Michael Walker: If you’re listening to this then you likely already know that being an independent musician is a lonely road. And maybe your friends and your family don’t fully understand why you do what you do, or why you invest so much time, energy, and money achieving your music goals. And especially early on, it can be hard to find people who really understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how to make it happen. So, that’s where Modern Musician comes in!

My name’s Michael Walker and I can understand and relate to that feeling. I’ve been there myself, and so has our team of independent artists. The truth is that basically everything good in my life has been a result of music. It’s the reason I met my wife, my 3 kids, it’s how I met my best friends. And now with Modern Musician, we have seen so many talented artists who started out with a dream, with a passion, without really a fanbase or a business. And you’ll take that and turn it into a sustainable full-time career and be able to impact hundreds, maybe even thousands or millions of fans with your music. We’ve had thousands of messages from artists who told us we’ve helped change their lives forever. It just gets even more exciting and fulfilling when you’re surrounded by a community of other people who get it, and who have shared their knowledge and success with each other openly. So, if you are feeling called into making your music a full-time career and to be able to reach more people with your music, then I want to invite you to join our community so that we can help support your growth and we can help lift you up as you pursue your musical dreams. You’ll be able to interact in a community with other high-level artists, coaches, and industry professionals, as well as be able to participate in our daily live podcast, meet these amazing guests, and get access to completely free training. If you’d like to join our family of artists who truly care about your success, then click on the link in the show notes and sign-up now. 

Curtis Peel: Just take your visual stuff as seriously as you take your music stuff. Because, like I said, they'll see you before they hear you. And it's only gonna make it richer. You listen to music and you look at things. The visual component, I would say, just take it as seriously. And if it doesn't come naturally to you, just seek out help in the same way that you do for anything else.

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

Yeah. All right. I'm super excited to be here today with one of my good friends and team members, Curtis Peel. So Curtis is a director, musician, animator, and graphic artist. And he's someone that, when you went through the program Curtis, I remember looking at some of the designs that you created. You took the templates that we had created and you made them just look a thousand times better and just look amazing. And so immediately, I just saw: you have this genius zone around visuals and about expressing that part of your music and your artwork. I would love to have a conversation today exploring for all of us as musicians, the role of our visuals. How we can create compelling artwork that supports and supplements the music. Obviously nowadays there's some huge breakthroughs that are happening with AI and with using generative images and artwork. I'm just really looking forward to connecting in general about the role of visuals and artwork. And I appreciate you being on the podcast today. 

Curtis Peel: Thanks, Michael. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Michael Walker: Absolutely. So to kick things off, maybe you could share just a quick introduction of how you got started with the band Futurist and how you became an amazing graphic designer.

Curtis: Sure. I grew up doing music a bunch when I was a kid. I did piano and choir in school and churches and stuff like that. And then by the time I got to middle school, I was doing percussion in middle school band, and then high school, I was on drumline and all that stuff, and in high school, I started playing in bands. And originally, music is definitely my foundation. But ever since I was a little kid, I drew all the time. When I was in middle school I did a comic strip for our newspaper. I was really into drawing like cartoons and stuff like that from a very early age. I don't know, when you're young and really coming into it and your parents who are just supportive of you, but they don't really understand what you're supposed to do, I never really connected them as a unified thing, the visual components that I was interested in and then the musical components. I went to school in Boulder, Colorado and I majored in music composition, so I was still very musically focused, but I had this one professor, his name's Michael Theodore. He's a composition professor at University of Colorado. He taught my electronic music class, but he also taught this class. It was called interdisciplinary performance and it's a super far out class where you learn video editing and lighting. They have this thing in Boulder called the black box, where they have light settings, video projectors, all this kind of cool stuff. And it wasn't really until I met this… he was a true mentor in my life. He stood out. He encouraged me to do all of this stuff simultaneously. I think before that, I never really saw them as connected and he was the first person in my life who really helped me connect those dots. Pretty much from that point on, I pursued them both. Influence on me personally, I just really love… I think I saw The Wall by Pink Floyd at the end of high school/the beginning of college around that time. That made a huge impact on me because I loved the music, but they had this animated story that had these actors that told the story and then would go in and out of these animated sequences that just kinda blew my mind. I love Radiohead a lot. It's a huge influence. They released this thing in, I think it was like 2003/2004, called The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time. And it was this series of animations done to all of their music around the era of Hail to the Thief when that came out, and they were little series. They were initially going to be released on public television, but then they ended up releasing them on DVD. But that was another big thing that stood out to me. So I had all these influences that had such a strong visual component. Probably all of my greatest influences music-wise, there's a noteworthy visual element to it. I loved it. Still do. I love those bands. I love the Flaming Lips, Sigur Rós. When you go see their shows, thematically, whatever they're releasing, it's not just the musical experience of it. And that's really what kind of motivated me or inspired me when I got into music. When I was in college, little by little, I taught myself. Started off as graphic design, Photoshop, website design, stuff like that. And then eventually I got into animation. Once you learn the program, it makes a lot of sense. But if you open something like After Effects for the first time, you're like, what is this? It doesn't make sense. So little by little, I learned that. After college, I moved to New York City and that's when I officially started Futurist. I had been writing music in Colorado and some of that transferred over, but then I found a band and I put it together and that was the creation of that. Simultaneously, while I was living in New York City, I worked for a bunch of ad agencies and I got really good at graphic design and animation. That’s the short form.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. That's really interesting. I don't think I've ever really heard your story and how I got started with graphic design, but it makes sense that it’s been a part of your life since early on. I would love to hear, from your perspective, why it is important for artists to not just focus on their music. Being a musician, audio is probably the main kind of art form or the thing that they're thinking about, but obviously the visuals make a huge impact. Music videos are incredibly important. I'd love to hear your perspective of: what kind of impact having the right visuals has on music, versus not having it? And how can someone just have the right mindset around how they think about their visuals as an artist? 

