How To Make Your Creativity Beat The Algorithm - Dylan Gossett (Live Performance)

Key Takeaway

Protect time for unstructured, offline creation before optimizing for distribution. Today, take 30 minutes to make something with no audience in mind: write a verse, sketch an idea, draft an essay, or play an instrument. Do not check performance data, ask for feedback, or use AI to finish it. The goal is to reconnect with the process that produces original work—not merely the metrics that reward it.

Episode Overview

Dylan Gossett performs live and unpacks how his breakout song “Coal” grew from a private creative outlet into a major career. With Chris Williamson, he explores authenticity in an algorithm-driven music industry, the danger of audience capture, why artists need a life beyond their work, and why effort and imperfection give creative work meaning.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How To Make Your Creativity Beat The Algorithm - Dylan Gossett (Live Performance) from Modern Wisdom. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

People of the UK and Ireland, I'm coming to you live. Imagine that, me on stage in your city. Dublin is completely sold out, but everywhere else has got limited tickets left and you can get yours now at chriswilliamson.live. This is a custom-built live show. I absolutely adore it. I've spent over a year working on it. So if you're a fan of everything modern wisdom, come and see me on stage this October around the UK and Ireland, chriswilliamson.live. ♪ Well, I'm heading back to Austin ♪ ♪ Trying to find me again ♪ ♪ Something to keep me busy ♪ ♪ Keep these hands from trembling ♪ ♪ And it's something like the weather ♪ ♪ To try and mock my mind ♪ ♪ I'll try to think of something clever ♪ ♪ To keep me satisfied ♪ ♪ I'll take burning on the weekend ♪ ♪ Straight down 29 ♪ ♪ Past the cedars and believers ♪ ♪ On a rain drought ♪ ♪ When I get out of the city ♪ ♪ And pass the smell of the bar ♪ ♪ I'll watch the planes go on by, babe ♪ ♪ In the sky, leaving scars ♪ ♪ What do you believe in?

♪ ♪ Cause I've been having trouble sleeping ♪ ♪ The only thing I'm needing is somewhere I can find ♪ ♪ So I'm headed back to Austin ♪ ♪ When I close my eyes ♪ ♪ Well, if you want me at my best ♪ ♪ Then I'll proud the name I do ♪ ♪ Trying to focus what's ahead of me ♪ ♪ The night of the winter blues ♪ ♪ Takes a simple kind of moment to put my mind at ease ♪ ♪ It takes a girl who says she loves me ♪ ♪ To make me awake in the night ♪ ♪ What do you believe in?

♪ ♪ Cause I've been having trouble sleeping ♪ ♪ The only thing I'm needing is somewhere I can find ♪ ♪ So I'm headed back to Austin ♪ ♪ When I close my eyes ♪ ♪♪ ♪ What do you believe in? ♪ ♪ Cause I've been having trouble sleeping ♪ ♪ The only thing I'm needing is somewhere I can find ♪ ♪♪ ♪ So I'm headed back to Austin ♪ ♪ When I close my eyes ♪ ♪♪ That's f*****g good! Thank you. Dude, unbelievable. So good.

Thank you very much. Good to see you. That one's about Austin, Texas, obviously. Very timely. Yeah. Did you write most of Cole in 25 minutes? Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Cole was written, one of the fastest ones I've probably ever written. Yeah. It started, I can kind of show you. So it started just with... ♪♪ Maybe not this exact chord progression, it was a little bit different. I might have an old video of it I could show you, but I think it started with kind of that hook.

The... ♪ They say pressure makes diamonds hella hit. ♪ You know, I was like, that's great. That's a song. We got to build around it. And then, yeah, verse by verse. And it was just, I remember I was like, had my phone typing on top of our dog kennel in the apartment at the time. And it was like right before we went out with like some work friends and none of my friends knew I sung, like at all. I didn't, I don't know. I just don't go around telling people.

And Roque Cole went out and Julia, my wife, was just stoked on it. She was like, this is so sick. And she was just showing people like Snapchat videos of the song. She was like, you know, just, what do y'all think about this? And they're like, Dylan, you sing? And I was like, cat's out of the bag, I guess. And then didn't do anything with it for like a year or two. No way. You sat on that. You sat on a song that did like half a billion streams.

Yeah. I wasn't on socials. Like I wasn't putting anything out. I didn't do anything until we were on a camping trip with my buddy Kaden and his now wife MK and my wife and I, Julia. And I brought my guitar and was just playing some songs. And Kaden has like the best ear of anyone I know. He's like an A&R that's not, doesn't work in A&R. And he heard Cole and he's like, please sing it again. He like voice memoed it. And he's like, you got to do something.

You have to do something. And my wife was like, Dylan, you should just post on TikTok. And I was like, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not a TikToker. I was like, I almost can't stand it. Like, I don't, it's just not my, it's not my thing. Um, but yeah, I started doing it. And then Cole became this thing, which is insane. One of my buddies, best man at his wedding, godfather to his kid. And he was playing, we were at a friend's house who has a karaoke machine.

And I don't even know why there was a guitar there. And he'd been doing exactly the same thing. I bullied him, bullied him. I was like, no, come on, come on. Because the choice was between him playing acoustic guitar with a beautiful voice. And one of our friends, sad emo rapping. And I was like, hey, look, the decision is really easy for me to make in terms of a pressure. The fucking floor, dude, is so low for you to get over here. So I'm interested. Where were you in life when you were doing those lyrics?

What is that song? So I was living in Austin. I worked in, are you talking about Cole? Yeah. So I was living in Austin. I was working at the racetrack, the Circuit of the Americas down here. So I was, at the time, I was in event operations. I think I was, I started as an intern. I used to live there in like a trailer in my parents' RV for months. And I just lived at the job site. But I, yeah, I was working there. And I might have just kind of been through like a tough season.

Like F1 season is just kind of brutal, especially for like the outside guys. You're just, I mean, it's just like 20-hour days that you're living out there when it's F1 time. And I don't know. It was like that. It might have been some, you know, interpersonal, family thing, you know, whatever it might have been at the time. And, you know, I always try to say like it's a pretty deep kind of dark song. But I try to tell people I wasn't in like the worst spot of my life, you know.

But I was just going through everyday struggles, you know. Just like everybody does. And that's kind of what it was. I felt like I was in a pit. I was like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not really like, I don't know. I don't feel like I'm chasing anything right now. Like I'm having a great life. Like me and my wife and our dog, like we're having great, like we're very happy. And I was like, but a lot of other stuff we were just like, you know, whatever, you know.

It's interesting. There's like an input-output equation I think a lot of people feel. And if you're putting lots in, the goal, the hope, is that something is going to come out on the other side of it. But you have this sort of latent leverage after a while. Like you build up, you know, you pull back an elastic band. And you pull it back and pull it back. And we hope that life is going to be a bit more linear. But a lot of the time you're kind of just accumulating reps or doing something.

Maybe not even doing what. And putting in more work than you will do in future and not seeing the rewards. I think that's why. You know the top comment, Cole's got 22 million plays on YouTube. The top comment says, this song has the feeling when you're working on yourself and making progress. But you still feel lonely and like a failure. Yeah. Honestly, that's a great way to put it. Like that's how it felt, I guess. It's like, it just felt like we were putting the hours in almost.

You know, it's like we're doing it. But I don't know. It's like we don't feel any different. But now I almost see now it's like without. Like if Cole happened. Let's say I was writing about other stuff and Cole happened five years earlier. No way. There's no way that I think I would be touring doing the same thing that we're doing right now. Why? Because without. I think without going through that job and understanding even personal relationships outside of college. Like just kind of real world items.

Like I don't know. I feel like I can't even imagine being thrown into the music industry or trying to write songs. Or any of that without. I feel like having a real frame of reference to come back to. Does that make sense? Like I do. Even music as an artist. I think people don't understand. It is such a business. Like I think people imagine artists and myself just being like, look, I strum the guitar. I show up shows. We collect our money and that's our lot.

Like that's. I feel there's a time where I feel a lot more like a business manager than an artist for sure. There's a book called The E-Myth Revisited by I think it's Michael Gerber. It's like just a business book. It's quite. It's quite well done. And he tells this fictional story in there of a woman who runs a bakery. And this woman loves making cakes. She loves to do. And she's made cakes for the family. And she makes cake for her friends. And it's her passion.

And she's great at it. Everyone's best cakes. I'm going to open a bakery. Wouldn't that be cool? Small local bakery. So she opens a bakery and then it gets popular because she makes great cakes. But she needs to hire some staff. And some staff come in. And the staff start to make some of the cakes. And she's involved in the ingredients and the recipes and the releases. But then there's accounts to do. And she grows a little bit more. And then she gets a factory. And she's spending a little bit less time making cakes.

