Michael Gilbride:
Community tied with curriculum and mentorship is so much more powerful than just learning something on YouTube for hours and hours, and then releasing it to the world after it's being constructed in this silo. Because you need to fire test it with people who are more talented than you.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better.
If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution for today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.
All right. I'm excited to be here today with Michael Gilbride. Michael was a former Wall Street corporate bond trader who left the world of finance in 2020 to pursue his solo indie music project, telco, full time. In that time, he's released his debut single, Say Hello, and was featured on Spotify's Fresh Finds in September of 2020.
And so, really, he's walking the walk of being a musician himself as well as becoming the General Manager of mastering.com in 2022. And mastering.com is a partner with us at Modern Musician. They're awesome. They basically help... There's an artist in mastering engineers to learn how to really master the craft and the art of music mastering, and build a profitable business.
And so, I'm excited to talk with them today about really, the opportunities that are available to you as an independent musician nowadays where there's... It's a pretty amazing landscape of opportunities, both in terms of your music and you being a creator and being an artist, but also taking your skill set and being able to coach and being able to share what you're learning with other people.
I think there's an interesting path that you can potentially take where as a creator, you're a content creator. And so, maybe part of your music business can be both being creative. But then, also coaching and working and serving other people. So, definitely interested in geeking out a little bit more with you. And Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm stoked. I'm excited to chat.

Michael Walker:
Heck, yeah. Awesome. So, to start with, I would love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you got started and became the General Manager of mastering.com.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah. So, I guess it starts probably, back when I was still a trader. And so, I worked three years as a corporate bond trader on Wall Street, and I knew I wanted to be a musician. So, basically, coming out of college, I knew I had to fund myself somehow and I thought, "I might as well go to a job where I can make some good money and pour all of that back into my own artistry."
So, I went and worked as a trader for three years, would come home from that job and focused solely on writing music. So, I would come home, spend my evenings working on music, go to bed, just do it all over again the next day. So, what happened was, I hit what we tend to call like the intermediate plateau with my music production and it sounded okay, but it didn't sound ready for it to be released.
And I was self-producing at that time. So, I said, "Okay, I got to improve my production and skill sets." And that's when I came in contact with mastering.com as a student first. So, while I was still a trader, I was going through their online program, which was mentorship and curriculum and all that stuff. So, I'd come home from work and I would focus on that.
And doing that program was the key that unlocked that first song, Say Hello, the one I released. Got it to the point where I finally played it. I took it out to the car and I listened to it and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, it actually sounds the way I wanted to," for the first time ever, which I'm sure a lot of indie musicians know the pain of bringing it out to the car and not having it sound right.
So, anyways, I was a student first. I had amazing success with that program. So, fast forward a couple years to 2020, when I left that job to pursue music full time an opening on the mastering.com team opened up, it was part time, it was all virtual. And I was like, "This is great. I'll pay my bills. I'll make some connections in the music industry, and then I'll continue to work on my own music."
So, I joined the team, and then I was so passionate about what we're doing and helping all of our students and stuff that worked my way up. And eventually, became GM for the company, effectively running the day-to-day for the entire operations. And that's how I got there.
And it's been amazing and I can talk to you about all the amazing benefits of being a full-time working person in addition to being an artist. But it's been an amazing journey so far. But I was originally a student.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And yeah, I think it's a great reminder too that you can pursue your music and you can support yourself with other forms of income that can contribute to the music. And you don't necessarily have to, I don't know, there's different ways you could do it.
I remember with my band, Paradise Fears, when we started out, we support... We worked at Hy-Vee grocery stores and we saved up money to invest into the music. But then, we probably about a good two years, we lived in what you could call poverty. Poverty, extreme artists poverty like you're living in our vans, sleeping while in parking lots, eating peanut butter tortillas.
But you don't necessarily have to... It doesn't have to be one way or the other. You can find other paths to support your music career and bring an income even if you're still working on your music career and getting it to a point where it's profitable and sustainable in and of itself.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah. So, I think...

