#123 - Tony Pasko - The County Line

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
The great and powerful Tony Pascoe has been so
kind to join us on the countyline today.
Tony, how are you doing, sir?
I'm great.
Thank you for having me.

(00:35):
I appreciate it.
Yeah, we just experienced alittle technical difficulty when
we tried to get out the gatethe first time, so this is the
second, second time at it, butfortunately it was only 30
seconds in, so we're all good.
So, tony Pascoe composer,arranger, songwriter, sound
designer Sounds like you wear alot of different hats and have

(00:55):
for quite some time.
Tony, where are you in yourcareer now?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
When you spell it out .
Well, when you spell it outlike that, yeah, I guess I do.
It doesn't seem like it to me,you know, but these days I'm
just still plugging away, as faras I, you know, in my mind I go
from one project to the next.
I'm just trying to stay alive,pay the bills, live a life, have
a career.

(01:20):
So, when you know, when peoplecome back and say, oh you did
ABC and D, I'm like, oh, I did.
Okay, you know, because Iusually don't focus a whole lot
on what I've done, because I'malways thinking of what's ahead
and what's the next thing, youknow absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
has there ever been a point, was there ever a point
throughout your journey as amusician that you questioned
whether or not you could make acareer out of it?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Every day.
Every day, I mean when I was akid I do have to say you know,
that was the only thing I.
You know when you say whenyou're growing up, you know I
had a dream I want to be afireman or I want to be an
astronaut.
And then you know, other thingsget in the, you know, come into
play.
You know what I mean.
For me that was, I was alwaysbeing a musician.
That's all I wanted to be.
I didn't know what any of thatmeant or what it took to do that

(02:13):
.
All I knew is I just lovedmusic.
I liked hanging out withmusicians, I like playing music,
recording at any facet.
It is the only thing thatinterests me, you know.
Nothing else kind of got in theway.
I wasn't in, I wasn't good withmy hands or I wasn't good at
sports, none of that.
So for me, music was like theit thing.

(02:34):
So when I got out into the worldand started realizing you know
how hard this is and your work,construction and you do all
these other things to supplementyour income I just it just got
to me where I was like I got tofigure out a way to do this and
make money at it and see wherethat takes me.
So I never had this idea of Imean, of course I wanted, I

(02:59):
wanted to be a rockstar and Iwant to be Van Halen and all
this other kind of stuff JimiHendrix.
But I ended up finding out thatthere were a lot of other
people that had the same dreamand we are all working within
this industry and I just found aniche where I could do this.
I could do this, and it wasstill working in the music
industry.
It wasn't being on stage andperforming all the time.

(03:20):
Sometimes I had to put my ownego on a shelf and back other
people because they were, theywere paying me to do it.
So I was kind of like, allright, you know, my dad was a
big influence on me and heguided me and helped me quite a
bit to kind of steer me and keepme on this path.
But every day I wake up and I'mjust like, oh, here we go again,

(03:42):
and it never ends.
And this, and that's one thingwith musicians I always try to
tell them this is really whatyou want to do with your career.
It's going to be all day, everyday, and the more success you
get.
Sometimes that brings more workand you're working harder, but
if you really enjoyed it, thisis something truly inside you

(04:03):
that you can't see yourselfdoing anything else or you can't
do anything else like me.
I have no other talents, youknow.
So I cling on to this thingthat I have, you know, like grim
death.
So I just get up every day andI just do the best I can, and
sometimes I'm successful at it.
Sometimes I'm not, and youcan't be afraid of the not,

(04:24):
because you will have more ofthose than the successes,
unfortunately that's right.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
So at what point, at what age, would you say that you
felt as a breadwinner, that youhad turned the corner, that you
had made it to a point wheremusic can be your full time
occupation?
Quote unquote.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
It was a slow, I don't think it was.
Just one day I woke up and allof a sudden I was like, hey, I'm
a professional musician, thisis what I do for a living.
You know, I think it's.
I think I had to make up mymind a long time ago that I was
going to be this professionalmusician at some point in time.
So when I gave guitar lessonsin a music store for, you know,

(05:16):
when I was younger, to me thatwas working in the music
industry.
So and when I was in a band andwe were signed to a record
label, you know what I mean, tome that was being a professional
musician.
When I went to go work forWashburn or PV and I was the
product specialist at Washburn,traveling, doing guitar clinics,
that was me working in themusic industry.

(05:37):
When I worked with LeonardSkinner or Van Halen or Joe
Santriani or Duran Duran, to me,again, that was me working.
So I don't think it was onething particular, I think it was
the series of things where allof a sudden, one day, like you
said, you do kind of wake up andyou look back and you're like,

(05:58):
well, I did all these things inthe music industry and now it's
my turn.
When you know, writing musicfor TV and all that kind of
happened, and then my careertook another turn.
So I think it's a series oflittle things.
You kind of have to giveyourself these little stepping
stones of achievements, becauseif you're just thinking you're
going to start at the bottom andthen hit, start them, the you

(06:21):
know the very few that happens.
They have that long drop down.
So you kind of want to takebaby steps up to kind of secure
that that fall, if it doeshappen, isn't so far or severe.
You know you can recover fromit.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So your, your career has encompassed working on the
business side of the musicindustry and being an artist.
Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I flip flop back and forth because really I
grew up being a musician so thatthat was always.
My goal is to be on stageplaying, writing, music,
recording.
I mean I love that.
My dad was a professionalmusician in Chicago back back in
the 60s and everything and hisband actually his claim to fame

(07:10):
was he was the house band at thePlayboy Club in Chicago back in
the 60s and so he went throughthat whole era and played with
some very famous people andeverything and then he left the
music industry because he gotmarried and had kids and stuff
and his life changed and it justwasn't important to him anymore

(07:31):
.
He kind of took his musiccareer and kind of went to the
church and for me growing up healways kind of music was never
like you know the sex, drugs orrock and roll, the party.
You know that a lot ofmusicians tend to fall into that
.
I never was a, I was never giventhat.
My dad never showed me thatpart of the industry.

(07:53):
For me it was always the job.
The gig was.
The was the job.
You're getting paid, it's yourresponsibility to make sure
everyone else has a good time.
So I only saw growing up beingkind of my dad's bands roadie.
I would set up the drums andthe mics and every damn 10 years
old, instead of going tosleepovers at my friend's house,

(08:13):
I met the Ramada in it my dad'sband, you know, being a roadie
doing gigs and attend, and Iloved it and I was just obsessed
with that whole scene.
So for me it was more about Isaw the work.
I never saw the party part ofit and my dad just kind of
brainwashed me or instilled thatin me.

(08:34):
Where, you know, this is a job,this is something you do.
This is how you know what Imean.
So I always had this kind ofmaybe work I hate to use the
word work ethic, but I guess Iget.
I did because when I would go togigs where I was in bands as I
got older, all my friends are atthe bar and they're doing let's
do a shot and this.
I'm like are you kidding me?
We got showtime, we got to dosound check and you know that's

(08:56):
the stuff that always ranthrough my head.
We got to check these lightsand this and that, blah, blah,
blah, yeah, and for me that'sjust how my mind works.
So when I got into the musicindustry and I saw all these
other musicians just sittingaround partying, I'm like, hey,
work's got to get done.
And I was always the guy takingcables and plugging stuff in
and setting up.
And then I got noticed andpeople were like, hey, do you

(09:18):
want a job?
Do you want, I will hire youknow, they saw me working.
So I was always that guy and Iguess that kind of worked for me
because the somebody in theindustry saw hey, this guy's
willing to work, he's not justgoing to sit there and play
guitar the whole time, he'll putthat down and he'll do this and
he'll help this other guitarplayer get the best sound.
Like when I worked withSatriani that I had my own ideas

(09:42):
of what I liked, and then,working with Joe and hearing his
plethora of knowledge, I mean,and his ear, I learned so much
and so I like to take that stuffin and made me a better player,
gave me a better ear, it mademe change my sound and so for me

(10:02):
it was a lot of.
That just meant I had a lot ofmentoring and stuff, but I think
it comes down to it's the work.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Right, right, you know you got it.
It sounds like your, yourexperience under your father's
tutelage, dovetailed nicely foryou in the way of a career.
And as you developed into anadult it sounds like it's part
of in your DNA to have that workethic, not only because you you
were raised that way by yourparents, but you had that, that

(10:32):
real world hands on experiencefrom a young age and so having
that mindset, coupled with themusical talents that you
obviously have and the artistryside of you, the artist side of
you, dovetailed nicely forsounds like you to be able to
capitalize on a lot ofopportunities that maybe just

(10:54):
artists with, without that handson real world experience, so to
speak, can't capitalize on.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
And that's a secret that I tell every, every, every
young adult that, or every kidthat wants to get into it.
I always tell them that exactsame thing.
I'm not, I'm not so, so greatlytalented.
There are some amazinglytalented people in this world
and I've been around quite a fewof them, so I know some of
these people are just so, justso, blessed with talent.

(11:25):
I work at it, I practice everyday.
I don't have that God givengift and my dad had it and.
But my dad was one of thesepeople.
One of the things I always saythat he told me that I that
sticks with me is you know, tobe able to earn the right to be
on stage you have, you shouldknow every job that goes along

(11:48):
with the backstage, because youcan't walk on stage.
You have to go through thebackstage to get to the stage.
You don't know what all thosepeople do, then you have no
right to get on that stage andexpect them to do their job if
you don't know what it is.
So he was always like tellingme like you know, put your ego
away.
And now he's going to be centerof attention and not going to

(12:08):
have the spotlight.
He goes.
It takes a special person,takes a very good musician and
he's always say don't be arockstar, be a musician.
Musicians have careers and whatthat means is sometimes a
musician's career takes abackseat to some, to another
musician's career.
And but the learn that.
What I didn't realize is whatyou learn from that.
You know, and this business inmusic it's nothing more than who

(12:33):
you know.
You've got to make thoseconnections and I found out real
quick nobody hires people theydon't like.
They only hire people they likeLike, for instance, I was.
I was doing years ago.
I was doing a clinic in a musicstore and this kid came up and
he was a good guitar player.
You know a young kid and hecame up to me and after my

(12:55):
clinic he goes you're not verygood, how'd you get this job?
You're not the greatest guitarplayer I ever heard and I said
why?
You're right, I'm not, but I'mthe nicest guy you'll ever meet
and that's why I get these gigs.
You need to drop the attitudeand that's one thing.
A lot of musicians, I see it.
I have gotten gigs over muchmore talented people than me

(13:18):
Because I have some tools, Ihave a work ethic, I know how to
read music.
I work hard at it, I show upprepared, I show up early.
That's another thing.
You know, I've gotten gigs justbecause I was the first guy
there.
I remember doing an auditionand the guy's like where's
everybody else?
And he's like I don't know,I've been sitting here for 50,
he goes you've been here 15minutes.

