Adam McInins:
When you put the realistic hurdles and expectations of a business that only so many people actually are successful in, when they put it on the table, if everything goes, "Yeah, I'll do this," then that's when I think I've seen people actually be able to. The people who tend to be able to do that, are people who aren't too sensitive because there's going to be a lot of no's in the industry. You'll hear, going to hear, they always say you're going to hear a thousand no's, but that one yes, will open the door. That's totally true. You're going to hear tons of people saying no until you get to a certain degree of excellence and then you hear a lot more yeses.

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 slowly 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.

Michael Walker:
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. I'm excited to be here today with Adam McInins. Adam is a songwriter, producer, an artist in blockbuster movies. He's gained over 70 million views by placing his songs on TV and film. He's had tracks placed on VH1, MTV, HBO, ESPN, Fox, ABC, CMT, basically every network that you would recognize, he's been there, which is awesome. He's created something called the Billboard 500 Club, which is an online music network where Grammy award winners, A&R, Sync agents, and platinum artists really help to network and teach you what they've learned.

Michael Walker:
It's really the lessons that they've learned that helped them to make great music, to be able to market to their fans in an authentic way, be able to get paid doing what they love. I'm super excited to have Adam here on the podcast. We're going to be talking through Sync success and really getting back in touch with your music and who you are so that you can make a bigger, positive impact with your music. Adam, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Adam McInins:
Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for having me.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Just to kick things off, I would love to hear just a little bit about your story and kind of how you got started and find your way here. We were just talking a little bit backstage before I started the interview and Adam, he's in Costa Rica and he is doing some really cool stuff with retreats. I love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you got started with this.

Adam McInins:
Sure. Well, the quick story of music is I was raised in New York and I was around all different kinds of, listening to different kinds of music growing up. There wasn't really a genre. I didn't even know about racism because everyone was so different and the culture's mixed in my schools. I was really infused with hiphop and reggae and rock and singer songwriters and poetry and all these things, but I wasn't talented. I was surrounded by it. My mother was a singer. I would always hear her sing.

Adam McInins:
I was in college. I remember I got to that point where everyone's like, "What are you going to do for a living? What are you going to do?" I said, "Well, I'll probably just write scripts because I like writing stuff for movies and I think I can get into that." While I was going to school to write scripts, a couple friends who were singers in the local area, were getting a lot of visibility. They were getting scouted for major opportunities because they were amazing singers.

Adam McInins:
I was asked to write some songs because they said, "Oh, well you write scripts and scripts are kind of like songs. Maybe you can make shorter versions of scripts, which are songs." I started kind of dabble in that and one of the songs ended up on local radio and people were putting it in the rotation. At the time, the girlfriend that I was dating, she signed a, who was singing my demos, she would go in the studio and sing her demos and I would create lyrics and she'd sing them as well.

Adam McInins:
She signed a really big record deal for $3.6 million with Motown Universal. In college, I basically went from being the boyfriend who's trying to write poetry scripts, and then now, I'm also the security guard for my girlfriend, who's now traveling around the world and working in these massive sessions with people like Diane Warren and Jermaine Dupri. They have her on this whole roster. I was just there to see it all and to kind of not only be a fly on the wall, but I'm very inquisitive. I was able to ask questions and get direct answers from people in the beginning of my career.

Adam McInins:
I'm sitting there with massive Grammy award winners from the biggest songwriter in the world and I'm asking them, how did they get here and how does this work. I was able to get a lot of information in the beginning and I always enjoyed entrepreneurship. Like as a kid, I was selling candy out of my locker or paintballs or something that if someone needed something, I was like, "Oh, maybe I can turn this to a little business because we didn't have money growing up."

Adam McInins:
I figured, "If I can make a little bit here," and then I realized something really quick in the music industry is that most musicians didn't know the business. I realized, "I'm not good at music. I can't sing. I don't play instruments. I like to write. I like to write lyrics and things like that," but I need to learn this business thing because all the talented people don't know this thing.

Adam McInins:
I realized there was like this separation. The more talented people I met, the less they knew about the business. I figured, "Okay, if I learned the business right now and I can build talent," because talent's just a skillset. I was 22 years old, 21 years old. I was completely tone deaf. I went to some vocal coaches. They told me don't sing. You actually can't hear the pitch.