Curtis: I think about it in two ways. Number one, they see you before they hear you. If they're checking you out, they're going to see your video. They're going to see your thumbnails. They're going to see your album artwork. All of that's going to be seen before they take the time to listen to it. And more often than not, I have a lot of friends and bands and stuff that I've known throughout the years and when you hear them, they're just so amazing, right? I have some friends that just are so talented. And then they'll release it, and I'll look at their record cover, and I’m like: Oh my gosh you guys are scaring people away. This looks awful, right? This doesn't look good as the music is, right? The number one thing, I think, is because they see you before they hear you. Universally, before, you'd go to the record store and you'd flip through the records and you'd be like: Ooh, this one looks cool. And then you'd take it home and you check it out. That still translates to today. Obviously the period of time between seeing and hearing is much, much shorter, but still, they're going to see, they're going to see it before they hear it. And just like if you were to meet somebody on the street and they were dressed slovenly and they just did not present themselves in a way, you've already subconsciously made an opinion about that before they talk. Whereas as someone who's really put together, they groom themselves well, you're already going to have a positive opinion of them before. Obviously ruin that, it's not guaranteed, but your first impression is defined by aesthetic in the way that things look. So that's number one. Number two is what I consider in the branding aspect of it. If you are trying to release something, it makes a lot of sense that they can as quickly as possible recognize that something you're releasing fits within the catalog or the aesthetic of everything else. Again, it's not always like a super on the surface level thing. It's an unconscious thing, but you'll recognize patterns. We all recognize patterns and like people pour billions into advertising, psychology to understand how to get people to recognize things, whether they're conscious of it or not. And I think when it comes to a bigger picture, it's good to be aware of what your overall brand is, so that like from album to album or song to song, or just era to era, people are able to recognize: oh, this is coming from the same creator.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. What came to mind as you're describing that was just how interconnected the visuals to the artwork and you described how people see like they aren't just hearing you, but they're experiencing your music and your artwork through its entire presence. We have senses that perceive things that are present to us, and one of those things that as a really huge role in our brain is what we're seeing. And so it just makes sense that part of who you are and part of your music, your artwork, shouldn't necessarily cut off this huge piece of the human experience. But being able to actually plug that into the overall experience is extremely important to really be able to create the best artwork experience.

Curtis: Plus, if you just think just off the top of your head, what are the most iconic records of all time, chances are that there's a very strong album cover.

Michael: Yeah, that’s true!

Curtis: The Dark Side of the Moon is the all-time example, right? Because it's almost like the visual is as famous as the record itself. There's a lot of different ones that have changed and there's probably popular records that don't have the most beautiful aesthetic for the cover of it. But I think it definitely helps cement your idea that you're like not only thinking of the music, but you're thinking of the aesthetic of what that record was.

Michael: Yeah. Super smart. So how about, for people who are listening or watching this right now, what do you see as the biggest opportunities? We're in an interesting place with AI and with generative artwork and we'll see what happens for the next 5-10 years as it relates to music and generated music and how we use it as tools and what it means for human creativity using these tools. I'd love to hear your perspective on if someone is here right now, who maybe they're just getting started. Maybe they're just getting started. They don't have a big budget and they want to create high quality artwork for their music. And they're just looking to create an initial suite of designs for their merchandise and for their cover art. Where would you recommend that they get started?