(13:40):
And I'm like, yeah, he goes, doyou know the stuff?
Yeah, you're high, yep.
I mean sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Well, it never hurts, and regardless of the industry,
to have all those qualitiesthat you're outlining a great
work ethic, showing up on time.
You know it's a very smallthing that many people overlook,
especially those who do it, butthere are a vast number of

(14:08):
people who just cannot managetime and that's so important
when you want to put somebody ina position that's high profile
or a leadership position,whether it's in music or not.
People want to know that theycan.
People in authority want toknow that they can depend on
whoever it is that's required todo the job.

(14:30):
And that's, you know, that'sgreat advice I think you're
given to those, those youngpeople, because they can take
that, regardless if they stay inmusic or not, they can take
that's a quality and acharacteristic that they can
take with them wherever they endup.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
I, you know, and for me, show that you care like I
remember when I first met JoeSatriani and I was I was new at
PV and we were working on thejazz the JSX was just this idea
at the time and it was, you know, kind of in its Creation stage
I took over from anothergentleman, bill Xavier, who was
the previous product specialist.

(15:09):
He got promoted up and thenthey hired me to come in to
follow Bill.
So Bill's like let me introduceyou to Joe.
We were in New Orleans, joe wasplaying a show and we go to the
hotel and you know I was I wasa fan, you know, of course is
Joe Satriani.
So I get to meet him and we'resitting in this little you know

(15:31):
bar area you know in the hotelin New Orleans and just having a
conversation and he was just sochill and so my, my anxiety
kind of went down and and Billand them were talking and they
were both from California, sothey knew each other years ago
and that's why Joe got to PV wasbecause of Bill, and so he
hands me over, we start talkingabout some stuff and I'll never

(15:53):
forget I had all these notes inmy head.
This is how I am and I said,okay, I don't want to be fanboy,
I don't want to put you on this, but I got some questions and I
just some things from listeningto his albums and career and
what were you using on this andthis?
And you know, it was just thatpoint.
I saw Everything change withwhat I went.

(16:14):
Joe just kind of turn around,said, oh, that's interesting.
You say that, well, we were hereand I didn't have access to
this.
So we end up using this ampbecause I'm surprised you picked
up on this.
So sometimes showing up andjust showing you know interest
and and the respect you know,sometimes, because I get a lot

(16:35):
of guys that those come in oh Ilike that song, I don't know why
you wrote that song now, soit's all opinions.
Well, you know, you know, Imean you gotta watch how you
come off sometimes.
Sometimes you come in andquestion going like I had a Band
one time and I said I know thesingle that first single was not
the band's choice.
I knew that was a recordcompany guy and they're like
you're right.
Yeah, we didn't want that.
So we wanted this other songand I'm like, well, it's a

(16:56):
better song, but the recordcompany wanted this right now.
Oh yeah, you know.
So it's those connections youwant to make, I guess is my
whole point you speaking ofcharts, how has that changed and
how Success is measured?

Speaker 1 (17:13):
and as it pertains to charts, you know, with the
advent of streaming, as opposedto what were historically, what
we've historically utilized isjust radio.
Radio plays for charts.
Now it's, it's measured instreams in addition to radio.
Do you have, do you haveknowledge in regards to you know

(17:37):
where the chart, how the chartindustry has changed and what
it's, what it consists ofcurrently?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, you know I'm not one of these musicians that
I hear a lot of guys in theAlchem.
There's a lot wrong with themusic industry.
You know.
I'm not gonna just jump on thatbandwagon and add to it, but
there's also a huge upside tothe music industry currently.
Technology has been.
I'm not a huge fan oftechnology, but technology has

(18:09):
worked in musicians favors andthe streaming thing.
I'm not really against so muchbecause it's been so good to me
and and it has changed.
You know we're before, when wewere growing up at least me and
my generation, I, you know isabout albums and this and you
know I loved it.
You buy a new record and youopen it up and you read all the

(18:29):
liner notes and then and I missthat, I, I swear I do, I miss
that we're downloading somethingand seeing on it.
It's not quite the same, Idon't get the same, you know
right Jones for it.
But but it's still a thing andmusicians are still charting.
You know I have a friend ofmine, daniel Boone, who I

(18:50):
produced.
He has a song that's chartingright currently.
That's on the independentcountry charts.
Well, that didn't exist yearsago, you know.
I mean, the independent countrycharts was this underground
thing that nobody really cared.
Well, now, some of thesedifferent charts and because of
streaming, that playing fieldhas leveled off.
So now his song it's calledthat's my drive, that he wrote

(19:14):
and it's 98 or something likethat, and he made the top 100,
which is fantastic, you know,and but he's up there with other
major artists becauseIndependent means, you know,
they're just not part of a mainlabel anymore and labels aren't
labels anymore.
So people are putting out moremusic independently, which I

(19:37):
think is wonderful, and it kindof gave the control back to the
artist.
And and the labels aren't thesegatekeepers like they once were
, where you couldn't have acareer unless you went through
there.
Yes, yes, let me stop you rightthere, because that brings up
something that I'm veryinterested in.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
So you mentioned labels being gatekeepers.
Right, and that's 100% whatthey have been historically and
continue to be to a certainextent today, not as much due to
the technology, but thetechnology and the advent of it
and the affordability of it forthe average person Now also

(20:17):
levels the playing field andgives people, gives more artists
, more of an opportunity To beheard and not have to be so
dependent upon getting a bigrecord label deal Now at this
point.
Do you think Doesn't hurt?
Yeah, do you think that's whatyou're talking about?

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Doesn't hurt.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Do you think record labels?
You said they're not labelsanymore.
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Well it's, they're not as much of a necessity as
they were.
You know, I had a band back inthe 90s and we got signed to
this, to this one, to WarnerBrothers was subsidiary of
Warner Brothers and in Chicagoback in the day.
And when we got dropped, youknow, like every new band, we
made the same mistakes everyother band makes.

(21:03):
When you're 21, you know, andsigned to a label, you know we
made every mistake you can makeand we got dropped while our
career was over.
At that point it were where theindustry was in in the early
90s.
You know, the Grunt, pre-grungeera and all that kind of stuff.
If you didn't have a majorlabel you were done.
But then all of a sudden, this,this little independent thing

(21:27):
started happening where some,all of a sudden, bands were
having hits with little labels.
You know you didn't have to beWarner Brothers or Atlantic
Records or Sony and in some ofthese big guys, you know, all of
a sudden, you know you had bighits coming from, you know, and
Geffen at that time was big, butthey started small and you know
I I just started seeing thetide turn a little bit.

(21:51):
So where a lot of the guys inmy band as we broke up.
You know One guy went to goback to.
He went back to school.
You know study to be a lawyer,and you know the others went,
and wherever.
But I stayed in the musicindustry because, again, that
was my only goal.
I knew that wasn't my end.
All that was just my jumpingoff point.
So I got into more bands, Istarted working behind the

(22:13):
scenes and I started figuringthis business out and what I end
up seeing behind the scenes wasthese labels have way too much
control and they were not payingany attention To the scene
itself.
I was a part of a scene when Isaw through the grunge area.
You know grunge kind of cameand went.
You know they kind of implodedon themselves.
You know that whole era, eventhough some of great music came

(22:35):
from that era and some greatbands Pearl Jam, nirvana, you
know Sound Guard and all thosebands but there was this
underground part that nobody waspaying attention to and I was
like one of these days they'regonna go away and all these
other bands are gonna come outthrough the thing.
And what happened was, as youknow, cops college student came

(22:55):
up with this way of streamingmusic and this, and that he
approached every major Recordlabel and said you guys need to
start streaming all your bands.
Here's this technology, youneed to put it up on a website
and this and that, and they allturned them down.
Every single one of them turnedthem down.
And he's like then, and he's so.
He's like fine, you don't want,you want to be these

(23:17):
gatekeepers.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna crash itall down.
And that's when he came outwith Napster, and that's why
Napster happened the way it did,because every major label
Didn't see where this underlyingbelly, where the American
people or where the industry was.
There were Thousands of bandsthat were getting no attention

(23:38):
because these gatekeepers saidthey couldn't have careers, and
all these bands were like hey,we got to pay our bills too, and
and I saw that turn around andthat, for me, I came out of that
.
So when Napster and all thisstart happening, what I saw was
Huge bands that I idolized allof a sudden came down to my
level.
All of a sudden, my music is onthe same website as their Music

(24:02):
was on.
All of a sudden, my stuff Wasintermixing, just because we
were just numerically, you know?
Or, or, yeah, you know our lastnames.
You know just ended up comingin with the band name or
whatever.
I had.
It just got listed that waybecause the computer doesn't
know, can you?
You know you computer doesn'tknow they're better than we are,
they're more famous than we.
All they know is Pearl Jam,stars would appear in Pasco,

(24:24):
stars would appear boom, and,and I'm listed right next to
those guys.
So that to me is was huge andand that took my career kind in
this other direction.
So it helped that the it kindof.
You know the Kings kind ofcrumbled a little bit.
Now they still have reach.

(24:44):
You know there's still, and ahuge advantage of being on a
major like budget.
You know sponsorship, you knowthere.
You know you have a lot of thatlot live.
What is it?
Live not live aid.
But you know the, the touringcompany and all this.
I mean there there's a lot ofconnections.
There still is a major label,part of the industry Grammy.

(25:06):
You know the Grammys.
You know there's some of thesebig places.
They only pay attention to onepart of it, but if you look at
where we have gone, well, now wehave Spotify and and now an app
store still around.
And now you have all theseother streaming type of places
and YouTube and all these.
Anybody can be a part of it,everybody.