Adam McInins:
I remember hearing them say that and going, "But you don't know me. You're just saying based on today." Today, someone who's never tried really tried singing, you're saying I can't do it today, but I know anything that someone can do is repeatable by anyone else, as long as it's not hereditary. You're telling me I can't sing today it's because I'm not practicing, but if I practice, I'll figure this thing out.

Adam McInins:
What I realized in the upcoming years was that when it came to pitch and so if anyone listening to this, if someone tells you can't sing, you're your tone deaf, don't listen to them. It's just, you haven't figured out how to tap into what vibration is yet.

Adam McInins:
What I started doing was hitting the piano scales and trying to sing the notes. At first, I could tell I was off. I wasn't hitting what was there, but as I got closer and closer, I would start to feel a vibration. If I was sharp, it would go really fast. If I was flat, it would go really slow. When I hit it right, it was like a perfect smoothness. Instead of trying to learn how to sing, I had to learn how to find smoothness in the notes instead of this whole thing of like you're off pitch. I was like, "No. I didn't find the smooth vibration yet."

Adam McInins:
Then, as I developed that and started to understand that, I started to pick up instruments and piano and bass and guitar and learned how to sing. I started to develop these skillsets. Since I knew the business, I was able to kind of get into it quicker because a lot of the things that people were making mistakes doing, I just wasn't doing those things. I made mistakes along the way, but luckily I had a bit of foundation.

Adam McInins:
We're talking about years, years ago, but that was the foundation and I had some really great mentors that I worked with. I learned some good things from them. I saw them do some bad things, but realized I didn't want to do that. Like I said, kind of learned things along the way. I started getting songs on TV shows and that was the beginning of it, of placing stuff. I think my first placement was in 2005 or something like that. That's when I first understood, wait, if you get on this thing called TV and you have a song and people like it, you mean you don't have to pay for promotion?

Adam McInins:
Everyone else is like, "How do I get on the radio? I want to get on the radio." I kept hearing people say this and I go, "But who pays to go on the radio?" You do. You're paying for that. Everyone looked at me, "What do you mean?" I'm going, "Okay. If you get a record deal, they're paying for you to be on the radio and then you're paying that back. It's not free, but if you get it on a TV show, it's free and they're paying you."

Adam McInins:
That model just made way more sense in my mind. I'm a very logical person. It's like one plus one equals two to me. You can't try to warp my mind or give me some weird dream thing. I'm going to look at this and go, "Wait, but these other friends I know are going into debt with these labels." Then, over here, I'm getting paid to get on TV. I don't know why everyone's shooting for this thing. I'm going to go over here.

Adam McInins:
That's what I did. I started focusing but understanding the Sync world and we kind of brought up very briefly, but the Sync world is not what people think it is. It's kind of like when someone says a country that no one's been to, people are like, "Oh yeah, I've seen pictures of it." You're like, "No, no. You've never been there. You don't know what it's actually like." Okay. That's what the Sync world is.

Adam McInins:
A lot of people say this word, "Sync you get on TV." I'm like, "No, no. It's a whole different side of the business. It's got its own nuance level understandings. It's got fast turnarounds. You've got to be very, very good at what you do to make a successful living.

Adam McInins:
Unfortunately, I see a lot of people kind of, there's a lot of scams in this music business in general, because wherever there's a treasure, there's going to be shark swimming around it. There's people who are like, "Yeah. You can learn how to sync from home." I'm like, "No. There's half-truths being spilled around this business and a lot of businesses in general."

Adam McInins:
Anyway, that being said, when I got more understanding with the business, I opened up a recording studio. I started retreats that brought artists to different places to get themselves out of it, out of the mainframe, the matrix, and then really just aligned with some great business partners and we're working on some wild projects right now that are all invested only in things that are intentional. We're only working with artists who are intentional. We're only supporting people who are intentional. We're investing in music and films and documentaries.

Adam McInins:
We're starting a new lane for people who generally want to be in touch with the reason why they're actually making the art because I see right now what's happening is that no one's really caring about that. It's just about eyeballs and shock value and making quick, instant, gratification attention, but that's not intention.