Michael Walker:
Go ahead.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, I was going to say, I think that's the romantic version. Your experience is what every artist thinks the experience needs to be like nowadays. But the problem is that, you have to do so many things nowadays as an artist, content creation. You have to market yourself, and you have to be at industry standard production before a record label even considers it. That's like you need money for those things nowadays, right?
Being in poverty and still trying to get your stuff on playlists and marketed and distributors and all that stuff, it's impossible. So, you need to find a mechanism for funding yourself nowadays. And I had shame about that for a long time. I'm like, "Am I going to sell out?" Because I'm working as a trader, but turned out to be the best decision to put back into my music.

Michael Walker:
No, that's so true and such a great reminder to bring on here, because that is something that I think is, maybe something that's outdated or like a broken mindset is this idea of attaching, I don't know, artist, authenticity or creative authenticity with being a broke or a starving artist.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
And I can say that, the part that led to our success with our band wasn't necessarily the fact that we were in poverty, and that we were starving artists. It was actually, when we found a way to generate some serious revenue that things started actually taking off with our band.
For us, it was like, we started doing what we called tour hacking. So, we walked up to fans waiting lines for shows. And we literally, went like and sold CDs side by side to fans waiting line for shows. We sold 24,000 CDs doing that in about six months. And that funding is what allowed us to be able to invest into our music and our artwork. And in order to plant a tree and to nurture it and let it grow, so it has fruits, it doesn't just come from nothing.
You have to be able to invest and you either invest your time and/or you invest your money in fertilizer to be able to grow the tree. And so, it is a really important reminder that it's okay, it's okay to make money and if you want to reach as many people as possible, then you should open your arms say like, "Yes, I want to make as much money as possible, so I can actually invest more back into the music."

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, I think that's something though that's that a lot of people don't talk about because you have to work one way or the other. You can either work as a barista or you can work in marketing or whatever, and you got to just pick up whatever skills you can from those jobs as well. I learned so much about email marketing and finance and all of these things. And now, I can apply that to my music as well. So, it's the perspective with which you go into it.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So, maybe a good question in that case would be for anyone who's listening or watching this right now, who maybe they really want to do basically what you did, like they want to be able to transition from another job that's currently supporting them or is paying the bills.
But maybe, they're looking for a way that's in more alignment with their music, so they can focus on creating and being like, have a job, working in the music industry or something like that. What would your advice be for someone to be able to start taking steps towards making that transition?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, you have to network. You have to know people. And what I always explain to people is that, you have to be in the position to get lucky. So, I knew Blake, the founder of mastering.com prior to quitting my job.And so, when a role popped up and I threw my hat in a ring, I had a better chance of getting that job because I knew him at that time. So, the thing is, if you want to fan the relationships that you have, any that you have in the music industry, and I had next to zero, but I had a couple.
And so, I had to fan those flames for as much as I could, so that when I transitioned out of my finance job, I at least had a couple of possibilities and doors I could be knocking on. And then, the other thing is, you have to really be courageous because when I was quitting the job in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic and it was an amazing paying job. You have to really, really make sure you want to do music if you're going to make a leap like that.
So, make sure that you have a plan. Make sure you have some safety nights, some savings, some levers to pull if things don't go as well as you hope. Because I thought a year after I quit that job I'd be touring, but it doesn't necessarily work like that. So, you need to have plans in place and contingency plans. And there's nothing wrong with being organized and having a concrete plan as you transition out of that.
So, don't just hand in your two weeks' notice and expect that you'll be touring within the next two months or something like that. Because as you know, it's a lot harder than that sometimes.

Michael Walker:
For sure. Yeah, I must imagine a tight rope walker and if you're about to go out on the tight rope, then you want to make sure that before you get on the tight rope, you look at this, you have the safety net below you. And that's going to give you more confidence and the ability to more confidently walk out on the tight rope.
Because if you don't have that safety net, do you think, how hard is it going to be to get yourself to actually take a few steps out there? Because gosh, if I do fall, I'm out of here. And I think that is something that might hold back a lot of artists because they're afraid of releasing music or afraid of putting themselves out there because they're afraid of falling and hitting the ground.

Michael Gilbride:
And even that is balance too, because you're never going to have the perfect safety net. There's always going to be risks no matter how much you try and plan. So...

Michael Walker:
Right.

