Byron Nash: The Undefinable Musician, Guitarist, Songwriter, and Producer

Byron Nash is undefinable. Pittsburgh-based musician, guitarist, songwriter, and producer Byron Nash has electrified audiences with elevated rock sounds for over a decade, headlining major stages and collaborating with noteworthy artists on a local, regional and national level.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Y'all knows it. This is ann video.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
You are I don't bless your heart. This is the
Code podcast Qualit Pittsburgh's music scene. Welcome in. I'm your
host Johnny Hertwell along with Andy Pugar. Today we talked
with Byron nash By his own admission is undefinable.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Well, Johnny's a great interviewer, and everybody thinks that.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
I go with the flow. I used to interview bands
for a living. So put some on the other side
of it.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Let's start there. So used to interview bands like what back.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
In the day. There was a magazine here called The
Rock and Roll Reporter, and I got an internship as
an artist as a graphic designer. But I wasn't that
great at it yet. I was creative, but I wasn't
good at the computer. And they were asking if anyone
knew anything about Rat, and like, I was the only
person in there that knew all this history about the
hair metal band Rat ended up being my first interview.

(01:09):
Became a writer, and then I just started going to
concerts like four Yeah, Okay and Warren De Martini and
I had like the record from when I was fifteen.
Some in their hotel room and just asking them all
these questions as a fan, and then it kind of
that's what got me into the music business.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh all right, well yeah, what was that?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
What kind of individuals were they?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Were?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
They cool?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
They were they were a little disgruntled, not with me,
but with like it was sort of grunge era, like
like Post. So there was like that bitterness of all
those bands whose careers got rocked by just alternative music
taking over. But it was interesting to talk about that
because I grew up on them, so I was like
a fan and just to see like the comparison to

(01:52):
like Stuntable Pilots and those other bands, how they felt
about you know, you go from marinas to small clubs.
It's probably a kick to the ego bands like that
back in the day.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Okay, so all right, you're kind of a unicorn.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Kind of a unicorn. Uh. If a black man walked
into my you know, it's for an interview you how
much do you know about rat.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's exactly what he said. Yeah, because I was like
super shy and like kind of quiet and had my
little like rasta hat on. So they're thinking I'm like
all Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. I was just into everything,
but I really love metal and thrash metal and like
death metal the whole thing. So I started with like
just regular rock made through my hair bands all the

(02:35):
way through and all of that I just consumed. But
also it stayed with me. So he pulled me in
the off he says, like, what do you know about rat?
And I was just like, oh, I one, shut up,
and I was like then his uncle was this guy.
He's like, oh wait, wait, what else do you know?
And I just was Pandora's box.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
That is really cool.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I've never met him, you know. I have the same album, yeah,
out of Cellar typical, you know. You know, I'd listened
to the second one was okay, and then after that
I'm like, I don't know, but they're still doing it.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, they still do it. I mean, and bands like
that kind of give me that hope, like do you
love it for yourself or do you love it for
the fame or do you just want to keep playing music?
You know?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
All right, let's I always like to kind of start
with what you're currently working on? What are you doing now?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
What are you doing? Let's see musically I'm doing a
lot of recording at home, working on like instrumental music
for sync licensing, and then what is that? So sink
licensing would be any commercial you hear with music, somebody
gets paid for that. It's not always a big artist

(03:41):
that they use. It's a lot of like independent artists
who can record music at home. So say a tissue
company wants a folky little snippet of music, someone gets
paid for that. If somebody if Manna's company wants a
little rock guitar thing, someone gets paid for that. And
I have twenty years of music stockpiled that I was

(04:02):
just making because I loved it. Yeah, and then I realized, oh,
you can make a lot of money doing that. So
I started kind of working on placements before, but now
I'm really digging into the business model of it. And
I actually had a small placement deal a few years
back in twenty nineteen where this company in La I
had to record six six song albums every two weeks.

(04:24):
And I think they assumed that I had all the
music already because they were like, oh, send us a
little snippet, and they were like, oh, you have a
wide range. Cool, here's the deal. But every two weeks,
we need six new songs. And I was like, oh no.
So I was every day just recording and writing and
writing and recording, and then you'd send them and then
they'd send you the corrections, and then you'd have to
go into a new batch every two weeks. So that
kind of helped me up my game with recording and

(04:46):
writing outside of like what do I like to play
for me? Versus what will this sound like with the
visual behind it?

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Okay? What was that used for?

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Just like different commercials or like think about podcasts. There's
music as an intro anything like that. Yeah, So, and
then Saint licensing companies shop your music out.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Okay, and then didn't churn something. But were they naive
to think that, you know, anybody's capable of just like, hey, yeah,
I could spin out six or seven songs.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
I think they thought I already had the music. I
think they assumed that I already had the music recording.
You didn't tell them, No, I didn't tell them that
I did. I was like, sure, I'll see you two week, Sure, God,
how many do you need? It was really hard. I
was stressed out. I would wake up at six in
the morning and I would just start recording and writing,
and then I'd go through the whole day. My ears

(05:39):
were getting kind of fatigued. Then i'd go to work
bar tend and then i'd come in from the bar
and I'd listen to what I did and I'm like,
why is that based so loud? And it's probably because
my ears were tired. And then I'd work on it
and mix it again, and then I'd wake up and
do it over and over.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
It's crazy. I didn't expect to have this kind of conversation.
That's Yeah, that's really kind of cool because I've wondered.
You know, as a radio person, I use a lot
of that music. Yeah, for commercials. Yeah, and there's like Stock.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
You know, there's companies where you send your music at
Stock and you don't have to pay or anything, or
they get a small percentage or what.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
No license it out and then you get a little
portion of that.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, okay, that that is totally cool, And that way
I don't have to feel stuck in you know, Oh
I have to write this song that sounds like my band.
I'm just writing what I feel and a lot of it,
Like I could play you one song and then play
you another and you went and think that it was
the same person making.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
It, Like what kind of music?

Speaker 1 (06:29):
I mean, I do a lot of acoustic stuff that's
like kind of pretty and delicate, and then I could
be on the other side and be completely rocking out
and wammy bar dives and the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So each day you just get inspired to do something different.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
It's kind of where I'm at with it, like how
am I feeling that day, or I just go back
to the pieces that might not be completed that like, oh,
this was a good idea, and now I have to
kind of organize it because it's so much music where
it's like, okay, which one is this? Ninety percent on
what's the genre? It's the vibe. Let me finish that
and then move on to the second tiers, like this

(07:04):
is kind of there, but need some work. I wrote
it in twenty nineteen. I'm better now I can finish
as fast. And then another one's like, oh, it's just
a baby idea. Like back and so I've.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Used stock you know what you called stock music for
forty years. You're the first person I've ever met you
actually that did it.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
He might be playing some of Byron stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Maybe you never know. And I mean I just got
into it a few years ago, so I would consider
myself kind of right at it. But now I'm like,
I can really do that because I don't have to
necessarily go on the road to bring in income. There's
other ways as an artist to do that. You know,
play some shows, do some sync licensing. You know. I
did the intro for Kelly Frost her podcast. I wrote

(07:48):
that music in like an hour. Yeah, you know things
like that.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, so all right, let's cover everything you're currently working on.
You're obviously doing this, you know, the music for commercials
and things. What else.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
A band called Nashville and we're working on new music too,
playing a bunch of gigs as usual. But I've actually
taken a small break to my standard because I was
playing like four or five Yeah, I was just crushing them,
and then it got to the point where I'm like,
I was so busy. I'm like, somewhere in there, I
need to stop sucking, refuel, write new music, get more

(08:20):
creative whatever. But then I also work for the Pop District,
which is an initiative of Andy Warhol Museum. So I'm
an event coordinator and community engagement person. So between those,
you know, in personal training, I think, okay.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
You talked about Nashville. You go on YouTube and there's
such a variety of music that you produce and it's
just everything under the sun. So what is Byron nash Well,
first of all, let's just I kind of intimated that
you're you're pretty unique, which I don't think is unique

(08:58):
at all, because when it comes to black guitarists, I
mean black guitarists invented rock and roll. You had Chuck
Berry and the Sister Rosetta, Thorpe, Holland Wolf and you
know even today you know Prince and everything like that.
So I don't I don't see you as unique, but
probably a lot of people do.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
There's always a little bit of like you like that.
I'm like, why wouldn't I like that? You know? But
I was fortunate My mom had a massive record collection
and she didn't do the whole like you only listen
to this, we only like that a group on soul,
funk rock, a lot of rock actually like and then
like groups like Chicago and Holland Notes and Two Bee Brothers.

