The Studio Burned Down | What's Next?

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So 2025, not starting out asplanned. I was gonna do, like, a
dramatic thing where I set thecamera up and sit down in front of
a chair to start this video.But then I realized that the tripod
I was gonna use is in there.Was in there. So it is January 30th

(00:27):
today. It's been 23 days sincewildfires ripped through Los Angeles.
And I think it's time tofinally share my story a little bit
and kind of update everybodyhere on the channel about what's
been going on. So I live inAltadena, California, which has been

(00:47):
mostly wiped off the map. MyYouTube studio and my mixing space
was in my garage, which is nomore. It burnt to the ground with
all of my equipment, all of mygear, cameras, lights, hard drives.
I have no musical equipment tomy name. After 20 years, I can say

(01:15):
that miraculously, my homesurvived. So my family and I can
return to our home one day. Idon't know when that's going to be.
I don't know how long it'sgoing to take to properly clean,
when it's going to be safe forchildren, or when I could even remotely
start rebuilding my businessin that place. But before I go any

(01:39):
further, I just want to say,if you want to support the music
community of Los Angeles, lookat organizations like the Red Cross,
Music Cares. We are moving theneedle. There are a lot of people
that are giving a lot to thiscommunity. And the. The community
of Altadena and PacificPalisades is really. It's really

(02:02):
a lot of people in arts andentertainment. I mean, it's like
the lifeblood of what kind ofkeeps a lot of this city pumping.
At most everybody I know inAltadena is in the arts, in music,
in film, editing, photography.There are just so many creatives

(02:23):
that have worked so hard tobuild a life in a beautiful place
that have just had everythingjust taken away from them. So before
I share my story, I have totalk about Altadena, right? I've
been in LA for almost 20 yearsat this point, and I have never once
felt community outside ofmaybe the bar down the street from

(02:44):
Capitol Studios until I cameto Altadena and started a family
here. And Altadena is just.It's unlike the rest of Los Angeles.
It's mostly residential. It'sunique homes there, there's apartments,
but mostly it's. It'sfamilies. It's people that have been

(03:07):
here for generations. Thebusinesses have been here forever.
On almost all of them arelocal. It's just. It Just everything
that I don't like about la.And I hate to say that there's things
that I don't like about la,but there's a lot of them. None of
those things are here. This isthe only place that I could imagine
living in Los Angeles orCalifornia. And, you know, the people

(03:31):
here, they want to talk toyou. It's not like in Hollywood,
where everybody's caught up inwhatever they're doing. I was in
Hollywood for, I don't know,like 15 years, 10 years or something
like that. It's, you know,whatever. When you're in your 20s,
it's, it's fun, or maybe it'snot. But the people in Altadena care
about the other people. InAltadena. You have kids, you start

(03:54):
talking to people, you see thesame people everywhere. You see people
at coffee shops, you see themat the library, you see them at the
park. It is just such a smalltown that's a stone throw away from
the second or third largestcity in, in the U.S. so it's really
special in that sense. And,and I think that the communities

(04:14):
even come more together, cometogether more through this, this
just horrible situation. Andwe're, we're all going to rebuild.
Everybody that I've talked to,they want to be there, they want
to rebuild their house, theywant to rebuild their business. And
so that's what, that's whatAltadeena is about. It's about that

(04:34):
community, and we're going tobring that back. So I want to share
my story, but before I dothat, I. I want to say that I'm putting
this out there for those ofyou who don't know me, for those
of you that watch the channelalso a little bit for some closure.
And also some of my closestfriends don't even know how this
happened for my family. So Ijust want to put that out there for

(04:58):
people. And then I also wantto say that, you know, I do feel
so lucky that my house isstanding. I know so many people that
have nothing. But everyone inAltadena is suffering through their
own personal hell right now.Whether they have smoke damage or
they have a barren lot. Thisis probably one of the hardest things

(05:22):
that every person, regardlessof their level of loss, has ever
experienced. So I don't wantanyone to believe that. I feel like
I'm a special victim here. Mylife has been thrashed in, in as
many ways as everyone else's.Everybody, if you know anybody in
Altadena, no matter what theyhave or don't have anymore, they're

