Musicians Matters Podcast EP #98 | CAL STYLE - DRUMMER

Musicians Matters Podcast EP #98 | CAL STYLE - DRUMMER

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Join me as your host, Rogert Swells, and this is
your girl Mothers.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the Takeover.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Musicians Matters podcast, live right here at four thirty pm
Specific Standard time. It's seven thirty pm Eastern Standard Time
every Wednesday on all digital platforms. Possitive Power twenty one.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Christian Ndiol, let's go.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to another.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Episode of Musicians Matters. How you doing on today, Cayle,
what's going on on with my brother?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hey? Brother, how you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'm blessed. I'm hanging in there, just hanging in there.
How't your day?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
My day is going good so far.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
We'll probably get all awesome awesome, So tell us a
little bit about yourself before going into this suchon.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Uh, just a little bit about myself. Well, my name
is uh Nathaniel Kellaway. Everybody calls me cal Cal Styles,
my stage name. Originally from the Bay Area, now residing
in Las Vegas. Curly a musician out here in Las Vegas.
I've been out here since five and it's been a

(01:30):
roller coaster ride. But we're looking good. World up fling
of things. It's good to be out here, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, tell me about it. I understand.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
M hm.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Coming from that roller coaster riding style. It's been a
literally a roller coaster from the past with me for
the past a sense. The pandemic actually, if it was

(02:06):
if it wasn't me, it was n other half going
through something. If it's not her going through something, it's
me going to something. It's been a up and downhill,
up and down here, my brother, I hear you.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
The U s it. Yeah, I hear you. I can understand.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
So basically, since this pandemic, how did it affect you?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I guess, let's see. You know, everybody had to adjust,
mostly everybody have to adjust music. You say, music wise,
how did sect is specifically a drastic Yes, sir. Music wise,
that just kind of caused me to kind of just
tap into those resources, those people that I knew. It's

(03:04):
really good to know people. You know. The more people
you know, the better, it's good to have allies. So
forced me to kind of just tap into those people
that I knew and just branch out, going to other
circles that I wouldn't I wouldn't usually I wouldn't usually frequent.

(03:25):
So yeah, it kind of helped me tap into different groups,
different musicians, and maybe get reacquainted with musicians that I
haven't seen in a long time. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
You heard of the Drummers of Las Vegas. That group,
you heard about them.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
There's a few groups. I'm not sure if we're talking
about the same.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
The one with John Nasal started that at first. Now, uh,
Gregg is over it right now, since I the founder,
John Nash has passed away.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Our master familiar with him? Whose yar is?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
John Nash is the He was the radio broadcaster over
ninety one point five okay, he was the one that
started it off at at at seven o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
So as far as the places that you you you
play at?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
What? What?

Speaker 3 (04:55):
What type of places that you play at?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Out here? H play We play at different places, man
various places. Currently I'm playing I'm actually just subbing for
guy Frank Gaston at Purple Rain the Prince Tribute over
a playing in Hollywood before, I've I've played at Portrays

(05:24):
Night Club on the drumming staff over there, and currently
right now, I have a residency over Red the Old Red,
which is the Country the New Country Bar on the
Strip where they are every Friday, excuse me, Monday, Friday
and Saturday Mondays, we're doing the first shift. Mondays and

(05:49):
Fridays we're doing the first shift from about eleven to two.
The Saturdays we're in there from about one to five o'clock.
We're on the roof top on Saturday. So hopefully your
listeners can come check it out sometime. It's a good look.
It's a good looking there, fun spot.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
So remind the listeners again. Excuse me, remind your listeners
our listeners again.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Old Red Monday and Friday eleven to two pm, and
then Saturday's one pm, the five pm at Old Red.
He gets me there. I'm there with a man named
Matt Mattelco. We do a situation there doing country music.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh my goodness, So how's that experience? I'm doing country music.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Country Music's fun, very fun. This surreal?