(09:38):
I didn't have this sort of race separator musically. If
it was good. I liked it.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well me too, me too, you know, you know I
you know, my my parents listened to a lot of
folk music. I didn't, but I had a friend who
loved Earth Wind and Fire and I appreciated that. And
then you know, they went into you know, AC DC
and I anything that was cool and anything that kind

(10:04):
of moved me. And that's kind of how I progressed
in my career. I mean, the radio station I play
plays a variety of music, right, and so it kind
of suits my taste. So getting down to your taste,
what so you grew up on that? Do you remember
the first record you ever bought?

Speaker 1 (10:22):
It was the first one I ever bought with my
own money, was the Gap Ban three, which was amazing.
But then I think I have like really early records.
I think it's like I love rock and roll. Forty
five jone Jet. That was like my first performance I
like lip synced in front of my school. It was
like punishment for goofing off in class, Like what do

(10:43):
you mean? They're like, you think it's so funny, why
don't you do it in front of the school. And
that's what it was.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Going back to your mother's record collection. Did she play
it or did you get into start playing her records?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
So she let me play her records very early because
I was so obsessed. So like Parliament Funk to Dell,
like and he Went and Bootsy and all of that
type of stuffer. Yeah, the glasses, the whole and I
would just lay there and just look at the album covers.
Just fascinated. It was like comic books to me. But
I understood the music and you that seventies music was

(11:14):
pretty sophisticated with the horns and the arrangements and composition,
and I just loved it. But I also remember like
who was a Glenn Campbell Rhinstone Cowboy? Yet I loved
that song as a little kid. Yeah, over and over
theon Warwick Like I was just a weird little kid.
I want to go to play football? Or do you
want to stay in the house and listen to sos band?
I was in the house like on repeat.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
So did you come from a music family?

Speaker 1 (11:38):
My grandfather was a jazz player, but I didn't really
know him that well, so he was like a local
jazz guy. I played trumpet, That's about it. Really. I
think my biological dad played keys, but he wasn't in
my life, so I didn't have that like direct influence.
It was simply the vinyl.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
When did you pick up? When did you become a musician?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Around fifteen, my mom got me a guitar. I was
a skater more than anything, so the guitar was great,
but it was more like skating. I was in skateboarding,
but it was sort of like, you know, between Poison
and White Snake and Motley Crue and kind of air guitaring.
You know, I wasn't good yet. And then something changed,
like where I said, I'm going to play guitar for
the rest of my life, whether I play a note

(12:19):
for anybody else. And I was just practicing two three
hours a day, starting to get pretty good, like base
level good, but I wouldn't play for anyone. Just was
just my own little thing. And then in time that's
sort of a late bloomer with that, and then I
eventually started playing out and started the band and here
we are.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
So she gave you the guitar, so she must have
seen something in you.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, I mean she knew how crazy I was about
the music. And I feel fortunate to have a mom
that wasn't afraid of like all the imagery that comes
with heavy metal at the time, you know, we're talking
eighty six, eighty seven had dark imagery, but I didn't care.
I was just like an iron maiden, you know. I
loved it. So she wasn't really she didn't push me
away from that. A lot of parents were scared of

(13:04):
that stuff. Back here.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
You have a lot of friends who were in the
metal at the time.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, okay, I mean I have a lot of black
friends that were in and there was a lot of
like what's wrong with this guy? You know, but there
was something about the rebellious nature of it that really
spoke to me and staying true to that, like like,
I just like it because I like it. I can't
explain to you why there's something speaks to me about
what the imagery is. And I was watching Headbangers ball.

(13:30):
I learned to play guitar by watching music videos like
Zeppelin song remains the Same, and I would like, you know,
I don't read music or anything, so I would look
and see where his hands were and I'm like, that's
not oh, that's just edited, you know. So I had
really learned by ear and just kind of grew up
in you know the eighties and really dug into guitar
in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Do you remember the first real song that you learned
on guitar.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
It's funny. I remember I was in Albuquerque and I
was I would always know these little snippets like I
know a little bit Italica and a little bit of this,
you know, and my grandmother's like, that's really nice, honey,
play me a song, and I like, couldn't play a song.
And that was when I was like, I need to
learn a whole song. So I don't remember what the
first whole song was, but because that's something about that challenge,

(14:14):
I'm like, I don't know how to play a song.
And then she bought me an acoustic and that's that's
what changed the game. It wasn't electric. It was having
an acoustic learning metal on an acoustic learning those kind
of like soft progressions, the folky things, the classical things
that metal kind of sprinkles in there. I fell in
love with that stuff, and that's why I really like
Cut my Teeth was on an acoustic guitar, and then

(14:35):
the songs started to come from that, because you can't
really fake it on acoustic at all.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Okay, you know, how early were you when you started
writing songs?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I again, probably a late bloomer, uh, mid nineties, mid
to late nineties.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
So you've been playing almost like ten years until he really.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Oh yeah, yeah. It was just more like sound and
technique and try to figure out parts and what things were,
and then songs started to form and lyrics.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
So their first band or the first time you collaborated
with somebody? How old were you? And like, you know,
you were like fifteen when you started, but when did
you start?

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Like twenty six? Really twenty six, twenty seven?

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Do you remember the first time you played in front of.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
A real audience. We were doing like little house party things,
which was cool, But then I played an actual gig.
I think it was a place. I don't know if
it was Froggy's not in Bridgeville, but there was some
place in like Butler. It's like that's where I kind
of started getting it, like in all the super outskirts places,
and people were liking what we were doing, and I'm like, well,
who's we?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Who's we?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
My band was called Sporadic. It was kind of like
a trio mixture of like punk, funk rock and sol
a little bit of jam.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
So many of those bands easy.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, yeah, But back then people are like, are you guys,
is that a metallic riffin there? Because we take a
snippet of something mix it with something else. So like
we would do a cover of guns and Roses my Michelle,
but we would play reggae music and that would confuse
the crap out of people. But other people like, that's
pretty cool you did that. So it's just kind of
cutting your teeth, you know, trying things, taking risk.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
So the first time you got paid, you know, that
gig and how much did you make?