(05:46):
having a very hard time. Sothe story, I'll try not to ramble
and keep this Fairly concise.Around 6:30pm on January 7, we're
putting our daughter to bedand got a text message that there
was a fire nearby. And youknow, it happens not regularly, but

(06:10):
every year or two there's afire in the hills here. What was
unique to this time is thewind. People talking about hurricane
strength winds. I mean, we geta lot of wind in Altadena, but my
fence blew over at like 10amthat day and that's never happened

(06:33):
before. And so this firestarted at 6:30 ish. There's been
a lot of news that's come outabout it, so I'm not going to try
to give you the specificsbecause you can go find it. And we
were kind of thinking, let'sput our daughter to bed and then
talk about whether we want tostay here. Our house is also very
old and the wind is crazy. Andso we'd been up all night the night

(06:56):
before just from the wind. Andso we were thinking maybe let's just
go to a hotel, right? It'sjust going to be 3, 400 bucks and
we don't have to worry aboutbeing evacuated. If this fire was
bad, we can also sleep becausethe wind won't keep us up. And so
then one of our friends textedme or my wife, somebody closer to
the fire and they said ahelicopter flew over and told them

(07:16):
to leave. And this is, I mean,really minutes after the fire has
started. And so at that pointI went outside, I looked, I could
see orange glow, crazy windy.And we just decided, you know what,
it's never, it's never goingto get here. We're so far from the

(07:36):
mountains. We, we livebasically next to a fire station
just a couple blocks. Like,let's just leave just so we can sleep
in peace at night. We'll justgo get a hotel, we'll take our daughter
and we'll feel good about itand then we'll come back tomorrow.
So we threw a couple stuffedanimals in a bag, threw some clothes

(07:57):
in a bag, threw a pack andfillet in the car and I started loading
the car. When I went outside,there's a lot more orange than there
was a second before when Ilooked out the window. And so I started
to get a little concerned thatmaybe this was going to be a serious
thing. But still, we're so farfrom the mountain that there could

(08:22):
never be the threat of fire toour home. So I went back inside And
I said, okay, let's leavefaster. And I grabbed a few extra
things and we cruised down thehill at like 7:30, checked into a
hotel, saw people I knew andrecognized. Like I said, Altadena
is so small. And then all of asudden everybody's piling into, like,

(08:44):
these hotels and you're in theelevator with somebody that you've
seen at the coffee shop andyou're like, I know your face, I
don't know your name, but youdefinitely live in Altadena. I know
why you're in this hotel rightnow. And so we watched the news a
bit. Anybody that has a kidknows, trying to get him to go to
sleep in a hotel room is a bitof a challenge. So we were up fairly

(09:05):
well, late for us because, youknow, we're old parent people. So,
like, it was like 10, 10:30,and the fire seemed like it was moving
east. And it, you know,things, it was in. It was in from
what we could tell from thenews, it was in houses or structures,
but it was to the east of us.Uh, technically not in what would

(09:26):
be Altadena. Maybe, maybe itwould be Altadena, might be Pasadena
over there. And so we went tobed, like, with a little bit of peace.
And we woke up in the morning,you know, six, seven o'clock, something
like that toddler wakes youup. And I mean, I grab my phone first,
just like, I have to see thenews. And it was pretty clear in

(09:46):
those first few seconds thatthere were structures burning in
Altadena. And so I told mywife, I was like, we, I. Let me go,
let me go back and get stuffwe took nothing. Like, let me go
get the Social Security cards,let me go get the, the whatever,

(10:07):
like the things that youshould have taken in the first place.
I just wanted to get back andget those. And she was kind of 50,
50 on that until we turned thenews on and our street was on the
news with houses further souththan ours burning. I mean, like,

(10:31):
just apocalyptic burning withno fire department presence, just
a news reporter talking aboutthe destruction. And it was our street
three blocks south of us. Andso at that point, I knew that I couldn't
go back. That, like, what wehad was what we had. And we started

(10:55):
to come to terms with the factthat our house could be gone and
what are we going to do? Andso that was like, I don't know. I
can't really put that intowords. You just, you kind of black
out. You don't, you don't knowwhat to do. So we. We stayed at that