Michael Gilbride:
... at some point, you have to say, "I've done everything I could to put myself in the best position to be successful. And now, I'm going to take a leap of faith." It's never going to be a perfect safety net, but you can at least do things, get some things in place to optimize the situation that you have available to use. And that's all you can do at that point. And then, you got to take the leap of faith and hope that the net's there.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point because it totally is possible, in a lot of cases. It's easy to lean in the opposite direction where you don't put yourself out there even though the most important thing is to, yeah, it's like if you want to try and get good at shooting free throws, there's only so much planning or strategizing that you can get before you throw the free throw. At a certain point, you have to let go and throw it and see where it lands. And it's probably, not going to land in the net the first time you throw it.

Michael Gilbride:
Right.

Michael Walker:
But through that process you're like, "Okay, I need to aim a little bit more to the left now." And you keep throwing it and eventually, you can get good at actually making it in the hoop.

Michael Gilbride:
Yup, exactly.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. So, it sounds like one of the things that you mentioned was that you started as a student, you started as a student at mastering.com and that's part of how you're able to build a network and build a community. And it seems like, nowadays, there's so many opportunities to build a network and build a community. What are some recommendations for like, you had mentioned how a really important part of your story was fanning the flames and building some of those connections? What advice would you give for people who are looking to start to build a network and starting to build these relationships, so that they can fan the flames?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah. One thing that I've tried to do, especially now is just stepping into the music industry, is figure out where can I add value? Because a lot of times, when I've noticed especially independent music scene is that, things are very transactional. I'm always asking you to stream my song or I'm always asking you to pre-save my song or I'm always asking, watch my music video. And no one's ever thinking like, what can I provide to you first?
And so, the first thing that I tried to think of is, "Okay, what are my skill sets?" And so, coming out of Wall Street, I was like, "Okay, I know finance, I know business, I know some strategy, I know what makes a company grow and things like that, so who needs that?" And then, of course, the founders of mastering.com and Musician on a Mission who we partnered with, that was an attractive skill set for them.
And so, I started meeting with them and discussing ideas and providing value with no expectation of anything in return. And so, eventually, when roles opened up to become more integrated in the company, then of course, they came to me and asked because I had been there providing value throughout this time.
So, I think switching that, I'm sure you see it all the time. People think, "If I could just have a conversation with Michael Walker and I could get him to listen my songs, somehow I'm suddenly going to become huge." But it's actually, the reverse. It's like, "Okay, what can I offer, so that I can have an actual mutually beneficial relationship?" And then, have a friendship. And then, who knows where it goes from there?
And then, you end up having this network of friends and coworkers that are willing to help you out when the time comes, when you release a song or you need a track mix or master and anything like that. Now, I have people that are my genuine friends that are willing to help me out because I've helped them out.