(25:26):
And and what I always tellpeople and this was some good
advice I got years ago FromGeorge Clinton, of all people,
from P-Funk, he said to me creamrises to the top, he goes.
Just put yourself out there, hegoes.
If you're good it'll.
That's right.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
I totally, I totally agree with that sentiment now,
the fact that we now have allthese platforms when people can
put their music for the listenerto consume has that caused
artists to have to make moremusic more often?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yes, now, that's now here's now here.
There's always a flip side.
When something goes up, there'salways the underbelly the.
The underbelly, unfortunatelynow is you have tons of artists
out there.
Now you have tons of whitenoise.
Everybody can make any kind ofmusic they want.
The downside to that is becauseof that the, the listener, is

(26:27):
changed.
This is something I was justhaving a discussion with
somebody about not long ago.
People in the 70s listen tomusic totally different than how
kids today listen to music, andyou can call it Whatever you
want 80d, 80, hd or whatever.
We have short attention spansor whatever.
That's fine, but that.
But again, that's the reality.

(26:48):
They're used of having moremusic more often.
They don't have to hold on tostairway to heaven because there
isn't going to be another LedZeppelin record for three years.
That doesn't exist anymore.
Now they can get More stuff.
They can get the outtakes, theycan get the live performances,
they can get their fill, likefor me, if I was a kid now

(27:10):
growing up, maybe I wouldn't beas as much of a a Go-getter like
maybe I am Because everything'scut is being presented to me.
When I was a kid I had a search,for I had to go to record
stores, you know, and they weresnooty at these record.

(27:31):
If you remember record stores,the guy that ran the record
store was like this hipster guythat knew everything and you
were, you didn't know real musicand you're not listening to
this guy.
And Coltrane did this in 1967.
You don't know this importrecording from Japan and and all
this stuff made you feel like Ididn't know anything.

(27:51):
But that was part of this, youknow.
It gave you that drive.
I'm gonna learn more.
I gotta, I gotta be hipster guylike him.
You know, I gotta knowsomething, because I you feel
you were constantly feeling ifyou didn't track it down, you
were not in the know, youweren't in that in crowd.
Unfortunately, now the kids cansit at home and the in crowd
comes to them and so.

(28:14):
So it's kind of flipped.
It's neat that they have accessto all of it, but part of me
always says, well, becausethey're they have so much being
thrown at them, do they even?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
appreciate?
I don't think so.
I don't not on the level thatthat Music used to be
appreciated.
Now, that's not say that'sanybody's fault, anybody's right
.
One person's right, oneperson's wrong.
One Generation just had adifferent experience than the
other, but it has, from what Ican tell, just the, the
frequency and the quantity inwhich the artists that I pay

(28:46):
attention to the most Come outwith music seems to be as a as a
result, to a certain extent, ofthe environment as it pertains
to streaming, because you knowyou can just with the numbers
that the more More shit that'sout there, the more content
that's out there, the less onelisten or one view means.

(29:11):
So the let the less weight oneone listen or one view or one
download, the less weight itcarries.
Now in podcasting, Nearly asmuch.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
That's another big reason why you want to put more
music out there, because you hitit right on the head with the
Downloading.
We don't make enough, so wehave to put more out there to
keep that gender.
They keep the flow and ourmoney Keep it generating.
You know, because before analbum can come out, you know,
and a guy, the guys, made enoughmoney where they could live the
next year or two.
Hopefully, you know they had ahit or whatever.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
But yeah, nowadays that's so when, when I hear
someone say XYZ artist releasedan album last month and has a
masked X number of sales Sincereleasing that record, what is
defined as a sale in today'senvironment?

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Well, that's a predetermined number.
Now how that happens is, let'ssay, if it comes out through a
label, okay, let's just just X,country artist.
They already know how manypre-orders they have, because
you're not seeing CDs anymore.
You know as it Downloads.
And so what is the?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
is a pre-order, like when an album is about to be
released on Apple or Spotify orwhatever the platform is, and
you can pre-order that album orpre Download it.
Is that a sale?
Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's changed.
And you also got to thinkdepending they it's all computer
algorithm a Certain album couldbe released, like Taylor Swift.
She releases anything you know.
She can release burping tomusic, you know what I mean and
she's on the top of thatalgorithm.

(31:07):
So whatever she releases isgonna be on the crop, the cream
of of everything.
So it's gonna show upeverywhere.
It's already been pre-sold, italready is in all the other
Formats countries.
It's already been licensed tocommercials.
It's already Before we evenhear it, it's already made its
rounds.

(31:28):
So that's when they come outsaying well, you know, she
already has three, three milliondownloads.
Well, it's because she's inthree million places when the
song, and then when it goes upfrom there, she know, they know
when they release a certain songshe's gonna get an X amount of
downloads right out of the gate.
So it's a predetermined numberthat they give you.
It's not and it's sometimesit's exact, or if it goes over.

(31:50):
That's when you always say ohWell, we thought she was only
gonna get three million, she gotsix because they add that.
But um, and that's how it'salways been.
Record sales were the same waywhen a record came out back in
the 80s, depending on how manymusic stores pick, placed in
order for that, for that album.
That's how they would tell youoh, it went platinum the first

(32:11):
week.
How could that be?
It just came out well, becauseit hit a hundred thousand music
stores in in the United States.
So there's a hundred thousandcopies out there.
That's how that.
That's, that's the number theyalways use and it's the same
idea.
It's out there in X amount ofspaces.
So that's how they tell youit's, it's, it's already been
downloaded three million times.

(32:32):
Well, it's in three millionplaces already and they know per
space, spotify, you know, orwherever you know you get your
music, it's gonna get thatamount.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Has the revenue percentage per sale.
Ie download decreased for theartists since we've shifted from
Records and CDs to streamingyou.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
It was never good.
I'll put it to you this way youtalked to any artist from the
1950s they all got screwed.
You talked to any artist fromthe 1970s they all got screwed.
You talked to any artist fromthe 1990s, they were the last
ones smashing pumpkins.
And all those guys will tellyou man, our paychecks weren't
great, but it's better than now.
Then the bottom again, thisNapster thing.

(33:20):
When the bottom fell out,that's really what it meant was
the financial bottom fell out.
Streaming.
Personally, now, this is theonly downside to streaming I
will ever talk about.
But this is common knowledge, Ihope, because a lot of people
always give me this weird thinglike well, you're getting paid,

(33:41):
your stuff is being streamed,you're getting paid.
And it's like well, wait aminute, let's talk about the
payment.
You stream one of my songs, Iget a percentage of a penny.
You have to play my stuff ahundred times, almost a thousand
times, for me to make a dollar,for me to make a penny.
You have to listen to it ahundred times For me to make, or
75, I think it is 75 times.

(34:04):
Then you make an actual penny.
What they did was they decidedwell, because streaming has no
value to it.
They're not actually owning themusic, they're listening to it.
So we don't have to give youactual pennies, even though it
costs me dollars to make.
If it costs me $5,000 toproduce a song, you know what I

(34:26):
mean.
Think about that Before I canmake my $5,000 back.
I got to get 100,000 streams.
Now that is possible, but notevery artist gets that.
Again, you're going back tothat breaking even point.
Where people don't understandis yes, I'm getting paid, but my

(34:47):
work is being perceived so muchless.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
There's a cost to producing anything.
Although music is art,obviously there's still a cost
to creating particularly greatart.
People deserve to be paid forthe time and the effort and

(35:12):
whatever the financial budgetburden or cost was to produce a
product.
It just seems to me like nowthat the music landscape is just
so vast, when it comes toconsumption, that I'll get on
Apple Music, and I lovelistening to music, all types of
music.
I've got different playlists.

(35:34):
You bringing up the introductionof Napster reminds me of when I
was a child.
Napster came out so I wasprobably seven or eight years
old, maybe even younger.
The only music that I wasexposed to was much like any
other child in a small town inthat era on the local radio

(35:57):
station and whatever the parentshad in the house.
Then phones and streaming camefirst and we had Lime Wire.
I'm sure you remember Lime Wire.
Then I was able to explore moremusic that interested me.
Then we were burning CDs and wefinally made it to streaming,

(36:17):
and when streaming came on andwas on all of our smartphones,
then we could really exploremusic.
But now it's to the point where,like, there's just so much
content out there that it'soverwhelming to even try to
decide which direction you wantto go to discover new music.
That's something that I findvery difficult to navigate,

(36:39):
although Apple and Apple Musicand Spotify are in a very
interesting competition to watch, if you ask me.
But I think it's a great thingbecause, with all the negatives
that people may say streaminghas brought on, it has, at its
net result, allowed people todiscover more music and more

(37:03):
artists to be discovered, andthat's a net positive, if you
ask me.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Oh, that's why I don't complain about it, because
I've taken as full of advantageof it as I absolutely could and
I've done okay.
I guess I'm still here.
To me, I think, what it comesdown to is you're right, this

(37:31):
white nice.
I always go back to what Georgesaid the cream rises to the top
.
There's a reason why certainpeople you just gravitate to,
then others, some seem likethey're always spinning their
wheels and then they just neverquite make it.
That's what every generationhad, that this generation has a
bit of it as well.
So for me, I think as an artist, you have to make up your mind

(37:59):
early on that this is just whatI do.
This is kind of where I'mcomfortable.
This is who I am.
You got to be honest.
That's the other thing.
The internet has also broughtthis whole thing out, where
before you can be as elaborateas you want to be, you can have
your pseudo names and dowhatever you want to yourself

(38:20):
and make your art as much of anart as you want it to be.
But if it's not authentic,people see right through it.
So the technology doesn't coverup the genuineness of you.
That actually exposes you evenmore now.
So I tell artists you're goingto be.
You know they go oh, we'regoing to do this and we're going
to do this.
Can you keep that up?

(38:41):
Because if you do all this,just remember they're going to
hold you to it.
You're going to have some kidthat's like, oh well, that's who
they are.
And then when you come overhere and all of a sudden he
finds out, well then it's awhole thing's a lie.
You'll lose them completely.
Now you know what I mean.
So you have to think of whatyou're putting out there, how

(39:01):
you're representing yourself,because not everyone's going to
agree with you anyway.
So, no matter who you are,someone's going to say, well,
he's an idiot, I don't careabout him.
You know well, okay, well, butthis is at least I'm true to
myself and that's just to me.
You just got to make that honesteffort, no matter, and your fan
base, whoever they are, willfollow you.