Curtis: Number one, if you're trying to do things on a budget, I think the biggest thing that I see where people go wrong is font, believe it or not. People will have a great image and just horrible font, right? What classifies as horrible is either a color that doesn't match the theme of what's going on, or you're using a very generic font. That's number one. And again, that's just like a little bonus is that: you don't need a crazy looking font, but if you're using Arial or Times New Roman, it's gonna look very, very plain and it's also not going to look graphic because those things aren't graphic. They're just typefaces. So that's number one. That's just a little side tangent. I've seen beautiful stuff with bad fonts. So that's number one. Number two: if you're talking about AI stuff like that, Midjourney is out of this world. And it keeps getting more and more out of this world. Like I've used it a lot.

Michael: Dall-E 3 just came out. I don't think it's quite on the same level as Midjourney, but there's some ways that I think it's better than Midjourney.

Curtis: I used Dall-E when it first came out. I haven't touched on it too much. I think I found it more expensive.

Michael: The old versions were real bad. The old versions were really bad. The Dall-E 3 came out a couple of months ago, I think. And it's pretty good. But I think Midjourney has this style to it that is amazing. I think Midjourney is just like the leader. I think that they just have the best platform for it. But Dall-E 3, from what I saw, they could do a little bit of a better job with creating text and images and creating logos and icons, and you can interact with it like a ChatGPT style of interface. So you can talk back and forth and it'll design stuff. And so anyways, that's one tool that I've been playing around with that I've just been like; Mind blown.

Curtis: Yeah. I've played with them both; less Dall E now. Once I did the original Dall-E and then I found Midjourney, I was like Midjourney is like making way more consistently better stuff just off the bat. And I think I found it more like bang for my buck, I think, when I was first exploring it. I think those are great options for generating things. Another option you can use is if you're looking for stuff that's made by actual creators, you can use websites. One is called Envato. They have a bunch of templates. You can have stuff of video templates there. You can have vectors and stuff like that, that you can adjust vectors you can adjust. VectorStock is another one. Those are two in which you can for very cheap find Illustrator files and Photoshop files that you can edit. You pay like $1 for the vector, and then you can change the color of it, move things around. That's a pretty easy way to get a foundational thing that you can play with. So between the AI and artists who are selling basically templates you can play with, those are pretty low cost ways to get into graphic design. For what it's worth, I think getting into the Adobe creative suite for anybody, it's worthwhile to teach yourself how to do these things. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but being able to do your own stuff and not having to go to a designer regularly, it's knowledge. If you're going through all the effort to teach yourself how to do the music editing or the marketing or stuff like that, you might as well learn some fundamental things where you can do it yourself. If you're trying to make Facebook banners and all the different little things that people gotta make for announcements.

Michael: Yeah, it's smart. It reminds me of this principle of last mile delivery. Where I've heard this came from initially was the last mile delivery for shipping. Amazon, they can do so much with automated delivery, but where they really struggle, is the last mile delivery. So they can automate all the robots, do everything, but then it's like that last mile where actually they have to get on the road and deliver it. They'll handle those subtle nuances that it can get tricky to do it without that direct connection. And I think that there's something similar to artwork and music or visuals. That last mile delivery of if there's a graphic and for you, if you knew how to manipulate it yourself, you could just go in and tweak it and take a minute to get it exactly how you want it to look like. But if you have no idea how to do it and you have to communicate it, you could go back and forth to 10 different revisions before you actually get the one that you really want for the last mile of delivery. So it sounds like that's one thing that you're trying to do.

Curtis: And that's what I mean about learning the basic aspects of something Photoshop is that you can better communicate to people you hire. Can you give it to me like this? All right. Can you deliver the file in this way so I can edit it? If you had an album cover or a single cover or something like that, it was designing, you're saying: Hey, can you make sure it's all layered so I can take all that stuff and rearrange it? That's going to save a lot of time, since you're not going to have to feel like you have to keep going back out to other people. The thing I would say regarding if you're getting into it, not everybody has the same eye. You talk about genius zones or knowing what your best at. When I'm working on a record, I have people. I don't mix my own stuff. I don't master my own stuff. Could I learn how to do it? Absolutely! But it's not my genius zone. And I have people who I love what they do and I reach out to them and I have them do it. Same kind of thing. If it's not a natural thing to you, like number one, just get feedback from people, right? I think it's really easy for people to say: Hey, give me some feedback on this song, but they won't say: Hey, will you give me some feedback on this single artwork?

Michael: Oh, yeah. So smart! It's a great opportunity to include your fans too. If you have a community, ask them for feedback.

Curtis: Because you might think something looks really cool cause it's something you haven't ever done and you made it, and they're just like: meh this doesn't look… whatever. And again, it's not personal. It's just like your first impression of things. I think getting feedback, all the time, in any aspect of what you're trying to do, you might initially think something makes sense or looks really good. And then you'd find out: Oh, actually, it seems that it's not true.

