July 10, 2025 • 31 mins
Ryan Patrick is the guitarist for the band Otherwise, a Las Vegas based band started by him and his brother Adrian. They've had sold out tours, gold records but the music industry did to them what it does to so many great bands and they decided to take the power back by taking some time away. In that process Ryan started a not for profit music teaching group called Life By Music. Now that that's taking off, Otherwise are back with new music and much more on the way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention please, and no it cutters rock cast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You grabbing a guitar right now? Is it this kind
of chat?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We're gonna do a little six string hang dude.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's what I'm talking about. We cannot.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Well yeah, I mean it is this kind of chat.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I gotta have a guitar with me as well.
There you go. What are you playing? What are you playing?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Let's see, let me get to what are you tune too?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Is this even gonna work? I'm not plugged into anything.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm not playing it either.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
It sounds like I'm not tuned to anything. Should be uh,
should be half step down? I am in c well
you go real low.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There you go. I'm not gonna do that with this.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is that is that offender?
Speaker 5 (01:21):
No, it's a it's a scheckter oh ship.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's a cool shape, man.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it's their weird like Teley apocalyptic series. All right,
I'm gonna set it down.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But yeah, maybe what was Gibson r.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
D Gibson r DC that one. I don't know. I've
never seen that one.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I don't think this is a cool It's a cool
baby right here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
There you go. You go. You can fall in love
with the right instrument and you fall in love with
the right instrument.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, baby, you know, And you know I've heard guys
saying it sounds kind of cheesy sometimes, but you know,
every guitar has got like you pick up a different
guitar and you'll play something different. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I think that's very true.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's so cool, you know, it's so freaking awesome, Like
I will write a different song on every a different guitar.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It's you know, I should say, oh, it makes sense
when guys have five hundred.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Guitars, right, I should say Ryan Patrick from the band Otherwise,
Joni us talking guitars. This is a guitar podcast. Now,
if you came here to hear about the new Otherwise song,
now we'll get to it. Maybe we're talking guitars now, hey.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Man, that Otherwise song doesn't get created without some six
string action.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
It does make sense that guys have five hundred guitars
when you hear, you know, stories about well, I picked
up this guitar and I wrote this thing. It's Jerry
Cantrell and I wrote Rooster on this guitar, and now
I have to when I want a song like that,
I go back to it.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know, man, I never.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Want to like people who don't necessarily understand, but like
want the best for you are, Like.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Said, why did you sell that guitar?
Speaker 6 (03:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Why don't you sell some of your guitars? Like you
just don't understand, Like I can't sell.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Them, Ryan, I got. I'm still depressed to this day
that I sold the guitar I had. I had a
Joe Satriani signature series when he first put those out
through Ivanez, and it was I don't know, dude, it
was like fifteen hundred dollars, right, and I like, I like,
I saved up some money and I bought that thing.
(03:28):
I was in college and I bought it and I
played in my my the only original band I was
ever in, the Actually Do Anything was called LD fifty
and I played some gigs in that with that guitar,
that guitar and another guitar and I that one particularly.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I sold the pay rent.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
When I was like twenty four, and I'm still mad
about it to this day. Still mad, dude, It's twenty
one years ago. I'm still mad about it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I wonder if you could find it somehow. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I told I had Joe Satrian on this show a
couple of years ago, and I told him that, and
he's like, yeah, that sucks, man, You've got a thousand
of them, Joe, just second one, just one. I don't
know why we didn't play music like that. I'm not
that kind of good you've played with me. I'm not
that kind of guitar player. I just that guitar though. Man,
(04:20):
that was fun.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
You should go on the Cutter's Quest to find the
sentry on a guitar, just that particular one. It can't
be a different one. It has to be that one.
Did you buy it off a Craigslist ad in two
thousand and four? If you did, that's probably mine.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Where were you living at the time.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was living in Appleton, Wisconsin at the time. Closer
all right, it's not right. It's not a big population
a right. It's kind of classic Wisconsin, small town, college city.
Somebody has to have it. It probably sold it to say,
it probably got sold six more times. Who knows the
journey of those guitars. Somebody has it right now on
(05:00):
a basement somewhere. Exactly you have one? Do you have one?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
One guitar that you missed that you had.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You know, I do.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Miss The first guitar I ever had was a Kramer.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Was it was it like the Frankenstein or was it
that style?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, no, it kind of was.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was just you know, my mom bought it. We
bought it from Guitar Center. I was like sixteen, and
it had a flow rules on it, and you know,
I just but then I moved on from it, you know,
I was I started playing like Gibson's and SG. I
got into Sg's, you know, once I joined the band.
(05:44):
This was I had this Kramer before I joined the band.
It was like it was like a two hundred and
fifty dollars guitar. But no, that's like where I learned
to shred, you know. I learned to shred on this guitar.
And then as a young kid, I was like, no,
I want, I'm done with this. I want I want
SGS now. And I got an SG. But I sold
that first guitar, you know. So I think that the
(06:09):
Kramer that I once had, it was this god awful
orange color, like not even a pretty orange, just like
just grossly obnoxious.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And yeah, I do miss that guitar.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It'd be cool to say, hey, this was like the
guitar that opened up my world for me.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
You know, I do have the one that I really
kind of learned how to play on is still here.
It's upstairs in my son's bedroom and it's it's also
an Ivan as it's an S classic. It's the one
they only made for like five or six years. And
my oldest son had it for a while, gave it
(06:49):
back to me. I traded it back to him for
an old Alvarez acoustic because he plays he likes playing
folk music, so I'm like, here, you need this thing,
not that, And he ended up fixing it up. The
tuners are broke, there's some things wrong with it, fisted
out the bridge, you know that sort of thing, and
then gave it to my youngest son and he's been
learning how to play and drums. Those are his drums
(07:10):
behind me, but.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Raising them right bro.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah hell yeah. But so the guitar, that guitar is
still in the house.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, And I could say that my dad from the
old Country, he brought a Yamaha and nylon string, okay,
and brother learned on it. I learned on it, and
we will still have black guitar.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
See that's cool. Man's so classical style guitar, Las.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
School man, And you know that's what I actually studied
growing up.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
This has really become a guitar conversation.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
I'm good with it. Hey, Hey, nobody listening to the
show anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Script.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, no, baby, this is great, dude. This is what
it is about.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
We tend to just have spontaneous six string moments.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, it was. That's how I learned.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
When I went to the Las Vegas Academy for guitar
in high school. It was all classical and jazz and
you know these we were learning. You know, it's like
most most rock and roll guitar players tend to say,
you know, I learned on Metallica and Our Maiden and
you know, Mega Death and you know, fill in the blanks.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I was like, well, I learned on uh Carcassi and
Aguado and you know, like all these like Caruli, all these.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Classical Baroque composers.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And because of my instructor, Bill Swick, he would take
classical music from like orchestras and turn them into guitar pieces.