Speaker 1 (16:21):
I think we made one hundred dollars between the three
of us. That was like the going rate, like thirty
three point three. And we just dumbered back to the band.
And then I got rid to like marketing and all
that stuff because I learned it from the magazine, you
know photo, how you know present yourself and how do
you be in these other spaces and how do you
stand out with all these band stabling their flyers through

(16:41):
the polls and all the record stores, and how do
you make yourself seem different? And so I learned all
of that through the magazine, for sure.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
So how did you get that magazine gig and what
did you learn.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, I, you know, I got it because I was
already reading it, but they were looking for art intern
I just graduated, so I'm like, all right, let me go.
You know, I got the gig. But then I'm there
and I'm like, I went to school for graphic design,
so I was good at painting and sculpture and all
this stuff. Computers didn't even get introduced into our program
until the last semester, so I like graduated with like

(17:14):
no real skill set in that space. In the magazine,
everyone was on computers. They're all like twenty one. I'm
like twenty seven, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
It's a big difference.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, it was like I felt this weird generation gap
and I'm like, I don't know, but I know had
the creativity. So luckily the writing kind of helped me out.
But because I grew up on rock magazines all the videos,
I still had this vision for when it came to
like what music stuff should feel and look like and.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
What were some of the things. What were some of
the articles that you wrote this.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
I mean, I interviewed Rob Zombie, Lenny Kravitz, took photos
of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Slayer, Pantera, all of it.
It was all over the sun. And then you know,
I kind of advanced really fast in my boss. He
ended up like take me through the ranks. I became like,

(18:02):
I don't know, managing editor and I was running the
magazine with them.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Wow. So who are some of the people that then
impressed you when you spoke to them.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction. Rob Zombie was really really smart,
and so I loved the business mind behind it because
you kind of wouldn't assume that just from the looks.
But it's like another skuy as a vision. He's in film,
he's doing these different things.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
You probably connected because you kind of have that that
that artistic vision.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, you know some of those I was just a fan,
So that always helped. And I realized that most artists,
especially back then, they don't really want to talk to writers.
You know. It's either the writer doesn't understand their music,
or the writer is a discruntled musician who hasn't made it,
and so they kind of like poke at them a
little bit, or it's there the twentieth Interview of the Day. Yeah,

(18:55):
and then they still got to play a show. So
I always kept that in mind, and I would just
absorb their music, especially if I already knew it, but
if I didn't, I would just listen to it on
repeat and really look for things in the music that
most writers probably wouldn't ask them. People just wanted to
talk about their music. They didn't want to talk about
who they were dating, what car they were driving, all
the typical like so, how did you write this song?

(19:17):
It's like, uh, but if you're a writer and you
don't know that, you don't know that question is going
to annoy them. So I would always figure out the
most personal way to connect with them, and that I mean,
it got to the point where they started calling my
boss saying like that was a great interview, and then
we started getting better interviews. And I've had bands try
to take me on the road to the next city.
I'm like, I can't. I'm a single dad, I can't
go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like who are some.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Lords of Acid? And they were crazy European sex band,
you know, bondage and all this stuff, and they were like,
come on, you can take yes, y'all kind of wild.
I'm sure, I mean, thank you, but you know, then
just really connect them with the artists, you know, especially
the ones right before they broke, like before Incubus, right

(20:02):
before they dropped Make Yourself. I got to talk to them,
but I interviewed them in person on the tour bus
on the last record before that, so it's like it's
like I knew them again. And then when three eleven
was really hitting, I went to see them in DC,
got backstage, gave him a band demo, and then they
were in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks later. He's like, oh,
I remember you who's playing guitar on that CD? And

(20:24):
I was like, oh, that was me, And that was
sort of like that's when it just took me up right. Yeah,
Aaron Neville, you know, hey, good guitar playing. Man. I'm like,
thank you whoa because we played, we opened for Aaron
Neville or Neville Brothers, we opened for Phil Lesh from
the Grateful Dead, started getting us all these really cool

(20:45):
opening slot Stave Matthews. Yeah, it was wild.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
This is your band, yeah, the very first one.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
And so so you're you're you're working at this magazine,
You're getting you know, some experience as far as like
getting an opportunity to talk to other established bands or
bands on the rise, or at least have a you know,
a contract or record contract. So you're seeing kind of
how they did it. You're kind of modeling after what

(21:13):
they do. Your You have your own band, you own
you have your own so how do you balance that?
You know that that job of running a magazine and
producing and creating your own music.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Apparently it was It was hard. Actually it was pretty hard,
but I knew that was the only thing I really
wanted to do. And the magazine was so closely connected
to the music, it didn't feel separate. It kind of
it was like rock and roll high school or college.
You know. Yeah, I'm getting this education in business. And
I didn't make a lot of money. I didn't care.
It's still the best job I've ever had to this day.

(21:48):
And you know, a lot of those shows I took
my son with me. It's like, I can't get considered.
You're going to see the Roots tonight the Metropol. You're seven,
but here we go. You're the youngest guy here.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, you know, if you're going to you know, exposed
your son to anybody. It's the Roots, man, what amazing band?

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Mm hm, you know they only know it from the
you know, the late night show with that, you don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
They don't know the roots really. I mean they did
a lot, you know, for like hip hop black artists
weren't really black bands back then. And you know, we're
talking early nineties all the way through now.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
So all right, so you started this the band you're
you're starting to play out When did you start connecting?

Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think when we just kind of we started playing
these like band rock off competitions and stuff, and like
it would be funny, like man expids have a lot
of ego for us, being like it's this local bar
and so while everyone's drinking, we're in the corner just
getting warmed up. And we would rehearse three days a week,
three hours each one, and then on Sundays like five hours.

(22:51):
So you put that much time in for a year,
you're going to get tight. Even if you're not a
good band, you're going to be pretty good. And so
we just kept pushing what we were doing and pushing
our own music and just really gelling. And I just
think that's like band homework. It's like band one oh one.
You want to get good purse, you know, And then
that led us to other opportunities because even though I
was a music guy at the magazine, it thrust me

(23:14):
into the local music scene because any local artists that
needed a CD reviewed, they had to go through me
to get either I had to write it or I
had to give it to an intern. So my name
just got out in the scene like pretty fast, and
I was like, oh, this is a good way to
kind of spread the word. And then I just started
going to a lot of events and making sure that
people knew who we were. And I always try to

(23:35):
out promote everybody.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
So that what was the band the initial Sporadic When
you started writing your own music, Who was the main
songwriter in that band?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
I'd say me only because I wrote the lyrics and sang,
but we collectively musically did it because we were kind
of doing some weird, odd time stuff and you know,
a little bit of jammy but like trying to push
like how the police are The police were a big influence.
Fish was a big influence Incubis, things like that, Faith
No More, these kind of like on the outskirts bands

(24:07):
that did weird stuff. We love that. And then as
we got deeper into like hip hop, the grooves became
a little heavier and just like solid four four so
you can fill the funk a little bit more, right, And.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Do you remember the first song that you brought to
the band or you started to work on and what
was that process?

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Like, I think, yeah, I mean none of us knew
what we were doing, so there was nothing to lose
in a way. It's like, hey, I got this song,
and then we would just try to where's that note? Like, no,
that's a beat? Oh, but know that you know, and
just kind of piecing it together. We were all kind
of learning at the same time, and then it kind
of took cost.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
So there wasn't any like, you know, ruffling egos because
you were all basically on the same Oh, we.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Were all on the same vibration all the way through.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, but you don't get a whole lot of Incubis, Police, Faith,
no more hip hop influenced bands.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, not back then for sure, but that was not
even today. Yeah, it's true. I mean back then it
helped us almost stand out because a lot of people
were playing what rock radio was playing, Like there were
bands that were local that I'm like, I thought that
band was national because the music sounded exactly like what
was going on because a lot of people were that's

(25:25):
still the days of I gotta get a manager, we
got to get signed. Oh this is what's hitting, Let's
write like that. I'm like, that's cool song, but that's
not us. Let's write like us. And so it just
kind of made it easier to stand out. We're just
kind of like the sore thumb in the scene. But
we rocked out. And that was the other thing. There
weren't a lot of black artists in the rock scene.

(25:45):
There were like three it's like me, there's other two
dudes and they both played guitar and then one guy
played bass, and so it was like it was very
easy to remember who was.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Who were the other members?

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Black? No, no, okay. Now, so then we had this
kind of multiracial thing, and you know, you just didn't
really see that.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
So when you're trying to you said that it's that
was that time when you got it yourself a manager,
you got yourself a record deal. What was that process?