Michael: That's such a good point. Yeah. I think it's something we all have to be careful of as your own cooking always tastes better because of the fact that, for good reason, you invested time and energy and hard work into it. But there is such a thing as… if you spent 10 days creating a Microsoft Paint picture, and then a tendency/a bias is going to be towards thinking it's like even more awesome than it necessarily is. So it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Curtis: So when I worked at these advertising firms and stuff like that in New York when I lived there, it's an ongoing joke, anybody who's done graphic design that the client doesn't know what they want until they see it. Which is an annoying thing if you're hiring a graphic designer, cause you'll do one thing and be like: no… that's not quite it. And then you'll do another thing and then they'll say something and you do exactly what they say. And they're like: no, that's not what I meant. [both laughing]

Michael: Right

Curtis: So it is an ongoing joke that people don't know what they want until they see it. So for example, how I would see this, is: imagine if you went to an artist and you actually had a serious… and you had AI sketches of what it is that you were doing, and then you were like: go with that, you're going to eliminate all the revisions and the back and forth and like stuff that you'd have just wasting time otherwise. As for how you articulate to get an exact thing, like you said, personally, you'd already have a bunch of stuff defined as far as what your aesthetic is, what your ethos is and things like that, as well as, you'd likely spend a lot of time trying a bunch of different directions to see which one was it. And in that process, you might discover something that didn't initially come to the forefront. For example, you can have an album artwork or something like that's illustrated; it looks like a graphic novel. Think of The I Love You Honey Bear, and the first Father John Misty record. They look like illustrations. But then you can think about things that have 3D renderings of things and weird very jumping out at it. There's a lot of descriptive terms that you can explore and leave to the AI to just go off of the words and you'd be like: Ooh, I like this. Can you make it more illustrated in the style of such and such or more like this 3D artist. A good thing too, when you're looking for influences is, rather than just looking at bands, look at visual artists. Because the AI does replicate that stuff really well. If you were like: I love Keith Haring. The way that he did all these weird doodling.

Michael: Keith Haring?

Curtis Yeah, you know that guy from the 80s. He would do all that Subway artwork in the 80s. It's like a very stylized thing. I just pulled it as an example, right? Like I said, if you did Van Gogh, it would look like his very wild brush strokes. The 3D artists, you probably would have to research a bunch on your own. Just Google “top 3D artists”, so like that and just look through their catalogs. I've actually found that a lot of times, AI is pretty good at either finding that stuff and replicating it, or the same thing, you use a reference.

Michael: So Curtis this is a little bit of an interesting segue to it, but I think some of the themes that you explore in and futurists, I want to hear your perspective on the role of psychedelics themselves as a tool for creativity and human creativity as it relates to maybe something like the visuals or as it relates to creating music. Do you think that there's value in using them as tools?

Curtis: I would say yes and no. It depends specifically on the person. I've described it this way: there are people who really need to use psychedelics and there are people who really need to stop using psychedelics. I've seen both ends of the spectrum where I would say the value in psychedelics is an openness to seeing things that were not there before, or are always there, but you haven't been able to perceive. I think that's the most observable, psychedelic experiences. Things are trippy, right? Like what is trippy? I think trippy is that you're seeing things that are there. You're seeing, anybody who's described watching trees or something while you're on mushrooms or something like that. You're seeing the life; the connectedness, the patterns of these sorts of things. I'm saying this in personal experience. I kind of default to an addictive personality, right? So I have definitely taken a lot of psychedelics and I don't really take them anymore. I know that you've gotten a tremendous value out of ayahuasca.

Michael: [sarcastically] I’m tripping right now, man! Someone drag me to the bucket. [both laughing]

Curtis: For example, when I started taking an ayahuasca, ayahuasca told me to stop taking everything else. That was something that I really got from the messaging of that is that there is a line between expanding your mind and abusing. This is my own little personal, public broadcast announcement.

Michael: I stopped drinking after I attended an ayahuasca ceremony and it was part of the same thing was just evaluating my body and my relationship with everything and everyone around me and the relationship that I had with drinking wasn't serving anyone really?