And that's what we had to learn, you know. So
it was really really really cool. Opportunity. But we learned
on on on classical, you know, nylon strength, sitting, you know,
like this on the left.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Leg, you know, playing this right. So I was too.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Rebellious though I was like, I loved being there, but
I was like, no, dude, it's about this right here.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
That's what I'm sad. That story sounds oddly familiar. I
took guitar lessons from a jazz guy. It's actually really weird.
I started playing guitar on US ten and I took
guitar lessons from this jazz guy who was my parents'
best friend's son, and we kind of grew up together.
He's only a few years older than me, and but
he was into like dream theater and you know, the
(09:21):
crazy fusion, progressive all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right, And I remember him.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
He's like, I don't know, a month or two into
guitar lessons, and he handed me images and words on
cassette tape and he's like, if you play guitar, then
you listen to this, you know. And I'm like, I'm
listening to John Protucio play guitar and I'm going, no, yeah,
there's no way, Here's Nirvana.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Can I do that instead? That sounds way easier. But
then it was his teacher.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
His teacher was a fingerstylist jazz player and was on
the cover of like Fingerstyle magazine and all that stuff
back in the nineties, and was the professor of jazz
here at the university. And he is who I ended
up learning technique from theory from and it's and then
I played punk rock music.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
The irony exactly, you know.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
And I still cat it's weird if I sit down
and write it, and I haven't written in a long time, man,
But if I sit down to try to write anything,
even just riff around or write something for like a
bit we're doing on the radio show or something, I
still my fingers go immediately to like, weird blues are
peggio things, but then power chord, and then weird blues
are peggio thing in the power chord.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
You know, I'm very similar that It's very true. You know,
It's like you find like some some beautiful chord. That's
why I try to tell uh what we're teaching in
life by Life by music shoulders shoulder class. You know,
we teach really simple chords E minor, the simple g
the first two fingers on the thirty, you know, and
(10:51):
but then I'm like, you know, sometimes you know some
of the some of the veterans are they're like, okay,
I know how to play it. So I'm like, okay,
let me show you some the like add one finger
right there, see how it changes the whole court. And
then you know, it's like AD nine or something. It's
just like it's kind of jazz influence and their minds.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I just see their minds blown, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
But that's what I always wanted to do with otherwise
songs too, is you know, yeah, we're like a drop
d Drops kind of band.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I also love like trying to.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Get give me one more of just a more interesting voicing,
you know, like try to take from the stone Tumble
Pilots world where you know, it's just like it's not just.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
A one finger thing.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you know, a lot of times I was met
with a lot of resistance from producers and it's just like, no,
just keep it simple, play simple, keep my job simple.
You know. But I've always it's like, okay, yeah, rock
meat and potatoes, but then where's the accents and where's
the little sugar and the little spice man?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
But that's what makes it. That's what makes it. You know,
what you can hear. Just before this conversation, I was listening.
I just had otherwise in the background on random, the
whole Spotify catalog, and uh, there are some jams and
now that you say that, I can hear it, you know,
because there are some you have some of those songs
(12:12):
that are just like yeah, rock and roll, pissed off, attitude, metal,
and then but you can hear something going on underneath it,
and I dig that, man, I dig that a lot, thanks.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
To It's the that's the best part of it all
for me, you know, of course being in the band,
rocking out with my bro being on stage, but then
getting the chance to have have the freedom to record
what you want to record, you know, even even if
like there's a producer who sold one hundred million records.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I was like, you know, I wouldn't do that. But
then you're just like, no, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And then it's like nobody knows.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Nobody knows. It's like it's like your own body. It's
like your own health, right, nobody knows your own body.
Nobody knows your own mind better than yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
So yeah, I was come on, like, well, that's not me,
you know, that's not me as a player. And I've
always had this. Uh, I don't know if I guess,
I guess it's arrogance to.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Be like, look, look, I'm not a I'm not this
champion YouTube Instagram shredding guitar player. But man, when I
play these simple notes, they're coming from my soul and
like you could you know what I mean? That's so
I like, I hold onto that. I hold that so
dearly and so close. And you know, thankfully we've I've
been able to showcase it with our band.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You know. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Absolutely, dude, that's an old like if you could take that,
that's that that mentality of the old you know, kind
of Memphis you know, uh, Southern blues swing kind of
attitude of feeling it doesn't matter how it sounds, but
you got to feel it and then it's gonna sound good.
If you can marry those two things, that's when I
think you have successful songwriters. That's when you have successful bands.
(13:53):
And and otherwise, if I mean I'm looking at the
gold record on your wall right now, I mean, you
guys have obviously been able to do that in the past.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Oh that thing.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Oh, because look at this gold record.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Right here, I'm conveniently sitting so that you can see it.
