodpressure.
You know just common thingsright from the stats and get
their SAT rates and everythingtogether and gain just as much
(17:36):
information from that as you can.
You know the EEG responses thatare coming out, but we can
pinpoint at four minutes and 32seconds, point two, when they
started to respond to thesoundtrack they're listening to
and what happened when.
You know what happened when thatchanged and why did it change,
and then we can continue toadjust.
(17:57):
You know accordingly, justdepending on, you know what
we're looking at and studying it.
So, look, I I think that theapplications of music within
itself, as you mentioned, aresignificant.
The the changes that are beingmade in the conversations we're
having.
We just our hope is to leave afootprint behind where we change
(18:20):
the positive outcomes andincrease the effectiveness of
what we're doing is our goal,that's, I mean our whole goal is
to increase the effectivenessof these therapy interventions
or this art therapy and musictherapy and combinations of all
of these things and the newimmersive technologies that are
available to us.
We just want to leave thefootprint behind, so it keeps
going.
So we've changed the outcomesfor these people, the
(18:43):
applications in differentmedical genres.
Anyway, that's the long answeron kind of where I see and where
this music therapy and arttherapy, neural arts
interventions are headed.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Now, have you seen on along those lines?
Have you seen a, a higher, ahigher outreach or a higher
income, a higher positivebenefit from certain genres of
music?
I mean, is it like FrankSinatra?
I mean, what are we talkinghere as a music?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I mean, is it like Frank Sinatra.
I mean, what are we talkinghere?
Well, it's the first one in theelder, care is personal
preference.
I mean songs they're familiarwith.
But the research studies haveshown that familiarity with
those patients is beneficial.
They lighten up, they know thewords to it.
And so to answer your question,is there's been research
(19:36):
studies done a pretty good stackof them that there's different
classical music pieces that arebeneficial.
There's certain chants,Gregarian chants I think the
study that was on there wasnumber one.
Believe it or not, thegregarious chance of that is the
(19:57):
number one response.
But people are different.
You have to be careful when youadminister music therapy that
it's not too loud, too low endfrequency, too high end
frequency.
It doesn't create a problem.
You don't want to create aproblem in your music therapy
session.
Uh, you know with that.
So, um, we've approached it ina.
(20:18):
I guess I would call it a genreneutral.
It's almost a new genre of ofsound and music and application,
that that that bypass it, butyet we still need to use what
somebody said.
This is a real quick, funnystory about not knowing what
really.
You don't know what musicpeople are interested in.
(20:39):
You may even know them, but youdon't know what they like.
I had a guy in Charlotte at theamphitheater in Charlotte and
he was every time I ever saw him.
He was in a suit and he was inthe 12th Tower at Bank of
America in a suit and he was inthe 12th tower at bank of
america in charlotte and he cameout to a show one night and, uh
, it was a metal show and hecame around the corner and he's
(21:00):
wearing black jeans and a blackt-shirt and and and he's got a
stack of cups already gone andthis guy was it was a heavy
metal guy, right, and and and heloved that and so just from
appearance you would never know.
And I've heard stories of peoplewho they would listen to.
(21:22):
You know a heavier metal, youknow like Metallica or something
like that, or maybe even kindof like at Lincoln Park or
something like that, and theyreceived a calming effect from
that versus the.
You know something that youwould, you and I would think
would be.
You know some sort of calmingclassical music piece where
(21:43):
you're sitting and relaxing.
That didn't work for them, butI know some people that can
relax and get into a zonelistening to metal.
Yeah, it's rare, it's rare butit's certainly.
I've met them.
And I've met people that say youknow, I know I wind down, you
know, you know listening to thatand I I couldn't do that.
No, but some people are justwired that way and that's the
(22:05):
great thing about the process ofwhere we are in the arts right,
and we're only ourconversations on the scratch in
the service of immersive visualexperiences like the sphere in
Las Vegas, that can be appliedto this process and in arts and
arts and dance in general.
(22:26):
So we're really in a really bigocean of opportunity here to
improve, you know, outcomes inthese processes.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, no, along those lines, lincoln park, I mean.
Just side note.
I saw him up here in Omaha andit was one of the best shows
I've ever seen and it was beforeChester passed away.
Chester Bennington, the leadsinger, and I tell you what man
they you want to talk aboutimmersive they.
It was everything from the DJto the drummer to the guitarist.
(22:56):
I mean everybody had theirshining moment.
And one of the best shows I'veever been to hands down bar none
.
And I'm a pop guy Like you wouldnever know by looking at my
photos or anything, but I'm ahuge Backstreet Boy fan and
here's why, before anybodystarts judging me, I've met all
five of them.