Michael Walker:
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It's such a fundamental truth that the way that you approach other people, if you're approaching them from standpoint of what's in it for me and how can I take something out of this relationship, it's just a different energy and different overall relationship that you're building versus if you approach it and you're truly focused on providing value and serving the other person.
Even for anyone who's listening or watch this right now, if even just like you think about if you are walking down the street and someone approaches you, and they want something from you, you can just feel it right away. You're like, "Okay, this is someone wants to take something, wants to take something," versus if someone truly approaches you and they're no strings attached, they're not trying to take necessarily anything from you, but they had an idea or they had something that they wanted to help you in some way, then it's hard to, I don't know, I mean it's probably possible to take it the wrong way.
But usually, it's difficult not to appreciate and someone who's literally is looking to serve and pride value to you without even asking for anything in return. And that reciprocity does ironically, it leads to building a better relationship that does... It's a win-win for everyone involved where does it go back and forth.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, and I've done both, to be fair like in the beginning when I first released my music, it was just like text everybody, ask them to stream and ask them to appreciate it. And people help you out to a certain extent. But when you get to your third and fourth and fifth release, people are sick of you asking for them to do things.
And so, really you have to rely on, what have I done for other people and who's willing to actually now really help me on my third and fourth and fifth release? And that's usually, going to be close friends, people who actually, appreciate your art and what you're doing And so, having that network once the initial surge of people who help you with your first debut view and things like that goes away, that's for me like what's going to be sustainable over the longer term.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. One thing that I would love to dig in with you is around this idea of mentorship in general because it sounds like mentorship has been really something that's been a crucial part of your journey. And also, it just, is something I've really come to appreciate because of my mentors and the people who've changed my life, and they all have their own mentors.
And it seems like the most successful people, they always have a mentor and even in our blockbuster movies and stories, there's always like this Yoda figure or Dumbledore, mentor is such an important part of it. So, I would love to hear you talk a little bit about maybe the value of mentorship and in your experience with mentors overall.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, this has been actually, an interesting transition over the last couple of months. When I was working in finance, I was the only person involved in music. I was the only person I knew that was doing music because obviously, I was in a world of finance.
But when I stepped into the world of music and I joined mastering.com, pretty much, not pretty much, every other person was more talented than I was. And at first, that's a very insecure feeling that you have and you want to over control everything and you want to prove, "Okay, I can make this song. I can mix it and I can master it on my own, I can produce it on my own." But really, when my music started to take a next step up was when I actually, started to utilize the people who were better than me and lean on them for help and guidance and support.
And that's a tough thing to do as an indie musician I think because if you have this very like, you against the world type of mentality. But if you can surround yourself with people that are all better than you, then the only thing that you have to do is grow at that point and learn and soak it all in.
So, everybody on our team, like our two founders, our coaches, our groups are all more talented than I am, which means I have this massive wealth of knowledge that I can constantly ask questions or I can constantly get support or help or have them review my mixes or whatever the case is.
And so, I think mentorship, if you're lucky enough to have people that are smarter than you, that are better than you at music or better at production, that is a very good place to be. It's better than being the smartest person in the room because you have nobody, nowhere to grow from at that point.
So, I've benefited a lot from it. I've tried to help people that are earlier in their journey than me and pay that forward to them. And if you can constantly do that, then you're much better off than being siloed off by yourself in a solo environment.

Michael Walker:
One hundred percent, yeah, that's so well-articulated than yourself with people who make you feel like... People who are at the next level, the people that are more talented or maybe not necessarily more talented but just are a bit further along, a bit further along and they can teach you is probably the fastest way that you can grow in almost any domain.
If you want to learn how to become a better X, Y, Z, go, surround yourself with the person who is the X, Y, Z, who's currently doing it. It seems like, that's just a key to achieving mastery or anything. And most successful producers and artists and entrepreneurs, they all have mentors that helped guide them.
And one point that you brought up too that I think is one that's maybe less talked about or less something that's also really important is, how you're continuing to pay it forward as well. So, not only are you being mentored, but you're also mentoring other people as well who might be a little bit earlier along.
And that's something that I think is really fascinating that we all have inside of us that it's almost like we need those two pieces like we need to have a mentor. But also, we need to be able to mentor and help other people and pay it forward in a similar way. So, maybe we can talk a little bit about your experience with mentoring other people and did anything come up for you when it comes to mentoring other people? How has that experience been as it relates to your own journey?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, yeah. And no, I agree with you and I think maybe helping other people is probably more fulfilling than being helped in a lot of senses. For me, like I said, anybody who knows me, I always say, "I'm not the most talented producer, I'm not the most talented musician or vocalist or songwriter or anything like that. But I have experienced, done this now for a couple of years and I know where my potholes were and where I got stuck." And hopefully, trying to help people that are earlier in the journey.
So, my experience with helping people mainly comes through the students that we work with on a day-to-day basis. And most of them are exactly where I was when I was still a trader, which is that intermediate plateau where it's like, "It sounds good on my headphones, my friends and my family like it, I take it out to the car, and I want to rip my hair out because I just played it against a Harry Styles track and it doesn't quite hit the same way." And that's like a horribly discouraging place to be. And I remember sitting at that point and being like, "Is it me? Is it my talent? Am I just not cut out for this? Should I quit?"
And so, a lot of my mentorship has been coaching people through that intermediate plateau, opening their eyes to the other side of music production that tends to get forgotten about an education and teaching them outlining path to get through that and to get to the point where they have a song in their head, they can get it out into the world in the way that they hear it in their head.
And then, it's just up to them to write a great song. If they write bad music at that point, if I write a terrible song, that's on me. But at least, you can get it out the way that you hear it in your head. And so, a lot of my coaching and things like that has been outlining that path for people, and then passing it off to more talented people to teach them on exactly how to do that.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Yeah, and it's one thing... One point that you just brought up I think is overlooked a lot because, and I can relate with this a lot of people when it comes to being a mentor. I remember when I was first starting Modern Musician and I was transitioning from touring full-time with Paradise Fears to becoming a dad and becoming a father and starting become a coach and mentoring other artists.
And for me, there was a lot of challenges that came up around just, I don't know, it's one popular term for it is like, imposter syndrome or like, who am I to teach these other people? There's people who are way more successful than I am. I'm sure I did some stuff with our band, but I was just one member in the band.
And so, there was a lot of this, I don't know, self-doubt or internal conflict around this idea of being a mentor and helping other people. And one point that you brought up that I think is so important to appreciate is that, if one, I think that every human alive, in order to be fully fulfilled, you need to have both a mentor and you need to be a mentor to other people.
I do think that's just a fundamental part of being a human. But also, that no matter what point that you're at, there's always going to be people who are earlier on that who you can't help... The experience that you've been through can help them avoid unnecessary challenge or unnecessary struggle.
And in some cases, you might even be a better mentor than someone who's much further along than you, for that very reason because you can actually, relate better with them. And remember, and you understand what it was like you're a few steps ahead of them. So, you can just say, "Hey, I just went down that path. If you just take the left there, you're going to avoid an extra 10 weeks of struggle."
So, yeah, it is definitely something to remember is that, that feeling of who am I to mentor and help other people? Almost everyone has that. But also, if you can flip it and be like, "Who am I not to help these people?" You actually, do have value, you can serve people. And...