All that thing there.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Should break about it. It should.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
No, it's true.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That is so true that you bring that point up
about that, that that mindset. And again going back because
I'm like heavily into our teaching with our organization Life
by Music.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
When we're not touring and everything else I do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's you know, I'm grateful to run this organization. But
when I'm working with the veterans and with the kids,
and I'm sure it's not about like just okay, guitar
is going to change your It's okay, use the guitar
as a tool to feel good, feel empowered. And that
(14:50):
means that you're not being graded. It doesn't matter. You're
playing from the heart. You can play an E minor
chord super simple and play your way. Just feel the
vibrations of the instrument on your lap and feel it
coming through your soul like you did that. That's where
the magic is. That's where the life by Music like begins.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know. So I was just in our in our
veterans class last night, you.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Know, trying to share the same ethos. I like to
call it the art of the jam. You know, it's
just about jam and it's going really well.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Man, that's good.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Tell me about life, but tell me about life by music,
just because you brought it up. And I know this
has sort of become your passion, right, this is what
it does exactly you guys do at this foundation.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, yeah, it's it's been our passion.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And thankfully with the support and the the.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Organization and the growth of it all, you.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Know, I get to I get to be the executive
director of A five O one C three and we
you know, our mission statement is to get musical instruments
and resources into the hands of at risk youth and veterans.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And how we do that is we put on.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Fundraisers and we seek out sponsorships and organizations and grants
other corporations.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
To to see our outreach. So we've created booklets.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
We've created the Guitar Magic Booklet, the Ukulele Magic Booklet,
a eighty page course called the Rock and Guitar for teens,
and then another eighty page course called Shoulder to Shoulder
for veterans. And we give these booklets out and we
go into the classrooms, we go to other youth organizations,
(16:39):
We sit down with the kids, We get them started
on music. You know, we start, we start to show them, Hey,
this is what an a chord looks like, this is
what a b c D. Get the instruments in their hands,
hands on person to person connection, and you know, it's
going really well. It's going really really well. Very proud
to say that. You know, we've donated over five hundred instruments.
(17:03):
We've given out fifteen thousand dollars in music scholarships to
music classrooms their programs, to school music programs, to aspiring
young musicians. And we've given out over a thousand of
our Guitar Magic and Ukulele Magic booklets. So life by
(17:23):
Music started as a motto that my brother and I
would use. You know, when I was in college, everybody
was one night at a party, everybody was sitting around
the table saying, Oh.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I'm going to med school, I'm going to law school,
I'm doing this, I'm joining this. And then when it
came my time to talk and say hey, Ryan, what
are you going to do? I just said life by music.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Baby.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You know, I didn't know what I didn't know what
it was, you know, like it was just life by Music,
you know what it meant was because otherwise it was
a big band at the time, and locally we were
like rocking and rolling and I was like, dude, we're
going for it, like Life by Music. And so it
(18:09):
was always it was a hashtag we would use and
Facebook posts going to LA to showcase for inter school
Life by Music, oh Man up until six am recording.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Life by Music. So it was this hashtag and this
motto and this mantra.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Really it just grew because then, you know, we broke
out with Soldiers, we broke out with True Love Never Dies.
We toured our first album cycle was twenty two months straight.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And yeah, I mean we.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Were gone, you know, and then the piece it all costs,
and it just the shine kind of wore off of
like what we thought it was supposed to be, you know,
and what people sold us and what we believed of,
Like Okay, cool, we're rocking out and we're rolling, and
we've got the guitar tag and we've got the bandwagon
(19:01):
and the sick RV. But we're sitting on the bus
hungover all day when we're in this town, We're like, dude,
we could go play guitar or like we could give
we could go do something with our time while we're
away from the people we love, like we could do more.
And that's that's when it kind of really started clicking, like, dude,
(19:23):
I want to do more than just what our agent
and our label and our manager is telling us to do.
I want to do something besides all of this. So
it grew slowly of like Okay, well, what are you
going to do?
Speaker 6 (19:36):
You know?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club here
in Las Vegas for one of our acoustics shows at
a casino here in town in twenty sixteen, and we
we set up a field trip for a dozen kids
from the local club to come to the Otherwise sound check.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
They we had a paint a painting area set up up.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
In this venue where they could paint guitars and create
these music notes, and we had four guitars and my brother,
myself and two of our really good friends, Nick and
Justin Giardano. We sat down with the kids and it
was like, oh man, we're here like life by music.
We're going to show these kids like the other side
(20:20):
of it all. And you know, again going back to
the E minor chord, which is just something that I
always say, Man, I could teach.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You how to play.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I could get you playing guitar right away. And it's
the E minor chord, Man the Soldiers. It's a chord
that is the biggest chord ever liked in my heart,
it's the biggest chord. It's the most beautiful, it's rock
roll right. So I'm like, okay, E minor chord. E
is for equality, you know, And it just came out
of my mouth like okay, he is for equality, And
(20:50):
that's what started That's what started it all.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
So we taught these kids.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
They got to paint, they got to go on the stage,
walk around backstage, see the setup.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Then we took them to the buffet and life by
Music was born.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
We gave these kids something extra that day, some connection
with the professional artists chasing their dreams, living their dreams out.
And then also this educational aspect of like, hey, you
got to learn how to play guitar, and you guys
get to keep the guitars. And we went to the
buffet and it was super fun. So it's like we're
trying to create these moments where kids remember, remember them
(21:24):
and maybe inspire them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Maybe there's a spark.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
And man, that was in twenty sixteen, so you know,
in five we've gotten some amazing grants from the county
here in Las Vegas and from casinos and energy companies,
and man, it's just it's really grown into something amazing.
We have a board of directors, We've got a treasurer,
(21:49):
you know, director of operations. We hire younger kids now
to go to the elementary schools with me and by themselves.
It's becoming something really great to where Okay, we've proved
that we could do it here in Las Vegas, and
now we're starting to branch out into other places.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Okay, well you have my number because this sounds this
sounds amazing. I mean, it really does like to be
able to take a silly hashtag from when your kids,
you know what I mean, and turn it into this
sort of life changing thing for so many other.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Kids and those who you know, maybe are less privileged.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
In the veteran work too, there's a there's an organization
out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin called the Guitar for Vets that
I've done some work with and they kind of do
the same thing, right, you know, take a veteran, teach
them how to play guitar, and then give it to
him at the end. And it's it's incredible to see
the light down the faces, you know, of these of
these men who have seen some horrific, horrific stuff to
(22:44):
be able to have some some light in that soul again,
it's awesome. And for kids especially, do your hats off, man,
that's that's such a cool thing that you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know, a funny quick story is that actually I
spoke with Guitars for Vets years ago when I wanted
to do when I wanted to get into the Veterans Outreach,
I wanted to just create the Guitars for Vet chapter
in Las Vegas, and I was like, this is it
just makes sense to do it, but it was just
taking too.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Long, and you know, it was an a plan.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So we made our own, we made our own outreach,
and we've served fifty veterans so far.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
You know, we've given out guitars to each one of.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Them ten ten to fifteen class course. We've done three
of them so far, and yeah, it is really something
special to see.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Not only that Hey, you're learning how to play guitar.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
But I think more importantly, they're getting a new community.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
A new safe place to just like hang with each other.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Like after our class yesterday, eight of the students all
went to get a beer together after the class.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That's awesome, And like one of the most favorite things
about the class is now they just it's a new
thing where they get to meet like minded warriors. And
I think that I'm like, hell, yeah, let's do let's
keep it going.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That's incredible, man, that truly is. And it hats off
to you guys.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
So with all this going on, Otherwise kind of took
it seemed like a little bit of a hiatus there
for a second as far as touring and stuff goes.