And before she knows it, she hasn't made a fucking cake in years. And this. No matter what industry you're in, you have to learn to be able to say no to things. Or to focus on stuff that previously you would have begged to have had the opportunity to say yes to. I want to be in the room with the A&R person. Or you're a writer. And you have all of the opportunities to go and do speaking gigs. It's like, why were you great as a writer?

What made you great as a blogger on Substack? Or as an author that writes books? Or whatever it is. It was because of the time that you spent stewing in your ideas. Right? Like marinating in this. It was the three hour walks that you took with the dog. And all of that time gets squeezed because we can't see. Basically, like obvious productivity is really easy to track. How many hours did you spend on Slack today? Or how many emails did you send? I've got a full back-to-back day of scheduled calls.

This must make me really important. And you go, well, how useful is it for you to go fishing for an afternoon with nothing else happening? You go, well, I worked really hard today. I went fishing. It's the peer written work ethic, the guilt that comes up. Because it's like, I should be working harder. But that's not what necessarily got you here. No. And it's so strict. Expectations change from everyone involved too. The fans have different expectations of the listeners. I have a different expectation as myself as I put up more and more albums.

Back when I was writing Cole, I was not writing it for anything. I was just like, this is my outlet. This is my passion. I love playing guitar. I'm just going to pick it up and write. I had no reason to do that. But I wanted to because that was just what I was so passionate about. Kind of like the bakery. She wants to bake some fucking cakes. And now it's three years, three and a half years later. Where I guess from Cole writing, it's like five years.

But looking back, if I wrote that exact same song today, and if I hear the version of Cole right now, I would be like, what is this demo? I would never put that out. I tried to remind myself when I'm in the studio. That song was just made on my laptop on the edge of my bed. That's where Cole was recorded, engineered. The only thing I didn't do on that song was master it. Which actually, I put it out. We had to retake it down to remaster it because it was so...

The levels were all over. It was just off. It didn't blend in with other music. It's so strange. You've got to find that passion, which I still have it. Obviously, I'm going to talk about the struggles of music, because there are some. But the last thing I'm going to be is ungrateful for what it is. I'm living my dream. Whenever I have struggles in this industry, because there are. Like you said, it's like four years ago, I would have killed to be stressing out about putting my album out.

Oh, I have to go sign vinyls in Nashville. I would have died for that, dude. I don't know. I have to remind myself that. My wife reminds me that all the time. She's just like my number one supporter and the greatest teammate in the world. The goalpost just changed. Isn't it crazy? You know about habituation and hedonic treadmill, right? You can't wait to get a new car. You spend all of your time thinking about this new car. You get the new car, and then after six months, you're sort of bored of it.

You're looking after the next one. What nobody really talks about is the same thing, but with goals and problems. That you wanted to have to do soundcheck. I just wish that I had a team of people who would maybe tune my fucking guitar before I go out there. And then you've got to negotiate because one of the fucking guitar techs has had to leave, so we need to get a new guitar tech. Hang on. So you're telling me that the person I pleaded, like begged, prayed to have, I now need to get a replacement for, and that feels like a burden to me.

Yeah. And we get accustomed to a different quality of life, a different level of ease or something. And yeah, I've always thought it would be really cool if you could take photos of your own mind and go back and visit them like you can with a photograph. What would it be like to go back to the texture of your mind from four years ago? You can just plug it in. Yeah, what problems were you thinking about? What concerned you as you fell asleep? Money worries. Am I going to make the fucking circuit of the Americas?

I'm boiling hot on the fucking golf cart. Yeah, I can can we do first card a little a little coal. Yeah, let's do it. Beautiful Yeah, this was like though because you know, it's funny. I posted a video of coal way early on and no one cared It didn't do anything but I was fine with that was like I already stuck does I'm just gonna keep posting I didn't post coal And again until after to be free happened the first song ever put out because I was like, I have a little traction I should try to like I really really believe in the song like the writing on it's really good And then it was like, yeah, we're like that video changed.

Why did you do that in coal? Why did you do that pre-chorus because you don't drop like the line until the second time it comes around Why did you make that creative decision two things at the time when tick-tock? I? Hated what music promotion was I hated that it was like, okay, we're gonna hear this 15 second clip of Badly lyrics weren't even on the screen really at this time like people weren't like I don't know it was just like all about a 15 second clip that people can just repost and redo videos to dance or whatever it was and What they do would do is they would get all these pre saves lined up pre-save preset There's and they would just extend this thing for just months and what I did with coal Was like I think the strength of this song is in the writing.

It's not necessary I think the hook is like this huge payoff at the very end that the people who listen to it are going to get at them at the moment at the time I wasn't thinking like oh I should probably shave that off because a 20-second video is gonna have a lot more Views in a 45-second video like you're saying but yeah, I also just like the the writing of it I don't know like that I've seen heaven without dying with the devil without trying like I was super proud of that and I was like I think that's a good hook to bring you who knows if there if I started with the chorus it might have never happened like it, you know, if it was a Dark sky instead of a sunny day when I was recording it might have never happened Like I think about that stuff all the time It's I took then like I did like five different videos that day and I just chose that one I was like, there's a chance that that video didn't go.

I never posted Cole again, and I'm we're not having this conversation You know what? I mean? So it's uh, yeah, I don't know. I also like I'm very I'm a big believer in that things happen for a reason. So that also gives me peace of mind. I don't know but yeah, so I've seen heaven without dying met the devil without trying and they both Seem to want to talk to me But I'm all out of luck now and my dreams are worth the book how it's tough trying to land on my feet This game life plays heavy on my heart and Love is tough loneliness twice as hard I'll carry that bad Everywhere I go.

They say pressure makes diamonds. How the hell am I still cold? Yeah, that was the clip so good so I mean Do you think deliberately looking unpolished is now its own kind of marketing because as soon as you find as soon as somebody does it on the deck and It's successful like everything becomes commercialized like authenticity is really difficult to survive Once a team recognizes it's got commercial value and then that kind of kills what authenticity is because people are now performing authenticity Yeah, I mean so that was something I mean, it's honestly it's still some I obsess over of like and I don't obsess over in a way of like how do we make this look and feel you know, cuz people are smarter than they ever are like dude, you're not gonna fake it and people do and maybe I'm wrong, you know, maybe people do believe a lot of Self is authentic when it's just absolutely not but I don't know.

I just feel like I Try to stay true to what my mind was thinking when I first got into this thing of like there's lines I won't cross I like but like I Would never sacrifice For a while I wouldn't run ads I wouldn't do anything I would not and I and I drove my team crazy and I and I guarantee I probably took a hit on a lot of things for that and maybe I was overthinking it but I was just like look I just I Don't want to just all the sudden like you said, it's like we know this thing works I don't want to all of a sudden just dive in Everyone's telling me we'll wait.

That's the formula. Yeah, there's the formula Don't post don't don't put it out right now. Wait three months get your pre saves up post it 30 more times I posted a call in total even like today. I think it's been like seven to ten times ever You're kidding ever now when it came out. I think I posted it four times and What people would tell you now is like no, you got to post this on fit. I'm right, you know and it's like I Don't know.

It's just such this weird thing in the in music right now where there's so many people doing it. So like You've got to get out there somehow and you've got it You've got to separate yourself somehow like it's it's even 10x of whenever I like Cole came out of like the amount of people kind of playing this type of music And I I don't know I really don't have the answer to like how To separate because everyone's doing the authentic thing now and everything everyone's doing the polish thing Like there's just so many things and I think In your world and in my world The ends of the barbell are where people are succeeding So yeah Very very produced right like super super polished or very roaring strip back And I think the middle is where people seem to go to die.

Yeah a moment Yeah, but looking at talking about the growth of the music industry billboard top 10 from 2020 to 2023 rap music 34% country music 7% 25 to 26 Country music 27% rap music 17% so rap music's gone in half and country music's 4x. That's incredible. That's pretty crazy yeah, I mean wild I Think it's the natural way of things. Like I think At some point country will be back down and rap will be back up again. That's that's part of the two ends of you Know what?