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah wow. So fars of fars of from God both
to blues to jazz and.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
All of that.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
R and be what's the difference between country and that
you're seeing from all of the other genres I was
telling you about what's the difference that you like about it?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
I would say differential. It's pretty much. The approach is
the same way. It's just I would say a simplified
approach to I would say traditional gospel music. But yeah,
everything is pretty much the bars are traditionally uh you know,
eight bars, eight bars of everything's eight bars, sixteen bar chorus,

(07:49):
eight bar hooks, something like that. But everything is pretty standard.
It's just it's pretty just uh, I don't want to
say real. The remedial is two words. I would say
it's a little more user friendly, user friendly for a musician.
But it's about the storytelling. It's really about the story.
That's the storytelling the country.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
I like that part. You basically what you're saying be
pinging the picture, you pining the picture. Basically.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, every country song pretty much is telling the story.
And once you can kind of get into what the
story is of the song, differentiate all the different songs,
they all sound the same or what they sound similar.
I would say most genres within the genres sound the same,
but country music they tell certain stories within the within

(08:47):
the song. So if you can get into the stories,
then you can definitely get into the music.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Awesome. That's awesome. So far as of us being a musician,
there's a lot of uh, things that the young cats
don't understand. Far as of basically the business aspect.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
When we.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Play music, like say, for instance, I don't charge unless
God tells me to charge, or unless God is telling me, okay,
charge him just a little bit of something. But if

(09:41):
God tells me, okay, don't charge him just because of
this per uh pacif Pacific reason. How do you feel about.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
That you you've been in regarding if you charge as.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Far as of as far as of being compensated of
you know, like the young cats they go in just
because and not knowing the odds and ends the front
the front end and the back end of basically closing
the deal and opening the deal they and closing it.

(10:25):
That's basically what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
You mean, what are the what what will be the.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
You mean we'll be How how do you feel about
that aspect of say, for instance, and I don't charge
on every search on every gig. That's basically what I'm saying.
So what would you how do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Oh? I mean, you know it it really depends. That's
the it's a gig by a gig kind of situation. Uh,
how how I usually work is you know, it depends
on what gig it is, how big the gig is
and what's the market rate. You know, what's the going

(11:10):
rate around town, something that's reasonable. You know, whatever the
spec is or whatever the project is. You look at
that project and you value the project, and then you
value your time and how much you're worse and you
know how much time you spent, you know, putting in

(11:32):
that putting in that that lane. You know, it's the
same as if you if you are a plumber or
something like that, the same thing. If you're a plumber,
if you're a plumber for twenty three years, you're going
to have a twenty three year old, twenty three year raining. Now,

(11:53):
if you're only a plumber for you're just a journeyman
and you just got out of school, you're probably not
gonna charge the same thing as a tech mission one
or a tech mission two. You might do some freebies
to get your name around so that you can you know,
people can notice who you are and your work can

(12:15):
kind of sell and speak for you. So you need
to take an honest look at your musicianship and your
professionalism to where it lines up with the market. If
you're just a young drummer and you've just been in church,
your whole life, then you're probably not going to be
worth too much as you have gone around unless you've

(12:38):
played with megachurches and you've played to you know, convocations,
and you've done big services, major services on a consistent basis,
on a consistent basis, And if you've if you're in
that lane, then maybe you can start, you know, you
can charge more. But if you're if you're professionalism isn't

(13:04):
isn't competitive, then you're not really in a You're not
really in a position to charge competitive prices. So you
really have to take an honest look. Have peers, you
peers who will honestly critique you, and you have to
have that tough skin to take those critiques. If somebody

(13:29):
says you're not worth something, then you need to take
a look and see why, you know, or how many
times have you got paid that much to be even
asking people that much that you be asking that price
to people. You have to be honest with yourself. So

(13:49):
if your professionalism isn't really there, then you gonna be
playing free. You're gonna be playing free if you're not
practicing every day and you're not playing at a competitive
level like the rest of the people are, then you're
not going to get any money. You're not gonna get
any attention, you're not gonna get any sales. This is capitalism.

(14:14):
So you need to sell yourself. You need to sell yourself,
sell your craft. As far as like playing in the churches,
I think that that's something that's that's good. You know
you're gonna earn, and that would be probably one of
the best places to start earning is in the church.