But you guys do have a new song out, So
what kind of is the plan for Otherwise right now?
In the new song, of course called Permanentification, And it's
a good tune, man. And that's the thing with just
listening back to the catalog again here a few minutes ago,
(24:29):
I'm like, I'm remembering some of the songs I absolutely felt,
songs that nobody know, you know that I'm like, and
I couldn't even tell you the names of them now
off top of my head, but I just know when
I heard them, I'm like, oh, yeah, well this right,
you know what, So what it kind of is the
plan right now with this song and sort of what
the future for otherwise holds.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah. Man, So we definitely took a little bit of
time off of.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
That whole grind we really wanted to get. We wanted
to get in how we felt was the hooks out
of our band. We wanted to get the proverbial hooks of,
you know, running and chasing this certain business plan, this
certain you know, Hey, you've got to do this, to
(25:12):
do that, to be this. You've got to do this,
or you have to go you have to take this tour,
or you have to go write this song with this person.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You have to do this, you have to do that.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It's like, dude, we started a rock band to not
be told what to do. For the longest time, we
just felt like we were being told that we had
to do certain things that we didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So, you know, with all that being.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Said, we had to kind of like pull back and say,
all right, you know, we had to get out of
our record deal. We had to get out of our
relationships with management, with the agency, and kind of regroup
a little bit, you know what I mean. And let's
(25:59):
time I really started focusing on.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Life by music a lot.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
We got these big grants from the county, so it's
finally a chance to, okay, focus on life by music
a bit. Let my brother be with his sons, raise
them and okay, let's not go tour.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
But recently we went and hit the road.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
We came and did a quick little run up in
Wisconsin and Illinois and Indiana.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And man, it was great.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
You know. We we went and we paid going back
to Permanent Vacation, which was the tour.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You know, my brother wrote the song.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
It came to him in a dream and then he
sent it to me and I was like, oh, dude,
well we're independent now, so we can go pay our
producer to get this song done and we can own
it all.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You know, we can do it ourselves.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
And so that's really we got to tap into that
independence and that freedom that we were desperately seeking with
this Permanent Vacation tour. And you know, the future of
the band is pretty interesting because here in two weeks
we're going to be releasing some We're going to be
releasing some music and I haven't really this is the
(27:08):
first time that I've actually said it straight out like that.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Clun Cutters Broadcast Exclusive.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah baby, We've partnered with a dear friend of ours
and you know, we signed we signed a deal for
this music that is so fair. It's fair for the
artists for the first time in our in our in
our careers. It's it's a fair deal, and it's favored
(27:34):
in the arts. It's in the artist's favor, you know.
And so we're very excited to get that out and
we will be planning a tour to support this body
of work, which is going to be the video is
going to be coming out on July twenty July twenty fourth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
So okay, okay, yeah, so on the show airs this weekend,
and yeah, that's that's a week and a half.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah baby, And you know what I'm gonna say it.
The song is called Stop, Drop and.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Roll, Stop and work drop and Roll by otherwise two.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Weeks with the little quotes doesn't work in hell.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I love that, man.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, man, we're excited, dude. It's it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
One thing, one thing for the future of our band
is that we get to make our decisions and it's
all on us, and that's scary, you know, honestly sometimes
and it's frustrating, dude, when I've got a book sixteen
flights because the band, and we're going to play two
shows like next month. But it's that's when it's like, oh, okay,
(28:44):
you know, I'm able to appreciate the good things that
our team did. And I always think that hey, there's
oh everything bad everything.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It's like, no, there's little there's little small things that
were done.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
The intricacies, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Now on our shoulders, and you know, it's it's it's
on us, like we get to talk straight to straight
to the to the agent. There's no in between stuff.
There's no oh, do you think we'll get on that festival. No,
we're not getting on that festival. Just move on, you know,
Like it's just just go just keep going, go play
to your like now, it's like we go play to
(29:21):
our fans.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
We do it, and honestly, do we make more money.
It's crazy. It's crazy how that works.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Like you see these bands that are getting on these
like tours of the opening band and they're huge, and
it's like did you guys are making no money, Like
you don't make money.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
We were that band. It's like, why aren't you on
these tours anymore?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Well, we're not going to get paid five hundred bucks anymore,
and we're not going to do stuff for free, and
we're going to do things that actually like keep us
alive and don't don't kill us when we get off
the road, you know. So it's just this funny balance
of now it's all in our hands. The pie is
(29:58):
essentially smaller, but the pie is.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's all yours.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah, and that's a pie is smaller, but you're not
sharing the pieces.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And and it's like I got so tired of being
a part of a part of partnerships where you set
where everybody celebrates the wins, but the losses are only
on the band, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Just like, dude, So that's the music industry as a whole,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, there's something very and yeah, dude, there's there's shows
that I wish that we would play or or bands
that I wish we would tour with sometimes and like
but then I think back, I'm like when we were
doing that. You know, we weren't making any money. We're
pretty miserable. We were upset. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Now it's it's all on our shoulders, you know. So
(30:52):
it's a it's important for my brother and I to
really take the reins and do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It's just here and there, you.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Know, hey man, hashtag life by music all comes around.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Love it?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
What a good story?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Life by management by label?
Speaker 5 (31:13):
You know, Nope, never, I'll tell you what. Hey man,
the offer still stands. You need another guitar player, I'll
get my shacter ready, I'll get both my schacters ready.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, we gotta find that Joe.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You find that Joe sat any guitar dude, it's your
your That spot is yours.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Oh great, thanks, okay, well then I'll just see it
from the crowd when you get here next. Nice man,
all right, buddy Ryan Patrick from Otherwise. It's always a pleasure,
my friend, it truly is. It's good to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It's great to see your face.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Man. Hopefully we get to hang out in the flesh
soon and maybe play some six things together.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
We love that would love that. Give my love to everyone.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Carter's Rock Cash don't get to tune in exactly
Attention please, and no it cutters rock cast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You grabbing a guitar right now? Is it this kind
of chat?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
We're gonna do a little six string hang dude.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
That's what I'm talking about. We cannot.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Well yeah, I mean it is this kind of chat.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
And I gotta have a guitar with me as well.