Michael Gilbride:
You're doing more of a disservice by leaning into the imposter syndrome than you are fighting against it. And that's the thing that I've had to come to terms with. Because at any position I ever had in my life, whether it was a trader on Wall Street to musician, playing up on stage in front of people or in this role as general manager, I've always felt like somebody's going to come in and be like, "Oh, this guy's fraud, get him out of here," in any position I've ever done.
But it's in those positions that have grown the most and I've actually, helped the most people. So, if you sit around and you wait until you feel like I am 120% ready for this, you will never do anything. And so, sometimes, stepping into shoes that are slightly bigger than what you're actually capable of filling is the best way to not only help yourself but to help others.
And it's very uncomfortable at times, but that's been something that I've been trying to get a lot better at. And I'm sure you've done it yourself and have felt that feeling quite a bit.

Michael Walker:
That's powerful. Yeah, because I know that as musicians too, people are listening to us, this is one thing that comes up. It's this fear of being exposed as being a fraud or inauthentic or who am I to be an artist or to express myself in this way? And being able to come to terms with that feeling and recognizing that you actually, do have value to express no matter where you're at, even if you aren't the most produced, talented artists in the world yet, that's okay.
You don't have to be someone that you're not like, no one starts out and they're just the best artists in the world immediately. Everyone has to go through that phase earlier on. And even in that phase, you have something truly valuable that you can offer that those bigger artists can't even offer. You can offer this level of connection with your fans of one-to-one contact and serving them in a way that isn't possible in the same way as you continue to grow.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, everything is an advantage if you look at it the right way. And that's the thing is, you just have to constantly continue to iterate like first track, I put out the first EP I made, I didn't use Grid, everything was off time, stuff was not... It was a mess.
And then, the second one gets better. And then, I've got two tracks, now they're like getting ready to come out, and it's like they're the best tracks I've ever made. And you constantly, are making the best stuff you ever made because you're always learning. But had I not made that first EP, I couldn't have made the second EP.
So, I could have planned and planned and planned and planned, but I would never grow as quickly as if I just put it out, make it, and then keep going from there, even though I felt like fraud at that time when I released it.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. Yeah, and one piece that I'm curious to hear in terms of your process is, it seems like one of the parts that's really important in order to be able to learn and grow as you're releasing these songs, because if all you're doing is just putting out a bunch of stuff and you're not even like, I don't know, listening for feedback, you're not learning from anything you're putting out, then that's one thing where you could spend a lot of time.
But you're not really, gathering or gaining the iterations. You're not really able to iterate on it because you're not getting that feedback. What do you recommend for artists as a way to really best leverage their releases and to be able to grow as a producer and to improve their... Hone craft as quickly as possible? How do they generate the right kind of feedback? And...