I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, but also like it's country is not what country was in 2020 like I Mean I hear songs right now that are Charting or whatever that I'm like, that's a great song. I love it. I wouldn't call it country, but sure, you know You know it it's got acoustic guitar in it. Let's do it. That's kind of enough. But yeah, it's cool I think I think at some point it'll Go back. There'll be like a whole new wave of hip-hop or something comes in which is cool, too A quick aside if you've wanted an eight sleep, but can never quite justify the price things just got very interesting They've somehow managed to make it significantly better and cheaper at the same time introducing the brand-new pod six It's now 50% smaller meaning it fits under most bed frames and there are nine times more senses built into it Despite all of these upgrades the pod six now starts at just one $1,999 the lowest starting price eight sleep has ever offered best of all for the first time eight sleep has introduced solo sizes Including single side options for Queen King and California King beds and they've got a 30-day sleep trial So you can buy it and sleep on it for 29 nights And if you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back plus they ship internationally So don't be scared by the currency amount right now You can get up to three hundred and fifty dollars off the pod six by going to the link in the description below or heading To eight sleep comm slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout.

That's EIG HT sleep calm Slash modern wisdom a checkout. What's interesting is how virality can Reward different behaviors because as soon as you find a way to make something become effective Everybody's going to start to play that I guess How do you tell the difference between a song that's good and a song that's just algorithm friendly. Ooh I mean I Feel like I Have a I feel like I have a bad view on this because I'm in it So like I Feel like I can pretty easily see when something has something pushing it you know, like I I kind of know what the markers are of like when I hear a song that's trending and Like I'll go look at the audio or whatever and I'm like, okay, they got a team like they're they're running this thing Like they're what what is some of the indications like?

Okay, you'll see you'll see a song come out and there's a Thousand truck edits to it or something and I'm like, what's a truck at like, okay for like you'll see You'll see a new song come out and it'll be like a video of an account but all they do is just truck videos with like cool moody lighting cake lyrics on the top and They put a song to it. I didn't realize this was an ecosystem on. Oh truck Yeah, that's a big thing right and again It's a smart thing because a lot of people follow those accounts for music It's like what teams will do is, you know, they'll they'll Pump someone's song on stuff like that.

Now. I'll say now more than ever That doesn't mean that you're gonna have a hit song It might put more ears on it But like if the song is not that great and if it kind of sounds like something else like it just won't It still won't really catch but you know, this is the kind of Escalation of firepower when it comes to marketing that how much harder is it to break through if every Moderately good song has now got an army of clippers and truck edits.

Oh, yeah boat edits behind it So yeah, that's I mean, that's and that's what I mean is Oh, it's almost like in my in my case, right? Like I'm I'm very blessed to be in the position that I am is like selling tickets That's what we've always based this thing off of like we've never really outside of coal We've never really had like viral moments like that was it like we haven't really had one since before it and but What matters to me is that our shows keep growing?

like that's all I've always cared about is like getting people to buy tickets in seats and I mean even that's getting harder. It's just how many everyone in the mom is touring right now. But yes, um, it's a Blue dot fever is happening. Yeah, and that's just like that's a whole another crazy thing. That's uh, That's just like that is a mixture of just everything Going against people buying tickets. So like but then you know the part of the rate for the people that don't know blue dot fever is a wave of Artists many of whom are pretty big doing some pretty large venues some stadiums some arenas not selling out or often not selling enough to even maybe continue with the Show or perhaps killing the tour entirely.

Yeah, and Part of it is is this person is selling tickets and Is is this person as relevant as they thought have they overcooked it? But another huge part of it is what are the fucking ticket prices? Yeah, like what's happening with Ticket master and live nation and how much are people getting squeezed and dynamic pricing. Yeah It's all cohesing at the same time But one of the most common things i'm hearing on the show is how much real life events are going to come back like Everyone's bullish as fuck on live music.

Yeah, everyone's so bullish on comedy on real world events on you know slow phone tech free sabbaths Trying to touch grass and you know fucking see the sky again And at the same time you have this other force which is cost of living people don't have as much money as they want anymore and live nation and ticket master and Every venue on the planet knows. Okay. Well, i've got to squeeze but I can't squeeze too much. Yeah Yeah, I mean it's like yeah, you want to go see a massive stadium act, right?

It's like cool for me and my wife to go that's going to be a four-figure day like And that's if i'm in the nosebleeds. That's if i'm in the worst seat in the stadium I gotta go get a hotel. I gotta park for fifty dollars I got if I want to buy a shirt babysitter I mean you're talking about thousands of dollars to go see a show in a really bad seat from row f and then they go Well, hold on This tick this tiktok artist that member we have on our on our playlist He's playing down the road for a 15 ticket and there's 200 people going and it's like let's just do that but there's a thousand people now, so to have It until I feel like agents jobs are getting harder every day too because it almost like you you build touring off of like sellouts and coming back and Revamping like your show that you did after an album you come back to the city you crushed And it's like, all right Well now you can do 20 percent more tickets because your album's doing well and people are enjoying it So let's do it.

But now it's almost at the point where it's like Oh You know dylan's coming to chicago. We saw him last year great show loved it, but we saw him And what about this new artist that's coming? We should go see him because we can only choose one show this month or this year because everything's so expensive so yeah, it's just yeah, dude, it's such a It's such an interesting landscape again. We're just we're just very blessed. We get to keep doing it So that's what we should try to do overnight success used to be a bit of an insult and now It kind of feels like what everyone's chasing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah strange very strange, but I also think a lot of people aren't ready for it, maybe like I mean I wasn't ready for it, but luckily like It didn't happen in such a way When I was too young or like it kind of happened like in the perfect moment Like my wife and I just got married six months earlier like fell settled down moved into a house together um, and then it happened, you know, and I uh Yeah, it you know, I think the hardest part is Maintaining it.

I feel like that's that's what does not Always happen is someone will have a really big moment And you'll know the song everyone the everyone in the world knows the song And then in a year, it's like they can't sell shows because maybe they just had that one song that was getting pushed out I don't know. It's it's a weird world. I I feel lost in it all the time. That's why I dude I I got deleted so much social media any like A country account out there.

I pretty much was unfollowed. I I just I just It's just overwhelming. It's just too what's the what's the sensation that you feel when you get exposed to that when you were getting exposed? to that stuff, uh I mean my sensation it's not like i'm like getting anxious or stressed about it. It's more of just like dude, I gotta have a life outside of like everything like Instagram used to be like, oh, what are my friends posting and now it's just like Ad ad promotion promotion.

Oh, there's my buddy you know, let me scroll through that and it's just it just gets or like when people are like reviewing other country artists and it's like These people that hide behind us. It's just weird and i'm like Like it obviously it's good for the music industry. It gives a lot of eyes, but as someone that's in the industry, it's like I'm trying to separate a little bit my life in my work, which I feel like i've done a really great job on like again i'm not I'm not like very social media forward like there.

I mean, I've we have an album coming out So I've kind of been trying to I'm like trying to post more but like I'm like, I don't know I don't I don't know. I don't you know, it gets lost out there a lot of times. Anyways, and it's just it's just a lot It's another Element of what we were talking about before that as you become successful your ability to do the things that made you successful become harder to access In order for art to imitate life You have to live a life Yeah this is why comedians as they get bigger and bigger all of their acts are about airports and dinners and Shows and hotels because that's all that they know because they're now a big touring act every single weekend They're away playing two or three shows Maybe they're matinee and all of their friends are in the industry as well.

And before you know it you go I what is the wellspring that I'm drawing from and this is the same for anybody. You're a marketer, right? You're a branding person you're trying to come up with really interesting insight for a new campaign for a client you work for off your Own company that you run or whatever Go, where are you drawing that from? Yeah, if all that you're consuming is just Derivative work of other people talking about the same thing. Well, I'm big in the branding industry It's very important that I spend time at the conference Okay, so yeah you as a marketing guy spend all of your time talking to marketing guys about marketing Where is the new because it is very like yeah You used to be the person that you would market to Like I used to be the guy that I would want to be like I want I would want Dylan to be a fan of Dylan Really?

I'm trying to I'm like, I think this guy would love anything with the show. Yeah, and now it's like Again, like even like like you said earlier, how can you tell what's a good song? And what's something's been pushed? I'm like, I think I can tell but you might have been finessed as well yeah, maybe I had because you know and then I start to believe certain things right where Again like you just kind of keep pushing the line back of like Yeah, oh I hate I I don't like how they promoted that or whatever and then your next record comes out and you're like You know, do we need to I need to play?

Yeah. I don't know. It's it's a it's that's such a good way to put it I've just Yeah, the the farther I guess you could say quote unquote the more successful successful you get and the more away from where you started Yeah, you got to find time to get back I think Miley Cyrus might have said that one time an interview was just like she requires certain time off the road so she can Just just live like just off. She's like I have to live a little bit.