Adam McInins:
Unfortunately, they're then teaching this mindset and methodology to the next generation. The way I see what's happening in the modern music industry is artists ask questions like how do I break out, how do I do this and how do I do that? How they find information is they try to source someone who they think is successful.

Adam McInins:
The difference between thinking and knowing could be valleys. You have no clue what kind of contract that person signed. You have no clue how many writers are on that song. You have no clue who they're in debt to. Being successful is a theory if you don't know if that person is.

Adam McInins:
What I tend to notice is that when people look at other artists, they look to how they can get there the quickest. Sometimes, the quickest is not the best, in a lot of ways, it's not the best because you have no foundation. If you go for the quick way, you might not have understanding of how to do it again because you have no foundation. What I'm seeing is a society that is basically taking a prod, like an electric prod and prodding the cattle, which is their fans. They prod them and corral them into these little groups. Then, they're teaching up and coming artists to then take the torch of the electric prod and do it to them too.

Adam McInins:
Basically, artists, which used to be the capturing of beauty, the capturing of culture, the capturing of interactions in society is turning into basically prod holders to shock people. That's not what music is for. It's so far from what music is for that we've taken such a left field from it that myself and my business partners are creating a new lane that is really just going back to intention, which is where it should have been kept the whole time, but that's the short of things.

Michael Walker:
Thanks for sharing that man. That's amazing. There's so much good stuff in there too. Even just in terms of you sharing your story, hopefully it's inspiring for a lot of people who maybe they have thought, "I'm not talented enough to be a singer. I'm just not, I'm not naturally gifted enough," and seems like a pretty pervasive myth that like you're kind of born with it or you're not and you're living-

Adam McInins:
It's just lies, man. It's just lies.

Michael Walker:
Right.

Adam McInins:
Here's something that's wild. I didn't mean to cut you off, but what you just said is so important, right? Where someone else says you're not born with it, you're not talented enough. Okay. We are the only species on this planet that has the largest sound range. We can go from whispering to singing opera. We're the only species that can do that. Every bird that sings, if another bird says stop singing, it doesn't stop because that's what it uses to call other birds. That's what it's used to connect.

Adam McInins:
With humans, what we do is, someone in fourth grade said, "I don't like your voice." All of a sudden, we make a subconscious contract that we believe that. Then, you ask someone, "Do you sing?" They go, "Only in the shower." You're telling me, you have this ability to go from whispering to singing opera, but you only sing in the shower where no one will see you? That's the level of how emotional this species is to where someone's thought now becomes your identity.

Adam McInins:
That's a reflection of showing how far we've come from what we really are because there's no way, because anyone can sing opera. You can just take opera lessons. I guarantee you could take anyone, put them in two years of opera, they will sing opera, but it's not taught. If anything, it's like this, you can't do it because you're not born with it.

Adam McInins:
Listen, no kid is born singing. What happens is they're born with a certain ability to mimic and their parents sing or they're in church or they listen to the radio and they basically are a parrot. They can mimic things. They have to develop singing. Singing is the developmental thing, which comes with diaphragm and diction and tone and characterization. It's all those other things, scales. That's singing, but the ability to mimic, that's just some kids can do it, some kids can't. That's all it's.

Adam McInins:
For anyone who's hearing this, if someone tells you can't sing, you can't sing today. It doesn't mean you can't sing in two years from now, but singing is different from an industry and that has to be said as well, because we have this idea that, "Well, it's not just the idea." There's zero barrier of entry anymore for our business. Anyone can release something on Spotify. It doesn't mean it's good. There's this thing of like, everyone should be empowered.

Adam McInins:
The reality is like, "No. No. This industry has certain things you have to get past in order to be respected in it. To act like everyone should get a ribbon just because they recorded a song in a studio is what is also making this business not as valuable. It's the reason why artists don't know their worth. It's because we just said, "Anyone can do it," and whenever you take that with any business, anyone can do it, the value of the business goes down.

Adam McInins:
The reason why even great artists are being paid .004 cents on Spotify is because no one knows how to collect royalties. It's because the majority of artists who are in this world have no clue how to collect their money. They'll just take anything because they just want validation. That part is the part of the business that we need to understand it. Anyone can sing, but doesn't mean everyone could be in the music industry.