There you go. What are you playing? What are you playing?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Let's see, let me get to what are you tune too?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Is this even gonna work? I'm not plugged into anything.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I'm not playing it either.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
It sounds like I'm not tuned to anything. Should be uh,
should be half step down? I am in c well
you go real low.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There you go. I'm not gonna do that with this.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Is that is that offender?
Speaker 5 (01:21):
No, it's a it's a scheckter oh ship.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's a cool shape, man.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, it's their weird like Teley apocalyptic series. All right,
I'm gonna set it down.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
But yeah, maybe what was Gibson r.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
D Gibson r DC that one. I don't know. I've
never seen that one.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I don't think this is a cool It's a cool
baby right here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
There you go. You go. You can fall in love
with the right instrument and you fall in love with
the right instrument.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, baby, you know, And you know I've heard guys
saying it sounds kind of cheesy sometimes, but you know,
every guitar has got like you pick up a different
guitar and you'll play something different. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I think that's very true.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's so cool, you know, it's so freaking awesome, Like
I will write a different song on every a different guitar.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It's you know, I should say, oh, it makes sense
when guys have five hundred.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Guitars, right, I should say Ryan Patrick from the band Otherwise,
Joni us talking guitars. This is a guitar podcast. Now,
if you came here to hear about the new Otherwise song,
now we'll get to it. Maybe we're talking guitars now, hey.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Man, that Otherwise song doesn't get created without some six
string action.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
It does make sense that guys have five hundred guitars
when you hear, you know, stories about well, I picked
up this guitar and I wrote this thing. It's Jerry
Cantrell and I wrote Rooster on this guitar, and now
I have to when I want a song like that,
I go back to it.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know, man, I never.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Want to like people who don't necessarily understand, but like
want the best for you are, Like.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Said, why did you sell that guitar?
Speaker 6 (03:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Why don't you sell some of your guitars? Like you
just don't understand, Like I can't sell.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Them, Ryan, I got. I'm still depressed to this day
that I sold the guitar I had. I had a
Joe Satriani signature series when he first put those out
through Ivanez, and it was I don't know, dude, it
was like fifteen hundred dollars, right, and I like, I like,
I saved up some money and I bought that thing.
(03:28):
I was in college and I bought it and I
played in my my the only original band I was
ever in, the Actually Do Anything was called LD fifty
and I played some gigs in that with that guitar,
that guitar and another guitar and I that one particularly.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I sold the pay rent.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
When I was like twenty four, and I'm still mad
about it to this day. Still mad, dude, It's twenty
one years ago. I'm still mad about it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I wonder if you could find it somehow. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I told I had Joe Satrian on this show a
couple of years ago, and I told him that, and
he's like, yeah, that sucks, man, You've got a thousand
of them, Joe, just second one, just one. I don't
know why we didn't play music like that. I'm not
that kind of good you've played with me. I'm not
that kind of guitar player. I just that guitar though. Man,
(04:20):
that was fun.
Speaker 6 (04:21):
You should go on the Cutter's Quest to find the
sentry on a guitar, just that particular one. It can't
be a different one. It has to be that one.
Did you buy it off a Craigslist ad in two
thousand and four? If you did, that's probably mine.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Where were you living at the time.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I was living in Appleton, Wisconsin at the time. Closer
all right, it's not right. It's not a big population
a right. It's kind of classic Wisconsin, small town, college city.
Somebody has to have it. It probably sold it to say,
it probably got sold six more times. Who knows the
journey of those guitars. Somebody has it right now on
(05:00):
a basement somewhere. Exactly you have one? Do you have one?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
One guitar that you missed that you had.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You know, I do.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Miss The first guitar I ever had was a Kramer.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Was it was it like the Frankenstein or was it
that style?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, no, it kind of was.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was just you know, my mom bought it. We
bought it from Guitar Center. I was like sixteen, and
it had a flow rules on it, and you know,
I just but then I moved on from it, you know,
I was I started playing like Gibson's and SG. I
got into Sg's, you know, once I joined the band.
(05:44):
This was I had this Kramer before I joined the band.
It was like it was like a two hundred and
fifty dollars guitar. But no, that's like where I learned
to shred, you know. I learned to shred on this guitar.
And then as a young kid, I was like, no,
I want, I'm done with this. I want I want
SGS now. And I got an SG. But I sold
that first guitar, you know. So I think that the
(06:09):
Kramer that I once had, it was this god awful
orange color, like not even a pretty orange, just like
just grossly obnoxious.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And yeah, I do miss that guitar.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It'd be cool to say, hey, this was like the
guitar that opened up my world for me.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
You know, I do have the one that I really
kind of learned how to play on is still here.
It's upstairs in my son's bedroom and it's it's also
an Ivan as it's an S classic. It's the one
they only made for like five or six years. And
my oldest son had it for a while, gave it
(06:49):
back to me. I traded it back to him for
an old Alvarez acoustic because he plays he likes playing
folk music, so I'm like, here, you need this thing,
not that, And he ended up fixing it up. The
tuners are broke, there's some things wrong with it, fisted
out the bridge, you know that sort of thing, and
then gave it to my youngest son and he's been
learning how to play and drums. Those are his drums
(07:10):
behind me, but.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Raising them right bro.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah hell yeah. But so the guitar, that guitar is
still in the house.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah, And I could say that my dad from the
old Country, he brought a Yamaha and nylon string, okay,
and brother learned on it. I learned on it, and
we will still have black guitar.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
See that's cool. Man's so classical style guitar, Las.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
School man, And you know that's what I actually studied
growing up.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
This has really become a guitar conversation.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
I'm good with it. Hey, Hey, nobody listening to the
show anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Script.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, no, baby, this is great, dude. This is what
it is about.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
We tend to just have spontaneous six string moments.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, it was. That's how I learned.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
When I went to the Las Vegas Academy for guitar
in high school. It was all classical and jazz and
you know these we were learning. You know, it's like
most most rock and roll guitar players tend to say,
you know, I learned on Metallica and Our Maiden and
you know, Mega Death and you know, fill in the blanks.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I was like, well, I learned on uh Carcassi and
Aguado and you know, like all these like Caruli, all these.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Classical Baroque composers.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And because of my instructor, Bill Swick, he would take
classical music from like orchestras and turn them into guitar pieces.