So yeah Why does your process usually stop? Is it like a line? melody and emotion It'll be It'll be stuff Like okay, like I don't know. I'll be on the couch Julia will be watching TV or something like that. We'll be watching something and I sing gibberish like I'll try to find a melody that I think is but I'm not saying anything and eventually maybe like a word will come to me that it feels very Thought provoking or something, you know, like okay for like headed back to Austin when I played earlier I think it was kind of that line like I knew where I wanted to go But I didn't have anything and that just started with again me on the couch Perfect 30 minutes not because I'm trying to write a song but it's cuz I'm just noodling like I don't know I just like doing it.

So I started And I'll look at joy like that sounds cool she's like yeah, I like that And then you just kind of start Gibberish forming consonants and vowels until they become a word. Hang on. So the the writers room is you Whatever bullshit's on TV. Yeah, presumably now the kid. Yeah, who's just like flailing in the background? Yeah, right. So the difference between this this and a Nashville engine a little bit different Yeah, very but that's why I like and again, I have nothing against those guys.

They're very talented in their own animals It's incredible what they can do, but it just doesn't I can't do it That's like I said, we tried have you tried to be in the like the engine? No, no, I'm I've The closest I've come to that is like I write with my brother Are like multi instrumentalist Colton And even then it's just different it's a whole different way of writing I can't say if I like it more or less like I still think me on my couch in my living room usually at night is like That's where I get the stuff.

I like like but then it's like my brother has a song That he wrote called rambling and it's on the album. It's actually the title of the album rambling choosing And it's like one of the best songs going out like it's written so cool And all I did was write like the chorus and a little like melody for the chorus. I hear about yeah She's way better playing on guitar. So I'm probably gonna butcher Also, I haven't played in so long She's Listen to the wind Calls me by name Same old dirt from where I was raised Ain't no ramblin man oughta cause all this pain Listen to the wind no listen to the wind It calls me by name like I don't know.

It's a beautiful song I butchered it. Sorry Blake. He's probably listening. He's like you messing up my song but yeah, no, he does this like finger-picking style that like I just can't even do and he's a way better guitar player than I am, but this is so cool, like that's the stuff that I love like I'm not I Was early on but especially like now like I'm very open to collaboration and I'm not as like sacred about Every words gotta be mine. Like I you know, I'm very I Writing is my passion almost more than singing so like I you know, I'm very Particular of like what I want the songs to say and sound like and I don't know I just like I like writing would you ever do it for someone else?

I think so But it's maybe I don't think I could write a song for someone else that I think that I could sing Because I just want to sing it The supplement industry is full of products making claims that they can't back which is why I'm such a massive fan of momentous Their co-founder Jeff Byers played in the NFL and saw firsthand just how wildly the quality of supplements can vary So he built momentous around a higher standard every product from momentous uses evidence-backed ingredients Transparent doses and independent third-party testing.

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Well, I had Bellion on the show last year and He's just so fucking guy. I mean there was a guitar in the backside of the room and I'm thinking okay, John motherfucking Bellion Okay, right Gestured to a guitar. Yeah, you know explain how he did need to look to these. I don't know play that thing No, he's like I'm fucking it's not my bag. Yeah, I'm just here to do the thing Yeah, but he was telling me about how he'd taken all of his time off five years maybe this big break away from producing any me publishing any music himself and He just wasn't fussed.

He had this altercation pretty public altercation, I think with his label didn't want to I'm not gonna play the game. He's gonna make music for other people and this be great and he's just creating banger after banger and I said, well, how did you know that you wanted to get back into making music again? He said well when I had my Stack of tracks to show whichever artist was coming in like little demos and stuff that I'd cut together for them I have a little listen to I'd find myself, you know going down Going down and then I I double tap over the top of a couple of them and he's like that one's for me Yeah, he could hear in the back of his mind this bit of almost kind of a selfishness Well, maybe a bit more swagger or kind of ownership coming back.

Yeah, because he wanted to do that But yeah, I I think about a lot of my friends that are writers, you know, they do versions of ghostwriting for people and they'll shape ideas and then sometimes they'll come up with the synthesis of an idea and Every so often they put out one they Feel a little bit aggrieved that they didn't get to put it under their own name and the same goes for comedy writers you know all of the roasts that you see every big roast that you see online a lot of comedians now are opening up in the Caption of their Instagram post if they put one of these huge big like, you know clips up there completely Ritz They put the credits in that of all of the writers that I don't know.

It's not them I'm right here, right Jared like this because I always thought it was like I Always thought it was like rap and comedy like the country was like the country and pop were like they had writers I thought engine. Yeah, I thought like rap comedy was more like you are what you write No, I mean what percentage of comedians now touring comedians. Do you think are using just off the top of your head? What percentage of touring comedians do you think are doing their entire sets less than 10%?

No way That is crazy at the roasts I would probably guess probably lesson It's our it's fucking armies of people to put together. I mean, I mean you even hear them call it out now Shane at The ESPYs, uh, just gave a line and he said I that wasn't mine. I didn't write that one Calling out the matter of the whole engine process. And um, yeah, I saw I Saw another roast that came out a couple of days ago and the fucking Instagram captions ten lines long It's crazy like writers and then other contributors, you know It's got the dog in there like everybody's cut I could say you could say the writers room as good as not Nashville credits or else your kid would be like tapping you Up saying hey, yeah, I was in the room when you yeah, it was my 33.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dude. It's Wow. Yeah, I don't know. I I think what you said earlier. I take ownership. Yeah in I try I don't think I'm a very egotistical person but the one thing I think I do like take pride in the most is probably the words and it's just I don't know and also just If somebody I'm trying to think like if someone came up to me with just an absolute amazing song It was like do you want to sing this? I've never had that except for Blake my brother with rambling and I was like, that's a no-brainer Let's put that on the album, maybe it feels a little different that it's come from so close.

Yeah Yeah, and I guess me or even or even if it's a person that's just like a really great song right? I'm like I have this song when you sing it. I'm like cool. I can't you know, let's do it. I'll do it But what about in reverse? What about you writing for someone else? Again, I think it's the ownership thing Like I think if I write a song I think is just so good I almost get to the point where like if I have a chorus and like a verse and all I need is like a little bridge and I'm almost like I I'm so I'm sorry.

Like I really don't want help with this. Like I Want to own it. I want this to be like, yeah, I want to complete my thought so that's that's a really interesting point and I've found this with with writing that There is always at least now in the world of writing and maybe increasingly It's gonna start creeping in in the world of music the contribution of AI so I've got this idea that I'm I'm playing with at the moment have a friend and he bumped into an ex of his a little while ago and He made the decision that he didn't want to be in a relationship anymore a good while back and he was certainly Really done the work spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not he wanted to leave decided to leave saw her gets completely knocked sideways just bumps into a randomly and his head's in a whole spin and he was saying I can't work out how I was so certain at the time and so regretful now, yeah, and There's an idea from psychology that's called the fading affect bias and what it says is that bad memories fade with time But good ones don't tend to and that's great because it means we have a psychological immune system It protects us from being still at the mercy of some horrible thing that happened in our past Yeah dog dies when you're 10, but when you're 15, it doesn't sing quite so much.

Hooray for that Yeah, you have a psychological immune system. You distance yourself. You distract yourself you have reframes Tragedy plus time Equals comedy. Yeah is about as close to an algorithm that psychology's got Yeah, so bad things fade with time good things tend not to so much and in fact Sometimes bad things can kind of become funny, right? You can have a tragic situation that becomes funny in future But one of the weird side effects of this as you get a little bit older is that you assume Wisdom compounds with age as I get older.

I know more Yeah, but in matters of emotion as you get older, you're just further from the evidence Yeah So what he had encountered was a situation where a future version of him had less information than a previous version of him Hmm the person that was closer to the emotion understood what it felt like to Not fully be in this relationship to be uncertain to be sat on the couch and not have anything to talk about She always be going to bed worried about whether or not who's making the right decision and the version of him now Isn't more Experienced they're further from the evidence and I was like fuck.

I love like I love the fading affect bias I've got this story from a friend send him this like series of texts and I was like trust that the previous version of you Was stewarding the future version of you appropriately. Yeah, do you trust that you had your best interest in mind? That's a great at the time. Yeah, and I've been fucking fighting with this idea for ages and Yesterday is my writing day. We're a Sunday's writing day. So I'm sitting down and I've got Fucking a thousand and it only needs to be 500 words It needs to be short little essay snappy that basically what I just said a little bit more formed And I've got a thousand two thousand words of just like bullshit and I'm like I can throw this in the chat GPT Put it on deep research and it'll take my words and it'll Read it'll put them together put them into a flow.