(39:23):
You can change within yourconfines.
If it's honest.
Tell your story.
I always tell artists this Iget a lot of musicians that
don't want to tell their storybecause they're afraid they may
not come off or people may thinkthere's something that they're
not.
And I said what do you mean?
Human, be human.
We have fools.
All of us have faults.

(39:44):
We all made mistakes.
You know your audience aren'tstupid and if they are, then
you're doing something wrong.
You want to appeal and let themsee who really who you are,
because that that makes themwant to invest in you.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
And that's what you're really.
So you it sounds like you're,you were ahead of the curve and
when it comes to streaming, andyou were on board with the quote
unquote new school, new styleof distributing and consuming
music.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
And recording my own music.
I've been recording my ownmusic.
I mean I remember I had in thenineties everything was in
recordings.
This is before pro tools.
I went to Columbia college andI remember I took a studio class
and I was at WaxTrack studiosin Chicago and I remember the
engineer in WaxTrack at the timesaid you know, in 10 years

(40:37):
these big boards and all of this, it's all going to go away.
And he had an Apple computer onhis desk.
He goes we're all going to bemaking music in this thing.
And I'm like that's crazy.
No, I think that this boxcannot replace all of this
equipment.
And then he goes I hate to tellyou in 10 years this is what's
going to happen If I were.

(40:58):
You learn this box.
So I remember Roland made thisrecording, digital recording
piece.
It was huge at the time.
It was like eight tracks andyou could record on a hard drive
.
It was like a, not like afloppy disk, but it was those
square hard drives that youwould put in.

(41:19):
And I remember I just startedplugging mics in and recording
and figuring out sound and justtrying to do it myself.
And you know I had a lot ofinspiration because of that
because, as we were growing upyou always hear about, like
Jimmy Page, they recorded JohnBonham's drums in a hallway and

(41:39):
that's how he got the sound ofthe drums.
It was in a hall, it wasn't ina studio.
So I always had that in my headlike well, I'm going to be like
Jimmy Page, I'm going to recordmy own stuff.
And you just do that as a kid,cause, you know, as you get
older you start second guessingyourself.
When you're a kid you're justlike I'm going to do this and
I'm going to do it like that.
You just try it without noteven thinking.
And I just started recording mystuff.

(42:00):
So when the internet came out,all of a sudden I had all this
music and I'm going to put it up.
This is, you know, and then mymom for most part it's your mom
and your dad and your aunts anduncles I'm like, oh, look at
Tony's music, oh, it's so nice,and that's how it starts.
And then it kind of grows.
And then all of a sudden, youknow it, just the industry kind
of grew in that direction and Ijust had stuff out and it just

(42:23):
kind of.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Do you have any?
Do you have any reservationsabout electronic instrumentation
, whether it be garage band orlogic and things of that nature?

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, I mean I like playing my style, I like to hear
real instruments personally.
But to see some of these kidswhat they do with this
technology, I mean it's cool.
I mean it's not my thing, youknow personally.
But I got to tell you, you know, like when I remember when hip

(42:54):
hop first came out and all mymusicians friends are like, oh,
this is just record, they'restealing this and it's just drum
beats, and I'm like, yeah, butthat's really a cool song, man,
and I mean that's just kind ofneat.
I couldn't do it.
That's not how I came up inanything, you know, but so for
me I was.
I kind of respect the artistry.
I understand why they did it.

(43:15):
I wish they all learned to playan instrument like me.
You know that's what I prefer.
But you know you listen toBeastie Boys, you listen to
License, to Ill.
I was in eighth grade when thatalbum came out.
That was life changing for me.
You know I mean that album wasjust like, oh my God, you know

(43:36):
so, and that's a totallydifferent genre of music that I
ever listened to.
But it was so creative, youknow, and it was so different
sounding and that woke me up tolike, well, I could sound
different than maybe I could trydifferent things.
Or why am I not hearing thiskind of music?
So for me, that's how my mindhas always worked.
When I hear something new orsomething different, your

(43:58):
instinct is, you know, like theMacarena, I'll swear to God, I
was like, okay, the worst songin history, for example.
That song is a good example ofa record company shoving
something down the public'sthroat and just telling us it's
going to be a hit.
You're just going to like it,just do the stupid dance.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Doesn't that happen, tony?
Sorry to cut you off, but thatreminds me of something that I
do want to ask you.
So, as it pertains to labelsand their influence and their
impact on what is ultimately ahit, do they just have enough
ammunition in the way of fundingthat they can just fund it

(44:39):
infinitely until people learn it?
And then, once they learn it,it's like, whether they really
like this shit or not, they knowthe song and we all know, once
we know a song, that we like iteven more.
So like.
Is the shit that they'repushing really what the people
really like, or is it just whatreceived the most funding and
the most marketing?

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yep, it's all money and that's part of the industry.
That still happens, even moreso today.
That happened years ago too.
I mean, it's been happening.
Every generation has it.
You look back, like when thedoors licensed Light my Fire to
a vacuum company or whatever andthey're selling vacuum and Jim
Morrison went insane becausehe's like did we write that song

(45:25):
for a commercial?
I thought we were artists, Ithought we were songwriters.
It was called Jingles back then.
And I see that today, wherethey use these songs in
advertising and now I'm notgoing to get on my high horse
because I do it.
You know I have this moneythere for artists.

(45:46):
I understand the business partof it now, but, with that said,
it can be that way.
We invested in the song, wethink it's a hit.
We're going to keep shovelingit out there until you like,
until the general media says youknow we want it now.

(46:08):
Or you know the Macarena, likeI said, is the perfect example.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, and I think I pay attention to primarily
country music and hip hop music.
Those are my two favoritegenres and so that's what I
listen to mostly, and so I keepan eye on who the most popular
acts are, what the hits are ofthe day, all the thing, all the
you know, all that goes withthat.
But what I've noticed,particularly in the country

(46:32):
music industry, is recently theyhave now that, granted, the
stars could have just lined upjust right to where they have
authentic artists who definitelyresonate with the people, who
are over talented.
But it seems to me like theyare giving more of these
underground artists, more of thespotlight and promoting them

(46:55):
more, as opposed to just takinga prototypical guy with a fake
Southern Droll and a cowboy hatand creating a prototype,
essentially, and marketing himand pushing him.
It seems to be that the artistsare becoming more authentic and
they're allowing them to be whothey really are.
Have you seen evidence of thatrecently across the music

(47:18):
industry and, if so, in whatways can that be highlighted?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, that's a direct result of the internet.
I mean, what the reason?
You're seeing guys, thiscountry music, especially now
with some of these newer guysthat are coming out?
They are, they're authentic,these guys, you know, and
they're great, but that'sbecause the internet is telling

(47:46):
these record companies theseguys are getting billions of
dollars.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
You better pay attention to what the people
actually like.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
All this is a response to them doing it on
their own and all of a suddenthe industry comes to the artist
.
That's the ultimate.
That's really in every artist.
That's the should be their goaltoday.
Get yourself out there, do ityourself, run this thing like
your own record label, like yourown business, and then do so

(48:15):
well that the industry finds you.
And then you know, maybe you doan album or two with them or
whatever.
You know, like I said, there isan advantage and then that also
that does another thing.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
I mean that that creates a generation of artists
who are more privy to thebusiness nature of the music
industry.
So not only can they do, theyhave that experience, that
business experience, but theyknow how to not get screwed
whenever they do go to the, tothe negotiation table with a

(48:45):
label like the, like the ZachBryan guy, for example.
I mean he is just, I mean he'sjust everywhere, he's probably
the most popular person in musicright now and he did it for a
while on his own.
But now take him, for example,and I don't know his status, if
he's with a label or if he'sbeen approached, what have you?
But a person like him can betheoretically more business

(49:11):
astute and get the better dealand capitalize as much as
possible when going on boardwith one of those labels, and
you're going to have ageneration of artists, to a
certain extent, that have thatexperience.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
And that's wonderful.
That's what we want.
We want better educatedmusicians like that representing
themselves, and that's reallywhat it comes down to and that's
why I think this trend it's sogreat, because the playing field
has been leveled off and thishas been happening for a while.
Think about you know, a lot ofpeople talk about rap.

(49:44):
Look at rap to me.
I got an early appreciation ofrap.
I met Coolio years ago.
Okay, I'm dating myself earlyrap Coolio.
But I was at a NAMM show.
I was working at Washburn at thetime and we were doing some
speakers or something for histour.

(50:05):
We were supplying someequipment for his tour and I
remember he showed up and he wasdoing an autograph signing at
our booth.
You know, it's an industrytrade show thing and he's Coolio
and he had the crazy hair andhe had all the stuff and the
gold and he's all coming in andacting up and he's signing the
autograph in front of the people.

(50:25):
He comes back.
We had this like back areawhere they had offices.
You know, at this booth hecomes back, he sits down and
I'll never forget this we're ina room of a bunch of us and my
boss and everything.
He sits down.
He pulls out this contract, heopens it up and he puts on these
glasses he had and he goes nowthis revision over here.

(50:47):
I don't like to explain to methe language.
This and this is.
He was like he was his ownlawyer, he could read contracts
and all of a sudden, the wholeact went away, the whole job.
You know whatever his wholelingo thing was.
That all went away and I satthere like, oh my God, I get it.

(51:08):
This is show business.
That was the show.
Now here's the business.
I couldn't tell you howimpressed with that man I was.
He was very well, just a niceperson, smart though, and he
caught every little thing and hehad certain things, I mean, and

(51:28):
that's when I went.
You know what.
That's what these guys havefigured out.
If you look at the rap industry, every rock band should follow,
should run their band like arapper.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Yeah, that's something that interests me.
That I've noticed in the musiclandscape is that successful
rappers historically have goneon to start their own label.
Whether that label ends upbeing successful or not, that's
neither here nor there in thisobservation, but in country
music I don't remember anyartists creating a label after

(52:04):
having super success.
They may create, they may get abar on Broadway and Nashville,
you know, they may do somethingof that nature, but the rap game
is known for successful artistsgoing on to create their own
labels.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah, independent, doing their own thing.
I mean again, I mean I like themusic.
I may not agree with how theydo it, you know what I mean, but
they're authentic.
If you notice what they do andhow they put their business
together, they're no joke.
You know they'll have their ownclothing, their own drinks, and
this I mean.