Curtis: Yeah. There's often a net negative in that way. So, again, I would say that there were people who just cannot see outside of the box that I would say: Absolutely! I would recommend doing it in a ceremony. Again, you can do that with ayahuasca. You can do that with peyote. You can do that with mushrooms. There's a lot of things. I tend to default towards organic psychedelics at this point, philosophically. For example, LSD is pretty easy to abuse and again, I'm speaking on personal experience, right? It's not for everybody. That's the case. But for me, it was pretty easy. If you get yourself a vial of LSD, then literally everything I'm doing is: Oh, it's one way. Maybe what if I did it when I was on LSD? Then I can't just go to the grocery store without being… So that's a personal kind of caveat is that I don't think it's necessarily like something that you can just flippantly recommend that everybody go and do. However, like ayahuasca in particular I still believe in ayahuasca and I still talk about ayahuasca a lot and it's changed my life in a pretty drastic way spiritually. Letting go of things that aren't serving me, realizing things that I'm not realizing. As for the visual component, man! Yeah, it's huge. Like that was like a big part of my growing up and experiencing music and experiencing art the way it conveys itself visually. I think that there is an unconscious understanding that plays out in the way that I animate, for example. You can see things like; this can go into that in a way that maybe you wouldn't see otherwise if you had not experienced that in a psychedelic experience. 

Michael: Yeah.It's super interesting. I think the fact that we can have this conversation more openly now reflects even just the current culture around psychedelics. The FDA has fast tracked psychedelics use for therapy and in a positive setting. They've got a breakthrough therapy status and they're finding some incredible correlations between using them in a respected way with therapist as well to help process things and seeing people that have been resistant to all forms of pharmaceuticals, but actually having real breakthroughs with these tools. So it certainly seems like we're entering an era where we're recognizing the value and using these in a respectful way and with caution. I also think that there's a lot of propaganda that is just not true. That's been spread into the narrative.

Curtis: Oh yeah! If I watch any movie and there's like a stoner stereotype, I'm just like: God, this is so tired. You maybe meet one person who's stoned like that; who just like: I can't think anymore. What? And that's not what people are doing and behaving like. But just like I said, the respect is the really big thing. I think some people smoke a lot of weed because they don't want to feel their emotions. I genuinely feel that cause I've done that before.

Michael: Yeah.

Curtis: I think it nullifies that. But again, if you smoke weed and make music and stuff like that, there's thousands/millions of people who would go: yes, I know exactly what you're talking about! So yes, there is a bunch of propaganda and I think the propaganda is twofold. One, people are mimicking that: oh, I saw this movie and now I'm going to act like I'm in dazed and confused or something like that. But also I think the propaganda is also, so you don't find out for yourself, because there is a lot of thinking for yourself that kind of comes out of psychotropic psychedelic experiences. You figure things out for yourself and therefore that's always been a threat to authority structures.

Michael: Yeah. One thing that I found really fascinating just exploring the landscape and the history of psychedelics, which is how how much of the war on drugs, as it relates to psychedelics in particular, was politically motivated. At the time, hippies were anti-war and the psychedelics really got attached to this counterculture movement. I think the biggest concern for people is that “I'm gonna go crazy if I did psychedelics”. That like: oh, it's gonna make me lose my mind, or I'm gonna have a bad trip. Bad trip… Ah!!! And to a certain extent it can be true.

Curtis: As someone who has had bad trips I don't call them bad trips. I call them challenging trips. Because you're being challenged in it. And again, I have had some scary psychedelic experiences. I'm not saying that to deter people. Sid Barrett, the original singer of Pink Floyd, lost his mind because he took too much LSD. He lost his mind and he wasn't able to be in the band anymore, and they went on without him, and he lost his mind, and he just lived at home with his mom because he was debilitated. That's not a thing to say that that doesn't happen. But he was abusing it. He was taking it every single day, all day long. You can abuse chips & queso. You can eat chips and queso all day long. You're just eating chips and queso. I love chips and queso. And then all of a sudden you're really unhealthy. So I think the fear of losing your mind is not an accurate fear if you're experiencing it in a safe place with people you trust. The thing with psychedelics, they always say is: set and setting. I'm sure you've heard that where: what's your mindset when you're taking it and what's your setting. Are you in a safe space where you can process challenging it? Cause it's not a bad trip. You're not confronting Beelzebub and he's going to engulf and swallow you into the pits of hell. But you're maybe confronting something about yourself where you're like: wow, I've been running away from this feeling my entire life. And it’s like: you can't run away from it anymore. And that's challenging. And when you're experiencing it at first, you're going to resist it, and that's where the fear, it talks about. So on one end of the spectrum, it can happen, but you have to be abusing it. You can abuse food. You can abuse work. You can abuse anything that is maybe good for you, but taken in large quantities, or without an intent we were talking about before, it can become like that. However, if you're like: Hey, I'm stuck in a rut. I don't like my job. I don't like my life. I don't like my relationships. Like I'm not connected. I'm not seeing solutions. I actually probably would recommend that to someone had they opened up and they had an outlet to it that was a safe environment where it was treated with respect you're looking for the answers.