Maybe it'll tell me a story about Charles Darwin and it'll be done Yeah, and I knew that if I did that I would get the essay out today It didn't but shock horror for the people that subscribe to the newsletter. It didn't go out today I was something else. I put something else up that was easier for me to write the reason I didn't do it was that that idea will be concretized for the rest of time. That will be the reference that I use for whatever the name is.

I come up with it or the story, the way that it's formed, the examples I use, and they stick in my mind. And I'll always know that it wasn't me that did it. I'll always know that it wasn't me that put the fucking finishing garnish on the dish. I did all of the hard work and there was this bit at the end. And I wonder whether that might be ego. I think it probably could be ego that I'm not, but I also think it's like this.

You see where the world is going a little bit with it. I mean, you can't even open your phone without it just begging to be like, let me do it for you. It can't even like, someone will email you and I haven't even read it. Do you want me to respond to it on your behalf? Yeah. I had to turn it off on my phone. It was like summarizing my messages and I'm like, what? I'm just going to read it like, Hey, I got an email reply.

How about this reply? And it's this whole reply. And I think, I think we're in a state, at least I am. I am. It's like this yearning to be like, it's so great to work your mind. You have to try to work your mind. Cause dude, I feel like there's days that go by when I'm on tour, I'm on autopilot. I'm not, I'm, I'm not doing anything beneficial. I get tired. I'm just on my phone. I'm doing scrolling. And like, I'm like, I'm getting dumber by the day.

Like I just, like, I'm not getting cognitive. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm not, yeah, I'm not, uh, exercising my mind. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to make it this big thing where I'm like, you know, God, I just might, whatever. But yeah, I think I just yearn for having this, having that stamp. And like, it's, it's such an accomplishment. Like growing up as a kid, like that's why so many people are against participation trophies. Right? Like I'm in there myself. It's like against it. I'm just, there's not a better feeling than when you do get it.

Earn the win. Earn, earn the win. Instead of being like, we're all winners. It's like, no, you wrote a bad song. It's bad. But I promise in two years when you write that song and you know, you did it and you crushed it and you put it online and people resonate with it and you think that they're just resonated with it. Cause it's a different note. It's because you failed and failed and failed. You made the right song. And that is like, that's the whole, I don't know.

I feel like that's almost just the point of everything. Like it's, it's, it's the payoff. Like if you just write AI the rest of your life, like there's, there's, I don't know, there's no, there's no like highs and lows in that. You're just very, yeah. I don't know. Does that make sense? Like it's, there's a line from Mark Manson that I've been fucking obsessed with this year. And it speaks to this AI thing. Do hard shit, not because it's fun, but because the win actually means something.

You bled for it. You broke for it. You earned it. Easy wins are forgettable. Hard ones change you. That's the point. Yeah. It's like, that's, that's everything. And the more that I think about that line, easy wins are forgettable. Hard ones change you. That's the point. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, that's the choice that everybody's going to make when it comes to AI. And it's going to be in small ways as well. I've got to write a letter, a thank you letter to somebody saying, I really appreciate you taking care of the kids this weekend or the dog walker on her birthday or whatever.

Like, do people care about receiving a card or do they care about the fact that you went to the effort of having to write it by hand? It's one of the strange things about, I don't know whether you guys have got moon pig or magpie. They're like card sending services, but you sort of type in what you want. And I, it's very nice to receive a card. Like it's kind of rare to receive a card. It's at least twice as nice when it's been written by hand, as opposed to something that's got printed off on the internet, somebody typed it in and it got shipped to your door.

It's like, no, go to the fucking post office. Cause yeah, it's, it's, it's not like, it's not like I receive a note, like, yeah, a letter in the mail. And I'm like this, this 299 piece of paper is what I've been looking for. No, it's like, okay. They put an ad, like, they're just showing you love from afar because they can't, they're showing you ever from afar. So yeah, it's like, and again, I'm not saying that like AI doesn't have its place in certain parts of the world.

Like obviously, I mean, it's just technological advance. Like, for example, I don't, I don't go hand wash my clothes and hang them up on the clothesline outside. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I got to live hard, you know? Cause like, obviously we advanced, but there comes a line where it's like, all right. Yeah. I can, I can, especially, I think where I, the line crosses for me is when it's like artistic or sentimental, right. Or I'm sure there's other stuff, but artistic, it's like the whole point of art is that it's not perfect and it feels like something only humans can do.

Right. So it feels very natural. And then with the sentimental stuff, that's the whole point of, like you said, writing a letter. I'm not writing you a letter just so you can have the piece of paper. I'm writing you a letter and putting something in here that I think is going to have an emotional effect on you. Just like I'm having an emotional effect writing it and I'm doing it. And I'm not like saying that writing a letter is hard, but I don't know. I think we're saying the same thing.

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If you don't like it after 29 days, they just give you your money back. Right now you can get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and that 30 day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com slash modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom. The decision that everybody's going to make is, okay, do I want to do the harder thing? And it's weird because do hard things is kind of this tagline that everybody likes to lean into the 4.30 AM cold plunge and the runs and the weight lifting and the sticking to your diet.

But the decision of, do I want to do the harder thing or the easier thing is going to encroach into every area of life. It's going to encroach into whether or not you want to order. If you one click order flowers that goes to your Mrs's door because she's having a hard day, or if you drive to the fucking florist and pick them up and hand deliver them to her, there is just a, there is a explicit real world difference, a tangible difference between those two things.

But as things, convenience begins to encroach on the rest of life, everybody's going to have to make that decision for more and more and more stuff. Oh yeah. Like, yeah, I hear what you're saying. It's, it's not, I saw this one picture where it was like, it started as sit down restaurant, it turned into drive through and now it's Uber Eats. You know, it was movies and then it's YouTube and now it's YouTube shorts. Like it just, it just keeps going. Yeah. And it just keeps expanding.

Derivative. It becomes distilled down. Yeah. And it's like, even, I mean, I find myself, I used to never do this, but I found myself literally this week and I, I was watching Instagram real and I was, well, I was watching it and I was like, let me hold down, let me go times two speed here, you know? And I'm like, what am I doing? Like, I just, I need to, I need to speed fuck myself with the algorithm harder. And it's like, it's like you're saying, it's not just that.

That might not be the bad thing. I don't know. Maybe you're, you're, you're on, you're on a bathroom break and you're like, I don't know, get, get to the point. You know, I, you know, I get that, but it starts creeping into everything. Cause yeah, 20 years down the road, you know, with, with the, with the musician. And they're like, oh, I got to pay the bills. We need a new song. I just don't have it in me. What, write a song. Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's going to sell. Like what's, what's stopping people from doing that if it's just every, every year, it's just one extra thing, you know? Well, you know, think about how songs are recorded. Now you go into a studio, you can play a song like pluck by pluck and just chop that together and then you've got the perfect take, the perfect take. Whereas it would have been what? 50 years ago, a single fucking room. Okay. Yeah. Cause they were also on tape. So they, I mean, they, they, they legitimately had to make a decision right there in the moment and say, Hey, either we're running out of tape or Hey, it's literally not worth our time to go.

They had like exacto knives. They would have to cut these things together, splice it physically, tape it up, run it through the machine. Like it's, and now it's just, yeah, just hit it again. You're fine. Yeah. So that's why you hear on so many of these old records, like an Elton John record or something like that, you'll hear like in the background, something like a hat fell on the keys, but it was a great take. And they're like, we can't keep the hat and keep it.

Like, you'll hear like the little key hit, like, you know, and they just keep it in there. And it kind of gives records life a little bit. Like there's, there's certain things, like I think in the records that I make, I think like my, I think the imperfections almost make it perfect sometimes. And it's just, you know, as soon as you say imperfections, give something a degree of life, the imperfections then begin to be engineered. Oh, so everything becomes marketable, right? The authenticity, the stripped backness.

Well, Oh, this great story about Elton John. We must have a hat. Has anyone got a hat in the room? We can make the hat fall at the right time. It's very so. Okay. And look, whoever's listening to this, I don't know if any Nashville producers listen to this. I'm probably not talking about you. I've had a lot of great experiences in the whole Nashville thing, but there are a lot of that, a lot, a lot in that setting that it's very performative, like you said.

It's very, uh, it's like, they want it to be natural so bad that they're going to make it natural. Does that make sense? Like you said, like it's going to be artificially natural, like you're saying, and it's like, what's the craziest thing, get your car keys. And you know, that's how they did it. You know, that's how they did it on whatever it's called. And no, we need to be living in the, and I'm like, I think it's, it's just this sort of commodification of everything.

