Damian: How can I get my ideas, my emotions out into the world, then fundamentally just like what are you sitting down and working on right now is gonna be the biggest challenge? And critically not just keeping yourself busy, but how can you make sure that, how can you be confident actually that what you're sitting down and working on will drive your vision forward?

So that requires you to be really clear on your vision both artistically and as an entrepreneur basically, and as a business person. And you wanna make sure that those visions are in alignment. And then you are then choosing how you're spending your time as effectively as possible so that when you're sitting down to literally like choose what compressor you're putting on, what instrument, at what moment in time, that you're not just getting lost down rabbit holes, that could take hours, weeks, months, literally years of your life when you could otherwise actually be focused on your music connecting.

Michael:  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 in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

All right. So I'm excited to be here today with Damian Taylor. So Damian is a 10x Grammy nominated producer, mixer, and songwriter who is obsessed with helping artists, producers, and engineers make the best music of their careers. He's best known for his work with Bjork in the studio and on stage, The Prodigy, The Killers, Arcade Fire, tons of artists that you, you've probably heard of and you know, not one, but, but two, not two, but not three, 10x Grammy nominated producers.

So, at that point, I think that you could officially say, you know, you've caught onto something here, and it's not just, you know, a lucky one, one or two. So, I'm excited to be here today to connect with him and, and share some of his wisdom and insights as it relates specifically to music production and how you as an artist can, you know, be able to record higher quality music yourself at a home studio, what to think about in terms of, you know, being able to take your music in the, you know, kind of the core product of, of what you offer as a musician and take it to the next level. So Damian, thank you so much for, for taking the time to be here today.

Damian: It's a joy to be here, Michael. Thanks for having me.

Michael: Absolutely. So, maybe to kick things off could you share a little bit about just your story and how you, what started from, you know, the beginning to becoming a 10 times Grammy nominated producer and being able to work with such established artists?

Damian: Blind, blind Luck. Two word bio right there. Alright, interview's over onto the next one. The very brief thing is I, like, I did the kind of normal formal musical stuff while I was young, and then around 15 I just got obsessed with records themselves. Like I was, I'm gonna age myself a bit here, but I was a teenager when grunge happened and just got like super obsessed with a few records.

Smashing Pumpkins in particular Primal Scream in the UK was very influenced by like, I was 11 and I got public enemies, fear of a Black Planet and just like those records really just blew my mind. But around the time I was 15, I got obsessed with the fact like, oh my God, someone actually makes these, they don't just kinda like emerge like a cloud in the sky, you know what I mean?

And, and so once I figured out, okay, people actually spend their lives making records, literally from that point it was just like, how do I do it? How can I get to the right place? I was a teenager in New Zealand. Your listeners will notice a weird accent. I'm originally Canadian. Lived in New Zealand as a teenager, and my parents were British, so I was lucky enough to be able to just get a British passport off the shelf and move to London.

So I moved to London when I was 19. Luckily got to work in a studio there in a guy's living room, and just, again, obsessed over being in the studio, making records. And then it's, it's a classic story of just you meet the right person at the right time and everything kind of goes, goes from there. So came up in the whole like, British studio system.

I went freelance just before my 21st birthday, which is pretty unusual. I, I really capitalized ahead of the curve on the creative potentials of digital audio specifically with Pro Tools and stuff. But really applied like a traditional engineer's mindset. And then, yeah, kind of, you know, met, met Guy Sigsworth through him.

I started working with Bjork actually through him as well. Started working with uncle. And then we got a studio at a, a, a programming room at a studio called The Strong Room in East London, which is kinda like the Breakbeat Abbey Road. So 10 kind of long-term production suites, five commercial studios.

There is a bar there as well. And I wound up being roommates with the guys who ran the bar. So it was just basically in this situation where you're just bumping into people every time you step outta the studio, every time you go to the kitchen, someone would be there, you know, having a cup of tea and just say, Hey, who are you?

And start chatting. And basically because I was young and doing something weird, something different then it just set me apart and I kind of peaked the interest of a lot of other producers and engineers and artists and was lucky to get myself in the room in all kinds of different situations. So everything from like tuning vocals, paid my rent a lot by tuning boy bands and stuff, but also became a silent member with uncle.

And we had like one of the first residencies at Fabric, which is kind of still to this day, kinda one of the preeminent boundary pushing electronic music venues in the world. You know, I got to hang out nice and a bunch with Bjork and just work on every single session under the sun. Was able to just walk in, walk into studios and hang out with people out there working.

And then from there, like, I'm based in Los Angeles now. I worked with Bjork in a couple of stints, the second stint of which was basically six years, two albums in a world tour. So played with her band on stage, and through doing that got to reconnect with the fact that I have a Canadian passport.

And so wound up moving to Canada for a little bit. London got very crowded after 10 years, and then after doing seven years in Canada and 10 in the uk, it is obvious that you need some sunshine. So I'm now here in la. Yeah, so it's really just been a case of being like obsessed with records, obsessed with making records, and obsessed with helping people make records.

If you're into astrology, like my, my birth chart basically says that I'm the ultimate collaborator, and that's kinda like my role in life. So I'm really, really at my happiest when I can help people find their vision, amplify their vision, and bring it into the world.

Michael: That is awesome tha thank you for sharing that.

And you know, it is interesting hearing hearing the patterns, like having these conversations. I get to hear like a lot of patterns of very successful people and people who are smarter than I am and in a lot of different areas. And it seems like one of those core things that comes up in a lot of people's stories is about how important it was to just put themselves in the room and surround themselves with, you know, with the right people.

And, you know, in your case, you know, it's putting yourself in the room with, you know, with other producers and with people you can learn from with other artists and, you know, and some of those opportunities that come up from just being in the right place at the right time. And, Gosh, what is that saying?

Like, you know, luck is when preparedness meets opportunity.

Damian: Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

Michael: And maybe that's something we can kind of dig into. 'cause I, you know, I know for some people the question might be, well, you know, how do I get myself from those rooms and how do I mm-hmm. You know, get a mentor? How do, how do I do that when I'm just starting out?

So maybe we can kind of circle back around to that.

Damian: That's, yeah. It's, it's a huge juicy topic, that one. And I'm, I'm obsessed with that topic as well.

Michael: Cool. Okay. We'll, we'll definitely make sure to, to dive in there then. Great. So I, I guess my first question is, you know, now that you know both you've personally had this experience and, and really develop mastery at this skillset of production and, you know, making music, being a creator, and now, you know, you also help and you coach and, and you provide value to other people who are learning how to, you know, create their own music.

What are some of the biggest, you know, in today's day and age, what are some of the biggest challenges or things that you see artists struggling with when it comes to music production?

Damian: Well, I tell, can I ask you a really quick question, which will help me answer that better? Like Sure. Who in general will be listening to this podcast?

I'd love to kind of really specifically dial that to be helpful for your listeners. Sure. Yeah,

Michael: great question. So I would say that our audience are mostly artists who are interested in, you know, making better music and are probably interested in, you know, developing some skills around producing themselves.

And they may or may not like, have other producers they also work with. At the same time, we also definitely have people who are just, who are mostly producers who have original music on the side as well. So there's a little bit of a, a mix of those main categories,

Damian: I think. Okay, awesome. And so, so if, are we largely talking kind of independent people who are like CEOs of their own musical companies, so to speak, and have to juggle all the different hats, how to be creative, how to get their music out in the world?