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Like, we didn't try to do that. I mean we
were thinking about it, but I'm like, I think everybody
was going in that direction, how the industry was. But
I was just like, we got to record music, Let's
play the gigs, Let's try to just keep getting ourselves exposed.
And then we did a little bit of traveling and stuff.
But I was like self managing the band. I was
just learning how to manage a band.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Is there anything you can't do?

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I need to sleep more, I think, you know, but
I think with everything, you didn't know how to do
it until you did it, until you tried it, you know,
Like there's so many things I failed at or I
dropped the ball. Like that band dissipated. We're still friends
and stuff. It just dissipated because of time. Also, it
was really hard being a single parent and like, oh

(26:57):
I got a gig on a Thursday, like things like that.
As my kid got older, I could do a little
bit more and I was going hard too. Like we
were playing a ton of gigs, probably twenty a month.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Wow, so almost almost every day.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
But we would also play where other people thought they
were too good to play. One of my favorite gigs
was Borders Books and Music, Oh my.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
Gosh, And it was like we used to go there
all the time.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
It was kind of a loud band and then we
would play Borders and like, well we can't be loud,
so we would control our music. We played there all
the time. They'd pay us like two hundred and fifty
dollars in store credit, and then we would go record
shopping and then we would go back to the house
and listen to the music we bought, and we would
have music sessions. So it was like a really special
time of being able to play not just bars and clubs,

(27:43):
but like bookstores and breweries weren't really around yet, but
just like really unique things. And that taught me how
to be able to play anywhere. So the hospital gigs, Yeah,
that experience is because I used to do is that right?
Play bookstores and.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Like has done a lot of work for music. And
he's on our board too, He's on Sonny Pugar memorial board.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
So do you do you play any thrash metal when
you're at the at the hospital.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
No, But you know what's funny. Sometimes I'll play something
and it's like, if that were distorted, that would be thrash,
If they were faster and louder, that could be a
thrash line. Because there's only you know, so many notes, right.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
The administrator at the Keysport Hospital always says that you
take them on a musical journey. She loves listening to you.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I think the thing is, if I had to say,
what's my specialty, it's feeling the energy of the room
and going in that direction. Like if my band now
Nashville will have a set, I'm right to set out
and thinking about the keys and the transitions and you
know what's fast, what's slow. But if it feels like
this song that's two songs ahead is going to hit better,
I'm like, hey, skip this, SUO, We're going to go

(28:51):
right to that. And it almost always works about ninety
nine point nine percent. So I think it's just like
being tapped into the music, but also really being tapped
into the like that last mc keyspoor gig. I was
super nervous because well, the smaller and more intimate, the
more nervous I am. Ten thousand people good to go like,
you know, excitement nerves, but not like nervous ten people. Oh,

(29:14):
I'm like Zama' talking myself up. It's the weirdest thing.
And that gig. She said that I wasn't going to
be in the same location that I played before, which
was like a lobby, not a big deal. She's like,
you don't even need sound this time, just your guitar
and your little.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Amph You were in a room it was very intense.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
It was like yeah, it was like very discreet, and
it was people who were going through hardcore recovery and stuff.
So I'm like, I don't know, like and we're like
almost interrupting a meeting they had. And then I go
and I said up, and they're like this is fired,
and you know, it's kind of like kind of cold.
And this guy goes, we've been hearing about you. Hear
you're pretty good. And I was like, I mean, I

(29:50):
don't know. He goes, I'll be the judge of that,
and like thanks buddy. You know, here we go, and
I remember just like tapping into what the room felt like.
Cause my mom had recovery issues, so I think I
was just kind of triggered and I just wanted to
play in a way that would make them feel like heard.
It wasn't about me playing, It was about like what
can I do? So I was like, this is a

(30:11):
song I always like to play, and I dedicated to
my mom, gave a very brief story about it, and
then played by the second song, I was like they
were right there with me all the way through. I
ended up playing longer because they were it, you know. Yeah,
all right.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
We were kind of talking about songwriting and how you
would present, you know, something to the band, and you
all were all in the same vibe and so you're
able to develop the song. So how did that progress?
Like when you write music, When you write songs, do
you generally write the music first or do you get
a riff that kind of inspires you?

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Usually and sometimes it's usually from guitar, but when I'm
trying to break out of a rut, you know, in
my studio, I have thousands of drum sounds, and I
have the keyboard sounds, and I have bass lines that
I can play on keys. Or I'll listen to a
loop for an hour and if it inspires me, I'm like, oh,
I like that one. Let me put these drums together.
That way, I don't have to wait on like a

(31:07):
drummer to come over or my bass player to be there.
I can still write from those other perspectives. But I
think as a guitar player you can kind of get
stuck in like what's comfortable. So a lot of times
I'll write from drums first. You know, just to find
a groove.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
I think there was there's somebody else that Paul Simon
right rhythm first, yeah, I read yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Sometimes that just sets the groove up. The groove sets
the motion up, and then you you almost don't have
to play as much because like in my other bands,
I felt like I was always playing and like rock
and metal kind of like that, like metals just always moving.
But then I was in a live hip hop band
very much so like the Roots, where my part would
be like you know, like I couldn't even like play

(31:49):
a show by myself and do a song because it
was just very minimal, but it still was important. So
I had to have good timing. I had to have
a sense of like what's important for the song, not
my guitar heart, and so all of those combine. I
just kind of like, whatever it's feeling the most, I'm
feeling the most in that moment is sort of the
direction I'll let the song take me.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
How often do you write?

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Pretty frequently, probably like three to four days a week.
I've dated my studio like Speakers the whole nine. I
spent quite quite a few dollars on just like downloading
a lot of programs so that like's you know, I
have Tom Morello's guitar sound. I have the all these
sounds that I can just kind of plug and play.

(32:31):
I could play it two in the morning headphones and
it doesn't bug anybody, and I could just get the
inspiration's there, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
I think when you when we kind of were talking
about stock music, I think you're the perfect person because
your palette runs from acoustic to hip hop, the metal
to everything, and so is there you know, is there
any particular music that you that that really drives you.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
I mean, Rock's probably at the forefront of just like
what I really love. But honestly, no, there's not any
one thing at this point. My current band is probably
the most R and B soul funk out of everything
I've done. It kind of has like all the best
elements of every band I've had, you know, put together

(33:24):
because we can really rock out, but we can We
could cover a Brandy song if we want it.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Do you do a lot of covers?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
We do, but we don't do We're not a cover band,
but we'll do covers in a way where it kind
of sounds like us and the people are like, oh
wait a minute I know that song. You know. So
it's sort of it depends on the situation. Like if
you're playing Picklesburg, I don't think you should just go
up there and be like, listen to our new music
that no one knows who knows, right, like play your songs,

(33:52):
but like open up with something that they know, play
it your way, bring some own, make it your own
where it's like this is how I would play, even
if I wrote the song, and then you put your
your song second or third right, and then you come
back with something else that they might know, or play
your song, but then making a medley where you go
into something that they know. You get them singing once
you get them involved in the music and realize it's

(34:14):
about them that us. You can play all of your
songs at that point, but I don't want to do
a full original set in these type of settings until
we're on the level where we know that those people
are there because they know all of our music. Totally different.
So if you have the audience of you know, Picklesburg
last year was like I don't know, probably playing in
front of like ten thousand people, we it was like

(34:36):
fifty to fifty. It's like half original half covers.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, and yet have you been on the road.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
With this band? No? I have before, though.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Okay, that's what I mean, you have before? Any any
stories from the road.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Not really, nothing crazy, Like it was always I was
always responsible because of my son. It was like got
to make sure, you know. I think the one fun
story is we opened for fifty cent and or Formula
four one two and we were super excited, like and
I had my new wireless system so I can run

(35:09):
around on stage. So we're like sound checking and in
the contract we were supposed to like we were allowed
to use all the lights. So they have this like
cool track lighting. But you know rappers, they have a
couple guys on stage, a DJ and them. Where they
win is that people already know the songs. The songs
are already mixed, so it's full production. There's no like

(35:30):
you know bands as like EBB and Flow and Dynamics
and all that in space and like, well, we can't
really compete against that. But their manager was watching our
soundcheck and I'm like jumping off for risers, like making
sure I can do this stuff, and they're like, yeah,
they can't use those lights in the front because it
would have made us look too good, just visually so
and then right before thinking my bandmate's like, no, it's

(35:51):
in the contract. I'm like, dude, we we're gonna not
play because of the lights, like go harder now, like
let's push harder. And the fact that like here we
are as this sort of like upcoming band and like
this established star was like nervous about us showing them up.
That was all the confirmation I needed and we had
a great show. And then afterwards fifty cent they because

(36:12):
we were sharing like this kind of split backstage, they
ended up opening the curtain, shared all their food with us,
and they were completely cool and completely awesome. But at
first it was like, no, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Who else have you you've contact with?