(14:36):
But I would think that you know, even dealing with
the church, you have to have a reasonable reasonable scale
to even charge anybody. If you're playing at a beginner level,
then you're not You don't need to charge anybody anything.
You just need to prove your skin. You need to
prove You need to prove yourself. If you're playing at

(15:00):
beginning level. If you're playing at an advanced level, then
your peers, your peers will, they will, they will christen you,
Your peers will vouch for you. Your peers will start
calling you on gigs, they'll start subbing, you'll start subbing
for them. Then the other musicians on those gigs. If

(15:20):
you're good enough on that gig, the other musicians will
start calling you. And then that's how you work up
your repertoire. But if nobody's calling you back, then you're
doing something wrong. So I could go on, I can
keep going on. But that's kind of just what it happens.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
That's basically That's basically what I was about to ask
you right there. How do you market yourself?

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Uh, you gotta get out there, man, you gotta pound
the pavement. I tell guys, you know the best way.
It's multiple ways to get out there. I tell guys,
you see a gig that you want, you want to
show your face. You want to show your face, you

(16:08):
want to shake hands. You know, you go to their gigs,
go to their shows. If you're in town and their
shows are in town, show up and you target one person,
usually the music director, whoever the music director is for
the band that you want to play for, you target him,

(16:30):
him or her. Then once you target them, then you
be seen, You get their information, exchange information, and then
you be seen around them. You keep being seen around
them because if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.
You can't go over there one time and shake their
hand and then think they're going to like call you back.
It's not happening. You have to be seen on a

(16:51):
consistent basis. You have to be seen in multiple places.
Timing is everything. Timing is everything, So you have to
be at the right place at the right time. So
you need to make yourself accessible. You can't just sit
at home, shed in the garage and thinking those YouTube

(17:13):
videos is about to get you a gig. Man, Man,
I better get your gig dout. They're not about to
get your gig. You know, some guys might, but not
on a consistent basis like that. You know, you really
have to make friends. You have to go to those bars.
You gotta go to those lounges where people are, where
the musicians are. You go where they are birds of

(17:38):
a feather flock together. You will get no calls. You
will get zero calls sitting there just studying gear and
at home just not doing nothing. You're just sitting at home.
You're gonna stay at home. So get outside. Found the pavement,
wherever there's music. Go wherever there is music, Go in

(18:02):
the exchange whole rivers. Exchange, Social media and network.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Networking is a It helps a lot. I can tell
you that. That's basically why I'm thankful that I have
certain platforms like this one that we are on right now,
because it's a sign of networking and it brings people

(18:33):
to listen to this advertisement and to listen to this
this shows because it we have we're almost at number
one hundred is coming up and a few days actually
a few weeks, congratulations one hundred shows under know, and

(19:01):
I'm thankful to God, you know, you know, because it
was it's you know, it wasn't easy. It's not easy.
You know, you can cry. You had to cry a
lot of tears. You had to you know, say yeah
your native a lot of people, you know, you know,
just to get here, you know. But it's a blessing

(19:23):
that God seemed fit for it to happen, you know.
So you know, I'm thankful for that.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Congratulations Peter, Yeah, God bless you on that.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
So fars of that the club set situation when you
you played at that one club, but it wasn't drads correct,
how was that experience? I know that's a type of
experience far as of uh with the drummer and the

(20:01):
dj am I am my correct, yes? So what how
was that experience that the world don't know about?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
You know?

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Can you tell us about that experience?

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, Yeah, it was really fun. It was a pretty
fun experience, our opening experience. You know, you get exposed,
exposed to a lot of different people that she wouldn't
usually be exposed to, you know, a lot of celebrities,
exposed to a lot of celebrities and a list celebrities.

(20:42):
You know, you make a lot of friends. You know,
you make a lot of you know, if you're if
you're that person, if you're personable, you know, you can
shake a lot of good hands in the room like that,
you know, and that that's just another testament to networking.
That's just another testament too, talking to people. You know.