And as if it's less gatekept by technology or by expertise, it means that more people are going to be tempted to do it. The problem is going to be, can we remove drudgery from people's lives without taking away the stuff that actually matters to them without taking away, not just like you want to be involved in this thing, but it is genuinely better for you to take a longer route round, to take a higher friction route from where you are to the outcome of this thing, because it's going to be better for you.

Maybe the work will be worse, but the win will mean something. It won't be as forgettable. Uh, you know, yeah, it's strange. I guess it's, it's weird in music because for such a long time, there's been teams of writers and, you know, bands even it's like, okay, so you said the lyric and maybe the fucking guy that wrote the lyrics left, it's like a 10 year old song, right? And the guy, maybe he's dead. Yeah. You know, he's, uh, well, he's not even a part of the band anymore, but we're still singing it and it's ours.

We get to own it. So it's, there's been more fluidity, but that also, I think means it could be a slipperier slope. Oh yeah. Mastering. What do you fucking, you must be able to one click master track, not as well as a elite audio engineer now I'm guessing, but you must be able to one click master tracks now with, for sure. I mean, and again, like some of it is good. So I want to say like, I want to be, it's important. I say that some of it is good because there's also a lot less gatekeepers nowadays in music.

It is so sick that I can write a song called like Cole that I believe in and I can record it on my laptop. I put it out and it does better than 99% of all the money pushed multi song writer songs. I love it. That's awesome. I love it. That's, that's great. I think that's a great side of like entry access. Yes. Um, but like you said, democratize it so that you can compete. Exactly. But you're right. Like it, it's a slippery cause as soon as people go, that works, hold on.

And it's like, hold on. We're the millionaires. Where's gosset AI. How do I make? Yeah, dude. But it's like, that works. It's only a matter of time. That's the thing. Maybe that's what I'm trying to get. I'm not trying to sound like bleak, like everything that's good. It's all, you know, eventually. Yeah. But it kind of feels like that. Like in, in the industry, there are thousands of people working every single day to find the next new thing. So when you have something like Cole or something like, I don't know, anyone else in this industry that has a song, people are going to be like, what did they do, why did it work, how do we replicate it and how do we dump a truck load of money behind it and just make it happen.

Did you see that? Uh, was it variety piece about geese? You know, that band? Yeah. I didn't see that. I didn't see the piece. It was like a big article about how the engine, the clipping engine and stuff was behind that band. I think the band were pretty successful beforehand and then it's just, you know, you really put the fucking fuel nitrous booster, but not between. Where was this song originated? Who wrote the lyrics? Because is it an AI song? If AI helped you to craft the lyrics and then you sang them, what about, but my point is like, at what point, how far back do you go?

Okay. So I'm really struggling with, um, Rhymer's block. The, it's an app for iPhone. I'm really struggling with a word that rhymes with small, but fits this. Oh, I'll just go in. It's like, at what point, where do you draw the line? I do. That's a great question. And as technology begins to democratize it, the only place that you have this, that you can make this decision is my own kind of moral gauge for what I want on the other side of it. Yeah, I think I do that.

I mean, there's a gray area, but I think it's one of those things where it's like, you know, you know what I'm saying? It's one of the, like, I feel like, yeah. And it's, it's, I mean, I, I even it's, I'm not trying to get like too deep, but I think this goes with a lot of things. I think there are people that are just going to always push the envelope of be like, well, what am I, what am I allowed to do? Like always trying to be like, how much wrong can I do before I get in trouble?

And I try not to look at it that way. I try to be like, yeah. And I also just, I just like, I don't have, I don't, I don't think I have that thing in me where I'm like, how, how, how much can I squeeze out of this with AI to help me write this song without people thinking that it's AI. And it's like, I think if you're doing that, like, you know what you're doing. Bye. I think if you're if you're if you're a kid at home and you're trying to like you wrote this song and you're like dang What's that word open up the dictionary open up like a rhyming?

Website or something and you find like oh cool That kid has no intention of being like, you know, it's so this fucking words was written by yeah like that that's his song, you know, I Because he's I don't think that that that someone like that's pushing the off like I Don't know. I don't I don't know how to like word this correctly, but I just think I Think you know, you know, like if or do I mean like there's also the debate about you know producers and Mixers and engineers and stuff like you said like what if they use AI to kind of like help them with the side chains Really hard.

Yeah, and it's like Yeah, okay you know as long as Hey, there's an argument to be made that as soon as you've got doors and you're like hey back in the day, dude We has to take a fucking lead take it out of that synth put it into that So you want to chain those things together go and get your phone go and go and get your quarter Yeah, it's like is losing an electric piano, you know so yeah again, I I think it comes down to like you just know in your gut like you're You're either making music or something else is making the music for you.

It's like and it's like I don't know. It seems like you take a very sort of emotionally informed approach to music. It's quite self-deprecating Stock sometimes. Yeah, I think is that fair? Yeah I think I think it kind of depends like, you know, I also think it really changes the mood of the song itself like I Don't know. I find those songs can be easier, right? I feel like when I write my happy songs They come off cheesier when I when I feel like it's the same level of lyrical writing Dude and it's also yeah, it also if I put coal in like an EDM track I guarantee people be like they wouldn't really care about what the lyricist I get it's like doesn't feel sad Yeah, it's like have you seen people that play like ballad piano like the Drake and Josh theme song?

It sounds like a beautifully written song and you're like, it's kind of deep. It's kind of a set, you know, whatever but it's like It's all how it's framed. I think I mean, I think of my Jason is though when it comes to this but If you put his type of lyricism into his type of guitar playing and his voice in the raspiness like it's gonna come off that way Whether it's intention to be or not or then you you can go listen to like a turnpike song Who I think is some of the best writers in the world, but maybe they're four on the floor and it's kind of a more upbeat groove, but he's talking about how like My dad's gonna what my ass I'm ever back in this County like it's it's might be a sad feeling sorry, whatever it is that I'm not trying to say that song specifically, but And it feels upbeat.

You're like, oh I can get down and this is party, you know, it's a good time So I forget that forget the lyrics or remember. Yeah, I think I think it's yeah I think it's sometimes the way that it's played on the guitar. You're playing differently minor chords and stuff like that but I like to lean into that like I feel like I love listening to music like that even when I'm like happy I'll be I'll be the happiest guy in the world and I'm like, let me put on a sad one.

Let me put on a slow one Why do you think male sadness is dominating modern country? I Think I think two things I think for one I Think it's the only place where I feel like a lot of guys a lot of males Feel like they're allowed to talk about it like without being without like for example if I went up to like my buddies or in our group chat and Said how I felt in coal it would come off of like I'd rather get it together What are you talking about, but you put country music behind it and it's like dang That's a beautiful song.

I actually connect with that, but I'm not gonna like say I do you know, it feels like it's guys Almost like a dude therapy session and I think that's why so many people write about is that it connects really deeply it almost like it says the feelings that a lot of these dudes I think feel but they're like Blue-collar fellows around I'm not telling nobody how I feel but like you do at our shows The the people who are like heart and soul singing it out there in the crowd are the other dudes Arms around each other that I promised they would leave that show and they would never tell each other about their feelings But they come to the show and they're looking at each other screaming these lyrics and it's like yeah, it's like cathartic It's like it's there.

It's like a thing. So I think I don't I think it just comes off Well, it's like the way to way to do it as a dude, but I'm still being cool If it's a weird comment on masculinity that men feel comfortable Seeing their emotions reflected in lyrics, but uncomfortable exposing them in daily life Like this guy has said this thing that I feel he's put words. I'm happy to sing it. Yeah, I'm happy I'm happy to sing it that his show. Yeah, and I'm still It feels like there is room for that it's a It's a really interesting sort of balance between those two things Yeah, and it almost it almost feels like sometimes the opposite for women like it almost feels like Female songs are empowering and male songs are about vulnerability Yeah, but but and it's and it's the opposite to where it's like when women sing about vulnerability Oh, it's almost like the male crowd is like here we go Another, you know another female country is talking about a breakup, but it's like when guys do it It's like brother gum, you know, I got so it is it kind of feels like That's that's the male outlet sometimes it's like through music and then I feel like the girl outlet again I'm I'm not trying to be the guy speaking on behalf of all the women out there I would never do that.