And that's what we had to learn, you know. So
it was really really really cool. Opportunity. But we learned
on on on classical, you know, nylon strength, sitting, you know,
like this on the left.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Leg, you know, playing this right. So I was too.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Rebellious though I was like, I loved being there, but
I was like, no, dude, it's about this right here.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
That's what I'm sad. That story sounds oddly familiar. I
took guitar lessons from a jazz guy. It's actually really weird.
I started playing guitar on US ten and I took
guitar lessons from this jazz guy who was my parents'
best friend's son, and we kind of grew up together.
He's only a few years older than me, and but
he was into like dream theater and you know, the
(09:21):
crazy fusion, progressive all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Right, And I remember him.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
He's like, I don't know, a month or two into
guitar lessons, and he handed me images and words on
cassette tape and he's like, if you play guitar, then
you listen to this, you know. And I'm like, I'm
listening to John Protucio play guitar and I'm going, no, yeah,
there's no way, Here's Nirvana.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Can I do that instead? That sounds way easier. But
then it was his teacher.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
His teacher was a fingerstylist jazz player and was on
the cover of like Fingerstyle magazine and all that stuff
back in the nineties, and was the professor of jazz
here at the university. And he is who I ended
up learning technique from theory from and it's and then
I played punk rock music.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
The irony exactly, you know.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
And I still cat it's weird if I sit down
and write it, and I haven't written in a long time, man,
But if I sit down to try to write anything,
even just riff around or write something for like a
bit we're doing on the radio show or something, I
still my fingers go immediately to like, weird blues are
peggio things, but then power chord, and then weird blues
are peggio thing in the power chord.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
You know, I'm very similar that It's very true. You know,
It's like you find like some some beautiful chord. That's
why I try to tell uh what we're teaching in
life by Life by music shoulders shoulder class. You know,
we teach really simple chords E minor, the simple g
the first two fingers on the thirty, you know, and
(10:51):
but then I'm like, you know, sometimes you know some
of the some of the veterans are they're like, okay,
I know how to play it. So I'm like, okay,
let me show you some the like add one finger
right there, see how it changes the whole court. And
then you know, it's like AD nine or something. It's
just like it's kind of jazz influence and their minds.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I just see their minds blown, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
But that's what I always wanted to do with otherwise
songs too, is you know, yeah, we're like a drop
d Drops kind of band.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But I also love like trying to.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Get give me one more of just a more interesting voicing,
you know, like try to take from the stone Tumble
Pilots world where you know, it's just like it's not just.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
A one finger thing.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And you know, a lot of times I was met
with a lot of resistance from producers and it's just like, no,
just keep it simple, play simple, keep my job simple.
You know. But I've always it's like, okay, yeah, rock
meat and potatoes, but then where's the accents and where's
the little sugar and the little spice man?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
But that's what makes it. That's what makes it. You know,
what you can hear. Just before this conversation, I was listening.
I just had otherwise in the background on random, the
whole Spotify catalog, and uh, there are some jams and
now that you say that, I can hear it, you know,
because there are some you have some of those songs
(12:12):
that are just like yeah, rock and roll, pissed off, attitude, metal,
and then but you can hear something going on underneath it,
and I dig that, man, I dig that a lot, thanks.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
To It's the that's the best part of it all
for me, you know, of course being in the band,
rocking out with my bro being on stage, but then
getting the chance to have have the freedom to record
what you want to record, you know, even even if
like there's a producer who sold one hundred million records.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I was like, you know, I wouldn't do that. But
then you're just like, no, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And then it's like nobody knows.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Nobody knows. It's like it's like your own body. It's
like your own health, right, nobody knows your own body.
Nobody knows your own mind better than yourself.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
So yeah, I was come on, like, well, that's not me,
you know, that's not me as a player. And I've
always had this. Uh, I don't know if I guess,
I guess it's arrogance to.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Be like, look, look, I'm not a I'm not this
champion YouTube Instagram shredding guitar player. But man, when I
play these simple notes, they're coming from my soul and
like you could you know what I mean? That's so
I like, I hold onto that. I hold that so
dearly and so close. And you know, thankfully we've I've
been able to showcase it with our band.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
You know. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Absolutely, dude, that's an old like if you could take that,
that's that that mentality of the old you know, kind
of Memphis you know, uh, Southern blues swing kind of
attitude of feeling it doesn't matter how it sounds, but
you got to feel it and then it's gonna sound good.
If you can marry those two things, that's when I
think you have successful songwriters. That's when you have successful bands.
(13:53):
And and otherwise, if I mean I'm looking at the
gold record on your wall right now, I mean, you
guys have obviously been able to do that in the past.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Oh that thing.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Oh, because look at this gold record.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Right here, I'm conveniently sitting so that you can see it.
All that thing there.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Should break about it. It should.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
No, it's true.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
That is so true that you bring that point up
about that, that that mindset. And again going back because
I'm like heavily into our teaching with our organization Life
by Music.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
When we're not touring and everything else I do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's you know, I'm grateful to run this organization. But
when I'm working with the veterans and with the kids,
and I'm sure it's not about like just okay, guitar
is going to change your It's okay, use the guitar
as a tool to feel good, feel empowered. And that
(14:50):
means that you're not being graded. It doesn't matter. You're
playing from the heart. You can play an E minor
chord super simple and play your way. Just feel the
vibrations of the instrument on your lap and feel it
coming through your soul like you did that. That's where
the magic is. That's where the life by Music like begins.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You know. So I was just in our in our
veterans class last night, you.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Know, trying to share the same ethos. I like to
call it the art of the jam. You know, it's
just about jam and it's going really well.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Man, that's good.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Tell me about life, but tell me about life by music,
just because you brought it up. And I know this
has sort of become your passion, right, this is what
it does exactly you guys do at this foundation.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Well, yeah, it's it's been our passion.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
And thankfully with the support and the the.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Organization and the growth of it all, you.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Know, I get to I get to be the executive
director of A five O one C three and we
you know, our mission statement is to get musical instruments
and resources into the hands of at risk youth and veterans.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
And how we do that is we put on.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Fundraisers and we seek out sponsorships and organizations and grants
other corporations.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
To to see our outreach. So we've created booklets.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
We've created the Guitar Magic Booklet, the Ukulele Magic Booklet,
a eighty page course called the Rock and Guitar for teens,
and then another eighty page course called Shoulder to Shoulder
for veterans. And we give these booklets out and we
go into the classrooms, we go to other youth organizations,
(16:39):
We sit down with the kids, We get them started
on music. You know, we start, we start to show them, Hey,
this is what an a chord looks like, this is
what a b c D. Get the instruments in their hands,
hands on person to person connection, and you know, it's
going really well. It's going really really well. Very proud
to say that. You know, we've donated over five hundred instruments.