Adam McInins:
Those are two different things. It's like anyone can eat food or anyone can cook food, but it doesn't mean everyone should be a chef. Those are completely different things. Makes sense?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Yeah. That's super, super interesting. Yeah, I think that it's something that with, like when you described someone who's growing up and they're young and they're told that you're a bad singer, you can't sing and that can be internalized. It becomes a belief. Then, we could, it's so fascinating how much of our lives and our behaviors are just determined based on what we decide to believe, of which thoughts, we're like, "Yup. That one's true or that one's not true."

Michael Walker:
What would you recommend for everyone that's listening to this right now as sort of, because it can be so hard to point those out in ourselves because we're so close to it, right? It's like we just, we grew up thinking it's true and it's just think it's just the way it is. How does someone kind of look within and kind of point out maybe those limiting beliefs or those false beliefs, that ones that are holding them back?

Adam McInins:
The first part is don't be so sensitive. We're living in a society right now that panders to sensitivity and there's no culture or society or civilization ever in the world that pander to the weak. I mean, that's just the reality. If we went back a thousand years ago and everyone pander to people who are sensitive, we would've not have made it this far. It just would've happened.

Adam McInins:
The first part is don't be so sensitive. Work. I mean, that's just the reality. If you want something, work for that thing. I think the first part just comes on how bad you actually want something. If we're trying to find a process that's repeatable, the first part of the process is why do you want it? That's the first part. Then, once you figure out the why, the why is strong enough, then what are you willing to do to sacrifice to get there, because if you want something, let's talk about the music industry.

Adam McInins:
Most people, if I was to ask them, "What would you determine would be a place where you'd find yourself feeling?" "Okay, I feel like I'm at a certain success level." Most people would say that, "If I was making a 100K a year for music, right. Most people would say that. Some people would say, "Hey, that's 60K," but let's just use the 100K, the six-figure mark because a lot of people have told me that when I've asked musicians.

Adam McInins:
Then, I go, "Okay, cool. Well, how much are you willing to sacrifice not going out with friends, being on the road, being in the studio, having to deal with contracts and managers and having to invest probably a $100,000 of your own, just in your own self, are you willing to do those things?

Adam McInins:
If the answer is no, then you don't want this thing bad enough and that's completely fine. You don't have to, but that's what's most likely going to take for you to get that thing, to be sustainable because you are still in a competitive space. There's only so many songs on TV shows. There's only so many songs on the radio. There's only so many awards that go out. You are still in a competitive space and there's 60,000 songs released a day.

Adam McInins:
There's only a couple of thousand musicians who make a living full time in America. Out of all the people who are the talented kid in his high school and all the people play guitar, everyone knows a guitar player. Everyone knows a person who plays piano, but how many of those people are successful at it? The number goes swoosh. Most people don't have two friends who make over a 100k making music. Most people don't, unless you're in the business, then it's like a normal thing, but if you're not in the business, you're like, I don't know.

Adam McInins:
First it's the why, then is the what? What are you willing to sacrifice? Then, I would also say is how long are you able to give yourself until you get there? Because some people actually have this idea of a time limit on excellence, which excellence doesn't have a time limit on them, they have it on it. If it took you 20 years to become excellent at what you do, who cares? You became excellent. That's great, but if you're like, "No, no, no. I need it in three years or it's not worth it to me." Then, it's like, okay, we're on two different pages with reality here.

Adam McInins:
That's why I said the thing about sensitivity because the program of today's conscious society is saying things come fast. They come exorbitant, means you're masses of them. They become shocking. Then, you can ride this wave up. That's what everyone's thinking of.

Adam McInins:
When you put the realistic hurdles and expectations of a business that only so many people actually are successful in, when they put it on the table, if everything goes, "Yeah, I'll do this," then that's when I think I've seen people actually be able to. The people who tend to be able to do that are people who aren't too sensitive because there's going to be a lot of no's in the industry. You'll hear, going to hear like they always say, you're going to hear a thousand no's but that one yes will open the door, that's totally true.