1,000,001 different categories. I.

Michael: Yep. Ba basically that.

Damian: Okay. Awesome. What you just said, listener, I hope you don't mind me taking that tangent, but one of my first rules as a producer is, is get on people's wavelength first, rather than trying to shove people through a cookie cutter. Do you know what I mean?

So I think the biggest challenge we face is just how to, it's literally, what the hell am I gonna do next? Do you know what I mean? It's so tempting now to think, oh, music production is about knowing which microphone or which eq or which compressor to use, or which key we're gonna be in, or how long a song is supposed to be.

But fundamentally, the traditional roots of a role of a record producer is literally knowing like, what time is everyone showing up? How is this all gonna go down? How are we gonna deliver a result within a timeframe? Everything else is secondary to that. And I think that if your listeners are really thinking about like, how can I build my career?

How can I get my ideas, my emotions out into the world, then fundamentally just like what are you sitting down and working on right now is gonna be the biggest challenge? And critically not just keeping yourself busy, but how can you make sure that, how can you be confident actually that what you're sitting down and working on will drive your vision forward?

So that requires you to be really clear on your vision both artistically and as an entrepreneur basically, and as a business person. And you wanna make sure that those visions are in alignment. And then you are then choosing how you're spending your time as effectively as possible so that when you're sitting down to literally like choose what compressor you're putting on, what instrument, at what moment in time, that you're not just getting lost down rabbit holes, that could take hours, weeks, months, literally years of your life when you could otherwise actually be focused on your music connecting.

It's your listener. Mm-hmm. So that kind of, that, that little nugget right there for me unpacks in a kind of fractally across every single dimension of space and time and our, our experience of the world. But I, I think about that stuff all the time. Hmm.

Michael: Super, super powerful. So yeah, it sounds like what you're saying is that, you know, a big piece of it is just figuring out how to prioritize and how to figure out, out of the unlimited, you know, amount of op opportunity and potential and things that we could focus on and that we could do.

What are actually the few things that we uniquely can do that we can contribute to so we don't get sidetracked or distracted on things that are busy, but don't ultimately matter as, as much as those few things that, that we can do.

Damian: Yeah, 100%. And I think like, you know, speaking more about like the making music thing, like we live in this unbelievable time now where we have access to technology that gives us insane capabilities. Like I started my career in the nineties and back then, you know, if you played in a band or if you played like basically acoustic or performance-based music, you, you pretty much needed a label to fund you just literally to record a demo.

You know what I mean? Like, going into the studio is fucking expensive. It still is now, but now for like, less than the cost of a day in the studio, you can get a laptop and you know, a microphone and start getting your ideas down. So the, the flip side of that though is that we're exposed to an infinite amount of information.

And if we're go like, okay, I'm passionate about my music, passionate about my ideas, I wanna make sure that they communicate as effectively as possible, like, I want my records to be good, then then you start getting into. Well, I could spend literally a lifetime just exploring the options that are out there now, let alone mastering them.

So this is, I think, where it becomes really powerful to then just think, okay, I have like these higher goals, making the music as part of it. And then from there you actually need to set some constraints around yourself and actually give yourself some limitations in terms of how deep you're gonna go in whichever direction based on your priorities.

And you know, back in the day that was just like, Hey, you've got two days of studio time and that's it. So it's how much can you get done in a certain amount of time? So I, I really like, I think a lot about, and, and this is also really speaking from my own experience as someone who came up through the traditional studio system, then wound up like building my own studio, you know, was able to pretty much build a dream studio, have all the gear, and then I actually found it harder and harder and harder to be creative and found that my creative speed slowed down more and more and more so, Part of this just comes down to like, how can we very deliberately put constraints around ourselves?

How can we actually be okay with the fact that things aren't perfect? But understand that releasing and sharing stuff is ultimately more important than technical perfection to say nothing of the fact that perfection doesn't actually exist. So we basically wanna make sure that we're not spending our time chasing mirage in the desert that we can kind of like put some clear cutoffs on how much we're focusing on stuff.

I mean, you, you're, you really help people get their, their music out into the world. Is that fair to say? Mm-hmm. Definitely. Great. So as part of the stuff that like you and your coaches work with is like, Hey, we just want to hit this threshold and make sure, first off, that you've got the structure in the system to, to help reach people.

Or is it like we're gonna, you know, spend four years perfecting your first ad and when you're absolutely certain and that's perfect, then you know, you can start hitting people up.

Michael: Yep. We don't take any action until we're absolutely sure that every single thing is perfect, and there's no way that anything can ever happen.

Excited from pure perfection.

Damian: Listeners, you're on a podcast. I, I was having a little sip of water and it nearly came out my sinuses right there. So,

Michael: A hundred percent. I mean, it's, it's one of my core values, you know? Mm-hmm. I think is that done is better than perfect and Yeah. Who you are and like your expression, you know, it's kind of paradoxical because it's both like imperfect and it's also perfect.

It's perfectly imperfect sort of, and yeah, in music, it seems like it's, is definitely a, an expression of that.

Damian: Well, it's, it's weird if we think about like, you know, I feel like we're in this different moment now to say, if we think about like, the majority of the 20th century and possibly before four bands, but 20th Century, let's say, was, was like the, the first century where we really had recorded music.

And you know, like my mom's from Liverpool and she used to go see the Beatles play at the Cavern when she was like in teacher's training college. And we all know this story, like Beatles, like so many bands, they had a residency somewhere, right? They'd play like five nights a week for hours on end. Whereas when I moved to London, like late nineties into the early two thousands, I'm not sure if it's still the case so much now, but what would tend to happen would be like a label would get a, a, a bigger label would sign a band.

Then the first thing they do is stop them playing shows. They lock them away from the world finish an entire album, and then they wind up doing like one showcase and the first single gets pushed to radio one. And if the single doesn't get playlisted and they don't get amazing reviews off their first gig back then it's like your career's over kind of thing.

You know, they would get shelved. So that model really didn't work. I think for, well, it, it worked probably for labels 'cause they could just like spread bet, right? But you don't wanna be a spread bet in someone else's portfolio. So this also ultimately comes down to this question of, like, you, you learn way more by doing, right?

So like, the Beatles came out of their years in Hamburg or whatever, like a way better band than when they went in. Mm-hmm. But it's this fascinating thing now with the internet where the fact is like, everyone can access your stuff at any time. I speak to so many people who are still kind of carrying like the, the nineties mentality of like, you gotta just like drop this thing outta nowhere that's perfect.

And everyone's gonna be like, oh my God. Instead of almost the fifties, sixties, seventies mentality of like, I'm just gonna be playing shows every night. Sometimes there's gonna be a crap show. Sometimes we're gonna road test stuff. We'll see what works, what doesn't. So it's almost like the performance aspect of the bend is what we bring into, like recording and sharing recordings now, I think.

Mm-hmm. We can look at them all as like, we're just testing stuff, seeing what's working, getting better every single time we put stuff out, as opposed to that kind of like major label release mentality of we're gonna put out the one thing, spend a whole ton of money on press and, and, and change the world in a month, you know?

Hmm.

Michael: Yeah, that's, that's so true. And yeah, as you described that, it reminds me of an analogy that's one of my favorite analogies about this point specifically, which is that you knows, sort of like learning how to like anytime you have a goal and specifically when it comes to like your music and releasing songs, it's sort of like shooting free throws.