Speaker 1 (36:26):
On other we opened for Pharrell and Nerd Farrall Williams
first time we did picts.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
That's an odd combination, you know. You know, Nerd is
probably it's not a household name. No, Farrelli obviously is,
and he's written some of the biggest songs in the
last twenty years. But yet Nerd is.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, it's like underground, yeah yeah, and you know, but
it was a perfect fit for us. Yeah, and you know,
the first show, they just crushed us. We just weren't
on our game all the way and I was like,
well we have we have them next week when we
rehearse a lot, like I want to feel like I
don't want to feel watched up like that, you know,
we should have been tighter. And then we came out

(37:06):
just like we were a million dollar band and they're
on the side of stage watching us like it's the
same group from last week. So it's like, you know,
sometimes we had these separators as artists because you see
people and they're more famous and are more popular and
they sell records, but really they're just they were at
your stage at some point, you know, and so you
might not be as far away from them as you think.

(37:28):
And use that as a good learning lesson to like
where do you need to upgrade your game? What is
your how do you walk on stage? How do you
address the crowd? How do you dress on stage? Like
nothing bugs me more than going to see a band
where I'm just happened to be there as a band
and it looks like they just kind of got off work,
like oh I am just finish moment in the line
and now we're going to play this gig. I'm like, well,
there's no like separator. Yeah, you know what I mean,

(37:49):
Like it should feel like a show. You don't have
to have one, you know, glitter and gold and all
this stuff, but there should be something where you're like, okay,
that's the band.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Sonny used to say that he borrowed this expression from
a major artist, but that you hear with your eyes,
and a lot of that is the presentation same things.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
You know, with social media, it's like that same energy
is transferred over. It's just digital now, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
And this was probably I don't know, probably going on
twenty years ago, maybe not that long. Young girl was
fairly popular, had a song that was moving up the charts.
We brought a bunch of listeners in this, you know,
to hear singing in the conference room. And she looked
like she was wrote hard and put away, wet, you know, haired, disheveled,

(38:40):
and you know, and she sang and good lord, you know,
sounded like somebody was killing a chicken. I was like, well,
nobody's ever heard of Katy Perry ever again, you know that,
you know what she needed was, you know, somebody that
did put her in nice clothes.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
The next thing.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
You know, she's glamour girl. Yeah, so you know, let's
let's face it, we've all had that.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah. I just think if you're an artist, there's especially
now you can't just be a musician. You have to
understand some some part of marketing because the powers in
your hands. Before it was like you're going out there
looking for someone to do this work for you. Who's
going to manage you, Who's going to market you. I've
never really had that outside source. Maybe some people trying

(39:25):
to assist, but I've always had to kind of do
it myself.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
What was that group that that you were the only
musician that they had chosen? It was a business learning
experience over on Second Avenue while ago. It was because
you're one of the few few musicians I know that
really understand how to mix business with the art.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Thank you. It was the Pittsburgh Technology Council. Yeah, And
there was there was a gig that I It was
called the Create Festival, and you had to apply to
perform at it. It was like August Wilson. It was
through them, and I got the gig. I played solo
on guitar because someone saw me play solo at another
event and I was just kind of branching out, like

(40:08):
where else can I put myself? You know, it's not
about bars. It's like there's other really creative places and
you can make a couple of dollars, you know, played
what five minutes me two hundred and fifty bucks. I
was like wow. Right And through that I was backstage
when I was having like a guy film it and
getting content for me, and the CEO of the company
was like, hey, we have a cohort the deadlines next week.

(40:30):
You should like apply for it and see what happens.
And I got into it. But it was like me
and a lady who has loved Pittsburgh in the Strip
and in Mount Washington, another lady who has a bow
tie company, and another one who was like an artist,
like a painter, And through that we were it was
like ten months long. You'd get like a thousand bucks

(40:51):
at the end, all business stuff, so like we had
to go and we'd be in these little like kind
of focus groups and then they bring in a lawyer
talking about and it was all types of business to
bring a lawyer talk about you should have this, you
should have that, or Google would come in and give
you demonstrations about stuff. I was all about it because
I was bartending like a maniac at that time, and
I really wanted to like figure out what else I

(41:12):
could do. But in my head, I thought I had
to work that hard to do the music, and I
was wrong. So I was brinding, like we're talking six,
seven days a week, four in the morning, get up
at eight, do it all over again. Just on this
terror for a while. And through that one I realized
that I wasn't introducing myself as a musician. When I

(41:33):
met people, they'd be like, Oh, what's your name Byrol?
What do you do? I'll work at Harriscroll. I'm a bartender,
and so I was getting all the results that came
along with that identity, and then being in that space,
you know, I felt kind of small and I was uncomfortable,
and there's like forty people in this room. We had
to go around and introduce ourselves and say what we did.
This guy's like, oh, I'm the CEO, blah blah blah,
and we do two point five million a year and

(41:54):
I'm like, ah, you know, and it feels like fourth grade.
There's like almost your time to read. And I hate
how that felt we all did. Yeah, and you had
to pitch yourself, and they said pitch yourself in thirty seconds.
So I was watching these people who were way ahead
of me in the game and in business not listen
to what the rule was. Thirty seconds. We're talking like

(42:15):
Google or you know, someone high with Google saying, hey,
pitch yourself thirty seconds. So by the time they got
to me, I'm like, my name's bay Er Nash. I'm
a musician. I make music for companies. Companies always need music.
You can't watch a movie without music. That's what I do.
And that was like it. And I was the shortest
one as soon as I said that, and I started
like introducing myself that way and kind of viewing myself

(42:36):
that way. Everyone who was a musician, but a lot
of people didn't for some reason, you know, And I
was doing a lot of music stuff. It was simply
an identity thing. All of a sudden, I started making
like actual money, like playing music and getting different gigs.
And I mean from that, I think within six months,
I played a gig with Reo Speedwagon and casing the
Sunshine bandy you you know, by myself, you know, so weird.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Yeah, you actually defined yourself in that moment and then and.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
I'm scared it was fear, you know, and that that
taught me something about like not sticking to the same
old identity and like you can be an artist but
still be valuable. You can be an artist and be
business minded. And then being around people who were business
minded really helped me tighten things up that I that
were kind of loose that could have been better. And
so then it was like, all right, let me really

(43:27):
dial in on this marketing. Let me go to these
events that aren't music related, aren't in the arts, and
start seeing how other you know, people are kind of
maneuvering in the world. And I think that's what led
me to the job I have now.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Yeah, probably, I mean because you're comfortable.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Well remember Thrival, Yeah, as my band Formula four one
two was the first artist booked on that. So before
Bakery Square was developed, that's where it was. It was
like Us Day, Lau Soul, rj D two, Frightened Rabbit
and the guy who booked that moved on and then
he ended up at the Warhol and he started the

(44:04):
Pop District and he remembered me from all those years
and just kind of followed me with music and saw
that I was just kind of going, but he knew
I was a bartender. Came in on a brunch one
day and it's like, I got an opportunity for you.
I want to talk to you about and that's how
I got the kid.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Let's get back to the music you produce as well.
Which do you like better?