I've met their wives, I'vetalked to the kids of the
(23:16):
Backstreet Boy and they're justdown to earth people and I've
always said, from from whenpeople start giving me crap
about it and everything, I'mlike good music is good music
and I don't care who it is, whatgenre it is, if it, if it's
telling a story and I can getbehind that story and I can
relate it to something in mypersonal life.
That's a song, that that's abanger, that's something that's
(23:38):
going to go on for decades anddecades and decades, and so yeah
, it's, it's they.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
They did have an incredible uh overall production
show.
It is amazing and and I thinkthat you know this diversity,
you know and share with you alittle bit of diverse uh angles
of music on our board uh on our,on our website uh,
interwavesorg.
There's a on our board ofadvisors, andre below, and andre
(24:04):
is a violinist, a almost asavant violinist, been playing
the violin since he was four.
Um, he's uh an amazing I'lltell you where he is at from a
concert violinist standpoint ishe has a 1728 Stradivarius
(24:24):
violin as a $16 million violin.
Holy cow, oh my gosh.
And he's as equally talented inthe visual art.
This is how I met him someyears ago was because of his art
.
It wasn't because of hisincredible violin play and the
(24:46):
band he's in, a band thattravels across the country
selling out shows, which iscalled Paris Chanson and they
play French and Russian musicand traditional music and it's
phenomenal.
I mean, they sell out the citywinery venues across the country
and Herb Albert's club in LosAngeles.
(25:08):
But he has been gracious enoughto be on our advisory board and
helping us.
We're working on a project onhis right now for this music
intervention and visual artspace therapy process.
And so here's the guy, here's aconcert violinist, you know,
that we're going to, we'repairing with, like a country
(25:28):
music producer, you know, andsome other.
You know, it's kind of a grabbag of all of the people that
are on our advisory board orpeople that we're communicating
with, especially in the medicalfield.
They're all musicians and Idon't even ask, I just they just
oh, I play the violin or I playthe guitar, you know.
And Dr Joseph Ledoux that's onour board of advisors is an
(25:54):
incredible guitar player and hasput out some really cool pieces
, and, and so you know it's justa grab bag of, of people who
you want to contribute in thespace.
That are, you know, scientistsand research people map it to
you.
They all seem to play aninstrument or have some sort of
connection in the music worldyeah, no.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
So along those same lines how where's somebody that
you've worked with that that youknow maybe would surprise us
here and our listening audiencesomebody that you've worked with
or that's on your advisoryboard that we might know?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
current right, you know, like the, everything I did
with the music industry,artists from an event
perspective, was prior totechnology.
You know the technology that wehave today, which just means
I'm old.
But, uh, you know there's someartists out there and you know
we can attest to was, uh, I dohave a nebraska connection.
I was with shannon chestnut atyork, nebraska.
(27:04):
We launched a radio stationthere with the nebraska world
radio association, uh, the maxcountry, and, and we launched
that and I was there at the timeand and uh, it's, it's pretty,
uh, exciting to be kind of beingable to at least talk about it,
hear the music of people that Iworked with through the
(27:26):
nineties and I think, uh, one ofthe best, uh, uh, you know,
entertainer of the year back inin the day in the late uh,
eighties, whatever, it was RickyVan Shelton, okay, yes, yeah,
ricky Van, we did some reallycool things together at NASCAR
events and we launched theNASCAR Monopoly board game
(27:47):
together and I took him thereand we did that and that was a
non-profit ball.
You know it was an event andyou know, just back in the day,
know the day of, you know,artists you know that were
either in the middle of whatthey were doing that were
willing to help or wanted to dostuff with us.
I don't know if you remember anartist named kevin sharp.
(28:07):
Kevin sharp uh, recordedmeasure of a man.
He won the bmi as cap award, Ithink, for two million plays
that year.
It was in the nineties and hewas the first artist to reach he
was the first make a wishrecipient to reach celebrity
status.
Wow, and, and he uh, his albummeasure of a man was real
(28:33):
excited and his story about hismaker wish.
His wish was David Foster andhe, he, uh, his wish was he
wanted to meet david foster.
I think he was 16 at the time.
So, hopefully getting the storyright and uh, anyway, he met
him and everything, and he gavehim a tape and david wouldn't
listen to it.
He goes I'm not going to dothat to myself or you it's a
(28:55):
pleasure meeting you, but I'mnot, I'm not going to listen to
this just because of theemotional issue that you're
dealing with was being he had abone type of cancer and I don't
remember the name of it, but atany rate, uh, the story goes.
I believe david was on his wayhome and popped the cassette in
the car and turned around andwent back and got it and he goes
(29:19):
no, wait, wait, wait.
And so he signed into his dealand so he made it many, many
years through that.
He's been gone sometime nowKevin has, but he I did a lot of
his nonprofit work with hismanager at the time and we did
some stuff with St Jude's, a lotof stuff with St Jude's, and it
(29:40):
was very rewarding to be ableto do that and to help him, you
know, get his message out towhat was happening and to you
know further our relationshipthat we had at the time with St
Jude's Children's ResearchHospital and the country cares
program that they did.