And maybe the goal is when you shoot a free throw is to, you know, make the ball in, in the hoop. And it's really unlikely that your first time ever grabbing a basketball and, you know, shooting a free throw, that you're gonna sink it on the first try. Mm-hmm. You know, it happens sometimes, but generally, more often than not.

Like it misses, but you know, what's the best way to get better at shooting free throws? What's the best way to get it in the hoop? Well, like you take the ball. You aim first and then you, you throw it, you don't wait too long, right? Yeah. You don't wait like years to throw your first basketball and it's like, oh, I missed it.

Like, you know, I'm no good. I can't do this. You know, it's, it's good to take the ball and aim and, you know, fire it and see where it landed. Mm-hmm. And it's only through shooting multiple times kind of seeing what landed and what went in the hoop that you start to reinforce, you know, the parts that that are working for you.

And it does seem like it's sort of a. It's a challenging thing to do sometimes because we don't wanna miss the hoop so bad that we embarrass ourselves and it's like scary. We feel like Totally. We feel like if we miss the hoop, then, you know, it means that we're not good enough or we're not talented enough and it's like mm-hmm.

No, like, you know, this is, it's just a matter of practice and putting things out and, and you don't have to be perfect when you first try. And it does seem like you, at the major record labels, if you have a a hundred people come up to shoot a free throw and it's like their first time shooting a free throw and you like, help 'em aim, then maybe a few of those people will make it on the first try.

Yeah. But it seems like a little bit of like a, and then it's like, all right, you made it so like now we're just gonna run 'em with you. It's, it's, yeah. You know, maybe not the best model for, you know, independent artists nowadays who are just starting out and, yeah. And can take more ownership and can learn how to make it in the hoop.

Damian: That's, and and it's such a exciting time though, isn't it? Because like there's such a clear pathway to finding an audience and having your music resonate and connect with people that doesn't involve a single other person, a single other gatekeeper saying yes or no. And and the flip side though, kind of going back to like the first thing we were talking about is like, on the one hand there's more opportunity than ever before, but I think now it's more complex than ever before, right?

Because it used to be, or you know, there are still a few kind of unicorns where it's like you just make good music and you get discovered and then it kind of gets handled for you, right? And that's great. 'cause then you can just focus on making great music or, you know, even like the way my career began was like just bang on studio doors until someone lets you in, you know?

And someone eventually did let me in and then you kind of meet people from there. Whereas now it's like entire, like I have people I work with. Through the complete producer network that we can talk about in a little bit, who are building careers as mixers from like basically the middle of nowhere.

And they're just doing it all through like, you know, very genuine outreach online and stuff like that. They didn't have to move to New York or anything like that, just to have a genuine love of music building skills on their own tracks. And then they also realize that like, hey, there's this part, these parts of the process I really love.

I wonder if I can find other people who could benefit from what I could share with them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's like they're not needing to wait until one of the top mix engineers in the world needs a new assistant because the person they've had for the last six years has moved on. You know, that's kind of what the traditional way to get into being, building a big mixed career is, you know, you just see the people who assist, the people who are already established are the ones who grow, you know, and certainly in my case, I've managed to go and work really closely with a great producer in London and that opened a lot of doors.

But I think a lot about the fact that you know, I was able to move to London. Other people don't have that opportunity, so, yeah. So it's just, it is a really, really exciting time where you're just not relying on other people saying yes. And even I have to say, like, at this point, you know, I'm now 25 years into my career, which is kind of terrifying.

I did the math recently. And just realizing that I still hate that. Like I love, I'm, I'm feel very positive about the music industry as a whole, but like when, you know, you're going and doing meetings and it's still just waiting for someone in an office to say yes before you can get on with stuff and just, it's really exciting to me now to see like, oh, there's these other models where you can build stuff.

And also, let's be real, like, your, your people would know this a lot better than me. Like when you, you own your masters and you've got 100% of the net receipts coming into you, that's very different again, to. Waiting for sometimes years to see a statement. Every, every six months I have this chat with my management that's literally like, did we hear from this label or that person or that Ben?

It's like, oh no, we haven't heard from them for like three years. And then it turns into like a week of emails, literally just to try, try to get a spreadsheet out of them. And more often than not, there's a minus on there, you know, like, no, you're not recruited yet. Hmm.

Michael: Hmm. Yep. That's, it's super interesting.

It definitely seems like now sort of the age of being able to have more ownership. Mm-hmm. More ownership over the creativity and less obstacles, less gatekeepers, more direct access, having the internet to be able to directly reach out. It's amazing. Yeah.

Damian: But then that comes back to this like, okay, so what do I work on today?

Do I, like, do I work on like, you know, reworking the lyrics on the chorus or do I work on my social media account or do I, you know, try to book a tour or, and, and all this kind of stuff, you know, so to Totally. That's, yeah. I think as well where like my, my obsession really, you know, I mentioned that period where I built my dream studio and just found it was getting harder and harder and harder to actually hit a result.

So the last kind of era of my life in a way the last six, seven years has been how do we actually simplify the, the kind of simplify the technical stuff around the creative process and make the creative process as effective as possible. 'cause there's, you know, we, we talk a lot about, like, we in general talk about like hustle culture and like just, you know, grind it and, you know, there's a lot of culture in studios where it's like the longer you work, the cooler you are.

And I had like a lot of pride when I was young. It's like, yeah, I just worked 18 hours a day, six, seven days a week for three years. Sometimes I wouldn't leave the studio for days on end and that's why I have a career, you know. But at some point that whole like just work harder thing becomes untenable.

And I've certainly seen as a result of thinking like, I'll just put in 18 hours over and over and over again thinking that's the way. Then you have like one hour that's more powerful, more effective than the previous two weeks combined. So I've become really obsessed with how can we basically get more results in less time.

If that makes sense. But this isn't just productivity, it's literally like, how do our brains work? How do our consciousnesses as interface with this reality? What's the mystical connection between your emotions and the speakers and all that kind of thing? And when you prioritize that above everything else, and the whole process of, of making a record, of writing a record becomes very, very different.

Michael: Hmm. I love it. Yeah. Super, super powerful stuff. And yeah, you know, there, there's something about that idea of how can we do more and less time that sort of feels like at the root of a lot of, of growth and like technological growth and create creative, you know, expansion and it's, there's something.

Really awesome and like, wonderful about that process of like doing less but accomplishing more. And it, it certainly is true. You know, like the 80 20 rule that there's, out of everything that you're doing, there's probably only 20% of it that's accounting for 80% of the results. And so if you stop doing, if you do 20% as much as you're currently doing, but spend that 20% just focused on those things that are really moving the needle, then you free up, you know, four-fifths of your time and you're getting about the same results.

But then you can take that four fifths of your time and then like apply it towards doing the things that matter, right? So it's, it's super interesting.

Damian: So that being said, it's, I, I heard, I heard this thing recently where someone was like, if you spend that other 80% of the time preparing for your 20%, Do you know what I mean?

So like, don't stress about getting results, but this is, you know, what you guys are doing is like, you can, like through your programs, you can help people cut off, literally cut out years of trying to figure out this shit on their own. I. Do you know what I mean? Like, so what can you be doing to basically get better at stuff?

What can you be doing to learn? What can you be doing to just like live a balanced life and actually pull more inspiration into the creative process? And, and that becomes wild. Like, you know, part of that whole turnaround for me was instead of thinking like, the longer, the later I stay up, the better my music is.