(17:03):
We've given out fifteen thousand dollars in music scholarships to
music classrooms their programs, to school music programs, to aspiring
young musicians. And we've given out over a thousand of
our Guitar Magic and Ukulele Magic booklets. So life by
(17:23):
Music started as a motto that my brother and I
would use. You know, when I was in college, everybody
was one night at a party, everybody was sitting around
the table saying, Oh.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
I'm going to med school, I'm going to law school,
I'm doing this, I'm joining this. And then when it
came my time to talk and say hey, Ryan, what
are you going to do? I just said life by music.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Baby.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You know, I didn't know what I didn't know what
it was, you know, like it was just life by Music,
you know what it meant was because otherwise it was
a big band at the time, and locally we were
like rocking and rolling and I was like, dude, we're
going for it, like Life by Music. And so it
(18:09):
was always it was a hashtag we would use and
Facebook posts going to LA to showcase for inter school
Life by Music, oh Man up until six am recording.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Life by Music. So it was this hashtag and this
motto and this mantra.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Really it just grew because then, you know, we broke
out with Soldiers, we broke out with True Love Never Dies.
We toured our first album cycle was twenty two months straight.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And yeah, I mean we.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Were gone, you know, and then the piece it all costs,
and it just the shine kind of wore off of
like what we thought it was supposed to be, you know,
and what people sold us and what we believed of,
Like Okay, cool, we're rocking out and we're rolling, and
we've got the guitar tag and we've got the bandwagon
(19:01):
and the sick RV. But we're sitting on the bus
hungover all day when we're in this town, We're like, dude,
we could go play guitar or like we could give
we could go do something with our time while we're
away from the people we love, like we could do more.
And that's that's when it kind of really started clicking, like, dude,
(19:23):
I want to do more than just what our agent
and our label and our manager is telling us to do.
I want to do something besides all of this. So
it grew slowly of like Okay, well, what are you
going to do?
Speaker 6 (19:36):
You know?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club here
in Las Vegas for one of our acoustics shows at
a casino here in town in twenty sixteen, and we
we set up a field trip for a dozen kids
from the local club to come to the Otherwise sound check.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
They we had a paint a painting area set up up.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
In this venue where they could paint guitars and create
these music notes, and we had four guitars and my brother,
myself and two of our really good friends, Nick and
Justin Giardano. We sat down with the kids and it
was like, oh man, we're here like life by music.
We're going to show these kids like the other side
(20:20):
of it all. And you know, again going back to
the E minor chord, which is just something that I
always say, Man, I could teach.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You how to play.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I could get you playing guitar right away. And it's
the E minor chord, Man the Soldiers. It's a chord
that is the biggest chord ever liked in my heart,
it's the biggest chord. It's the most beautiful, it's rock
roll right. So I'm like, okay, E minor chord. E
is for equality, you know, And it just came out
of my mouth like okay, he is for equality, And
(20:50):
that's what started That's what started it all.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
So we taught these kids.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
They got to paint, they got to go on the stage,
walk around backstage, see the setup.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Then we took them to the buffet and life by
Music was born.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
We gave these kids something extra that day, some connection
with the professional artists chasing their dreams, living their dreams out.
And then also this educational aspect of like, hey, you
got to learn how to play guitar, and you guys
get to keep the guitars. And we went to the
buffet and it was super fun. So it's like we're
trying to create these moments where kids remember, remember them
(21:24):
and maybe inspire them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Maybe there's a spark.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
And man, that was in twenty sixteen, so you know,
in five we've gotten some amazing grants from the county
here in Las Vegas and from casinos and energy companies,
and man, it's just it's really grown into something amazing.
We have a board of directors, We've got a treasurer,
(21:49):
you know, director of operations. We hire younger kids now
to go to the elementary schools with me and by themselves.
It's becoming something really great to where Okay, we've proved
that we could do it here in Las Vegas, and
now we're starting to branch out into other places.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Okay, well you have my number because this sounds this
sounds amazing. I mean, it really does like to be
able to take a silly hashtag from when your kids,
you know what I mean, and turn it into this
sort of life changing thing for so many other.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Kids and those who you know, maybe are less privileged.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
In the veteran work too, there's a there's an organization
out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin called the Guitar for Vets that
I've done some work with and they kind of do
the same thing, right, you know, take a veteran, teach
them how to play guitar, and then give it to
him at the end. And it's it's incredible to see
the light down the faces, you know, of these of
these men who have seen some horrific, horrific stuff to
(22:44):
be able to have some some light in that soul again,
it's awesome. And for kids especially, do your hats off, man,
that's that's such a cool thing that you're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Thanks man.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know, a funny quick story is that actually I
spoke with Guitars for Vets years ago when I wanted
to do when I wanted to get into the Veterans Outreach,
I wanted to just create the Guitars for Vet chapter
in Las Vegas, and I was like, this is it
just makes sense to do it, but it was just
taking too.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Long, and you know, it was an a plan.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So we made our own, we made our own outreach,
and we've served fifty veterans so far.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
You know, we've given out guitars to each one of.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Them ten ten to fifteen class course. We've done three
of them so far, and yeah, it is really something
special to see.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Not only that Hey, you're learning how to play guitar.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
But I think more importantly, they're getting a new community.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
A new safe place to just like hang with each other.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Like after our class yesterday, eight of the students all
went to get a beer together after the class.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That's awesome, And like one of the most favorite things
about the class is now they just it's a new
thing where they get to meet like minded warriors. And
I think that I'm like, hell, yeah, let's do let's
keep it going.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That's incredible, man, that truly is. And it hats off
to you guys.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
So with all this going on, Otherwise kind of took
it seemed like a little bit of a hiatus there
for a second as far as touring and stuff goes.