(11:23):
hotel for a little bit longer,and then we decided, let's go south
to my. My wife's familybecause they have a guest house and
they're outside San Diego.Let's get out of this smoke. My wife
is pregnant as well. We'regoing to have a baby in a few weeks.
Us staying in the quality ofair that was going to exist in Pasadena

(11:48):
was just not an option. Weleft with the stuff we had. We loaded
the car up and we drove southto where we could breathe outside
because it was horrible,horrible toxic air from all of the
structures burning. We spinspent that day, Wednesday the 8th,
just watching the news. And welive near kind of a business district

(12:11):
in Altadena, like one of twoareas where there's businesses. And
that area was just beingdevastated and heavily covered by
the news, national news. Wewatched the church next to us burn
down on tv, and the reportersaid that embers had lit up a structure

(12:42):
next, next to us, next to thechurch, a few. A few houses down,
which would have been ourhouse. And the camera panned and
it stopped just shy of whereyou could actually see our property.
But all you could see wassmoke, smoke everywhere, just black.

(13:03):
Just black smoke. And therewas some fire presence there, maybe
one or two people. And Idon't, in this story, want anyone
to think that I'm faulting thefire department for what happened.
This is absolutelycatastrophic. And they were spread

(13:24):
thin and they did the bestthey can. And I think those guys
are heroes. But, yeah, theywere usually nowhere to be found.
And that, that story ringstrue with most. Most people I talked
to. And it's. It's not becausethey didn't want to be there. It's
because there was too manyhouses, too many fires, and they

(13:45):
were just. Wasn't enough ofthem. So we felt like we were watching
our house burn. And, yeah, wedidn't know what to do. So that continued
all day. We watched variousnews, local and national news all

(14:09):
day, and just. We watched ahelicopter drop water on what could
have been my garage, couldhave been the preschool next to us
that burned to the ground,could have been my neighbor's house
burned to the ground, couldhave been the apartment next to us
that burned to the ground. Andso we went to. We went to bed that
night not knowing whether wehad a house. And so the next morning,

(14:35):
when it was clear the fireswere kind of not active in a dangerous
sense, we decided that Iwanted. I wanted to go. I had to
get back there. I had to Seeour property. And luckily my brother
in law drove up early in themorning from down in San Diego. He

(14:57):
had to go to LA for work. So4:00 in the morning he saw our house
and then we texted him when wegot up and he called us and he told
us that the house wasstanding, the garage was not. And
so at that point we, I loadedthe car and well, I guess I unloaded

(15:19):
the car because we had to getstuff out because things were still
burning at this point. Andlike I said, there was not enough
fire presence to deal withthis situation. And so I decided
that I was going to go back toour house, I was going to get everything
that we needed. I mean we tookno clothes, you know, so it was kind

(15:41):
of a trip to save what we canbecause it's possible that our house
could still burn down. Therewas, it was still windy and there
were still active fires. So Idrove up immediately and got to,
got to Altadena and the roadswere closed. The highway patrol and,

(16:08):
and police were closing it.Depending on what officer you went
to, you might get in. And soI, I was able to get in my, myself
and my father in law, we hadto park I don't know, maybe a half
mile from our house and walkuphill carrying like, you know, a

(16:30):
cooler for stuff in thefreezer bags to put things in gallons
of water. My brother in lawtold us that when he was there at
4 o'clock in the morning,there was a small fire in the garage
that he went and got somewater and dumped on it because there
was no water pressure, therewas no water flowing out of any of

(16:50):
the hoses anymore. And so hehad put this little fire out in the
garage. And so we decided thatwe would take water with us in case
we needed, in case there was afire that we would pour it on there.
I just, I wanted, I did notwant the studio to start up again
and then go to the house. Likeif this house existed, I wanted it
to still exist, you know, bythe end of the day. So we got to

(17:14):
the house. It was emotional.Obviously. The devastating, the devastation
was just like, it's just socrazy to see in my area, we're just
a few blocks south of the, theabsolute blank lot devastation that

(17:35):
is just north of us. Our areais like lot by lot and street by
street. So you know, I walkedtowards my house up the first street.
It's perfect, green trees,fine, maybe something a tree fell
over because it was windy. Andthen you turn right, there's nothing