It was just like, oh no. The more I sleep, the better it sounds. You know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It, it, it's, it's wild. It's fun.

Michael: Yeah. And, and one you've probably heard of this analogy or this story, I think it was Abraham Lincoln that talked about the idea of sharpening the saw, or maybe it was. Stephen Covey who popularized it mm-hmm.

In the seven Habits of Highly Effective People. But he told the story about how Abraham Lincoln you know, would tell people that if he was given a certain amount of time to cut down a tree, he'd spend most of the time sharpening the saw. Yeah. And the idea was exactly what you're talking about of, you know.

So sometimes it's tempting to feel like, you know, if I put in 18 hour days, then I'm gonna get more done. But if you have a dual blade, then you could put in a lot more time and energy and keep trying to cut down the tree. And it's just hard. It's really hard to do. Hundred percent. Yeah. But if you spend a certain amount of time sharpening the saw and, and then, you know, it can take it, it can get it done in like a 10th of the time, then, you know, there's, there's definitely a practical aspect of doing that to increase.

Increase your output a hundred percent.

Damian: The, the, I love before when you were making the free throw analogy as well, you specifically said aim, like, could you imagine practicing free throws and you're pointing in the wrong direction? Right. And I mean that like, I'm, I'm also saying that just straight up from experience, like just thinking like, oh yeah, I'm such a badass because I went into like this insane amount of detail and like perfected every single element and just, you know, really went there.

And it's an indication of how like, passionate I am about this and, you know, and, and you in a weird way, it's almost like that kind of being really busy can wind up being your way of avoiding kind of the tough decisions or thinking through stuff really clearly. Hmm. And you know, when we think about really trying to be clear on your thinking, really trying to resolve unexamined questions.

I. Like for me as an artist, working with, as a producer, working with an artist, I always wanna bring that stuff to the surface. Like, what are you really trying to say here? What does this really mean? And that can be quite an intense process for people to go to, but go through. But especially if you're an independent musician working on your own, you don't have someone like me saying there, basically putting you on the psychotherapist couch and asking you this stuff.

It's like you need to make sure that you actually allocate and prioritize the time to get really clear on this stuff. Like, what's most important to me? What's my vision? How do I want this to look? How do I want my life to look? With all of this working, I really think it's important to think about like, how should, how do I want people to feel when they hear my music?

Like why will their life be different when they hear my music? As opposed to just like, I like making music now. Listen to it. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like how can you really turn what you're making in the studio into a process of communication and a dialogue with your fan base? How, how can you make sure that each thing you're putting out into the world has a strong enough wavelength that if someone hears it for the first time, they'll be like, what the fuck is going on with this person?

Like, I need to listen to them more. And having spent so much time in like the absolute details of, of making records like e e, everyone just seen it. Like, I'm happy to nerd out about the gear stuff. Like the gear. It totally matters. You can't make a record without it. But just want everyone to know, like I've literally like built my own, like custom facilities.

I've hand-built tube outboard, you know, I've built stuff with like different resistors and capacitors thinking that stuff, you know, like, 'cause it does matter, but it's, it doesn't matter as much as fundamentally what it, how do I want someone to feel? And what this is where we get into the 80 20, like that is the 20% there.

How, what's my message? How should someone feel? And then whether you record it on a phone or you know, on a Neve console, it's kind of, it's, it's just different versions. One of my favorite records of all time the first Tuneyards record like she made on a Dictaphone and edited it, and it sounded like it sounded horrific and it sounded amazing On a, what did you say again?

On a Dictaphone, like a little Sony Dictaphone. Okay. And she kinda like edited the audio and she put it up online for free. And I found that free version was like super obsessed with it. And then four AD found it and she got signed four ad but it was literally, literally made on a Dictaphone. Wow.

Michael: That's that's pretty insane.

Damian: Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta have like some real confidence to do that. Do you know what I mean? And that's, it's kind of interesting when you get into like, what I have to say, what I have to share is so much more important than anything else. Not to say quality doesn't matter.

There's, you know, nothing is like, there's no like black or whites really in the creative process, right. Or let alone in the, in a creative business. But it's just, you know, our, our biggest limitation isn't you know, what, how much money do we have? How many connections do we have? Our biggest limitation isn't how big is my fan base right now, or do I have the right equipment?

Our biggest limitation is just straight up time. Like, we're gonna die before we know it, and how do we kind of make the most of this lifetime and get great music out into the world. And I'm, I'm, I gotta say as a little tangent, I'm really happy to talk to you because obviously, you know, you have like an amazing background as, as a musician, but just the fact that you've put so much energy into building this resource to help people get their music out into the world.

Like I've put my whole life into like the making it, and I'm so used to kind of handing stuff off to a group of strangers. Do you know what I mean? Like, you form this really close relationship with an artist, make something you really care about, and then, then it kind of goes off into this black box and who knows what happens to it after that.

So yeah, so I do think for people to just really kind of think about that, the, the yin yang of the two. And ultimately like with anything, right? Like, it becomes so much more real once you've released stuff. And once you've got that feedback and that feedback might be like one new follower. You might've lost a follower after putting out a record, you know?

But it's, it just, it's so much more real when you've posted something, when you've shared something than when it's just you working on it on your own and, and the world hasn't heard it yet. Mm-hmm.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's so powerful. And yeah, it seems like one thing that you're recommending is that, you know, to, to, to aim, like when you're about to shoot the free throw, like you do want to aim, and if you don't aim, then it's sort of like you don't, even if you don't know what the outcome is that or the goal, the result, then it doesn't really matter how you throw the free throw or how you let it go, because you're not gonna know if it went in, you're not gonna know if it didn't, just because, you know, there was, there's no there's no outcome.

There's no results or goal that you kind of measure that you can measure against. And so, you know, it's better to release and see where it landed and to get clear on, on what, what your goal is. And I, and I love the point that you made around figuring out. Specifically like the 80 20, like 20% being like, what do you want to say and what, how do you want people to feel and, you know, what exactly is it that you're trying to express?

Maybe could you share a little bit about, you know, one thing that I feel like is, is relevant here related to what we're talking about is there's kinda these two angles. One is, One thing I really appreciate about you and what you're offering is the value of for, for all music creators slash producers.

Like there's something so, powerful about learning how to, you know, facilitate the tools and the creativity through, through you and be able to express it, be able to like, turn it into actual music. And the production, you know, is probably like the number one. Like, that's, seems like that's kind of the role of it, is like to translate this creative vision that's worth, you know, expressing into definitive, tangible form.

And, and so I know that that's a really powerful skillset for every music creator to have both if they're just a musician themselves, they wanna learn how to create demos, but also as like a business asset. You know, if you're starting out as a musician, gosh, one of the most valuable skills you can learn is how to produce.

Do it for other people. Do it for yourself. And that's only gonna serve you and your creativity. But I'm also kind of curious about. In this, in this world where we do have a limited amount of time and and we have to be selective with kind of where we focus on, for those artists who, you know, they, maybe it would be a better fit for them to find the right producer to collaborate with and to work with as opposed to doing it themselves.

Kinda, I'm kind of curious on what you would recommend for people who maybe earlier on and they're trying to consider, should I focus entirely on producing myself or should I find, you know, a producer to network with? And what would your recommendations be for someone who's kind of going through

Damian: that?

There's there, that's a really interesting question and there, there's a lot of terms and conditions apply. So why, why don't we try to like define a few of those? Like let's say for example, if your music is effectively like 100% live performance based, Right. So it's really like, what's hap Well, it's live music.