(52:41):
They know about licensing andthat's what I learned.
And that's what I learned earlyon was I got into licensing
with my music and that's where alot of my successes come from
was from this licensing.
And I tell you I mean it'samazing in life as you go on, if
you just sometimes just zip itand pay attention, it's amazing

(53:05):
what gets presented to you Ifyou pay attention.
Like I said, coolio, it wasthat influence.
When I saw this guy make heturn that switch Boom.
Now I'm like, well, now I knowwhy he's successful.
I get it now, oh OK, I got to bea little smarter here.
And then you just kind of.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
It's cliche.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
One of the most cliche sayings of all time.
But knowledge is power, and Imean the more I live, the more I
believe and recognize that.
That if you, if you have thatknowledge that a lot of people
don't, if you have scarceknowledge, then that is valuable
, that makes you more valuable.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
And I don't buy into this whole thing that you know,
like now I know we have a lot ofthese kids with just tons of
excuses.
You've got to get rid of that.
That is a bad habit.
And I remember my grandfathersaid to me, you know well, why'd
you do this?
Well, it was because of this.
And it was well why'd you get abad grip?
Well, it was because of this.
And he said stop that.
Excuses is a bad habit.

(54:08):
Not alone.
It will stop you from doinglots of things Own up to it, say
you're sorry or takeresponsibility, because what
that does is it opens otherthings up to you.
So if I didn't see, like I said, like Cooley came in and he was

(54:31):
, like I said, put on glasses,he's reading the contract, if I
would have just had this prelike ah, you know what you know,
I would have overlooked theimportance of what that
influence had on me, of payattention to these things.
You should be like that guy.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
And God puts us in situations and he gives us
opportunities.
Sometimes we capitalize on them, sometimes we don't, and you
know, it's just we're cumin,that's right.
That's right.
You're exactly right.
You're not going to be likethat for a hundred percent of
the time or ever, but it's, it'svery, it's very important for

(55:10):
us, regardless of what we'redoing, to be ready for those
opportunities, such as beingencountering Cooley and
recognizing the greatness ofCooley's business acumen, you
know.
Take that to heart, recognizethat that was a opportunity sent
to you to learn something.

(55:31):
Although a small encounter itwas, it had a great impact on
you because it sounds like itopened your eyes to what you
could become if you representedyourself or other artists, for
example.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Well, and that's where I was saying you know, I
have a lot of artists saying,well, I need a manager and I
need a tour manager and I needthis and I need a publicist.
You, you're the, all those guys.
Be those guys.
And that's what I saw.
I didn't see Cooley will bringin a lawyer and just sit back,
smoke a cigarette, why.
This guy explained everything.
I saw this guy put on his ownglasses and point out this, this

(56:08):
, and he had it highlighted andeverything.
He did it himself so that youcan trust yourself better than
trust anybody else.
So that was like I starteddoing that, more and more,
asking more questions, justtrying to take my own
responsibility for my career.
Even if you fail which I havemany times, it's a that becomes

(56:28):
part of the learning process.
So then you don't, you're notafraid of failing as much.
You understand why you fail, soyou don't do it the next time.
Now, repeating failures, that'sthe thing you want to avoid at
all costs making that samemistake again and again.
I was in a band a few years agohere in Pensacola really great
band and the singer and thedrummer were were this.

(56:52):
I kind of joined them and theywere had this career for many
years, many years, and I came inand I said you guys keep making
the same mistakes, the reasonwhy your career isn't.
You should be a lot morepopular, a lot more famous we
should be.
You know, we should be playingmuch bigger places, making more
money.
But because you keep doing A, band C, this is what's stopping.

(57:15):
This is why you hit thatceiling.
Let me help you.
But some people are justunwilling or unable, for
whatever reason, to see theirown faults, to correct them,
because it's not easy, and trysomething that doesn't seem as
natural, because they you fallinto this, this thing, and and
and excuses and victim mentality.

(57:37):
A lot of musicians have avictim mentality.
I see it all the time.
Well, it's because of this.
Well, I can't do that, allright stop Right, just right.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
And we hear so many times of artists and athletes
who come into success at a youngage or very rapidly, and don't
necessarily have the personalskills to handle all of those
things that you mentionedthemselves, but it's because
they they haven't either had thetime or taken the initiative to

(58:12):
polish those skills and thatskill set for them.
But that's an interesting aspectof of the music industry,
particularly when you're talkingabout stars, but every day,
musicians as well, if you'retalking about somebody trying to
trying to book a show at thelocal hole in the wall those
simple just doing those thingsand handling those negotiations

(58:37):
can be immensely helpful in thelong run.
If you, you know, you stackthose little exercises on top of
one another and then one dayyou've got all that, you look up
and you have all this knowledgeand you start encountering
situations that you'veencountered before and you know
how to handle them.
And then you even get to apoint where you know how to
negotiate, you know how to useleverage and things of that

(58:58):
nature, and you just polish your, your business skills, speaking
of which you find out you havea whole toolbox full of tools
that you didn't know you had.
That's right.
You're just chasing your dream.
At the same time, you're alsomaking yourself valuable.
You're giving, you're puttingmore tools in your tool set,
making yourself a betterrepresentative of yourself and

(59:18):
Lord you know, god forbid, ifmusic doesn't work out, then
you've got some skills to fallback on and you know you've.
You've you alluded to it whenwe came in, when we started.
You have done a plethora ofdifferent things.
You've had a plethora ofdifferent experiences.
How in the world did you firstof all end up in meridian and

(59:43):
then, second of all, parlay thattime in meridian to being
include your music, beingincluded on one of the most
watched cable television showsof all time?
How did that transpire?

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Well, I was working for Washburn.
I was in Chicago.
You know, I'm born and raisedin Chicago and I was the product
specialist for Washburn and Iwas at a trade show and I was
telling you about this gentleman, bill.
He was moving up.
He got a promotion.
He was the products the productmanager at PV and I knew Bill

(01:00:22):
and I remember Bill came up tome and he said Hartley, pv, I'm
moving up.
He told me I had to find my ownreplacement.
He goes, would you beinterested?
He goes, I think you would be agood guy for this position.
You know he goes.
We need some fresh, young.
You know you're a little bityounger than the guys that
Hartley likes to hire, but I'llput you know he gave.

(01:00:44):
He told me find your ownreplacement, I choose you.
And I went.
Wow, thank you Bill, that'swonderful.
So I ended up getting a job ayear after that encounter.
It took a long time.
They flew me down the meridianand everything and of course I
was just like, really do I haveto move to meridian Mississippi?

(01:01:05):
But I had in my job interview Igot to sit with Hartley.
I never met Hartley or anythingbefore.
So I'm sitting in Hartley PV'soffice and I'm just kind of like
this is kind of this is surrealmoment, because I'm thinking,
you know, you think a, you knowLeo Fender, you think a Les Paul
, you think a Jim Marshall,hartley, pv these are these buzz

(01:01:29):
names, these are the guys thatcreated these brands that we all
grew up with and live with on adaily basis.
And I was just like I'm sittingin the office of one of those
guys and I'm like this is socrazy and he's.
You know he's a big, animatedguy and he talks like this and
that you know he's a funny guy.
But one thing he said to methat really piqued my interest,

(01:01:50):
other than all the other thingsthat I didn't know anything and
you know he was the greatHartley PV and all that kind of
funny stuff.
But one of the things we starttalking about, music and he's
and he started going off aboutthe blues.
Well, I'm from Chicago, I knowa little bit about the blues,
but he's from Mississippi, whereit all started.
So a lot of my references.

(01:02:11):
He kept saying no, no, no, youdidn't know.
Muddy Waters came from thislittle town over here and Buddy
Guy's from Louisiana and it'sjust up the road over here, and
BB King came from up and that'swhen we started talking.
I went you know what?
And he said to me if you comedown, I'll show you you have all
the reference of where theblues went to.

(01:02:31):
He goes, I'll show you where itall began.
If you come down and you becomemy guitar manager, he goes.
That's one thing I can show you.
And we had that in common.
We had this love for the bluesand the history and of country
music and the blues and folk andjust this.
Just I'm a hit.
I like that kind of stuff.

(01:02:51):
And he made that comment to meand I said you know what?
I went home and I told my wifeI'm like you know, yeah, it's
Moranium Mississippi.
We don't have to stay thereforever.
But from a musician standpoint,if I ever really want to know
of all the things, if I want toknow where it all came from,
where it all started, we aregoing to be in the belly, the

(01:03:12):
you know of it all right there.
And I'm like would you want tomove?
And she's like, yeah, let'sjust try it, you know.
So my wife and I we moved downand I spent five years at PV as
the product manager for theguitar and amp division and it
was cool.
It opened up a lot of doors, asyou would suspect, being the

(01:03:34):
product manager of PV, and ithad a lot of.
It was hard, I'll tell you.
It wasn't the easiest gig byany heart, are we?
Pv is not an easy guy, but he'sa brilliant guy and brilliant
people are not easy, you know.
And so not not not that I wanta bad mouth or anything, cause I
think I think the world of him.

(01:03:54):
He gave me an opportunity thatjust you know.
He saw something and decided tolet me try it and I came down
and I was like a bull in a chinashop down there the Southern
gentlemen's that worked at PVand everything.
And here's this guy from Chicagoand I'm we're doing this and
this and this and this, andwe're going to do it like this
and I'm I'm a mile down the roadand all of a sudden they're

(01:04:15):
like whoa slow.
This is not how we do businesshere.
We work at a different pace.
You're not going to come in andyou know, be this, you know
kind of Yankee guy doing allthis stuff and and but what they
all ended up seeing that I, Ididn't have an agenda like that,

(01:04:35):
I was just enthusiastic and Ijust wanted to make the best
products.
And then again it comes back tothese tools.
Like you were saying, onebuilds upon each other and you
got to learn to win people over.
You've got to learn to havepeople want to work with you,
and you got to learn how to talkto people and and and maybe I
have a bit of that and I'm I'mpersonable in a way, even though

(01:04:57):
we're from differentbackgrounds and stuff.
I was generally interested inwhat happened and and the
history.
So I looked at these people asmy historians and my teachers.
Well, it's kind of hard to hatea guy when he's, you know, kind
of asking you well, show me,how did this happen?
What happened here?
Well, civil war and all thisand all you know what I mean.