(17:55):
for two blocks on the right,everything is gone. But the school
across the street is there.Then you get to my street and the
first half of the block up toour house is gone. And then above
our house, there's a fewstructures left. And then beyond
that there's nothing. Thenthere's a street that's untouched,

(18:16):
perfect. And it's just soweird to see green grass, landscaping,
perfect house. And then rightnext to it, gray, barren pile of
ash and a chimney. And thennext to that, green grass, perfect
house. It's. You just. Idon't, I don't understand it. It's

(18:40):
absolutely horrible to see andit's horrible. So when we were there,
we did what we needed to do.We got the things we needed to get.
And we had left a car there,which was, I mean, the smoke damage,
the smoke damage to the houseand this in the car is, is unbelievable.

(19:04):
But we decided let's fill thiscar up and drive it out, right? Because
it was in our driveway. So wewalked half mile uphill. So I would
have had to do multiple tripsdownhill with everything that we
were trying to take out. Butpeople were driving around in the
closed area. And so wedecided, let's load this car and

(19:27):
let's drive this car outbecause they'll let us drive out,
but they won't let us drivein. So we drove out. We got to the
car that we brought and weloaded it up. And my father in law
wanted to get back. I didn'tfeel like I was ready to leave yet.
So he took everything in, inthe car, the. The not smoked car.

(19:52):
And he drove back to, to takethe things that we needed back. And
I grabbed some more water andwalked back up to the house because
I just felt like I wanted toa. I wanted to walk around a little
bit. I wanted to see the area.I told my neighbor that I would check
on his house and take a video.I wanted to make sure I did that

(20:12):
for him. I. I just wanted todo a due diligence of trying to move
leaves away from the house.Branches, like anything that could
light up. I wanted thosethings to go away. And so I spent
an hour or two, no rake,right? Because my shed with all my
tools was gone. Just likemoving leaves by hand, filling my

(20:36):
trash cans, just trying to geteverything that could go up in flames
away from the house. And so Idid that for a bit and poured some
water on some smoking spots inthe garage. And then I. I felt like
it was time to go. And so Idecided that I Would leave. And I

(20:58):
was walking around the back ofmy house, and I heard that. That
campfire crackle that likeyou. Like you humans know is, could
only be fire. And I could hearit and it didn't know where it was.
And so I was looking aroundand then I could see it. It was.

(21:18):
So my garage butts upbasically to the end of my property,
and then there's like a fence.And then my. My neighbor's property's
there, and they used to havetwo houses which they, they. They
lost. And there was like apile of ash that must have been hot.
I guess that's a thing. Idon't know how these things work,
but there was flames comingout of the ground and starting to

(21:41):
creep up this tree. And so Ihad one gallon of water left that
I hadn't poured on leaves orlike on the studio or whatever. And
I ran back and I grabbed thatgallon of water, hoping like, God,
I hope this is enough. Like,it's just this one. I only have this
bottle and like kind of jumpedover this fence. It's like half broken.

(22:05):
Stepped in something that wassuper hot, which is probably where
the fire came from. And thenjust started tossing the water. And
I didn't want to get too closeto it because now I now have realized
that all this ash is hotbecause I just stepped in it. And
luckily I. It. It went out.And then I. I went back to see if

(22:30):
there was any water in mydrinking water bottle or if there
was something in the house.And when I came back out and walked
towards the front of my house,there was a very slow moving fire
truck. And so I ran out to thefront and I fly, I flagged it. And
these guys, they had justgotten into town from Northern California,
and their job was to look forhot spots and check burnt structures

(22:56):
to make sure that fires don'tstart. And I said, hey, guys, I don't,
like, I don't know if this. Ifyou can do something, but I just
put a small fire out backhere. There's also like an open flame
over here. There's also anopen flame over there. And they were
like, those sound like gas,but we're gonna mark them, we're
gonna check them, show us thishotspot. And so those guys pulled

(23:18):
back around. I showed them thearea. They raked it all out. They
hosed, hosed it down. Theywere like, yeah, we got a hot spot
or whatever their terminologyis. And they spent like 20 minutes
addressing the back corner ofthat property, which was right next
to where My garage was. And Imean, I feel like I was supposed