So there's a ton of know otherartists and people you know that
I could share, but it wasalways more about what we were
(30:02):
doing or the food drop.
You know, at the time there's aamericana country artist named
kathy matea.
A lot of people might rememberkathy, uh and uh.
I got her to sing the nationalanthem at the Daytona 500 when
Earnhardt won oh my gosh.
And so it was very cool on acouple of different fronts, but
(30:25):
obviously Dale went in the 500that year, but it being the I'm
looking at this plaque here.
It was the 40th anniversary ofthe Daytona 500 and the 50th
anniversary of NASCAR, and itwas, you know, february 15th
1998.
And so we got to, you know,spent some time visiting with
(30:48):
Dale and his shop there in NorthCarolina, and so that was just
those experiences that helpedguide me into helping get ready
to, you know, set up thisconversations we're having now
with artists and recordingartists and the music producer
(31:09):
that I have, gajon.
By the way, greg Barnhill andDarren Gajon are from New
Orleans, they're from Louisiana,and Darren, our technology
(31:29):
officer, is incredible.
We've created some tech thatwe're working on right now that
we're presenting, and we'vecreated some tech that we're
working on right now that we'representing.
It's just remarkable, after 40years in this space, that we can
take something that's alreadybeen purposed for something else
(31:50):
, take it and use it for what weneed it for.
And he's just been an amazing,amazing part of our team.
Anytime we talk and we gettogether, all three of us, it's
just something great happens andit's just just very rare to be
able to, you know, put a teamtogether like that or drink
organically and uh, so we're,I'm super excited to be a part
(32:10):
of of uh this with them.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, I think anything's possible, man,
especially when you surroundyourself with, uh, the right
people.
You know, I've always said I'monly as good as the person
sitting next to me, so that'shat off to you and your team and
everything that you guys areaccomplishing there too.
So kind of walk us through whatthe process is for Interwave.
If somebody wants to getinvolved, somebody needs to use
(32:33):
your guys' services.
How would they contact you?
How would they go about it?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, if they go to the website interwaveorg,
there's a, there's a form therethey can reach out and we'll get
the message and we can, we canreach back out, back out to them
.
That's the best way to do it.
And uh, uh, you know, I thinkthat, uh, you know, hearing from
any, uh, music therapists, arttherapist, neurologist, any
(33:00):
counseling people that areinvolved in treating PTSD,
people who are working withmemory care patients, cancer
patients, you got to sit in a.
Some patients have to sit in achemo chair for six, seven,
eight hours and we feel likesort of process that we have
with, you know, pain managementand the projects we're working
(33:23):
on now will here, soon,eventually be able to be
utilized there.
So if you're in that space,right, and there's something
that you want to reach out to us, that's the best way to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Perfect, we'll link that down before when we publish
this.
We'll put it in the commentsection there too, so people can
can go to your guys' sitedirectly and try to get ahold of
you guys that way.
I only got a couple more foryou here, todd, and then we'll
get you out of here.
Man Can't thank you enough.
Um, next steps for interwave inneuroscience, the clinical
music therapy field.
Uh, what?
What's next for you guys inyour group?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
well we're.
We're excited to announce thatwe've recently partnered with
the institute for music andneurologic function in new york.
We're officially partnered withthem and they also have
partnered, after the first year,with a music and memory.
Music and memory has got thatyou know database of of songs
that they provide for caregiversthat creates these soundtracks
(34:22):
for these elderly care patients,and you can look them up,
certainly at the Institute forMusic and Neurologic Function,
or IMMF for short.
That's real exciting.
That relationship andpartnership with what we're
doing with them helps guide usin ways we couldn't possibly
imagine because of the contactsthat Dr Conchette has been
(34:46):
gracious enough to share with usin the conversations that we're
having.
We do have some upcomingmeetings in California with, uh,
some technology companies, um,that are happening in February
and, uh, some studio work thatwe have to do yet and, uh, so,
(35:07):
uh, I think, at the stage ofwhere we are, especially with
everything being so technologydriven, it'd be great to be able
to just, you know, share here's, here's all of it, here's how
it works.
But we're not quite there yet.
We want to be able to get thispart, this phase of it, done and
then move on.
But we're real excited aboutthe meetings that are going to
(35:28):
take place in February.
The studio work that we'redoing right now and the
storyboards that we're workingon for this patent-pending
immersive therapy interventionprocess that we've created is
moving forward.
We have a couple ofphilanthropic families, investor
(35:50):
teams, interested in supportingwhat we're doing, and so, um,
look, we're in the next three tofour months, uh, we'll, we'll
look to change gears and and andmove forward and, you know,
taking the proof of conceptmodels we already have and, uh,
being able to actually starttalking to companies, which
(36:12):
we're doing now about how we canget this to the right
organizations, in the righthands, to, to, to deliver, uh,
you know, this processes thatwe've we've created, and one of
the companies, um, that we'retalking to can do that.