Michael Gilbride:
Yes.

Michael Walker:
Yeah.

Michael Gilbride:
The one thing that I've stopped trying to do is, send my tracks basically to friends and family. The worst type of feedback that you can get as a musician is good feedback, for the most part. I call it like positive gaslighting. My mom loves all of my songs, which is amazing, right? She's supposed to.
But it's hard for me to ever learn what I need to fix or work on if you are surrounded by people who love you and want to support your music. And so, you need to find people who are kind, but also critical and can poke holes in it and have the knowledge base to be able to do that.
And so, obviously, that's what we do with mastering.com. But finding these communities of other talented producers who are willing to say, "I know I have room to grow," you have to set your ego aside, you have to be willing to let your track get ripped to shreds because it's the only way it's ever going to get better.
And I mean, I think you're starting to see that more in a private education space that used to take place at places like Berklee or Full Sail or SAE colleges like that. And now, that's expanding out into this private education/community/mentorship like, you have at Modern Musician or mastering.com or Musician on a Mission, those types of companies.
And I think, community tied with curriculum and mentorship is so much more powerful than just learning something on YouTube for hours and hours. And then, releasing it to the world after it's being constructed in this silo because you need to fire test it with people who are more talented than you, if that makes sense.

Michael Walker:
That totally makes sense. I think that's one of my favorite concepts that I've heard in a while, the positive gas lighting of...

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
It's a perfect description, yeah, and I'm sure almost everyone who's listening to this right now can relate with that on some level of how difficult it is or how much of a challenge it is to know how to improve. If people have to walk on eggshells or if they're just people who aren't really qualified to give feedback or the type of feedback that they're going to give you is, sounds great, Johnny, keep making more music.
But actually, having a place that is a safe place, it's not... The point of it isn't to cut you down or to make like to pick themselves up by putting you down. But it's more about collaborating, and we're all here to grow together and we all have something to learn. Maybe we can talk a little bit about the idea, you mentioned how important it is to be able to put your ego aside and to accept feedback, constructive feedback in the right way, which can be easier said than done sometimes. We're talking about your music. And so, like personal and private.

Michael Gilbride:
Yup.

Michael Walker:
So, how would you recommend someone can draw the line between the right kind of feedback and open themselves up and learning from it when they might feel a bit insecure maybe, or they might just feel a little bit defensive when their music is being critiqued?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, it's a hard thing to do. And I've fallen victim to that a lot of times because when I quit that job, it was very much like me versus the world with my music. And so, I didn't trust anybody. It was like, "This is my thing, I quit, everything's riding on me, I'm self-producing this."
And then, I released that EP and what happened was, I met a couple of people, a producer had a studio or for example, people through this program or our head grew, his name's Caleb. And suddenly, you start to have these conversations and they start to poke holes and they start to tell you like, "Oh, you should improve this."
And your immediate reaction is to be like, "They're wrong, they don't get it." And you need to move past that point and you need to say, "Okay, what are my core strengths?" And for me, it was like, "Okay, I knew how to write a song, I knew how to vocally perform the song." I knew what the vision in my head was. But as far as mixing, mastering some aspects of creative production was like, it's not my strong suit.
I had to do it because I had to because I didn't know anybody else. But now, I'm in the position where I can leverage people who are better than me. And so, letting that go and no longer saying, "I'm the best producer in the room," which I clearly wasn't. And outsourcing that to someone who is, or allowing them to educate me on how to become better was actually, a much better feeling than pretending I was the best in the room.
So, if you can move past that, and you can say, "How can I leverage people around me better and actually, utilize them instead of having to do everything myself?" It's actually, much more fulfilling than thinking that you can do everything yourself.
And so, it's hard. There's no real prescription for it other than the only way to grow is to set your ego aside and let those criticisms come through and take them to heart and just grow from them and hope that your next track is going to be better than your last one.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm, 100%. Yeah, and I think it's really helpful, even just being able to have conversations like this or even just notice in yourself like the awareness is probably 99% of it because we're all human and we all have egos and you talked about how you started to notice, you started to notice when that feeling would come up, right?
And the first step towards and be able to work through stuff like that is the awareness and just being able to notice it. So, I think that, yeah, you being able to express it in that way is probably going to help a lot of people the next time that they're in a room like that, and they feel that feeling come up, which is totally natural and totally normal.
We're all human and it's our music. But to have that ability to be aware of it and say, "Oh, it's just my ego that's coming up and maybe I can just take it like let that go for a second and just listen and be open-minded to see when I can, how I can use this constructively is something," is really the first step towards real change.