Then on the one hand, the technology that you might need to capture that is simpler. We're basically talking about microphones, preempts in a recorder, but the nuances there matter a lot more. And that might be a situation where like, hey, yeah, we can get a couple of really simple things to like capture demos, but if your goal is really getting music out there and connecting with people like face-to-face, then that's where it's not just how much does it cost to hire a producer and hire studio versus buying my own gear, but literally like, how many years will it take you to record something that you're happy about?

What could happen in that time? On the other, you know, extreme is like if you're making like pure, pure electronic music, like everything is synthesized or samples, no recording whatsoever, then so much of that is just the way you press the buttons. But on e even on the electronic side I find it quite fascinating now talking to a lot of producers and, and we're talking more like the artist producer, right?

'cause even producer is a very broad term, depending on context. So artist, producers. And there's, there's so much information out there online, and I wind up talking to people who I think are just completely overwhelmed by the fact that they encounter on a daily basis, like an infinity of new knowledge, and they don't quite know how to apply it yet.

So I think it's really useful if you're predominantly like an electronically based artist to just think about like, some of the most seminal records in electronic music and actually how simply they were made. You know, like the burial record is an amazing example. Where it was, it was just sampling stuff and placing it on a timeline.

You know, I mentioned the Public Enemy record, and it's just like you're sampling a record and you're putting a beat under. It sounds really simple, but doing that creatively is an intensely deep arc form. And if you're also spending the time going, well, am I gonna need to like use a multi-band side chain parallel defibrillator on everything?

You know, then you kind of pull yourself away from, from the results. But I mean, ultimately what's amazing about producing music, regardless of the context, is that it is a lifelong journey of learning. And I think actually the, the biggest thing to get okay with is the fact that you don't know everything right now.

And just really embrace the fact that you will continue to learn across time. And unlike, you know, like passing the bar to be a lawyer or getting your driving test, there's no like minimum required qualification to make music and to share music. So I'd kind of encourage you to maybe think about Maybe you want to put some new things into your setup.

And then effectively, like film composers and media composers, they do a thing where they just like lock their system. It's like, no operating system updates, no new instruments, no new technology, no new whatever. All we're doing is we're scoring this movie. All we're doing is we're scoring this series.

There's a ton of reasons why they do that, but that actually wound up really, really influencing me, like having periods where you pull in new information and then just periods where all I'm doing is delivering an end result. So just, you know, really think about the more energy you're focusing on delivering that end result.

And especially actually the less stuff you have, the more that you're really creating space for creativity. One of my favorite quotes is like, I have so many favorite Einstein quotes, but there's a paraphrase of one of his quotes. It was paraphrased down to as simple as possible, but no simpler listener.

I'm gonna say that one again as simple as possible, but no simpler and really think about. You know, if you have a personal setup, like what is the absolute bare minimum that I could use and still get a result, because I can guarantee you that if you keep that stripped down, you are just creating so much more space for creativity.

You know, I launched my freelance career just sitting in front of Pro Tools and we'd be sitting in like, you know, amazing studios and stuff like that, but it was real like, I'm not joking here. Like basically it was cut, copy paste and doing that creatively that like built my career and actually like, God, I think a good 18 months or more into my freelance career by this point, I'd already programmed on like Vespertine by BRK and like, you know, recorded turned there.

Like I was in a session flying some stuff around and the engineer in there who's like a real old school analog guy, like didn't use Pro Tools at all. He was kind of watching me and he goes, Hey, did you know that if you go into this menu that there's like a quantized button? And I had no idea that there's literally like a quantized key command.

So I was going through and manually sliding every single region. Into exactly the spot I wanted it to be in time, which was all based on musical grids and stuff, but I just didn't know that was there, but had a career. So I really love sharing that story in terms of like, just be okay with the fact that you don't know everything.

Like actually embrace the fact that you dunno everything and just really focus on like, what, how can I make this sound cool with what I know and, and just, yeah, let that unfold across time. Mm-hmm.

Michael: Super interesting. Yeah, that, what that reminds me of is I've heard a lot of people talk about this idea of like having.

A frame or like kind of having the edges or setting intentional boundaries for yourself mm-hmm. As a way to actually kind of un unlock your creativity. Yeah. And, and as you were describing that, like one, one analogy that ca came into my mind and yeah, I, I'm probably like overdoing it on the analogies, but, but I,

Damian: we love an analogy, but the one, the one that came to mind, it's by the tangent on the analogies.

Did, you know that's how we learn much more because it's, what is this like that I already know? So if we're trying to, trying to communicate a concept, then we need some hooks for the brain to sink its teeth into it. So anyway, that's,

Michael: yeah, I think you're right that that's definitely why, why the analogy seemed to work.

So Yeah. The, the analogy that that came to mind was you, you talked about this idea of. You know, setting up the space and then being okay with like, look, these are my tools for the job and this is what I'm, this is what I have and this is what I'm gonna play with during, you know, this session or this season.

And what came to mind was sort of like a, a picture of a painter who's sitting in front of a canvas and maybe before they start painting, they go and they get a bunch of colors and they like put the colors down on a tray and they have their brush and then okay, they're like, okay, cool. Here's my colors, here's what I'm gonna paint on the canvas.

And with that, it kind of unlocks the ability for them to focus on the actual process of creating and, and actually, you know, creating a picture versus having, having a shed in the back where, Every in between every stroke, they're thinking, well, what if there's like this color? And they kinda like, go back into the shed and like, look through different different containers and like are kind of like going back and forth, back and forth, trying to kind of get like the different color spread.

And that was just one, one way that kind of came to mind to think, think about that as like, you know, having a space set up so that you can explore the, you know, the, the landscape with the tools that, that you've, you know, set up beforehand.

Damian: I feel that a hundred percent. Like, the, you know, in the kitchens they call it 'mise en place' like put in place.

It's like you wanna have everything chopped and prepped and ready to go. And there's, there's a reason why, like, you know, professional kitchens, they don't start cutting the raw, like the, the base ingredients, like when people are already in the restaurant. It's like having everything ready and just being really clear around these, these steps and the kind of sequencing of the processes.

Yeah, totally huge. But yeah, like you say, like once you're sitting down and actually doing it, then you get this flow and I'm, it's funny, like, I've just been teaching this workshop, it's called Build Your Production Breakthrough. And it's, it's fundamentally like how can we stay in that creative zone, that flow state?

And I make this this analogy of like, you wanna live on the launch pad effectively, right? So anytime that you have an idea, like the rocket is all fueled up and you sit in the rocket and you like press a button and off you go. But anytime you're having to deal with anything that is not on that launch pad, you're, you're robbing your session.

Of creative velocity, you're draining, you're, you're moving yourself away from that flow. You're, you're kind of getting, you're moving into analytical activities that don't really have anything to do with actually delivering the result. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we'd like for Rocket to be into, in orbit, it needs to be moving fast enough in exactly the right direction in a certain amount of time.

And if it doesn't reach that speed, it's gonna crash back to earth and blow up. Right. So we need to make sure we're doing the same with our music, like letting it fully, fully hit orbit. But I, I gotta say, like, just, just thinking about that as well, like for, for your listeners, one thing that comes up a lot everyone as an aside, like through the lockdown era, I, I streamed, did live streams for my studio three days a week on Twitch.