I mean, it's just, it's justfascinating that we've been
talking to them for over twoyears now and they're ready.
(36:35):
So, um, yeah, but that's, youknow, we're really tight window
here of three months, and thenour conversation will change
drastically, probably by June.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Well, once June rolls around and you guys get
everything across the finishline, man, we'll get you back on
and we'll dive deeper into thattoo.
But, Todd, I got one more foryou here, man, Knowing
everything that you know.
Now COVID's passed, you knowwe're talking to younger Todd.
What's a piece of advice thatyou'd give yourself and any, any
listeners that are looking todive into this industry?
Speaker 2 (37:09):
You know it's.
It's it's about if you, if youfeel and feeling something and
you're passionate about it, thatyou can, something, that you
can make a difference with thefootprint that you leave behind,
you need to do it.
Don't listen to people tell youyou can't do it.
(37:31):
Don't listen to academic thattells you you can't do it.
This is the way you have to doit.
There's no rules, you just.
Hans Zimmer has this really coolvideo that he put out.
That was part of the masterclass on how to produce music
soundtracks.
You can even Google it andlisten to it.
(37:52):
Right, hans Zimmer in thismaster class.
And he's like look, there'ssome kid in the Bronx that can
spit out what I'm doing and andcreate a soundtrack that's just
beautiful and and it's it's.
It's like, if there's a rule inthe space, break it and you
(38:13):
can't listen to the norms.
You have to.
And I'll have one other pieceof advice.
Everything is driven ontechnology.
Young people and millennials,the people that are that use
technology every day.
Every five seconds is put itdown, put the damn phone down,
shut the computer off, getsilent for a bit and listen to
(38:34):
yourself, be creative.
You're not going to be able todo that listening and looking at
your phone, and you're notgoing to be able to do it
looking at your at your phone,and you're not going to be able
to do it looking at your uhcomputer.
Shut it off every day.
If you can disconnect for two,three, four hours, get just put
it away.
Those people, those messagesyou're getting and the you know
(38:55):
whatever, they're still going tobe there.
You have to disconnect from thenoise.
Let your brain settle, let youlisten to the voice of your own
creativity.
That's what I would tell you is.
If you can accomplish that, youcan accomplish great things.
Because you're not going to beable to do it glued to your
phone.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Amen, brother, amen.
I think there's a, there's acalming, soothing presence.
When, you know, a lot of peopleget uncomfortable with pauses,
a lot of people getuncomfortable with with silence,
and I, you know, being a fatherof two and coaching 11, 11 kids
, and it's just being able tojust sit and breathe and think
(39:39):
and process, that to me is huge,it's massive.
It makes a difference in everysingle day.
I mean, start the day that way,you know yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I just think it is hard for some people to
disconnect because of all thefast, rapid transit speed that
everything is happening in today.
Instant technology, instantanswers, instant, everything
like creativity is.
We're built to be creativepeople in whatever you're
passionate about, and especiallyin this neuro arts and music,
(40:09):
space and arts and wherever.
But if you can disconnect andjust let go for a little bit,
our brains aren't designed tostop thinking.
I'm not saying stop thinking,but stop the external noise and
just let yourself be creativeand hear the voice.
In some a little bit corny way,let the universe speak to you
(40:31):
about what you want to do,because the only way you're
going to hear that answer is tobe quiet.
I agree, and if I would haveknown that 30 years ago.
Well, that's just the way ourjourney goes.
But anyway, I appreciate yourtime and appreciate the
conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Yes, sir, yes sir.
My advice is always, man, issay yes, say yes, Take the risk,
go out, take the chances.
You're never going to regretthe chances that you take.
You're going to regret sayingno.
And what if?
What if is the biggest, biggestfear I have.
I tell the kids I coach I'm 36years old.
(41:12):
And if I had somebody triedharder, what if I would have
given my all?
What if I would have said yes?
What if I would have done thatpodcast with Todd?
You know that type of stuff,that's, that's huge man.
Well, anyways, guys, this isthe fastest hour in podcast
radio.
Uh, thank you for joining us onthis.
(41:33):
Stay modern with Murray podcast.
Todd, before you go, is thereanything else you want to reach
out?
How do people get involved?
Just go to the website and hityou up.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, that's the best way.
Just go to interwaveorg andthen they can send us a note or
a message and we'll get back toyou as soon as we can.
And just uh, again appreciatethe time and and uh, we'll catch
up with you again soon.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, man, we'll talk to you in June.
Uh, everybody, follow us onyour favorite podcast platforms.
Stay, uh, stay tuned for someexciting announcements coming
soon.
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