(01:05:18):
So I learned more than than Iever thought I wanted to learn.
But I, you know, I tried toimmerse myself into the
community the best I could.
I think the five years I was atPB we did some great work.
I put out a lot of stuff.
I'm actually in the PB book.
If you know the Hartley PB bookthat he came on with.
I have a little blurb righttowards the end but he talks

(01:05:41):
about me just a little bit.
But so I have my little pieceof PB history.
You know which was, which wasgreat.
But that door opened up wherethat moved me up, where now
certain artists saw me like here.
Before I was always way downhere.
Even when I worked at WashburnI was the product specialist.
I wasn't in any kind ofmanagement or anything.

(01:06:03):
I was the guy that did all theclinics and I traveled all over
the world.
Washburn was wonderful to me,sent me everywhere and I played
guitar all over the world.
It was a great gig doing mylittle clinics and stuff.
But then when I went to PB, I'mmanagement now at PB, so I'm
running one of the divisions.
You know I had hundreds ofpeople under me and but it was

(01:06:26):
all guitars and amps.
I mean, how wonderful was that?
I had Eddie Van Halen, I hadJoe Santariani, I had Leonard
Skinner, I had Ted Nugent, I had.
I mean, my God you know, Iwalked into this thing and it
was like the Rocker Roll Hall ofFame.
All of a sudden they're likehere you go, tony, you get to
hang out with all these guys now.
And it was amazing.
So I took it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Let me ask you real quick, tony, about your
experiences with and yourinteractions with, some of these
artists that you named in thatrole with PV.
Excuse me, what did theinteractions look like with
artists and what value were youbringing to them?
What exactly were you doing forthem?

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Well, this is a good point.
So you call, you're usuallydealing with a lot of management
companies.
You don't necessarily deal withthe bands personally.
That's usually how a lot ofthese companies work.
I didn't work that way.
I actually had goodrelationships with the musicians
because that's only how I sawmyself.

(01:07:32):
I'm a musician, so when I'mcalling Joe Satriani, I'm a
guitar player.
I'm going to talk guitars toJoe Satriani.
That's my dream.
You know what I mean and that'swhat Joe knows and that's what
he loves.
So we hit it off because we'rejust guitar players.
I just happened to be sittingin this seat.
So when we did his signature amp, it didn't come from a point of

(01:07:53):
well, you know, all right, wehave to sell it like this and it
has to retail for this amountof money and it has to do this.
I didn't come to him as anaccountant, I came to him as a
guitar player, like, let's makethe best, coolest amp ever and
we'll make it do this, we'llsound like this and this and
that, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah.
And then we came back and said,okay, well, it has to sell for
this amount of money, so maybewe won't do this.

(01:08:14):
You know what I mean and that'sit was just my interaction.
I had a little bit of thatbusiness side to me but I came
at it from a musician when Icalled.
You know, like when I wasworking with Doran Doran, I
worked with John Taylor, thebass player from Doran Doran,
you know I mean you just don'tcall John and just start talking

(01:08:36):
business.
You know this is what this manhas done for many years.
You got to know how to approachthese artists.
Granted me, having thatposition made them see me a
little bit more like you knowwhat I mean A little more on
their level.
So that helped.
But it's how you come off.

(01:08:57):
You have to be able to sellyourself like we had artists
that came on board with PV.
That said to me point blank I'monly here because of you, I
like you PV.
I never cared for the brandbefore.
They never really made anythingthat I liked, and then they came
on board and I made themsomething and they would go yeah
, this is really cool.

(01:09:17):
So that's what I think Ibrought.
I was able I was this bridge tobring them together to get the
products that the artiststhemselves really enjoyed
playing, Do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Hartley PV recognized that component of you and
considered that when hiring you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
No, that's the part he hated, I think, about me the
most.
No, that's true, I thinkbecause I was so young.
I think he thought he hired meand I would have no appearance
opinion and I'd be the squirrelyguy that he can kind of say do
it like this, do it like how Idid it, do it, you know, be like
me, use the words that I use,and I think he saw me, when he

(01:10:03):
hired me, as maybe being anextension of him out there,
because one of his biggestcomplaints with a lot of the
product managers were theywouldn't represent PV the way he
thought we should berepresenting PV and I'd be out
there and talking to Joe aboutpickups, and Hartley hated all
that.

(01:10:23):
He wasn't about that at all.
In respect, though, to Hartley,pv, where his business was, was
manufactured.
He was a manufacturer.
I have to source these parts, Ihave to put them together, I
have to pay these people toassemble this, I have to send
shipping, and all this, to hismind, worked that he was a

(01:10:44):
manufacturer.
I came into it as a musicianthat happens to work for a
manufacturer, and that's how Isaw, but I had a lot of success.
He didn't leave me alone, forthe most part because nobody
complained.
All of a sudden all theseartists were so happy with me or
with PV.
You know they were all sunwearing PV logos and stuff.

(01:11:06):
I made it.
I made it okay for a lot ofartists, but but that was what I
saw was lacking so much Stilldid a little bit of that.
But Bill was a little bit moreon the business side.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
That's why I think Bill I think Bill saw that more
in me than Hartley, while youwere in Meridian working for PV,
is that when your music firstgot picked up by Doug Dynasty?

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
No, none of this happened when I was at PV.
What happened was this wasactually kind of funny.
Hartley has this thing when youwalk up into the main building
of PV, it says PV.
You know in the big lights,when you walk in and me being
who I am, I'm out there sayingtalking is well, he must have

(01:11:52):
heard.
Well, tony said this.
Tony said this.
Tony said this.
You know not a lot of Tony,tony, tony.
One day I was in his office.
He walked me out in front ofthe building.
He's like whose name is on thatbuilding?
I said your name and he goes.
It says PV, not Pasco.
And I went oh, and he goes.
I think you're forgetting thatyou work for me.

(01:12:13):
And that's when I went.
Maybe I should think, because Isee where he's saying he
deserves to have a productmanager that puts his name first
.
And I was getting to a pointwhere I was feeling, you know

(01:12:34):
he's making some decisions thatI would never do if I owned this
.
You know I disagreed with somethings and I go, but that's not
fair to that man.
You know this man hired me toagree with his decisions.
If I truly don't feel the pathhe's going down is the right
path, then who am I to get inhis way?

(01:12:54):
That's how I took it.
So I went maybe I should havemy own Pasco company and then I
can make the decisions I want.
So I can say, well, whose nameis on the thing?
You know, it's Pasco and I kindof that's.
When it kind of came to mewhere I was like I think I'm
done here, I think I've doneeverything I'm supposed to do, I

(01:13:17):
did it as well as I couldabsolutely do it.
I gave him 110% in the fiveyears I was here and then all of
a sudden something kind ofchanged where I was like I want
to give 110% here now.
I couldn't give it to Hartleyanymore, and I think it was that
point.
When he pointed out at the signwhose name is that, I just kind
of went you're right, that'syour name, this is your company.

(01:13:40):
And that's when I decided toleave.
I started my.
I had a very good friend ofmine, rusty Hawkins, and he's
the one who sat me down and saidwhy can't you do for the rest
of the industry what you do forHartley?
I'm like is that possible?

(01:14:01):
And he's like well, it'spossible if you had your own
business.
It's not possible working forHartley and he goes.
Well, you know everybody, youknow the.
I mean those doors have beenopen.
You know the floodgates open.
Everybody knows you.
Now, while you're popular andeveryone knows you, now would be
a good time to show everybodyhey, now I'm my own guy and they

(01:14:23):
probably respect you for that,want to help you, you know, and
I'm like, oh okay, so that'swhat I did.
So I started Pasco Consulting.
I just started an LLC and Iworked for Blackstar Amplifiers
and Mad Professor Guitar Pedals.
I took on a couple othercompanies just to kind of stay
into it and I kind of helpedthem, like Blackstar.

(01:14:43):
Blackstar had like four dealersin the US when I met them.
Now they're like the eighthlargest guitar amp company in
the US or something like that,and they're a very small part in
the beginning to help themestablish that here.
But you know, it's just one ofthose things where if I didn't
have my own company I wouldn'thave been able to do that.

(01:15:05):
I applied a lot.
What I learned at PV helpedsome of these other companies
and it was during that timebecause of Blackstar, I had this
.
It's just funny how things inyour past all of a sudden come
back.
Because I was a productspecialist at Washburn, I could
do clinics.
Well, that's what Blackstarreally needed more of.
They needed me to go in themusic stores and show off how

(01:15:27):
great these amps were by playing.
And that's what I did.
I spent a year doing that andall of a sudden that got to a
friend of mine you know the bandwarrant.
I was telling the guys atBlackstar, you know you need to
get some more endorses.
And since I knew a lot ofartists you know I did artist

(01:15:48):
relations for you know Washburnand PV and stuff so I said, well
, let me call some friends ofmine because I thought they were
great amps.
We were at a trade show.
I invited a bunch of my friendsto come to listen to these amps
.
You know Blackstar friends ofmine.
They showed up because theyknew me and we started talking
and I was doing the clinic andEric the guitar player from

(01:16:10):
warrant said to me do you everwant to put out a record?
He goes, you have a band.
And I said, no, you know, Ijust have been working on this
and he goes.
You're a really great player,he goes, you should have a
record out and I'm like I wouldlove it.
I would love that.
Are you offering?
He goes?
Yeah, we just started our ownrecord label called Downboy
Records.
Let's talk, let's do a record.

(01:16:33):
Oh, this is great.
So he signed me to DownboyRecords.
I recorded a record called noLease and I made a lot of
mistakes on that record.
But he came back to when I wasyounger and remember I was
telling you, I had that littleeight track thing and all of a
sudden I was like well, I'mgoing to start recording all
this music.