Michael Gilbride:
And I think an important thing to realize too when you're receiving criticism is, you want to fence it out into two different camps. You have objective and subjective criticism. A lot of the time, people aren't coming to you and saying, "Your song sucks, or your vision sucks, or your music sucks." They're rarely ever saying that.
Usually, what they're saying is, it's not as clear as it should be. It's not as loud as it should be. Maybe this note is slightly off or this was EQ'd improperly or compressed improperly. They're very rarely criticizing your actual art. And that's the thing that if you're going to take anything to heart, it's when someone criticizes your art. If they just said your song flat out is bad. But usually, they're coming to you with these technical objective aspects that need improvement to reach that industry standard.
And so, that's the best criticism that you can get because it has nothing to do with you as a person, it just has to do with the science behind music or music production. And if you can have people who are capable of giving you that kind of feedback, it's actually, incredibly helpful and they're not criticizing you and your soul of what moved you as an artist.

Michael Walker:
Yup, yup, 100%. One thing that I'm curious to hear your perspective on is, because I think this is something that was a big challenge for a lot of artists is around this idea of wanting to be original and have music that sounds unlike anything else in the world. But at the same time, also wanting to create commercially successful music that is successful.
And that in one of the practices I think that could be a super powerful practice is, being intentional at having references, putting your music side-by-side with other music that is a reference for you that's like a role model. I'm curious to hear your take on the practice of having a reference and is that something that you would recommend in most cases? And how do you balance that need to have something original that's unique and that's yourself while at the same time still allowing yourself to grow by learning through standing on the shoulders of giants?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah. So, again, if I would have to fence that out into subjective and objective. So, objectively speaking, when it comes to music production referencing is super important, knowing what volume levels, what your sonic distribution has to look like across frequency curve, all of those things are relatively objective things at referencing.
If you want to be in the EDM space, you need to know what does volume have to look like? What does my compression limiting have to be to compete with Kigo or I don't know, anybody in the EDM space or whatever the case is? Subjectively speaking, when you talk about songwriting, art and the vision that you're trying to create, I think it all depends on what got you into music in the first place.
For me, what got me into music was that, it was therapeutic for me to write music. It got ideas in my head out that I wanted to get out. And so, for me, I just let that take the driver's seat and I wrote songs that I needed to write. And however, they ended up sounding was however, they ended up sounding.
However, I've seen other people who do more of like a trend chasing trying to capture the sounds that are popular right now. There's nothing wrong with that either. And in which case, referencing popular tracks is really important when it comes to your songwriting process and stuff like that.
So, on the objective side, it's super important. On the subjective side, it depends on what your motivations are. Do you want to write a song that it's therapeutic for you and says what you want to say or do you want to write a song that's going to be commercially sellable, popular or syncable and movies and film and things like that? And in which case, you might want to reference to Harry Styles song, you may want to reference something in the commercial space. But I think that depends a bit more on your motivations.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it is interesting that there's balancing line too. If you were trying to emulate someone too much, then it comes across as shallow or just a copy. It's a less good version of the original thing. It's like, "Oh, it's like this," but it's just not quite as good because it's lacking that substance or it's lacking that truth.
But, and also, in that case too, a lot of times, you're tracing trends that as soon as like you guys, as you realize that our trend, it's like, "Okay, now that trend is not the new trend anymore, the next way."

Michael Gilbride:
Right.