And I wound up giving feedback on like hundreds and hundreds of tracks, probably about six, 700 tracks. And I talk to people making music all the time and, and there's one of the biggest things that will actually mess you up, and this goes back to your earlier question about like, when do you hire someone and when do you not?

Is like trying to mix while you're writing. That's effectively like trying to like blend up a new color paint while you're making the picture, right? And so just being really clear on like, what am I focused on at this stage? Like if you're mixing before you've even finished writing the song, then you get yourself confused.

But so many people are actually trying to work that way. It's like looking for it to sound like a record before it's a record. And actually there's a Canadian band called Braids who I became really good friends with when I was based in Montreal. And I was actually the first person that they let touch their music.

I think it was their third or fourth album, deep in the iris. I kind of did some like additional mixing and stuff like that for them. And you know, they were talking to me about like the previous album where they got all this free studio time and they spent like four months mixing their record and their drummer Austin, who's an amazing drummer, really great guy and like wants to be a mixer, but we wound up having this conversation where it was like, well, is it more important that you use your band's trajectory?

As the arena for you to practice mixing? Or is it more important that your band's music is served as, as well as it can be that those versions of the songs are as good as they can be and that you're able to like go out and connect with your audience sooner. And he really, really mulled over that one.

And then they wound up mixing with me basically from there. And he's, you know, he's, then, he's wound up like working on a ton of other people's music and he's, I think he makes their last one. So he is great. But it's, it becomes this interesting question I think, where if there's a part of the process as well that you realize like, I want to get really good at this, then actually the fastest way to improve is to actually do that for other people.

I would argue, like, I remember I got into recording by, you know, I bought a four track and. Was recording in my bedroom. I sold my mountain bike and just would write songs and try to record myself and stuff. But the first time I got to work on someone else's music where they were the ones, you know, agonizing over, like, what does it say about me and what does it mean?

And I could just focus on like, trying to make it sound good was like the, the rate of improvement I had on the production or engineering side was so much faster than it had ever been on my own stuff. So you might actually find that you improve far more if you'd like, give a day a week to just like any friends you have, like have them come over and, and produce them and do that independently, and then you'll be, you'll, you'll, you'll have more headspace to learn to production lessons without worrying about the other stuff.

And actually in my career, once I was, you know, well into my freelance career, I wound up getting hired by Ubisoft to mix a video game and it was like a personal trainer video game. And there's a whole crazy story about how they had an entire score that was already done, that was already perfect.

And then there's some weird contractual, legal thing. And then, and the company was like, no, we're gonna scrap the entire score and start again with something where that contract thing is different. And they just needed, like, they had a crazy deadline. And so it was like two weeks to mix like 42 songs. And they only had access to the studio overnight.

So I was pulling all-nighters, you know, mixing like three songs a night or whatever. And just being on that intensity of like, basically like an assembly line is kind of like if you go to the gym and you're just doing bicep curls nonstop, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And in a way, because it was like a video game, the, the music supervisor there, Benedict, we may had like amazing ears, but there, there was no kinda like, oh, what does it mean?

It was like, here's the brief, does it hit the brief? Yes or no? And she'd give me really good notes. But just working so purely on, you know, from actually a way simplified mindset unlocked this insane improvement that applied to everything else I did that was like much more artistic. So I, I hope that, you know, we're, we're kind of getting back to that, like how do people figure out, like if you hire someone else or if you learn it yourself, and it's such an interesting question.

And I think, you know, if actually zoom out on that one, it's really important for you dear listener to, to just be really clear on your own priorities. Like, there's no right or wrong with any of this stuff. It's just what is more important to you and when you can have a real hard look in the mirror, like, it's more important to me to have six songs out this year that I'm really happy with.

Or is it more important to you to improve as a producer and you're not too worried about how much music comes out. Not saying they're incompatible, but it's just like saying what's more important right now? And then you can just, that gives you the opportunity to check in on yourself as you're going and say, okay, what do I need to do to ensure that I'm able to, to hit that goal basically to, to meet those deliverables.

And you'll often find. For myself when I do sessions, when I know I'm not mixing, which is very rare now, I mix almost everything. Mixings, like really, like I love mixing really. It's very second nature now. But you know, I've had periods where I've been working with people, especially earlier in my career and sometimes I was gonna be the one mixing it.

Then other times, like I knew that we were gonna go and like when I was working with uncle and, oh, Jim Avis is gonna mix this remix. Then the three days that you're working on the track, even though it's not the mixing day, it's just so much easier. 'cause you're like, I don't have to think about that at all.

At all at all. Like, you can kind of let things sound worse objectively from like a mixing kind of point of view, but you know, the ideas are stronger. So then you're focusing much more on like, what are these ideas? How's the arrangement working as opposed to you know, this kind of part of your brain that keeps trying to preemptively do this other work that you're not even ready to do yet.

Michael: Mm, super smart. Yeah. Yeah. A couple things came to mind there. One was you talked about how. One challenge that happens sometimes when you're producing yourself or mixing yourself, but it gives you perspective when you're doing it for other people is sort of this what does it say about me? And kind of, you know, feeling more tension or pressure of like you wanting to, to come out the right way and kind of looking at it personally.

Whereas when you're doing it for other people, that part kind of falls away and you can focus more on like the actual creation and the music and itself. So it seems like that's sort of like a superpower regardless whether you're doing it for other people or for yourself. If you can sort of like separate yourself from it and, and actually just look at the creative work and you know, focus on it itself without, you know, making it personal.

But. Yeah. One, one final thing that, that I, I would really love to hear your thoughts on, because in my opinion, this is something that is sort of like a. Tidal wave or tsunami that is cresting right now and is going to change everything that like, that we know about like humanity and creativity and music.

And I'm curious to, to, to hear where your thoughts are on it right now is artificial intelligence and specifically GPT4 that just came out. That's insane. And I know I, I don't think we're quite there yet with like generative music, but you gotta think that we're not very far away from the same way we can use ChatGPT to enter a prompt and have, you know, an output creative work.

Doll, we can use DALL-E or MidJourney to type in a prompt and it generates, you know, visuals probably you're gonna have video. I've seen some video stuff that's coming out. So it's probably a little bit like rudimentary right now as to kinda like not super good, but you gotta think in the next like year to five years, we're gonna have some really, really good.

Music tracks that we can, you know, create based on a prompt. So I'm curious what your thoughts are about AI as it relates to music production and where you think we're headed in terms of, you know, three, five years from now, as, as we kind of catch that wave.

Damian: It's interesting, isn't it? Like if fundamentally what do I think about it?

It's interesting. Can I, can I predict three to five years? Like at like, no idea. Yeah. Beyond, like that's, that's a very honest answer. Beyond like, it's gonna be different and I think one of the things for us to really latch onto is like the human mind is not wired up to think exponentially. Mm-hmm.

We think very linearly, right? One plus one equals two plus one equals three, blah, blah, blah. Whereas once you start multiplying, like shit gets crazy. I've, I've kind of, I've tinkered around with this and actually, like one of my like want to do at some point this year is just like, lock myself away for a week and really go deep and explore what's going on here.

And, and there's this interesting question, right when it, which which is like, hey, well if, if you can just type in a few words and then you get a professional sounding track, is it gonna put musicians out of work? And I think it will put some musicians out of work, but I don't think it will put all musicians out of work.