(01:16:53):
I had a bunch of riffs andstuff but nothing completed.
So I started putting stufftogether.
I sent them a demo tape.
I had every intention of goinginto a studio hiring a drummer
and doing all this, but Ithought at the time I'm going to
be like Satriani.
I'm going to put together myown Satriani kind of record, you
know, because I just got doneworking with Joe.
So I sent this demo tape tothem to kind of show them what

(01:17:18):
my album would be.
Eric calls me up and he goes.
You know, you should finish outthese tracks.
We're going to release it likethis.
He goes.
They need a little polishing tothem.
I said, no, no, these are justdemos, dude, I'm going to
rerecord them like professional.
And he goes why they soundfantastic.
He goes is this, you allplaying all the instruments?

(01:17:39):
And I said, yeah, this is justmy ideas.
And he goes well, flesh themout a little bit, finish them up
.
He goes we're releasing this,you don't need anybody else,
just do this yourself.
This is your Tony Pascoe record, just do it.
He goes if you can do all thisproduction and play all the
instrument, just do it.
I was like really, and he'slike yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:17:59):
So I did that.
I said we're getting ready torelease it.
I sent the album to Joe.
Joe gave me this quote to useto help promote the record and
everything.
So here I have, joe Santrianiblessing my record.
I have a record label.
We put it out and it failedhorribly and commercially.

(01:18:20):
It did nothing.
It just.
I had one review and the guybasically said that the album
lives up to its name noise,which I thought that was a great
review, and so we put that out.
But what ended up happeningwith that?
How things happen in the world?
Eric said to me yeah, the album, you know it's going to do

(01:18:44):
whatever it's going to do.
Instrumental records don'treally sell that great, but he
goes.
We sent your record to a friendof ours who does licensing for
TV and he said he was veryimpressed with when I told him
that you played all theinstruments, you did all the
production and everything, thatyou have your own little studio

(01:19:05):
at home and that you can producewhatever you know.
You produce this yourself.
And I said yeah, yeah, I didall of it and he goes.
Well, he's interested becauseif you can do this stuff at home
, maybe commercially you knowthis album isn't the wet your
path Maybe it's licensing hegoes.
If you can produce your ownstuff like this, they need guys

(01:19:27):
like you that can just sit andwrite and play and record and
send them finished tracks.
And I said there is and he goes.
So that album became kind of mydemo tape.
So they said to me there's thishunting show that and they want
music.
He goes.
He goes, they're filming itLouisiana, he goes.

(01:19:47):
You live in meridian, he goes.
It's like three hours, likemaybe two hours from where you
lived in meridian.
He goes.
They want music and he justpicked.
Well, actually I didn't evenknow at that time, he just said
they want music from where youlive.
Give them traditional,authentic music.
You know, blues, bluegrass,that kind of stuff.
Oh, okay.

(01:20:09):
So I recorded a bunch of stuff,sent it off to him, didn't hear
anything for months.
Then I got a call from Jerryone day and he says to me he
goes, okay, wednesday nights,a&e, there's this new show
called Duck Dynasty, that yourmusic is all over it.
He goes they used all thetracks you sent them and they

(01:20:30):
need more.
And I'm like, are you kiddingme?
Oh, okay, sure you know.
At that time I thought that wasa lot of tracks and he said, no
, just, you know, watch it andsee what happens.
That was season two, becauseseason one was on the hunting
channel or the weather channel,whatever it was.
And then A&E picked it up.
A&e ended up re-licensing, theyended up redoing all the music

(01:20:54):
and everything.
So then I came on board andthen they had a new season two
Then that had all my music on itand everything.
So when none of us knew, and Iwatched it and I was like this
isn't a hunting show.
What kind of weird hunting showis this?
You don't know me, becausethat's how they presented it.
They said it was a hunting show.
I'm like this isn't really ahunting show, but it was goofy
and it was funny and you know, Imean the Robertsons were great

(01:21:16):
people and all of a sudden, boom, season four came out.
Well, we did season four.
The first episode of seasonfour broke a cable network
record.
We had 11.8 million peoplewatch one episode of Duck
Dynasty it was the most watchedreality TV show in history at

(01:21:38):
that time and they broke a cablerecord.
And then we ended up getting 10, 11 million people watching
after that.
So it was huge numbers.
I mean, none of us knew.
If anybody tells you they knewDuck Dynasty would be what it
became, they're lying.
So none of us knew.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
So how many seasons did it end up?
Did you do the music for all ofthe seasons?

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Yeah, I did 11 seasons of Duck Dynasty and it's
not just me, it's other writers.
You know it's not all my music,but it's a lot of it.
I mean I've probably done over2,200 tracks for Duck Dynasty,
yeah, over the 11 seasons andstuff.
And that now again that open.

(01:22:24):
All of a sudden I was stilldoing this part-time this wasn't
any kind of full-time gig byany means.
When Duck Dynasty became whatit became, that's when
everything switched and myrecord company said listen, they
need you full-time.
And now, dude, they need youfull-time.
Now Walberger wants music fromyou, shark Week wants music.

(01:22:48):
You know, 30 for 30 for HBO.
All of a sudden all these otherTV shows wanted that sound, that
kind of music or versions of it.
So we started doing, you know,wicca Tuna, I did Pippos and
Perolli's.
You know, all of a sudden theseother shows all wanted music.
So I had to start writing.

(01:23:08):
So every day I'm in my studiojust pumping out as much music
as I can.
And it was funny, I gotta say.
And what was so funny about howthat kind of happened?
I had to kind of let the wholeother side of the industry,
where I just spent a majority ofmy career, I kind of had to let
that go.
And now I'm this, writer for TV, which I never intended, ever.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
I didn't even know that was a job and all of a
sudden my current, not tounderestimate or downplay your
ability as a musician, but didyour ability to be able to
record that music at home,produce it yourself and ship it

(01:23:53):
out to these producers of thesetelevision shows at a lower cost
than some big time studio whohad to pay an artist, who had to
pay a producer, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah Did that play a
big, a big role in obviouslyyou're talented and they liked
the content of what you sentthem in that demo, but did your
ability to do it at a lower costplay into them ultimately

(01:24:18):
signing up to do more work withyou?

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
Absolutely.
I don't doubt that whatsoever.
But the industry changed too.
Now, studios got to be tooexpensive.
What happened with TV is andthis is true, I mean not to pat
myself on the back too much, butI've heard some tracks that

(01:24:42):
would produce some professionalstudios and they would send my
record label, would send methese tracks and they said
listen to one of your tracks.
Compared to what they justspent $10,000 on, I would listen
and I'm like there doesn'tsound that much better than mine
.
They're like no, your soundactually much better than theirs
.
I was like, oh, and they'relike.
You know, they said so it'sthat being able to record.

(01:25:05):
Well, you know what I mean.
I ended up finding I had theseother tools I didn't realize I
had in producing.
And what actually happened,what worked in my favor?
There was a shift that happenedwith Duck Dynasty, and this is
absolutely true.

(01:25:26):
What happened?
I was sitting in a conferencecourt.
Before every season at DuckDynasty, the music director
would have a conference call andwe would just all kind of sit
and he would tell us what kindof music he wanted for the next
season, what kind of directionthey were going into, just kind
of a heads up.
So I remember the musicdirector saying Tony, you know,

(01:25:49):
do you have a studio?
We record all this stuff?
And I said, yeah, I have my ownlittle studio here, you know.
They said some of your trackssound like a studio recording.
Is there any way you can recordsome stuff that doesn't sound
like it was done in a studio?
I said, well, sure, I guesswhat do you mean.
And he coined this phrase lo-fi.

(01:26:09):
He goes, we want tracks thatsometimes he goes.
If you listen to old bluesrecordings, he goes those
weren't recorded in fancyrecording studios.
Artists, you know, they'rerecording in closets and in
hotel rooms and stuff.
He's like could you give mesome?
You know.
And I say so, you want all thenoise and bleed.
And yeah, whatever that is,because they don't know they're
not musicians, we just want itto sound like old recordings.

(01:26:32):
And I'm like I can do that.
I mean that's easy, that'shappy, actually, and that's what
they asked for.
So I got into this thing andwhen you hear a lot on Duck
Dynasty, it's this lo-fi Kind ofrecording, not a ton of
instruments, not all this fancypanning and everything and

(01:26:53):
studio effects.
It's a mic like, for instance,the kick drum that you hear on a
lot of that dobro stuff that Idid on Duck Dynasty.
You know what that kick drum is.
It's not a drum.
I had this bathroom inMississippi in my house, had
these really tall ceilings in ithad great reverb.
So I put a towel over thetoilet seat of this bathroom.

(01:27:14):
That was connected to my studioand I'm from Chicago so I have
boots.
People don't remember boots InChicago when you have snow you
have winter boots.
I had boots and I took thisboot and I took a microphone and
I put it over the toilet andthen I had a click track and I
would just hit this boot on thetoilet on the towel and that's

(01:27:35):
what you would get the sound,this flubby sound.
And then I'd take it in thestudio and I'd EQ it and
compress it and add, you know,and then it had that reverb to
it and that's the kick drum youhear on tons of those recordings
is me just smacking a boot on atoilet.
So I started getting into thisDIY type of recording, this

(01:28:01):
lo-fi type of recording, and Iwas getting great results.
Cheap guitars I went toJeffries and you know they have
those packs of instruments forlittle kids.
I started buying all of thoseand all the little tingy things
and stuff.
That's what you hear on allthese little drums and little

(01:28:24):
vibraphones and stuff and littletoy pianos.
I started incorporating all ofthat and you start hearing that
as and it's funny when you hearit behind the scenes and stuff
it actually sounds kind of cute.
So I started thinking less oflike a musician, we're going to
play it like this.
You start thinking of moresound.