But you guys do have a new song out, So
what kind of is the plan for Otherwise right now?
In the new song, of course called Permanentification, And it's
a good tune, man. And that's the thing with just
listening back to the catalog again here a few minutes ago,
(24:29):
I'm like, I'm remembering some of the songs I absolutely felt,
songs that nobody know, you know that I'm like, and
I couldn't even tell you the names of them now
off top of my head, but I just know when
I heard them, I'm like, oh, yeah, well this right,
you know what, So what it kind of is the
plan right now with this song and sort of what
the future for otherwise holds.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah. Man, So we definitely took a little bit of
time off of.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
That whole grind we really wanted to get. We wanted
to get in how we felt was the hooks out
of our band. We wanted to get the proverbial hooks of,
you know, running and chasing this certain business plan, this
certain you know, Hey, you've got to do this, to
(25:12):
do that, to be this. You've got to do this,
or you have to go you have to take this tour,
or you have to go write this song with this person.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You have to do this, you have to do that.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It's like, dude, we started a rock band to not
be told what to do. For the longest time, we
just felt like we were being told that we had
to do certain things that we didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So, you know, with all that being.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Said, we had to kind of like pull back and say,
all right, you know, we had to get out of
our record deal. We had to get out of our
relationships with management, with the agency, and kind of regroup
a little bit, you know what I mean. And let's
(25:59):
time I really started focusing on.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Life by music a lot.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
We got these big grants from the county, so it's
finally a chance to, okay, focus on life by music
a bit. Let my brother be with his sons, raise
them and okay, let's not go tour.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
But recently we went and hit the road.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
We came and did a quick little run up in
Wisconsin and Illinois and Indiana.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And man, it was great.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
You know. We we went and we paid going back
to Permanent Vacation, which was the tour.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
You know, my brother wrote the song.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
It came to him in a dream and then he
sent it to me and I was like, oh, dude,
well we're independent now, so we can go pay our
producer to get this song done and we can own
it all.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You know, we can do it ourselves.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
And so that's really we got to tap into that
independence and that freedom that we were desperately seeking with
this Permanent Vacation tour. And you know, the future of
the band is pretty interesting because here in two weeks
we're going to be releasing some We're going to be
releasing some music and I haven't really this is the
(27:08):
first time that I've actually said it straight out like that.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Clun Cutters Broadcast Exclusive.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah baby, We've partnered with a dear friend of ours
and you know, we signed we signed a deal for
this music that is so fair. It's fair for the
artists for the first time in our in our in
our careers. It's it's a fair deal, and it's favored
(27:34):
in the arts. It's in the artist's favor, you know.
And so we're very excited to get that out and
we will be planning a tour to support this body
of work, which is going to be the video is
going to be coming out on July twenty July twenty fourth.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
So okay, okay, yeah, so on the show airs this weekend,
and yeah, that's that's a week and a half.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah baby, And you know what I'm gonna say it.
The song is called Stop, Drop and.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Roll, Stop and work drop and Roll by otherwise two.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Weeks with the little quotes doesn't work in hell.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I love that, man.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, man, we're excited, dude. It's it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
One thing, one thing for the future of our band
is that we get to make our decisions and it's
all on us, and that's scary, you know, honestly sometimes
and it's frustrating, dude, when I've got a book sixteen
flights because the band, and we're going to play two
shows like next month. But it's that's when it's like, oh, okay,
(28:44):
you know, I'm able to appreciate the good things that
our team did. And I always think that hey, there's
oh everything bad everything.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It's like, no, there's little there's little small things that
were done.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
The intricacies, yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Now on our shoulders, and you know, it's it's it's
on us, like we get to talk straight to straight
to the to the agent. There's no in between stuff.
There's no oh, do you think we'll get on that festival. No,
we're not getting on that festival. Just move on, you know,
Like it's just just go just keep going, go play
to your like now, it's like we go play to
(29:21):
our fans.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
We do it, and honestly, do we make more money.
It's crazy. It's crazy how that works.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Like you see these bands that are getting on these
like tours of the opening band and they're huge, and
it's like did you guys are making no money, Like
you don't make money.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
We were that band. It's like, why aren't you on
these tours anymore?
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Well, we're not going to get paid five hundred bucks anymore,
and we're not going to do stuff for free, and
we're going to do things that actually like keep us
alive and don't don't kill us when we get off
the road, you know. So it's just this funny balance
of now it's all in our hands. The pie is
(29:58):
essentially smaller, but the pie is.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's all yours.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah, and that's a pie is smaller, but you're not
sharing the pieces.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And and it's like I got so tired of being
a part of a part of partnerships where you set
where everybody celebrates the wins, but the losses are only
on the band, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Just like, dude, So that's the music industry as a whole,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, there's something very and yeah, dude, there's there's shows
that I wish that we would play or or bands
that I wish we would tour with sometimes and like
but then I think back, I'm like when we were
doing that. You know, we weren't making any money. We're
pretty miserable. We were upset. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Now it's it's all on our shoulders, you know. So
(30:52):
it's a it's important for my brother and I to
really take the reins and do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It's just here and there, you.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Know, hey man, hashtag life by music all comes around.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Love it?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
What a good story?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Life by management by label?
Speaker 5 (31:13):
You know, Nope, never, I'll tell you what. Hey man,
the offer still stands. You need another guitar player, I'll
get my shacter ready, I'll get both my schacters ready.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, we gotta find that Joe.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You find that Joe sat any guitar dude, it's your
your That spot is yours.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Oh great, thanks, okay, well then I'll just see it
from the crowd when you get here next. Nice man,
all right, buddy Ryan Patrick from Otherwise. It's always a pleasure,
my friend, it truly is. It's good to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It's great to see your face.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Man. Hopefully we get to hang out in the flesh
soon and maybe play some six things together.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
We love that would love that. Give my love to everyone.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Carter's Rock Cash don't get to tune in exactly
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