Michael Walker:
So, you to got to look ahead even before you have to look at where things going. But at the same time, for the same reason as you described, just how powerful it is to surround yourself with the right people who can influence you and elevate your mindset.
It does seem like something that might be a mindset block to, if you don't allow yourself to have references or role models that you can intentionally... If you hear something that you like from an artist, you might say, "Wow, that really inspires me. I'm going to write that down in my notebook, so I can do something similar. I can take these ideas." I think there is that balancing act where you want to make it your own, but you can learn from others at the time, that's totally okay.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, you got to just know what your strengths are and lean into them. Because otherwise, you've just always wish you had what someone else did. I remember when I first started practicing singing, I wanted to sound like Wesley Schultz from The Lumineers. He was like my idol, as the guy I wanted to sounded like.
And so, I used to try and sing like him. I wasn't singing as me, I was singing as him. And this was way, way, way back. And then, eventually, I got to the point where I said, "I suck singing as him. I need to figure out what it is that makes my voice unique." And I could spend all my time wishing that I had his voice. And I'm sure he spends all his time wishing he had someone with a less rough sounding voice or more technically, whatever.
If you spend all your time wishing you had someone else to sound, then you'll never figure out what your own is. And obviously, it's a learning process every day. Even for me, figuring out what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses? But I think it's better served analyzing that than trying to replicate someone else. It's just using them as influences to create your own sound is probably more beneficial. But I don't know.

Michael Walker:
That's a super, super good point. Yeah, and I feel like that's something that a lot of the most successful artists talk about in their own stories when they were able to let go of trying to be someone or something else and they were able to reclaim and fold it, the part that feels like a flaw or the part that feels like it's not good enough about you is actually, the thing in a lot of cases where that's actually, the... I've heard this described as turning poison into medicine. A lot of times, that flaw is actually, the thing that that's actually, the greatest benefit.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, there's like an artist I always think of, his name is Børns. He sings Electric Love. I don't know if you know that song. But he's got this really, really high pitch voice. And I always think that, I go like, "He probably, wishes that he had... Grew up wishing that he had a deep voice or something like that." And everybody who has a deep voice wishes they had his voice. And so, you got to just make do with what you have and figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. And otherwise, you'll never start anything.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm, 100%. Cool, man. Hey, this is, it's been a lot of fun, and I feel like we were able to cover some ground here that was really pretty fundamental and a lot of mindset areas that hopefully, everyone that's listening got a lot out of it. So, thank you so much for...

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, it's your request.

Michael Walker:
Heck, yeah. So, thank you again so much for taking the time to come on here live. And for anyone who is listening or watching this right now, who would like to connect more, maybe listen to your music and also check out mastering.com, what's the best place for them to go to dig deeper?

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah. So, for the business side of things, that would be mastering.com. If you go to our website, we've got videos, you can book a call with us, you might end up on a call with me and we can talk through your music and the intermediate plateau, and where you're at. If you want to check out my music, it's telco, all lowercase, t-e-l-c-o, on Spotify. And you can find me on Instagram and TikTok now @telco_music.

Michael Walker:
Awesome.

Michael Gilbride:
And...

Michael Walker:
Like always, we'll make sure... Oh, go ahead.

Michael Gilbride:
Oh, I was just going to say two tracks, one new track coming out August 19th. I have a cover song of a 1975 song coming out on August 19th, so look out for that as well.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Cool, man. So, like always, we'll put all the links and everything in the show note for easy access. And yeah, I super appreciate you coming on here, to share your story. What I really appreciate about you is that, you're someone who is, again, walking the walk. You're going through this process yourself. You're a musician yourself that you just took this leap that a lot of people are terrified to do. I think it takes a lot of courage to do what you did. So, I just want to honor you for...

Michael Gilbride:
Thanks.

Michael Walker:
... being able to take a leap like that and...

Michael Gilbride:
I'm trying.

Michael Walker:
And, absolutely. And I would highly encourage everyone to mastering.com. The community that you guys have built, it seems like such a positive environment for artists who are looking to surround themselves with the right people and continue to grow.
So, I'm glad that we've had an opportunity to connect and looking forward to collaborating more. And for everyone who's here right now who hasn't yet, I would definitely, recommend checking out the show notes too. Go listen to the songs and check out mastering.com.

Michael Gilbride:
Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. It was a blast, and I appreciate everything that you're doing for any music as well.

Michael Walker:
Thanks, man. Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value at its episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guests today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow.
First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music careers to the next level. It's time to be a Modern Musician now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.