I think it's almost the opposite. And in some ways it really leans into what we've been talking about a lot so far, which is people don't just listen to music because it fills in some space, unless we're talking about like an elevator, right? There's gonna be context where it's like music is just on. To replace like our animal needs here, like rustling leaves in the breeze or something like that.

But people become obsessed with an artist. They buy into a band's vision because of who those people are and what they believe and the way they see the world. Mm-hmm. And you know, you know, so when I was a teenager, like I was wearing the destroyed corporate rock t-shirt and everything like that, my daughter now, like, you know, I, she's now 16, but we spent like three years every single weekend just like listening to K-Pop.

And I couldn't get a word in Edgeways for three years. 'cause she was just talking about each member of the band and what they're into and what they like and what they don't like and you know, and then her and her friends like dissecting every single release. So the human story behind the music, I don't think we can underestimate how important that is and to what extent, like when someone becomes a fan of a musician, that story really, really, really matters.

Mm-hmm. So I think that's where. On the one hand, we'll have these AI tools that can do incredible stuff for us, right? But on the other hand, it's like, what do we do that is the true value in our music to use a business term? In other words, why should anyone give a shit? Do you know what I mean? And this is where it comes back to like, Hey, I just like making music and listen to, it's like, why should I fucking care that you like making music?

Like, I like eating dinner. I don't, I don't expect you to watch me eat dinner. You know what I mean? But if you have like this amazing idea that changes the way I experience the world, like now I'm really fucking interested. So I think in three to five years as an artist, you will need to be so much clearer on that.

Well, I don't think it's really any different to any point in history. The ones who are succeeding, the ones who are making a splash on whatever level are the people who are thinking about that. Mm-hmm. On the other side, we have like, Well, AI is already demonstrating how good it is at performing tasks for us.

So we can split that into two categories, right? On one category we were talking about like we only have so many hours in the day, and we have this big vision of what we want our music to do and how we wanna reach people. So if it can help us communicate our creative vision more effectively than that's gonna be amazing.

Mm-hmm. And then on the other hand, like kind of rhetorical question for everyone out there, like if you're hiring me as a mixer, for example one of the things that I'll do with you is I'll ask you a ton of questions about your music. I'll ask you a ton of questions about how you want it to sound.

I'll ask you a ton of questions about what kind of music you like. I'll really try to understand your tastes and you can effectively say that like, I'm helping you prompt and prompt engineer me as a mixer. Like my whole, this is my personal philosophy around production mixing is like, I'm gonna do absolutely everything I can to get on your wavelength as an artist and then understand how to amplify your vision.

But effectively what we're talking about is I'm asking you for prompts that help me perform a service for you. Mm-hmm. So how you can communicate what you are after, whether it's to another human being or to a a a piece of technology is just gonna be a fundamentally valuable skill that will help you in the future moving forward.

One more thing on this, which is that anytime there's like a seismic shift in technology, The opportunities go through the roof. Like we opened this up, I shared my story. I was ahead of the curve with Pro Tools. Mm-hmm. Like, I really, really pushed Pro Tools a few years before it was standard in every studio.

Mm-hmm. And people, it's like, you can look at it now going like, I know how to use Pro Tools, and it's like, you know what the key commands are, but like, it doesn't necessarily mean you know how to get a, like really amazing creative result. But the fact was like that was what, let me basically bypass kind of 10 years of being an assistant in a studio was mastering a technology or not even not mastering it all.

Like I said, it was like a couple years before I found a fucking Quantize button. So, so just becoming like conversant enough with the technology to make things and share it and, you know what I mean, and kind of do something that's useful for people. If you're behind the scenes like me, then I could help artists or other producers and engineers hit a result.

That might've been either impossible or incredibly time consuming before. So, you know, so we, we basically have these tools. Things are changing, get out ahead of it. For anyone who hasn't read Cal Newport's book Deep Work, it's a really, really good one to read it. You must've read that one, Michael, right?

Michael: It's been a couple years, but I I did read that one.

Damian: Yeah. And the, the fundamental thesis there is that technology is changing faster than ever. We don't know what is coming down the pipeline. You will constantly be having to learn over and over again. And so your ultimate skill becomes like, I might even have it on an index card here still.

It was really pivotal in, I think, but it's basically deep work is, makes learning hard things easy, easier. So I think if we can really get okay with the fact that for our entire careers, for our entire lifetimes, the landscape will always be shifting and you can either sit there and bitch about it. Or you can just put in a few hours and like learn stuff.

And especially if you're doing that ahead of other people, that will become like a really, really significant technological differentiator for you because it will help you communicate creatively more effectively. So everyone just like get on board, like it is not going anywhere. Like use it, you know, I've been tinkering with it, you know, I have like, some, some kind of workshops and like, even using it as like a thesaurus is amazing.

Like what are, or kind of a clever thesaurus. What are a few other ways of saying this or that? You know, like use, use it with your lyrics. Don't get it to write your lyrics for you, but say like, I'm thinking about this and that and this and that. Can you gimme 10 different ways to say this sentence? And most of them will be shit, but it will trigger something else in your own thinking.

And ultimately, like the creative process for humans really happens when we have something to respond to. So I think using AI in a way where it can, it can just open up some more options with us for us. And, and prompt to response again for ourselves. Mm-hmm. Then, yeah, that's, those are my thoughts. I just know it's here and we gotta get on with it, you know?

Michael: Yeah. Oh man, that was so well articulated. I, I love specifically what you mentioned about learning how to write the prompts and essentially how we already, like, I think the reason that ChatGPT is, you know, has taken the world by storm is because it's tapped into a very human way of interacting and like learning through conversation and iterating and asking prompts and asking questions.

Mm-hmm. And the art of asking the right questions is certainly like probably one of, if not the most important skills that we can learn. So, love, love your mindset around AI and jump and being able to learn it as a tool and kind of catch the wave as it, as it passes, as opposed to kind of waiting for it to, to pass.

And yeah man, I think that's probably, probably a good, a good point to to wrap up the conversation.

Damian: Well, I thought can, can we just like, I just want to extend this one for everyone and just make this really explicit. Like I mentioned, you're prompting humans. But I, for I, I'm assuming most of the people on here are probably more like artists with their own project, right?

So anytime you're looking to work with someone, that can even be other members in your group, like just being able to really clearly articulate what it is you're doing mm-hmm. In your own language is so important. And, you know, if I'm ever considering working with people, it's like, are they actually even able to articulate what they're about?

And if they're not, it's kind of an indicator that you don't really know yourself where you're going. You don't have to have all the answers, but it's like, here's what I'm hunting for, here's what I'm looking for. And you know, I, I've, I've spoken with some artists recently who are independent but really well funded, and they're like, yeah, we kind of put out this other stuff.

And we hired a marketing person, but we didn't really know what to tell them. So they didn't really know what to do. So all of this stuff comes just down to being like really clear in yourself. What you're shooting for. Do you know what I mean? It's different from knowing how it looks, but it's just that whole thing of being able to like unafraid to articulate stuff.

And the way that you actually have to do that yourself is asking yourself these big questions. So, you know, it all comes back to vision and everything like that. And then just finding whatever tool will get it out there. But yeah, if you're ever thinking about hiring anyone at all to work on your music, then you'll get as much outta them as you can give them, if that makes sense.

Like if, if they're just kind of guessing what it is you want, then you're gonna have a way higher chance of not getting a result that you want. And if you don't create like a good environment for communication, then again, like way higher chance of not getting what you want. And if you ever had a bad experience in the studio, it pretty much all comes down to communication, you know?