(01:28:45):
You're a sound scape.
You know what I mean, becauseyou're painting a picture behind
whatever's.
You have a visual in front ofit.
So really musically, you'rejust painting behind the visual
that they're watching or thedialogue.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Yes, I try.
Many people don't think aboutthis and I didn't think about it
much until Alana referred me toyou and I started looking into
some of your work andparticularly the Doug Dynasty
work, and then I startedimagining Doug Dynasty without
that music and it doesn't.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
It's got to have thatbackground feel that you're

(01:29:21):
speaking of to completely paintthe picture that they're trying
to paint.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
And I never thought about it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
Right, and me neither .
And I have to say, theseeditors, I don't know how they
piece they would hear it and seeit how they piece certain
things.
They use my tracks for somethings.
I would never, ever thoughtthat would work.
And then you watch it andyou're like, well, that's
actually really funny.
That little hip cup thing I didactually works in this.
I didn't know he would movelike that.

(01:29:51):
You know, like like, forinstance, si, you know, uncle Si
, that little banjo riff, hislittle theme, that you hear,
that little banjo thing.
That's me.
The story behind that was sofunny about that.
That track was one before one ofthe seasons.
The music director said and younever tell him no, by the way,

(01:30:12):
you know what I mean that,because they'll never ask you
again.
So the guy that's me hey, youknow we want more banjo.
This Tony, you didn't give usmuch banjo last season.
Can you give us some?
You play banjo, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I hang up and I'm yelling tomy wife who, do we know, owns a
banjo.
I never played a banjo in mylife.
So I ended up finding myfather-in-law had a banjo

(01:30:33):
sitting in a closet somewhere,so I grabbed it.
I got on YouTube.
I learned how to play banjo andhow to tune it over the weekend
and I had a microphone and I'msitting there trying to play
this thing and I had this littleriff that I was playing and I'm
trying to move the mic becauseI never recorded a banjo, I
didn't know how to do it.
And my wife came in and she'slike send that in.

(01:30:53):
That's funny, that little thingyou're playing.
I'm like it's nothing, I don'teven know what I'm playing, I'm
just trying to figure this out.
And she's like, yeah, but theydon't know that, just send it in
.
Well, as a musician, you know Iknow how to read music.
I'm skilled.
I haven't, you know.
My ego tells me I'm this greatmusician.
I would never just send that in.
It has to be this thought out,well musician thing.

(01:31:15):
You know what I mean?
Well, I sent it in.
That ended up becoming sizetheme with a little hiccup in it
, and it's kind of just how itkind of worked.
I made more money on thatlittle track playing banjo for
the first time, and what youhear is me plinking away for the
first time trying to figure itout, and that's when I realized
I got to get out of my own wayas a musician.

(01:31:37):
I got to stop thinking I'msomething.
I'm not, I'm just a guy.
I came up with a thing, send itin, because you never know All
the stuff I worked so hard on,with all the different parts and
how they interweave.
And I'm thinking this is goingto be the one they're going to
go.
Tony, you're genius, this isthe best one.
It doesn't even get picked up.
Then a little plinky banjo andthen that's the one that gets

(01:32:00):
played hundreds of thousands oftimes.

Speaker 1 (01:32:03):
So you just, you just never know, you just never know
, when something's going tostick to the wall or not.
And now you're getting to apoint where you're getting ready
to release some of your musicthat, if I'm correct, was
recorded during that time inMeridian and working for Doug
Dynasty.
Can you elaborate on that?
I?

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
have a record coming out next month and I'll give you
a little bit of how we'rereleasing it, because a couple
of things have changed.
It's called Duck Days and howit came about.
When the show ended and I wasalready doing all these other
shows and we moved from Meridianto Pensacola and I was doing my

(01:32:48):
flamenco CDs and all this kindof stuff and I just, like I said
, I don't think a lot of at thetime when I recorded the record
I was like, oh, I'm going to putthis out.
People want this music.
And then when Duck Dynasty kindof went away, I didn't want to
play like that anymore.
I was looking at other things.
So I kind of moved on.
And then I went to a party notlong ago or the summer, or a

(01:33:11):
friend of mine, and all thesepeople came up to me and that I
didn't know they met me for thefirst time and all of a sudden
I'm being introduced.
Oh, this is Tony the Duck guy,the guy who did the music for
Duck Dynasty.
And I'm like, really I'm stillthat guy after all these years,
but I'm proud of it.
I mean, I love what I did withthat show and that's when all
these people had all thesestories and they started talking

(01:33:32):
about it again and I'm thinking, you know, I'm sitting on all
of this music and I'm like maybeit is time, Maybe it's come
full circle.
I was able to get away from itfor a little bit, but obviously
the show still resonates with somany people.
There's been incendication foryears.
Now we're in, I think, 10, 12countries or whatever it is.

(01:33:52):
Now I mean, this thing justkeeps rolling.
For me it's gone global, it'sall over the world.
So for me, you know, it's justroyalties.
At this point I just kind of seewhere it goes Streaming, it's
on all the streaming platforms,all that kind of stuff.
But people still like you knowit's still out there and people
still resonate with this.

(01:34:13):
So that's when I was like Ithink I need to revisit it.
And then, when I listened to itagain, I was like this is kind
of a fun record.
I mean, you know, I can see whypeople like it.
I, you know, kind of brought meback to that point and I was
like, okay, I think it's time.
Maybe now is a good time tokind of put it out, because I
have a new show coming out and Ithought maybe it's time to

(01:34:35):
remind people you know who I amor where I came from, or you
know why they like me?
I don't know, so that's.
I just thought the company wasgood.

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
So you mentioned your show Tony's Backstage Pass.
Yeah, now where can people findthat?
Where is that?
I know I went to your website,but is that coming out
exclusively on YouTube, yourwebsite?
Where can people find that?

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
That now that's coming out soon it hasn't
debuted yet.
Well, and what ended uphappening was what we're going
to do with the album I'mactually next month you're going
to see in October and come backto to all my social media.
We're going to be doing alittle bit of a crowdfunding,
this TV show I have calledTony's Backstage Pass.

(01:35:22):
What happened was, during thepandemic, of course, the whole
music industry shut down.
Nobody was touring or doinganything.
Well, if you know anythingabout musicians, we don't sit
around.
So we started talking to eachother and we started remembering
all the old times and tellingall these great stories.
And that's when it dawned on meand I went you know, this would
be a cool show.

(01:35:42):
My production company keptsaying let's do a music show of
some kind.
They wanted me to do like maybe, where I gave lessons or I
taught people how to write musicfor TV or something like that,
and I was like, ah, none of thatreally kind of resonated with
me.
And then this backstage passingcame to me, where I was having
all these great conversationswith all my friends and I'm like

(01:36:02):
that's the show, it's thebehind the scenes.
That's what I know.
That's been my career.
I know all the productionpeople and the lawyers and all
these kind of people and I havethese stories that you know that
I could tell, and so do they.
They have amazing stories.
These people are so talentedand so I was like that should be
the show.
Let me do this.

(01:36:22):
So we came out with this Tony'sBackstage Pass.
We were going to sell it to TV.
We dealt with some networks andthat was a nightmare.
Never, oh, it's just so much,too much actually.
And that's when a friend ofmine came back to me and said no
, no, no, no, no, no, no, don'tgive this to them, do it
yourself, do it here.
So we're going to do it as akind of a video podcast type of

(01:36:43):
thing.
We're going to put it out onSpotify and YouTube and all
those kind of places where youget, you know, podcasts and
everything.
We have 22 episodes that wefilmed and it's just these great
kind of conversations with myshow.
For me, I can't sit.
You know I'm out.
So a lot of our stuff has liveperformances.
I'm in recording studios, likewe went to James Burton who

(01:37:06):
played guitar for Elvis, andwe're in his recording studio,
and so I want to give peoplethat kind of look and feel of
the backstage.
So, and we talked to a lot offans and a lot of people behind
the scenes and people like mewho write and do things behind
the scenes and so I think it'sand I keep it light and I think
it's just a fun little show, butwhat we ended up.

(01:37:27):
So we're going to ask for alittle bit of a crowdfunding
thing next month to help uslaunch this thing in the
beginning of 2024.
And if you help us with theshow, I'm just going to give you
a free download of this record.
Very nice Very nice Thank youBecause, again, just the support
and everything that I've beengiven through the years and,

(01:37:49):
like I said, people seem to likethis music and I thought, well,
what a great way I'm not goingto ask them here Help me with my
show, and now, buying my record, I thought that's a bit much.
Okay, help me with the show andI'll give you the record as a
thank you.
You know, because the supportjust has meant so much.
I mean, I've had so much of itthroughout the years.
It's just amazing to me.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
So both the album Duck Days and Tony's Backstage
Pass will be available inOctober.
Is that correct of?

Speaker 2 (01:38:18):
2023?
.
The show is going to come outthe beginning of next year.
We're going to debut the show,the crowdfunding is going to be
next month and the album will beavailable next month.
And all you do, you know, ifyou give us, you know, any kind
of support through thecrowdfunding, we're going to
probably go through likeIndiegogo or something like that
and we'll do an actual crowd.

(01:38:39):
So if you help us out, you geta link and you get the album for
free 13 songs and you know it'sall the fun stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Yeah, county Line Congregation, that's what we
call the audience here at theCounty Line.
Tony, we're going to personallygive out a call to action to
help Tony out with Tony'sBackstage Pass and share it with
at least one person.
That's all I ask of the CountyLine Congregation on this

(01:39:09):
episode.
Tony, I have thoroughly enjoyedhaving this conversation and we
could go for hours andunfortunately today I've got to
cut it short.
But let's do this again, man,let's do this again.
You've got to wealth, theknowledge.
You've obviously experienced alot in the music industry,
obviously a talented musician,and we're so, so thankful and

(01:39:34):
grateful that you decided tocome on the County Line and tell
us all about your life and allthe endeavors that you have
going on.
And, as we've mentioned before,here at the County Line, we
just want to help people, and soanything we can do in the
future to help you push thisthing out, man, we're willing
and ready to do so, brother.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
I appreciate it and, like I said, I have clips and
stuff.
So if you want to post anything, feel free.
If people want to see what theshow is and everything, and just
again, thank you for yoursupport.
I want to have you on my showonce we get up and running, and
this is just wonderful.
I just thank you for thesupport and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:40:11):
I appreciate it Absolutely, Tony.
We're going to leave it rightthere.
County Line Congregation.
Thank you so much, Tony Pasco.
Thank you so much, Until nexttime, peace.

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#123 - Tony Pasko

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