But yeah, it kind of feels like it's the opposite where it's you know, I thought I don't know Maybe I'm wrong. I thought I sit in parks by Kelsey ballerini was such a fascinating fucking concept for a song I haven't heard that. Oh, dude, so it's her talking about a relationship that she used to be in and she didn't go through with it because her partner wanted to have kids and She wanted to focus on her career and then a few years later she's sitting in the park on a weekend looking at this family playing with the kid and She's asking have I made a mistake?

Have I made a choice that I can't reverse? Yeah, so I take my Alexa Pro and I puff on my vape and the albums due in March and My next tour is coming up and my friends about to have a kid and I'm worried I'm worried I miss this thing and that was really fucking raw, like very very Yeah, maybe I might I might have missed the mark because also a penthouse by Kelsey ballerini Like that's also a great song and it's like a kind of a better relationship.

So Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. But I just think I think that you're right. I think that the Especially a lot of the country music tropes. Maybe that's the reason maybe that's one of the reasons why That if you hear a guy talking about vulnerability, it feels rarer yeah, and it's now being done through this vehicle, which is music and it's Almost like the tortured hero. The only way that he can even open his heart is to do it to a chord Yeah, you know, it's like that's the excuse.

Yeah, that's being given but it's also a defense mechanism It's a defense mechanism because if guys aren't comfortable about talking about it normally this Frames it in an artistic and romantic way that just creates a little bit of distance I don't actually need to show myself in the same way as you said yourself and it's exactly open up in the in the group Chat, it's different to what's gonna happen if I open up in the song. What the kind of thing that Blows my mind is how many guys would love to have that outlet but on singer-songwriters and how difficult it is to find something else because I think Yeah writing songs maybe Poetry, but that's perhaps even more inaccessible than then some singer-songwriter.

Yeah Essaying micro blogging stuff on substack and you can write in the third person and that feels that's probably a little bit more accessible But fuck me beyond that. It's like you're into the world of YouTube and Conversations with a therapist. Yeah, so it's I know it's a I guess like that might be like the dudes that come to those shows You know, that's like it's group therapy. It's like man I can't sing it but I'm gonna I'm gonna try it not, you know in or out get in the car or do it or Yeah Drink and then talk to the buddies like, you know if you're gonna spend an hour in the gym You might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it And honestly who wants to be in the background of a tick-tock is highlight reel dress like a chump Gymshark make some of the best men's and women's training gear on the planet and Something that I realized a few years ago is that when you actually like what you're wearing in the gym you show up differently you train harder you stay longer and Get way more high-fives.

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That's Jim SH slash modern wisdom a modern wisdom 10 a checkout What uh, what emotions have you found to be the hardest to write about? Probably Like Happy I think and not not in a way. It's like I mean, I can't write about being happy because I can but I feel like it doesn't come off the tongue as easy as like as Like a sadder more heartfelt song I feel like I can really paint that picture versus like when I'm singing a Song and maybe like I mean like happy I don't mean like love I feel like I can write really well about like I feel like I can write about my wife like a lot I have I've written a ton of songs about her and it's like those are some of my favorites ever written but I'm talking about just straight up This one's gonna come in come come on in the bar.

Yeah, I struggle with that I don't know why I think some people Nail it and I've just I I can't It's not always there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean I spoke to Dan and Shay about this Luke Holmes fucking Unbelievable like got as much swagger as it's possible for a white guy to have. Yeah, he's the blackest white guy and but when you think about the That sort of arc over the last one decade or so of his songwriting you go from very sort of tortured uncertain tumultuous Crises and now there's a bit of me that wants him to smoke some crack Yeah, there's a bit of me that wants him to like have that friction again in life because Things are going well, and my son misses me when I go away But I do come back and like my dad's getting older and that's gonna be hard when it doesn't happen and he's still fucking ripping it Yeah, but how much harder you have to work to make a banging song?

when you Don't have that friction in your life. Yeah, I mean you're almost beginning to concoct stories or you're hearing things that happen to other people or you know, Confabulating ideas and and tales of an imagined world a different world that you could have lived in Yeah, right. This is what I could have been It's like your life's so good that you have to imagine what you don't have in order to be able to create because for some reason people seem to resonate a lot with that pain and that vulnerability and Again, if art is imitating life and your life's going really fucking well.

Mm-hmm What are you gonna be singing? Yeah, what's what? Yeah, what's what's your sad song? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and again I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to when people like because I also love being a storyteller I love writing songs about I have a song called lone old cowboy, which is about You know a guy going and getting cheated on killing the guy and on the run and I'm like, I didn't ever did that But I think I love the storytelling aspect and that comes from I think it's kind of more like that Western Kind of swing old me like Marty Robbins.

I like doubt like the gunfighter ballad and everything There's like a whole album of just like ballads written about like gunfighters and stuff. It's like fables. Yeah Yeah, it's all it Yeah but then but then there also gets to like yeah you start getting into What feels like it could be a real story like obviously no one thinks that I went and shot this guy and ran away but you know when I when I sing a song about maybe so a stranger that I see that I'm like I'm just gonna make up what I think his life is like and tell that story.

I Think that's also sick. I think that's really cool. Do you know where Jolene came from Dolly Parton song? I don't know. Maybe I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it's written about a bank teller bank assistant that flirted with her husband and She Didn't use the name of the bank teller but found a lady at a party who had the name Jolene Mm-hmm and placed the name of the lady Story came from a beautiful bank teller who flirted with Dolly's husband Carl Dean Shortly after they got married Dolly said the woman was tall redhead and paid car love attention Carl enjoyed the attention Dolly joked that he seemed to spend an awful lot of time at the bank for someone with so little money Became the seed for the song It was more of a playful thing the name Jolene came from a totally different person an eight-year-old redheaded fan who asked Dolly for an Autograph she thought Jolene was such a beautiful name.

She told the girl she was gonna use she wrote Jolene and I will always love you That's not right. She didn't write. I will always love you. It was working nine-to-five She didn't write I will always love you did she yeah, that was that's her song That's her song and then Whitney Houston saying it on what was what was the movie and then and then I think Dolly Was I think Dolly probably said like that's your song. Yeah, like it's no that was yeah That's that's that's Dolly song Jolene and I will always love you in the same day talk about crazy Yeah, fuck you with you 25 minute.

Oh, yeah. Yeah get on her. Yeah, she's like, let me just write some of the two two absolute bangers, but yet Again, you've concocted this story. You've taken you know one element from the other Oh, and then I guess it was in so Linda Ronstadt saying it every song that ever she sings is just better That's so cool Whitney's record became the best one of the best-selling singles well-timed 14 consecutive weeks at number one pretty sure that this has just been knocked off the top by Ella Really?

Yeah, because it's Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey who both had the 14 and I'm pretty sure that 15 is now Ella, yeah, it's crazy fucking wild River. That's that's so sick. I wonder whether there's any Emotions that you want to sing about but you don't think that the market has an appetite for hmm I mean, okay, here's a great example. And I know a lot of artists struggle with this. I'll play an acoustic song on my back porch and I'll play it a certain way, but I know the studio is different.

Studio version's different. It's got some drums, has a little, you know, slide and I'd be in it. It's just kind of more upbeat. And then you'll put out that version and everyone's like, just, just don't change it. Give me the porch version. Give me the porch, you know, and it's like, I think you have to try to expand your sound. Like I was watching that Billy Joel documentary. So cool, by the way, if you haven't seen it, it's like five hours long. It's incredible. His life is just, it's what the heck.

But he always made it a point to change the way his sound was. Bob Dylan did the same thing where he went to the Newport Folk Festival and everyone was like, you know, get your harmonica out. He's like, I want to play an electric guitar. And it's, it's, you feel like you don't want to get trapped in like your own trope. Like I'm not trying to get trapped in this, like I'm an acoustic guy. I'm going to sing about how hard my life is. And, but you also want to service the people who listen to your music the most.

Like, you know, that's what they want. And that's, and it's like, yeah, it's this, it's like this push and pull thing. So I feel like, I feel like I've done the best job that I can. Like, I don't really put too much pressure on it. I'm still making music that I love. I really not, I don't try to overthink it. But yeah, I know a lot of artists that fall into that thing where it's like, I want to put out different music, but I just know it's probably not going to do well.

And if I do it, if I put out this song, I'll probably do a lot better because that's what I'm known for. That's what people want to hear. You know, the idea of audience capture. Have you heard of that? Okay, so it's from my world's content creation, YouTube. You test the ground with a bunch of different content. Maybe you start to pick up a little bit of speed and then you find something that hooks a bit. You start talking about politics, but you talk about it from a libertarian lens and you're, you're sort of, you're maybe a bit more bombastic than you used to be.