Michael: Yeah, this is something I don't talk about very often because I think we're still at a place of society and culture where we're still learning about these tools, and there's still a lot of fear and residual things. For the past six years, I've been attending once a year at a place called SoulQuest. It's actually in Orlando, Florida, and it's one of the few places in the country where it's legal to use it. The facility that they set up have an amazing volunteer system with therapists who are helping to integrate the sessions and medical staff to make sure everyone's doing it safely. And it's certainly not…. If anyone looks up ayahuasca and researches it, then you'll see pretty quickly that it's not necessarily like a recreational Hey let's go, get high on drugs”, but it really is a powerful tool. A medicine. They call it plant medicine and some of the things I've seen… I've been sending it once a year for the past six years and people always do integration circles, and there's people who come with some serious trauma, usually related to some sort of abuse, from childhood abuse or sexual abuse or violence. In some cases, they're on their last resort. They said: I literally tried everything! I was suicidal. And they come and they have this breakthrough experience where they're able to heal and forgive and atually transform from it. And they have these studies that they're doing around these tools. It's part of the reason that they have breakthrough therapy status. Yeah. It's something that I feel like has been a really important part of my own journey and I don't talk about it very often because I don't want to be judged. But I do think that, used in the right setting with respect and doing it in a safe way, it's a really valuable tool for discovering who we are, and healing, and making the world a better place.

Curtis: Oh, definitely. The very first time… So it's been a minute since I've taken ayahuasca, but when I lived in Brooklyn I had a friend and he would always do it at his apartment. And he's one of my best friends. And he exposed me to it and it really changed my life. The first time I had done it, I was personally struggling with some personal betrayal issues that I had felt. And I was sick. I knew I was sick. I was full of resentment and a lot of things, and literally the personal thing that was bothering me? I didn't care literally after the first time. I see it. I see it from your perspective. I see it from everybody's perspective. I see it from a bird's eye view. And then the other thing to say is, as someone who's been pretty experimental my entire life, the other pretty profound thing to me is that it told me like, you don't need to do all these experimental things anymore. Ayahuasca told me that. I had an experience in ayahuasca that was like: these other things you're doing? You're abusing it. Stop doing that. Had I not taken the ayahuasca, I probably still could have been. And I think that's what's interesting about it too, is that sometimes, abusing substances, and again, I include food in this because I think that's a pretty common thing in America that's not really… actually the world, but particularly in America, that's not really talked about is that people abuse food pretty heavily. There are things that like: hey, this thing that you're doing, it's really about this emotion that you don't want to feel. It's really about this emotion that you don't want to feel. And you're ready to let go of it so you don't do it anymore. The crazy thing about it is it stuck. It's not like I'm like: Oh, I got to figure it out. It stuck. It just clicked. I think you described the thing with the alcohol. It just clicks. It just clicks, and you're like: yeah, I get it. There's diminishing returns on this thing that I've been doing. But as far as the healing…. What's so great about most ayahuasca things is: it's not a party drug. A majority of the time you're probably going to purge! You're probably gonna throw up! Again, that's not supposed to turn people off too, because some people get turned off by the throwing up part. It feels good. It feels good. You're like: Oh, I needed that out of me. I've heard stories about people who were dry heaving on the grass in the jungle and when they went back to date, all of the grass was white, like it had been like bleached. Like there was something that came out of you that just: Ooh, this was like in you. And I think that there's all these, depending on your level of spirituality, like me personally, you get attachments. There's entities and things that attach to you and they associate with your mindset and what you think is possible. And I think the addictive one is a self sabotaging one that I think is actually like a spiritual component. And if you can look at it, and you can get it out of you, I do think that there's some levity that comes out of the backside of it that really improves your life drastically. 

Michael: Yeah. It's fascinating. It definitely seems like one of the core things that's came up every time is just that these tools can be powerful for pattern recognition and breaking patterns. Our minds are really good at creating habits and patterns and the same thought process over and over again. And in some cases, it seems like there's literally generational trauma and generational patterns and pain that we're carrying around with us that we might not even be aware of. And these tool can be a way to get perspective and actually just look inside and be like: Whoa, there's this thing! I've been carrying that around for so long and I wasn't even aware of it and to be able to release that is really powerful. I do want to address that I don't think that ayahuasca or any plant medicine or any substance is necessarily required in order to heal and be at peace and be who you are. Meditation is an amazing practice and that's certainly something that I've found a deeper appreciation for through the work that I've done with this medicine. And that being said, I do feel like it's a tool. It's very powerful. In a weekend, you might get the breakthrough that might have taken a year of meditating for 20 minutes a day to get to. So I do think that in combination and used in the right setting, that it can be a great supplement.