Speaker 1 (44:27):
I love playing guitar more than anything. That's probably the
number one. But something about production, I don't know if
I'm a great engineer per se, where like I'm just
sitting there, I'm like, all right, then this decibel needs
to be here, and you know, like I can do it,
and I have a good ear for mixing, but I'm
not as fast as everyone else. But what I am
good at is being with an engineer and making fast decisions,

(44:49):
like being in the room like no, that base needs
to come down.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
That doesn't work. That doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, Like I can do that, And that's kind of
what a producer does. They're not always pushing the knobs
and I used to have that fused before I thought
a producer was like also always touching the board and
a lot of times they're just like no, turn that up.
You know, so I think I'm kind of like a
nice mix of those two you enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Do I mm hmm. Have you produced anything that you
know people would know or do you?

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Probably not? No, just all like the music I've worked on,
or I've done songs for other people, you know, or
I've had people say, hey, we want you know this.
We have this African coffee company. We need some African
drum stuff, and I would produce it for him.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
What does an African coffee company? What kind of music
do the gembas in African rhythms? I listened to a
ton of world music, so it was right up my alley. Yeah,
you're you're like the cat, you really are.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
I mean, that's just how I live. You know, my
house looks kind of the way I'm talking. That's how
it looks.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Really. You know, a picture for me.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
There's eleven guitars in my living room, you know, big
poster Betty Davis framed, and hundreds of books on music history,
music business, arts, biographies, Lennykravit, slash, Keith Richards. You know.
Then there's a I have this poster. It's the original
poster from when Jimmy Hendrix got signed and it was

(46:14):
owned by the label guy who signed him, and I
got it through Jack Hunt. We did a podcast show together,
so I like have that and then I have like
just like memorabilia just everywhere.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
In your son plays. Tell me about your son.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
I mean, he's my life. He's kind He kind of
is responsible for getting me on that track because life
was a hot mess. And then all of a sudden,
I like woke up and they're like, hey, like what
am I doing? You know, but I became a single
parent at eighteen. Didn't know about him, and that sort
of just set me on the path. And I had

(46:51):
the option to give him away for adoption or keep them.
We gave him away. Have a week to change your mind,
and like two days and I'm like, I didn't have
a job, I dropped out of school, I had no money,
my mom's on drugs, Like, there was no reason to
have this kid. Like he's someone go do a good
job with him. But my spirit was like, you can't

(47:12):
do this, and so I changed my mind and had
him ever since. And he just turned two weeks two
weeks so that yeah, so we were kind of on
our own little artistic music path. I didn't have a
TV for like the first four years, you know, and
you go through those stages with your kid, were like
they love you, they kind of hate you, and then

(47:32):
they really hate you, and then hopefully they come back around.
And I feel so fortunate because he just turned thirty
three last Friday and we went out for his birthday.
It was just he and I took him to a
ghost Snow concert when had a couple of beers and
just talked about He's like, I'm so glad. It's like
I didn't see it at the time, and I'm so
glad you raised me around all this music like this,
because we.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
Were always going to ask you, what kind of music
does he listen to?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
He likes He kind of likes everything too, and it's
funny watching him get into the thrash thing. He's like
like he'll show with like a Slayer T shirt and
I'm like, I didn't force it on you. That's just
what I've listened to. He's like, no, I get it, man,
you know. So I mean he bought me tickets to it.
We went to a Slipknock concert together, you know, for
my birthday, things like that. So he's just as weird,

(48:16):
just's out there, like he's all over the place too,
you know.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
He played in your band too.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah. When we did the we did the first night
we headlined in twenty twenty one, we headlined first night
New Year's Eve, and I had my band was already
playing it. It was like at the time byron Aash trio,
I was just gigging a lot. Got this great opportunity.
But then I was like, what if I like bring
some people with me, you know, Like so I reached

(48:41):
out to my old guitar player buddy, and then I
had my son on keys, and then you know, my
current singer wasn't in my band, I had her, and
then I just had my cousin's a rapper, and we
had this big collective of local artists. It was under
my name, but like, hey guys, and it was like
fifteen thousand people because it was the first time we
were all back out in the world again after COVID.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
A trio with.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
H yeah exactly, yeah, not really, That's that's.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
The cool part. Call yourself a trio, but have like
twelve people. Yeah, you know, so other than guitar, do
you play you say you.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
I play bass? And then I have three or four
kids at the house, so I can play drums.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
When you start with the drums when you're when you're
thinking about the.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, I either play them or I'll loop a guitar
part and I'm like, oh, that's really cool, and then
I'll just let it play and then I go hop
on the drums. Or I have drums that are already
like you can just buy loop packs sample packs, and
I'm like, let me just go through and which one
kind of sounds cool because you can use it because
it's license, you know, Yeah, Or I use it as
a framework to write the song that I like my

(49:50):
drummer who can really drum. I was like, hey, can
you kind of play your version of what this is
and let's write a song from.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
It and help your son plays keys because he makes
a guitar.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
He plays at little bit of guitar.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Like.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
I didn't show him anything.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
I didn't want to force anything on him. I just
live that way. So it wasn't like you must play music.
But when he showed an interest, like I got him
his first keyboard and you know, I got him like
a little toy guitar. But it was only because he
seemed like he was interested, not because I was trying
to force.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
It on him, just don't touch my guitars.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
I know, there was a rule. It's like easy, Tiger,
you gotta respect the instruments, you know, take care of them.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
As a black artist, you did you have any did
you face any prejudice?

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, especially in the nineties, it was it
was kind of hard here. And I think not only
was the band weird, you know, like and kind of that,
not only are you yeah, yeah, you know, they're like,
there's this guy, but I was also playing rock guitar,
so there was a lot of like weird kind of
competition that I'm like, I'm not trying to do what
you guys do you know. I was playing a seven

(50:47):
string as well, so like extra weird stuff. I auditioned
for Limp Biscuit at the time, Like I was doing
all these different things. But locally, you know, especially being
at the magazine because it was rock and all reporter,
they only covered white artists until I came. And it
wasn't like I was like, let's get some black people
in here. It was more like music was changing. I

(51:08):
was really diverse in what I liked, and I'm like, hey,
this band's on the rise, man, we need to write
about them. It was just as simple as that. I
didn't care if they were black, blue, or yellow. They're good,
you know. And so that just started adding more diversity
to what we were doing. And I remember my boss
came to me and they said, we have a question, man,
like we're thinking about really, you know, where you have

(51:28):
to grow. We want to put Buster Rhymes and Flip
Mode Squad on the cover. And I was like, ooh,
I don't know, you know, like I mean sure in
my world, but in this world, I'm not sure, man.
And we did it anyway, and I interviewed them and
we had like five people drop out as advertisers. Really really,

(51:49):
we started getting hate mail, like you're trying to turn
this into blah blah blah magazine. It was like no.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Or.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
My favorite was if I reviewed a local band it
was a metal band and it wasn't a perfect review.
A lot of times they didn't know I was black.
So then they would call the magazine and they'd be pissed.
And then they would come in and it's like, well,
you can come in and talk to them. It's pretty friendly.
And they would come in and they walk into my
office and they'd see me and they're like, yeah, I'm
here to meet Byron. I'm like, hey, how's it going,

(52:20):
And then everything would be balled up. But you were
hard pressed to go toe to toe about metal like facts.
And I was like, well, no, track three, all I
said was that riff reminds me of this track from
this song nineteen eighty seven second side. Like they didn't
even know what I was talking about. So it was
like I had to prove myself, like, oh, you're a
metal because you're black. It was like, no black likes metal.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, you know, you know, but you know there was
a collision of metal and hip.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Hop with you know, kind of the rap rock thing.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Yeah, but you know, you know Anthrax and public enemies.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
See, you're one of the few people that understand, and
that's really the origin of that stuff. Everyone thinks it's
later and they think it's late nineties and stuff. I'm like, no, no,
that's that was a true unity of that BC Boys.
I got into Slayer because of BC Boys because Slayer
played on License Still right the Sleep to Brooklyn. So
it's like things like that, But a lot of people
didn't see that. I mean, even getting gigs was tough.