Oh, wow, they like that. Oh, well, I've been rewarded for that. I'll go again and you get a bit more bombastic. You get a bit more bombastic. Before you know it, you're like peak Alex Jones, sort of shouting and screaming and doing the thing. And you begin to throw red meat to your audience. And instead of creating what you want to create, you give them what you think they want. The problem with it is that you can achieve success with it because you're basically taking audience feedback, which in some ways is important and good.

Movies screen test the versions, right? And they check how, what were people's reviews? Should we change this? But this felt a bit slow. People didn't understand that. So, you know, audience feedback's important. But if you're not careful, especially if you're doing something that's very iterative, over time, your audience doesn't fall in love with you. They fall in love with your projection of what you think they want you to be. And you're like this weird reverse puppet thing where the audience has got their hand inside of you doing this.

And reliably, every single person that I've seen do it, and there's a bunch of people that have done it in my world and probably tons in yours as well, every single person eventually has ended up resenting the audience. Because what happens is you contort yourself into this weird shape that you think the audience has rewarded you for. And then if they don't like what you're doing anymore, you feel so aggrieved because you betrayed yourself for an audience that doesn't even want the act that you're playing.

And it's so fucking reliable. So that's one side, that's audience capture. Then Ethan Strauss has got this fucking unbelievable post where he talks about criticism capture, which is the opposite side of it. So audience capture is this big term for a long time. People do what they think the audience wants. It's the musician who denies himself the move from acoustic to electronic or a total pivot in terms of singing style because he doesn't think that the audience is gonna want it. That's your audience capture. Criticism capture is behaving in a way to avoid criticism or front run it from your audience instead.

So instead of acting out of encouraging desire, it's acting out of defending against hate. So what are people going to criticize me for doing most likely? And how do I front run that so that it doesn't happen? So you see this in the same way in my world. People start to caveat a lot before they say anything. Well, we must remember that they'll do this sort of land acknowledgement, this throat clearing thing beforehand or in a different way, people sort of steam out of the gates really aggressively and they're super ardent and militant and they have no quarter given, no.

And that's another way to do it. They're sort of pushing people out. They're front running the complaint. They're either making themselves so inoffensive that they don't say anything so that they don't get criticized or they kind of shadow box this imaginary opponent who doesn't really exist in an attempt to scare off critics. So, and you see, it's so fucking warping. It's just audience dynamics, reward and pain. And people are playing with these two levers in an attempt to try and get as much pleasure and as little discomfort as possible.

And it kind of leaves you on eggshells where you're just like, ah, I don't know what to do. Yeah, and it's dude, especially like nowadays with social media, everything's so instant that I think that messes with artists quite a bit of just the most instant feedback you can have. You'll walk off a stage, sit in the green room and you're getting tweets or you're getting your stories up. And it's, yeah, in with the phones. Yeah, I used to, I don't know. But have you seen, Jerry, can you pull up that video?

I want you to show you that there's two videos going back to back that I think are pretty interesting. There's this Morgan Wallen video that's floating around at the moment, which is him in a fucking huge stadium. And someone saying the performance standard for male versus female artists is so different is all I will say. ♪ I'm a gal who's so wild ♪ ♪ I've been knocked by my soul ♪ ♪ They keep me very loose, they keep me very loose ♪ That's closer to a military reenactment.

It's so much, so anyway, and then look at this. Pull that other video up, Jerry. The Tate McRae one? Yeah, I mean, it is just- An insane level of- It's the most polished, like, look at this. ♪ I'm a gal who's so wild ♪ ♪ I've been knocked by my soul ♪ Oh, I'm gonna dip myself in literal liquid gold. Oh my God. Like, actual- I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, that's like the whole, like, the Coachella, like, Justin Bieber, the Nyaptor Sabrina thing. I'm waiting for you to do dipped in liquid gold.

That's in the next set. We're doing that. Well, it's just, I mean, it's different. Like, I've been to a Morgan show. It also, like, the production is still crazy. Him himself might not be- He needs a dance number. You know what I mean? He needs a dance number. I guess, like, it's also this recency bias thing where people just, they just have to keep doing the next big thing and make it bigger, which, like, in entertainment, that's a good thing. Like, obviously, you should be challenged, but, I mean, you go look at the female acts from, like, I don't know, 1950, or even the male acts.

Like, everyone's just on a microphone and just doing the same thing. Like, I don't know, but yeah, I guess, when did that separation happen? Because, I mean, we used to have, like, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and they were doing full production. Like, when did it become- I mean, MGK's bringing it back. He's got full dance numbers on stage. He's got choreography. But, like, everything that's new is now old, you know? Yeah, oh, yeah. It's like, oh, they used to do that. That's cool. Let's bring that back.

All right, dude, let's round this out. Give us a little something from the new album, whatever you like the sound of. I'll play a song called Clothesline. Should I sing this one? Yeah, this one's good. I think this is gonna be a single, maybe. I don't know. That's something you could do this afternoon. But, no, but I do it on purpose. I guess this is what I'm talking about. Like, when I, yes, I could choose the singles and have it all on a calendar and rock it and just go, but I don't, again, I think this is something that I probably, I struggle with, is kind of the system formula thing.

I don't know. I would rather go week by week or feel it out. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's gonna be a single. But, again, I also, actually, this, and I'll sing it right after this, but this brings me back to a point that we were talking about earlier about teasing music and crowdsourcing and being like, what song does better? There's a part of me that misses the way of, when an artist puts out an album, you don't know what the songs are.

They've not waterfall-released five in advance. Yeah, you don't know what the songs are and you are stoked to dive in. And I'm trying to play this middle ground of like, okay, business-wise, yes, we should be teasing songs and getting people excited. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but there's a side of me that's like, man, wouldn't it be great just to give fans just 12 new songs that everyone can be excited for? And you have no idea what it sounds like. It might be a whole new sound.

Like, that's kind of what used to happen. Or like, I don't know. I just think that side of it's cool. Like, my favorite thing, I know I brought them up a lot, but Turnpike, when they dropped Price of Admission, they did no singles. All they did was put up a billboard in the middle of the desert and was like, album's out in two weeks. I think that is so cool. Now, I'm not saying everyone can do that. Like- Algorithmically might not be the most effective way to do it, but it's sick.

Yeah, but that's where like, as an artist, you have to kind of weigh your options between, you know, like we said earlier, like what's authentic. And at the end of the day, like what is going to get people this music? Like what's going to pay the bills and do, you know, there's a fine line, so. Unreal. But anyways, this one's called Clothesline. I haven't played this one in a while. I should, I'll remember it. That's another thing, I'm bad with lyrics, but. Oh wait, am I plugged in?

Yeah, I am. Cool. Oh, this one's called Clothesline. ♪ Baking soda on the bedsheets ♪ ♪ Make me smell brand new ♪ ♪ I'm sleeping in and I'm going out ♪ ♪ Trying not to think too much about you ♪ ♪ Don't call me later when my light's off ♪ ♪ I know just how you do ♪ ♪ You call me once, you at my door later in the morning ♪ ♪ You'll be gone too soon ♪ ♪ Cause I know you're just gonna hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ So close to being left on that clothesline ♪ ♪ Oh second guessing's always left in this old heart of mine ♪ ♪ Baby I know you're just gonna hang me out, hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ Hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ So stopping early at yellow lights ♪ ♪ Said it ain't worth the risk ♪ ♪ You used to tell me that I'm moving too fast ♪ ♪ With your hand tied around my wrist ♪ ♪ So treat me like it was years ago ♪ ♪ Before you changed your mind ♪ ♪ Said I was nothing but a hopeless old lover and baby maybe you'd be right ♪ ♪ I know you're just gonna hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ So close to being left on that clothesline ♪ ♪ Oh second guessing's always left in this old heart of mine ♪ ♪ Baby I know you're just gonna hang me out, hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ Out to dry ♪ ♪ Now I know you're just gonna hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ So close to being left on that clothesline ♪ ♪ Second guessing's always left in this old heart of mine ♪ ♪ Baby I know you're just gonna hang me out, hang me out to dry ♪ ♪ Out to dry ♪ Let's fucking go.

Dillon Gossett, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Dude, you rule. Congratulations. New album's out when? September 25th. Fuck yeah. So, exciting time. Appreciate the heck out of you, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Alright, goodbye my beauties. Dude! That was a great time, brother. Thanks so far. Thanks Sean for hanging out with me. Booking.com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise to a stay surrounded by nature. That's nice. Go on, book it. It's easy. Booking.com Booking.yeah