(21:04):
I didn't even audition, well, I barely auditioned for that one.
That was just a phone call gig, you know, just
knowing the right person, uh, being around the right person,
you know, and then asking questions, you know, asking questions.
I didn't even know they were doing it. I asked
the person, the guy that got me in there, I

(21:27):
didn't even know he worked there, and we were just
talking and I asked him, I said, he told me
he worked there, and he told me he was the
stage man of the sound manager, the stage manager. And
I asked him how to our audition He's, and he
asked me, he said, oh, you want to play? And
I said, yeah, yeah, maybe maybe two days later. Uh,

(21:51):
just dust Dut Dustin dres Uh, the owner of Dre's.
The owner called my phone and asked me to come
in and check it out. And you know, I came
in there and checked it out. He told me to
just play to a couple of tracks, see if see
if it's a fit. You know, I just played to

(22:12):
a couple of tracks. He said, report comes to We'll
expect a phone call on Monday.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Pretty much. That that's simple, man, That simple, you know.
You know, personality is everything. Personality it goes a long way.
You have to have the skills to pay the bills.
You definitely have to have the skills to back it up.
You can't just talk your way up, that's right. Definitely.

(22:45):
You definitely have to have a You have to have
your you know, your sword sharpened, you know when it's
time to swing it, you know. But along with that,
you got to be able to you know, be personable
with people, you know, to build trust because it's all
about trust. It's all about trust. Do I trust you

(23:09):
on this gig? Do I trust you to bring you
around my friend group. Do I trust you to show
up on time? Do I trust you to learn the music?
Do I trust you do? There's a whole bunch of
trust that has to happen, and you have to build

(23:30):
that trust with people, whether it's some of a five
minute conversation or two hours or you know, or it's
something that you just got to build over time. You know,
you got. Personality is everything. It's everything. You have to
have personality on and off the drums, on and off
the drums. And I think that was the testament, just

(23:53):
you know, to being personable, being personal the guy on
the gig. We still tick it today, We still talk today.
Good friends, one of my good friends, you know. So, yeah,
you really what it's always my dad always says, it's
always good to keep good favor with people. You want

(24:15):
to keep good favor with people, you know, you want
to make a good impression, you know. So, yeah, that
was a I learned that being on that gig.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, I'm learning I'm learning that too. Never burn breeches.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, you don't want to, you know, you want to
try to keep good favor with you. You never know
what's going on down the line. You know, you never know.
You know, it's not good to just have a bunch
of people, a bunch of adversaries, you know what I mean,
It's bad for business.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
So yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, you know that don't mean you got to like
drop everything you do for everybody at all time. But
mm hmm, you know you definitely want to keep good
standings wherever you can. That's true.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Before we go, before we close the show, say something
to the world positive.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Say something to the world positive.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
You know how vague that is, right, Yeah, we need
to We need something positive on what's going on with
this world today because it's a whole lot you've seen
you just seen yesterday on what's going on in Vegas.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Bro She said, I seen yesterday what was going on?

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Did you see what happened yesterday with with with what's
going on with the world today. It was a whole
lot of shooting, a whole lot of uh politics going on.
That's what I'm saying is it's a lot going on.
So say say something to the world the positives that
we can grasp on.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Just stay positive, man, stay positive. Everything's about as bad
as what it seems. Whatever it is, whatever you're going through.
It can always get worse. Yes, don't dig yourself a
whole further than what you're already in. It can always
get worse. It can always get worse. Be thankful, country blessings,

(26:32):
and hang around people who are positive and who are
doing greater things than you so that you can do
greater things for them. So there you go. I think
that's pretty positive.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
I love it. I love it. I would really appreciate
you for coming onto the show. I'd like to think
of my sponsor, my brother, my big mentor, James Roy
for the Settinus platform on Derry Roy's Live on Positive

(27:07):
Power to twenty one Christian Media at LLC. I would
like to thank my co host Candy for being there.
You know even though that she's uh, I guess sick
right now, but say I pray for her. And I

(27:27):
want to ask anybody that's looking for a drum plenty
out here, we haven't one that's coming up in August,
the night it's going to be at the Gas Station
Recording Studio. You can purchase the tickets right now as
we speak at Drummers United International dot org or either

(27:55):
going to event right and look on their Drummers United International,
you know dot org or Drummedy International, Drummer's United International
Music and Arts Fest. So God blessed and I'm signing off.

(28:15):
Have a blessed day.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Join me as your host, Roger Swift and this is
your girl mother. Welcome to the Takeover the Musicians Matters podcast,
live right here four thirty pm Pacific Standard time at
seven thirty pm Eastern Standard time every Wednesday on all
digital platforms on pousand power twenty one Christian Media.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
L Let's go Matter