(53:17):
Sometimes I'm like, I don't know, man, can you guys
go in there and ask for Bob? I don't know
if I want to walk in this place, you know.
So there was always like these little like challenges. But
then I'm like, but you know, we rehearsal lot, so
let's just outplay them, and usually we won them over
by the end.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
You seem like a perfection perfectionist.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Maybe, yeah, sure, it's probably the virgo in me. I
don't know. You know, I'm always trying to get better,
and if I feel like there's a deficit, I'm pretty
unhappy with myself, not like beating myself into the trenches
and you know, boohoo. But just like you could do
better than that, man, you can do better. We always can,
you know so. And I also think it's part of
me just wanting to like be the best reperence of myself,

(54:01):
you know, for the world, you know, not like, hey,
such a nice black guy, not that, but just like,
can I do this thing that I didn't think I
could do, you know, and then try and even if
I fail, there's got to be something beautiful in there
to learn from to be better. So I'm always pushing
myself sometimes too much. I mean, I used to push
myself where it was like hurting my health is like, hey,

(54:22):
you need to sleep. It's like no, let's go do
this gig, you know or whatever. But now I, like,
you know, with some maturity and stuff and just kind
of understanding time, I can do more with less. Before
I felt like I had to do more and more
and more and grind, grind, grind. I'll still work like
crazy if I have to, but now it's very selective
and specific so that I can achieve more with the

(54:44):
right output and the right attention, you know.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
So how demanding is the Warhol? And then are you
able to practice and rehearse and play gigs and produce
Like I don't want to work that hard.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
You know, honestly, and this is crazy. It's it created
more flexibility for me to do that I only have
to be in the office three days a week, Like
I'm going there after this having an event tonight and stuff,
and like this week's a big week because it's thirtieth
year anniversary. But honestly, as long as I'm on It's
like when I asked, Hey, what are the hours like

(55:24):
and how do you guys when they were like talking
to me about it, the reply was, well, how do
you work? And I'm like, I know how I work.
So and then I realized it's a different style of
work I'm used to work, where like ow shoulders hurt
because I worked so hard. You know, like partending was
very physical and you know, sleep the pride and you're
standing dealing with people and sound and all that stuff.
This is more like how organized can I be? I'm

(55:45):
building relationships with Citizens Bank and Chase Bank, and I'm
you know, dealing with these artists and it's like a
court is kind of like a culmination of all the
things I've been doing for the last twenty years. I
know a lot of people like Byron, who's a good brewery.
I have twenty I had a beer for five years.
So it's like, you know, it's more like people work

(56:06):
than it is like work work.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
It's networking.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
It's totally all networking. It's how I got the job.
And now it's a bigger ballgame, bigger steaks, bigger money,
bigger budgets and things like that. So but there's something
about like I actually can do more music now. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yeah, So how do you do the stock music things
and the rehearsal. How do you how do you fit
all that in any given week?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
I trim the fat on my my schedule. So my
girlfriend and I do a goals list every Sunday. It's like,
all right, what are your goals for the week?

Speaker 2 (56:42):
You are?

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I didn't really do that until she came to my life.
She's a virgo too, but we have a goals list
of like, what do you want to accomplish for the week?
I listen to hers, she listens to mine. She creates
a little sheet and then it's like, is your overall goal?
And then she sends email to both of us and
then we work on it and then something it's like, hey,
how do you think you did? So it's just a

(57:06):
check in and then if you edit your schedule. Like
I don't think there's anything wrong with watching TV or
movies or whatever people like for their time. But if
you're really into TV in Netflix, if you watched eight
hours worth of TV a week, that's a lot of
time to produce and play, right, that's a lot. I
just don't watch a lot of TV, so if I do,

(57:27):
it's YouTube. How to record guitar videos better, how to
you know, invest money, how to like get better? And
then like sometimes I'm like, all right, let me watch
this Vandy Rohadse documentary because I love that too, So
I just don't do a lot of that. And then
I because I personal train, all of my training stuff
happens in the morning, so I train clients from Monday
to Thursday before I even go to work.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Wow, yeah, your inspiration. I get up, I walk the
dog in her go back home.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
But you know, it's like, what do you want? Like?
And I think another part is like I don't know
how much time we have. You know, I'm fifty one.
I feel really fortunate, you know that I made it
this far. So I'm like, if I only had a
year left and I knew that that's all I had,
I would probably live way differently, you know. So I'm
just trying to do my best with what I have

(58:18):
and just try to enjoy the things that I really
I love playing music. I love that I can like
I wake up and there's an acoustic and there's all
types of guitars everywhere. But I dreamt that when I
was dirt broke and we were living in this little
project and I had no car, and it's just me
and a kid with half a crib and you know
what I mean, Like I'm like, want me it be
cool to have like art and music and like a

(58:39):
wall of records and a guitar so you can just
grab a guitar and then if the inspiration's there. So
sometimes I'm not necessarily like sitting in front of my
computer like I wanted to last night, but I did
so much computer work I'm like, I can't even be creative.
I just grabbed an acoustic and side on my back porch,
so that's still songwriting too. And if something hits I
grab my phone and then I just record it so
I don't forget it.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
You used to write music, I remember at the children's
hospital gigs. Oh yeah, and for the ambient music. That
was one of the goods me and you used to
record yourself because he would like, you know, just kind
of play, just play and play, but he would have
the recorder next to him because if anything struck him
while he was doing this ambient music, it would become

(59:23):
a song.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
That's stock pilot.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
I have literally twenty years worth of just ideas on drives,
Like it's almost disorganized. It so much music, And so
my girlfriend's like, why don't you create, Like I'll create
an Excel sheet you start going through and just add
them in as you do so you can find them
and then bring those to life. Because what if you,
like I would listen to something, I like, I would
never remember what that was. I went. I actually was like,

(59:47):
who's this? It was me? I was like I played drums, bass, guitar,
keys and had no idea that it was me, you know,
So like I really had to capture those moments. And
because I have the phone and the voice memo, it's like.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Do you play every day?

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
Almost? Yeah? Yeah something something? Oh yeah for sure?

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
All right, So where where do you want to? Where
do you want to go from here?

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
I want to take it like I really do want
to dive into the sync licensing. But I've been also
thinking about, like, you know, if there was a national
artist touring artists and are like, hey, we really like
your guitar playing. We're going on tour for six months,
I'll go you know you can do that. You can
do it. I'm tour ready.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Yeah, it'll be awesome. Like who would who would be
your your dream list?

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
It'd be like many Kravitz or like you know, people
like that. And but then also like some of these
rock bands, I'm like, I gotta do it. I have
to do a stadium. I just love how that looks
from that view, just like that sea of people with
the really big, wide stage and you're just kind of
dealing with all that energy and it's not from a
fame perspective. It's just exciting to me. Like still it's like,

(01:00:54):
I'm fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
What's the biggest show you've ever played?