(23:39):
to be there for that. I feellike maybe I saved a fire from starting
again because that fire wassmall. When those guys, that truck
would have driven by, theywouldn't have seen a fire. And this
property is like, it's behindmy property with just a driveway
that goes back to it. So it'snot even really clear that there's

(24:02):
a property back there to lookat. And so I'm just glad I. I'm glad
I stayed for, for that. And sothen I. I trekked it out of there,
walked back down the hill tothe car and drove to. Drove back
to my, my in law's house. Andso at that point, I mean, I don't

(24:25):
really think it's worth, youknow, summarizing any more or really
going into detail anymore. Andwe'll just summarize it with, you
know, now we're, we're intemporary housing. We've rented a
house close enough to Pasadenato be able to go to the hospital

(24:47):
we want for our baby, my wifeto be able to go to her doctors,
for our daughter to go back topreschool, which finally just reopened
because it had to be cleaned.And so now we're just in the process
of insurance and, you know,recollecting everything for the baby.
The. The outpour of love andfrom people has been like crazy.

(25:09):
I mean, we've had things comefrom strangers in other cities that
just know somebody that knowssomebody and they wanted to send
us a crib or wanted to send usthis. And so we're very fortunate
that people have shown up andgiven us a lot so that we can be
prepared to have a child,since everything that we had saved

(25:30):
for our second child was, wasin the garage and the shed that burned.
So that is, that's the story.It's. It feels good to like, put
it all down like this with noedits. So I'm sorry if it was a bit

(25:51):
rambling, but it was justimportant for me to tell it. I feel
actually, I feel better havingfinished. So I think the only thing
to do before we go is to talkabout where I'm gonna go from here.
Obviously there's gonna be.There's gonna be rebuilding of the
studio and the garage and, anda lot of that I'm going to be bouncing

(26:15):
around town. So many peoplehave used. Offered me their studios.
I'm going to take those peopleup on their offer. I'll probably
be shooting some videos inother locations that are nicer than
this. And Then I think theonly thing I could do with the podcast
is to make this part of thestory. Because the podcast has always

(26:38):
been about what's going on inmy life, what I'm learning, what
I'm trying to be better at,what I'm doing. And, you know, there's
no avoiding or hiding what hashappened and how my situation has
changed. And so that is justgoing to become a feature of this
channel. I'm still going to bedoing interviews. They're going to

(27:00):
be a little bit morechallenging for scheduling having
a newborn and not having adedicated space. Those interviews
will be hopefully continuingdown the line of having some, some
really impactful big guests.But there's also going to be interviews
around what's going on withme. Like maybe we'll get some studio

(27:22):
designers on here, maybe we'lltalk to, I don't know, equipment
people, equipmentmanufacturers or wiring or things
that are about rebuilding. Andthen the non interview episodes.
There's an opportunity to dothings that I would never have done
normally because this podcasthas been more about career and mindset.

(27:45):
Given the situation, I cantalk about rebuilding studio or picking
the equipment that I want toreplace my equipment with and why
I would make a change or why Iwould stick with what I had. So there
might be a little bit moretechnical stuff on here, which I
know a lot of people love onYouTube. You know, obviously there's

(28:08):
always a hot video topic oflike, what would I do if I started
over today? Well, well, thatis literally what I'm doing. I am
starting over. And so thischannel is going to be about building
now. It was, it was aboutbuilding a career before and, and
now it's really gonna be aboutbuilding a career from the ground

(28:30):
up. So what would I do with 20years experience if it all was taken
away? And I imagine that theanswer to that question is gonna
change over the next year. Soit'll be interesting to see what
we talk about. But Iappreciate the support from everybody.

(28:51):
Keep watching the channel. I'mgonna try to keep uploads as regular
as I can. It's just, it'sgoing to be challenging. I'm going
to start replacing equipmentand maybe try to up the production
value around here a littlebit. But yeah, I just, my priority
will be my family andreorganize my life and then getting

(29:13):
back to mixing records andthen doing this podcast. Hopefully
I can do all those thingspretty quick. And so, yeah, I appreciate
all of you for watching thechannel and please stick around through
this odd period. I thinkthere's actually going to be some
really interestingconversations that come from this.