Curtis: Yeah that's essentially what I was trying to clarify. I try to be very conscious with the way that I talk about it. Because if you were to talk to me 10 years ago, I'd have been like: [in a stoner voice] Yeah, everybody needs to do it, man! It just really gets you out of it. And then I went through some personal stuff where I was like: I don't know what I'm talking about, actually. I don't actually know what I'm talking about. “This is not medical advice.” Part of the wisdom that I've pulled out of it is that I don't think that there is a blanket statement that you can say towards people. There's definitely been people who I would be like: please don't do that. Please don't do that, because you already know what you know. It could be a personality thing or you're not ready for it. You hear the thing a lot: when you're ready, it appears itself or it appears in your life. Something like ayahuasca is: you might have a curiosity about it. And then all of a sudden, you meet somebody who says: come with me to this thing. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, cool. Now the time is right. I'm definitely no advocate for everybody doing it and going out and doing it, but I'm pretty libertarian with a philosophy about it. It's your body, and so it's your decision. Research it, find out what's a safe way to do it, get some input from people who've done it before or something like that. I'm just real conscious about how I was when I was so much more of an idiot. Just being like: yeah, man! That was a lot of my youth in a way that I'm drastically different now. But I would say: it's just how I mind it. I'm always looking for answers. I'm always looking for deeper meaning of what's happening, so it's natural that I wound up in that and it's just also poignant and funny to me that the more I did it, the more I realized I didn't need to do it.

Michael: That is interesting. Yeah, it's a cyclical, almost reflective paradox in that.

Curtis: I think personally, I have a lot of things. I've been very creative like my entire life and my parents have been very supportive of it without understanding how to support it, if that makes sense. So I think that there was a big part of me getting into it, particularly when I went to college, because I was lik:  I want to go to college out of state. I left Texas, I went to Colorado and a big part of that is because I wanted to think for myself and I wanted to figure things out for myself. And so I think I had this thing for a while that's like: you need this stuff to be extra/ultra creative. And I think the bigger lesson that came along is: no, you're always like this and now you're just comfortable being like this, even though your mom and dad don't get you. That's literally the trajectory and I went on a journey to get there. And maybe the lesson/the takeaway is I'm okay with that now. I'm okay that I'm going to make different decisions than my parents did.

Michael: That's powerful. Yeah. What came to mind was that quote: wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you go, there you are. And it seems like where the trap can be with something like Ayahuasca or LSD or alcohol or food can be when you're not fully present and you're using it as an escape. You're using it to get away from being with yourself and feeling those feelings.

Curtis: It’s those emotions. I have a personal belief that a lot of cancer and illness and a lot of this stuff is coming from this stuff that you've been repressing it for so long, for so long and it's building up and now it's metastasized into something that's physical. I really do think it comes down to an emotional component. Something challenging. It could be generational. You might be like: I had a pretty good childhood or whatever, or you might have been: I had a traumatic childhood. That's not really as important. It's really more so that there's something that just makes you uncomfortable. And it probably has to do with: you're just a little bit out of alignment with who you truly are. And I think that everybody's trying to just find that path of: this is who I am and I'm okay with it. I often feel that when you've arrived at a real lesson, if someone says “I don't see it that way” or like something like that, you're like: cool. You don't feel the desire to defend it. That defensiveness to me, that's like a very young thing. You don't get me, mom and dad! That's like such a thing of… People just go on about politics or something like that. If you were just okay with it, like you wouldn't need to have the other person see it from your perspective. You'd be like: cool. And I think that's the journey that I've come to. I do a lot of really creative stuff and a lot of really weird stuff. Like I was telling you, I went to college and my parents came to this interdisciplinary performance class that I was telling you about, and it was just like the most bonkers thing off the wall. And my parents are like: what are you going to do for a job? My dad was like: maybe you should join Blue Man Group or something. He's just: I don't know where this fits. And I'm like: I don't want to join Blue Man Group, dad. And now I'm okay with it, and I say: the more you become okay with it, the more other people become okay with it because there's not this tension of having to be. And then I would say the older I get, I've had some pretty profound moments where for example, my dad actually admires me in a way that when you're a kid, everything's about you and like looking up to your dad. They know everything. And then there's certain things where my dad's like:wow, like you did it this way. I wish I did something more like that.