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
I think the fifty cent show, and second would probably
be that first.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
Night that was big, like everybody wanted out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Yeah, everybody wanted out, so and we were the headliner.
So there were people all the way down stand Wicks
about four blocks, and there were people all the way
down Pen about four blocks. It was pretty to do
that at home, and I remember like purgh, yeah, yeah,
I like to do that in your city, and to
do it like it wasn't like I was in a band.

(01:01:29):
It was like my band that was heavy, you know,
and I had I remember we stayed in the hotel
downtown and there was like a restaurant bar that like
was connected to the hotel where I played and had
a good relationship. When I got in the room, they
had like this whole tray because they know I like Margarita's,
and like it was already there and it was like
all the kind of like pampering things. And then I

(01:01:49):
remember like when it was all said and done, like
and everybody kind of dissipated. In this New Year's Eve,
I'm sitting in this room by myself and I'm super down,
and I couldn't figure out why it was. You just
did like you did it. And I don't know if
it was the crash or if it was like the
realization that maybe there's something else and it's not just that.

(01:02:10):
Maybe that's a part of it, but maybe that's not
the end all goal because we keep chasing the goal
and then you get to and you realize it's like, oh,
that's not what I thought I was gonna feel like,
you know. So that was a really big eye opener
because I was like the girl I was dating at
the time, like she wasn't around, and I was like,
did all this stuff. You're sitting here in a room
with the bottle of tequila by yourself, Like I don't know.
That's kind of a bummer. But at the same time,

(01:02:31):
it was like, Okay, there's other there's other things to
strive for that I'm not seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
But that's a common thread with a lot of musicians.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
They chase that, they chase it, they get it, and
then they fall apart.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
It's like the dog that finally caught the car. It's like, Wow,
got the car. Now what do I do?

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Tell me about Nashville.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Oh, Nashville is funk. It's like if you could eat music,
it would be hot butter, biscuits, collar greens, cornbread. What's
some attitude? Yeah, it's funky, it's loud, it's soulful, it's
fun and it's really inclusive. Yeah. It's like Earth Wind

(01:03:16):
and Fire meets Aretha Franklin, you know, on the way
to see the White Stripes and di'angelo. It's like p
funk mixed in with like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
With like super souled, like super.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Super soul, with like some dimebag Daryl Pantheric guitars mixed
in for them to really confused people like we rock out,
you know, but if we have to just go all
R and B, we can't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
So's it's heavy, but it also has that like it's soul.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
It's like heavy church music. It's like heavy rock church
music almost because my singer, she is a church vocalist,
like she's she is, you know. It's like a little
bit of Shaka, a little bit of Aretha. That power,
just big, deep loud, you know, and she's like a
rock star. So and then at my rhythm section, they're brothers,

(01:04:04):
so I luck out with the van Halen energy of
the tight you know brothers music.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Do they get along?

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
They get it along great?

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Okay, yeah, yeah, because you never know about brothers something
and it's an all black band and these kind of
don't see that. And that's not on purpose, it's just
kind of what it became. It wasn't that. But his
brother joined back in like October, and something just changed
in the music. And I'm like, oh, this is what
I was chasing this, this is it. We're we're onto it.
Let's lock this in like it was good before, but

(01:04:35):
now it's like it's me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
What's what changed? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Bass players? Something about you know, this is all love
because our original guy he was he's fantastic, but there
was something we were looking for in the sound where
like you know, bass is the most important instrument in
the music. A lot of people don't think that. A
lot of people don't understand that, but always say, well,

(01:05:00):
think of it like this. If there was a car
driving by and they were blasting hip hop and they
got three blocks away, what would you hear. You wouldn't
hear the vocals. You wudn't even hear the drums. You
would only hear the bass. It's a frequency thing. That's
what we feel, right, That's part of why hip hop
feels like, yeah, even if you listen to van Halen, Yeah,
we have Eddie Eddie van Halen, but really that bass
the ball, all right, that's real. That's part of the

(01:05:23):
sole part. And I'm like, play play it more like that,
Play simpler and play lower. I was like, you're kind
of playing and impress musicians. I don't care about them.
Let's play for the people. Let's play for the mom
in the back who doesn't even go to concerts, you know.
And like, I think that was just kind of a
weird disconnect for him musically. And you know, our guy Josh,

(01:05:44):
he's all about the lowen. He stays there and he's
fun like he in his music, you know, like he
knows how to have fun with that. So I think
something about cosonically, a three piece is very limited. You know,
guitar is mid range to high and then you have
the drums. The bass is the So like if I
go and cut off on a solo and the bass
players in the mid to high frequency, it sounds like

(01:06:06):
it dropped out, like something is missing, You've got keys
or something. Then it's more full. So how do we
stay full? And the best way to stay full is
to lock in the rhythms and then use space as
the other instrument. So it's what you don't play that's
actually super important to the music.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
So who generally writes the music and the lyrics in
this band?

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
I would say me, but because we have a singer
who writes lyrics too, Now it's like, hey, what do
you got? Here's the music when you start do your thing.
And she's one of those people that kind of like,
you know, she'll sing at the bus stop, she'll sing,
and you know, and Jihinny goes like, she'll sing anywhere,
like you gotta almost get her to not sing. So
because of that, she's always improvising things, and then we

(01:06:53):
take those improvised versions and then say all right, I'll turn.
Now we have to craft the song melody and like
make it repeat and know where these things are. I
can't be different every time you change structure. Yeah, structure it,
but let's capture the feeling first and then structure that
feeling and then we have a song.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
So many people want to put musicians and music in boxes. Yeah,
you seem to be box avertant.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
I'm anti box. Yeah, I just I think the box
is not having one. Like, let's just enjoy it for
what it is and explore, Like I'm really curious musically.
You know. I wrote a song the other day. I
was on a little tiny cabin place had my acoustic
and at first, because I was so like kind of

(01:07:40):
stressed out with work and computers and being attached, I
only took an acoustic this time. But before I even played,
I just sat and listened to the birds. And I
know this might sound a little woo woo, but there
was a lot of like rhythmic things going on where
I'm like, Okay, that bird's repeating this pattern four times,
and it's like four little different things and then there's

(01:08:01):
a call. But then it we kind of changed a
little bit, and I was like hearing all of it,
and I realized how much I love sound, and like
how like I felt like I was kind of getting
back of my pure self. Everything I've played since then
has been like it's been an upgrade. Huh, Just like
listening to nature, I'm like, wow, you forget to listen
to birds, you forget to listen to the windblow. We

(01:08:22):
kind of take it for granted, it's all we're always
kind of like active, active active. I peeled all that
away and then everything I started playing there. I wrote
like two new songs in a couple of days, and
then when I got back, I didn't play guitar at all,
because I played four and a half hours of guitar
in one of the days. But all the new riffs,
they all sound different now, and I think it's because
I just kind of let go and wasn't distracted by

(01:08:43):
social media and just listen to nature, and then my
natural self kind of upgraded because that's like a frequency
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Well. You could also listen to urban sounds too and
get and get inspiration from them as well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
I did that the other night, like cause I live
in Oakland, so I have a nice back yard that
kind of has the whole nature thing, but you still
can kind of hear the highway, and I was like
kind of mixing them both. I'm like, oh, Okay, there's
a rhythm to life that I'm picking up on, and
it's not like it's always kind of moving. It's like
an ebb and flow, and I want my music and

(01:09:16):
my life to kind of feel like that. So just
tapping into like being a human and then letting that
come out in the music.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
What is Byron's legacy.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
I hope that it's kindness. For one, I really believe
I'm treating people right, but also like my fitness business
is called Doya and my son came up with a name,
but the acronym is don't underestimate your ability. And I
would hope that from the energy of what I try
to put out through the world that that inspires other people.
It's really strive to be the best version of themselves.