Michael: Mm-hmm. Mm. So good. You know, one thing that I found really valuable with ChatGPT is as it relates to this idea of like clarifying intention and, and, and writing a good prompt is if I don't know what the prompt should be, or I don't know if I want it to do something, like write an email for me, for example.

Then sometimes what I'll do is I'll ask it to ask me questions that it needs in order to write a prompt. Yeah. So like a prompt would be like, yeah, I wanna write this email about X, Y, Z I want you to write it in my voice. Yeah. What are some questions that are gonna help me that I can answer, that are gonna help you to create it?

And then I'll ask like, really good questions and then I'll answer those questions. Absolutely. And then it does a really good job of like, like a strikingly good job.

Damian: It's wild, isn't it? So yeah, like as an artist, can you ask someone that you're working with, like, how do I get the best out of you? Like, that's an amazing question.

And I really like to try to work with my artists. Like, here's how you'll get the best out of me. You know what I mean? So, and, and I think that there's a lot of people that people might work with who've never been asked that. And then this even extends to like, if you're in a position where your career's grown and you're looking at management or you know, someone wants to sign your publishing or whatever, when you really understand both sides of the equation, do you know what I mean?

You're not just trying to get something from this person. They're doing something for a reason as well. So how can you help them do the best thing that they need to, you know? Mm-hmm. But both sides, that's, you know, what's the effect that you want on the listener that's very different to just like, I'm making my stuff now, listen to it, you know?

So anyway. Totally. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of, it's, it's, it's, it's all relationships, right? Like, how do we relate to this technology? How do we get the best out of it? And, and it's fascinating, ultimately,

Michael: 100%. Yeah. You know, another thing, again, sort of like a pattern between all the people that I interview that are successful and my mentors and people that I know, it seems like one of the things that that comes up frequently is that they're asking the question like to either to themselves and to the people that they're serving.

Like, how can I, how can I contribute more? How can I provide more value to you? And so even you kind of go in there from the beginning of saying like, you know what this is really about? Is about you figuring out how are you contributing and how are you making an impact on your listener? And how are you making them feel?

And what are you trying to communicate? And so, you know, it's something that Yeah, I have a lot of respect for like, people who have that kind of mindset of, of figuring out how, how can I provide value? And it's an interesting reminder and a good lesson that it's really difficult to go wrong if we're asking ourselves, how can we provide value at the highest level?

Which in some cases, like doesn't mean sacrificing yourself. 'cause if you do that too much, then you aren't able to provide at a high level because you're not taking care of yourself. So like, you know, that's also part of it too, is, you know, taking care of yourself as you, as you're able to contribute more.

But it's interesting how that, that lesson

Damian: keeps coming back. It's, it's, it's a fundamental one. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I think like, it, it's worth saying with everyone, like, Biological mechanisms are wired up to think of what, like the game theorists call a zero sum game, right there is, there's one piece of pie and either one of us is going to get to have the piece of pie.

And that's actually not how this works. It is a non-zero sum game because we are creative people. We are literally pulling, we're pulling shit out of like the ether and making something tangible as a result. Like even if you think about money, I, I love this idea that like, when people are like, oh, there's only so much money to go around.

It's like, well, is there the same amount of money now as there was in the stone age before there were currencies? Right? Like the, this stuff is kind of created. So, so just really thinking about like, I can, I can do something in the world that. Both people benefit from, and especially, you know, if, I think when people are moving over into the marketing side or sharing their work, there's so much like, there can be so much association around like sleazy sales or whatever, where people think like, oh, someone's trying to take advantage of me.

And if I'm trying to share my music with the world, it's like you, you're nervous that you're appearing like you're trying to take advantage of stuff or get stuff from someone else. Nix something from someone else. Whereas as soon as it, you know, when I talk with people about this, it's like as soon as you go, if like, think of your favorite record ever, right?

And think of that person had never shared it. Because they didn't wanna, like, impose on you, like, is your life better or worse for hearing that music? It's like, your life is better. So, you know, understanding how valuable music and creativity is to the world and how I'm, I'm gonna get on a little soapbox here.

This is actually like, my big mission statement at, that's since I set up the Complete Producer network is just, you know, creativity drives art. And art drives culture, and culture drives civilization. And if we want to improve our civilization, we have to make art and share it. Mm-hmm. And so by making your music, sharing it with the world, being really clear about how important it is to the world, we are literally make, literally making the world a better place.

So yeah. So it's not a zero sum game, basically. Mm-hmm. Dang,

Michael: dude. Thank you for sharing that. I got goosebumps here. Sure. That's a great mission

Damian: statement. I spend a lot of time sitting down and thinking about that and getting really clear, and that's part of why I do it. So it's all, it'll, it'll loops around, you know.

Hmm. Amazing.

Michael: Cool. Well, hey, man, it's been awesome connecting with you and appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your lessons and your experience over 25, 25 plus years. So, for anyone who's listening this right now, who has, you know, gotten value or has resonated with the teachings and wants to dive deeper into improving their own music and learning how to produce what would be the next step for them to go deeper?

Damian: Well first off, you can follow me on all the socials. I'm here is Damian. That's d a m i a n. I mentioned a few times the Complete Producer Network that's a, a private online community I've set up. I basically wanted to create an online version of that environment that I mentioned, like in the studios where I, I worked in London where you're kind of around great people.

So I thought we just needed, I read actually Jaron Lanier's book 10 Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now and how the majority of social media is built on this. You know, it's, it's kind of manipulating people's behavior. And he also painted a vision for what a good social network would look like.

So I set up the Complete Producer Network just to be a very positive and supportive environment for anyone who's interested in all aspects of both creating and releasing music. So you can go to complete producer.net and just hit request to join answer a couple of questions. We'll let you in and just get in there and ask any questions at all.

Again, quality of the questions. But if anyone would like to hang out with me for like, you know, three or four hours I've actually spent. A lot of time crafting this little workshop called Build Your Production Breakthrough. And that basically gets back to a lot of the themes we've been talking about today.

Like, time is limited. How do you amplify your creativity? So it's basically like, it's a, it's a workshop that's basically giving you clarity that you need to increase your creativity and accelerate your career in the studio without just burning yourself out by working harder. So if you go to build Y P B, like build your production breakthrough.com you'll be able to see when the next time is that I'm running that.

Just hit register now. Register for free. And it's basically like a blueprint, a really big, high level overview that kind of knits together all these different factors that we need to think of to operate creatively, effectively in the studio. And yeah, and once you're, once you're involved in all that, then there's plenty of other ways we can work together.

But I think those, those are all a really good starting point. So yeah, I do encourage people to do build ypp.com, build your production breakthrough. I just started sharing that like a couple of months ago. Been testing it out. It's working really well, getting some amazing feedback from people on the impact it's having with them, but would would love to have you there.

Michael: Fantastic. Awesome. So like, like always we'll put all the links in the show notes for easy access and Yeah, I, I could, I don't think I could recommend the workshop more in terms of everything that we talked about with being able to sharpen the saw and be able to learn in a few hours things that have literally taken over 25 years to learn.

We just live in such an amazing, amazing world where we have access to, you know, be able to learn from experience like, like the kind of stuff that you're teaching in the workshop. So, definitely recommend checking that out if you wanna dive deeper on any I these ideas in a more practical way. And Damian, thank you again so much for taking time to be here.

Damian: It's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Michael: Yeah.