Michael: It's powerful stuff. Yeah. Hey dude, thank-you again for coming on here and having a candid conversation about something I think is extremely important for all of us as artists, which is the visual components of who we are and expressing that. We geeked out a little bit. We played around with some of the tools and explored how we can use these tools to get a headstart in terms of generating ideas, and we rounded it home by coming back to a different kind of tool and talking about the relationship that we might have as creators/as musicians. And it's probably worth mentioning here that all of this stuff… we're not recommending that you go do ayahuasca or that you go do… I think we've been pretty clear about that that you need to have a respect for yourself and the decisions that you make. And so this is by no means saying that you should go out and do ayahuasca or do something else. If you feel called to it and you do your research and it's something you think could be a valuable tool, then I think that's something that you should decide for yourself. And I think that there is a tremendous potential there for when it's used in the right way. I think the SoulQuest organization that I've been a part of is a good place to research if that's something you're actually looking at. But yeah, I appreciate you and Curtis coming on here and being able to help create a space here where we can actually talk about some of these things that might be a little bit taboo from the past as it relates to things like psychedelics.

Curtis: No, I appreciate talking about it. And honestly, I think I've had enough life experience. You were talking about respectfulness. I would elaborate on that and say there's a sacredness to it. There's a sacredness to it that will take you where you need to go if it's right for you. And again, like to summarize the visual stuff, I would say: just take your visual stuff as seriously as you take your music stuff. Because, like I said, they'll see you before they hear you. And it's only gonna make it richer. You listen to music and you look at things. Even if you close your eyes, you're seeing things. The visual component, I would say, just take it as seriously. And if it doesn't come naturally to you, just seek out help in the same way that you do for anything else. I didn't know anything about marketing before I started working at Modern Musician, and like now I know some things, but it wasn't a natural thing to me. All of those aspects to it just make it a richer thing. To tie the psychedelics talk is: just be comfortable being yourself, as far as what you're saying, cause that's going to translate. You're not trying all of these examples of trying to reference things, it's not to copy them. It's just that there's something about that stands out to you and you're acknowledging that it stands out to you and then you're trying to speak from your own voice towards those things.

Michael: Beautiful. Yeah. Extremely well put. All right. Curtis, for anyone that's listening to this right now who's interested in connecting more and maybe is interested in collaborating on artwork, what would be the best place for them to go to learn more?

Curtis: If you want to pick my brain or you want to hire me, go to avalancheartists.com That's plural. That's where all my stuff is and all my portfolio stuff is. I do music videos, graphic design, lyric videos, all that kind of stuff. If you want to check out my music or support me in that realm, my band is called Futurist and I sing and write and do all the visual stuff for that as well. Futurist is the name of the band. If you want to check out my website, it's futuristnow.net. That's where you can find everything like that. And then if you are involved in Modern Musician, just say hi to me through the Discord or whatever. I love talking about this stuff. I really care about branding and aesthetic, and I just like things to look nice. I just like things to look nice. There's a lot of ugly things in this world. And you look out at the world: architecture, branding, there's a lot of things where people just don't care anymore. I'm passionate about it because I think things can look beautiful with intent. 

Michael: Awesome. Love it. And I definitely wanted to bring this up because I thought this was a fun fact: My father-in-law; you're one of his favorite artists. Futurists. He's I've shared some Modern Musician artists at a few points and you're one that he's added to his playlist and he brings up Futurist occasionally. So that's a fun little connection. And also, I couldn't, more highly recommend anyone who is interested in visual artwork and is looking for someone to help create that together, Curtis is just a top notch designer. I've worked with you personally for music related things as well. I've been really excited about what we've come out with. Definitely take advantage of that resource if you're someone who's looking for help in that area and you can reach out with the links that we provide in the show notes. 

Curtis: Cool. I appreciate that. And again, I love connecting with people. The big thing is that I like getting the input of what people do and I'm like: this is a cohesion to it. I really enjoy finding that for each individual cause each person is unique in that way.

Michael: Yeah, that’s so true. There really is something true that: we're a community, like we're a family here, and the part of the family is that we have different skill sets and different genius zones. I would totally encourage us to both related to visual artwork and anything else, whatever your genius is, we have a private community. Some of you are watching this here live right now from our discord private community. If you're watching this anywhere else or listening to the podcast, if you'd like to connect with the Modern Musician community, then you can click on the link in the show notes and join completely for free with a big family of other artists that are supporting each other and collaborating and creating something really special together. If you are a member of the community already, we have a channel called, what's it called? Gifts/Collaborations. If you go to the Gifts Collaborations, I think that'd be a really great opportunity for all of us to just share what do we have as a genius zone or what are the gifts? What can we contribute to other projects? I would love to really help facilitate these relationships between artists with each other, cause I think together that's going to be one of the most valuable things about creating this community.

Curtis: I think the thing we're generating is that we've been programmed to be like: if someone's succeeding, then that means you're not. And it's no, no, no! That's what I like about working with other people is you take it in. You want their project to be the best thing it can be, and that's a good way to think about collaboration.

Michael: Absolutely. All right. Let's go ahead and let's wrap up the podcast for today. Let's give a round of applause to Curtis for being here. We'll do one final. Yeeaaah.

Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

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