Adam McInins:
You're going to hear tons of people saying no until you get to a certain degree of excellence and then you hear a lot more yeses and yeses start to become kind of normal. Then, you expect people to say yes, therefore, you come in with leverage and you come in with trying to create win-wins because you know they're going to say yes. How do we make this the best yes we possibly can? But to get to that point, there's to be a lot of no's and those no's are just learning opportunities. Those no's are just like, "Okay, well why did you say no? Ah, because I was off pitch. I need to get on pitch."

Adam McInins:
"Why did you say no?" "Because my production in the mix wasn't too good. I need to work on that." If you can listen to the word, no, and then say why. If you can do that and you can grow from it, then you're always going to get better every single day. Day after day, you're getting better. If you hear the word no and go, "Well, you know what? I don't care, da, da, da, da and sensitivity and ba-ba-ba-ba and all that stuff, then it usually just divides what you really want to be and who you really want to and then all of a sudden you waste too much time. The first thing I said, that's why I went to sensitivity. It's the first part of it all.

Michael Walker:
All right. Let's take a quick break from the podcast so I can tell you about a free, special offer that we're doing right now, exclusively for our podcast listeners. If you get a ton of value from the show, but you want to take your music career to the next level, connect with the community of driven musicians and connect with the music mentors directly that we have on this podcast or if you just want to know the best way to market your music and grow an audience right now, then this is going to be perfect for you.

Michael Walker:
Right now, we're offering a free two-week trial to our music mentor coaching program. If you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to access to our entire music mentor content vault for free. The vault's organized into four different content pillars. The first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least, the business.

Michael Walker:
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Then, once a month, we're going to have our music mentor spotlight series. That's what we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now. One of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top [inaudible 00:21:53] music mentors. A lot of the people that you hear, right here on the podcast are there live interacting with you personally. Imagine being able to connect with them directly.

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On top of all that, you'll get access to our private music mentor community. This is definitely one of my favorite parts of music mentor and maybe the most valuable is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists and link up, collaborate, ask questions, get support, and discuss everything related to your music career. If you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link in the show notes right now. You can sign up for free.

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Michael Walker:
Yeah, that's so good. It really kind of connects with what you're saying about not taking things so personally or thinking that, I feel like for some people, if they hear a no and they get defensive about it, it's because they feel like the no is personal to them or because you said no to me, it's like, I'm not good enough because they're afraid they don't realize that they're able to get better. They might not take the no as constructively as someone who has an open mindset, like you're talking about.

Michael Walker:
Recognizes the no doesn't necessarily, it's not personal. It's not like, I'm not good enough right now or like there's something to learn here. It's I can improve. I can and taking that rather than shutting down, using that as like a learning opportunity, seems like such an important mindset that you just shared.

Adam McInins:
Well, I think it is a personal thing because it's personally about you. I think it is a personal thing. I think that, once again, people are too sensitive. If someone says, "No. This song is not good." They're saying it to you. They're saying that maybe the mix isn't good enough. The production's not good enough. You're competing with other people who are much better personally than you.

Adam McInins:
I think that's the part that because there's an expectation and what I tend to notice is people get depressed when they've created an expectation that doesn't meet their reality or they've been given certain entitled expectations to where other things were said yes to. Then, when there's a real, no, and this no has been built up to be this big thing in their mind, their own adrenaline, their own dopamine has created this image that when it doesn't happen, it's that reflection of those chemicals come back at them because they put it out there. Does that make sense?

Adam McInins:
They've created the thoughts. They've created the dreams. All those is basically adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, they're creating this. They hear no, they get a reflection of a shot back and then they get depressed because they get woo with a bunch of chemicals that make them drop.

Adam McInins:
What I think personally, when we say that word is every no is a chance to figure out how you can turn it into a yes. That's it. If someone says, "This song didn't work," and you say, "Why not?" If they say, "Well, we have five songs and you're against Sia. Well, that's different. If they're like, "You're off pitch." That's a personal thing and that's something you can work on.

Adam McInins:
When they say no and you say, "Okay, tell me why." "That's like a turn to a yes." I'll be back in six months. You know what I mean? I think that's the way that not only is it a healthy way to constantly learn is to say, even if I'm not ready for something now, that's just because I was came before I had all the information. Now, let me get the information come back because I got in this door, I'm sure I can get in this door again. That's the mentality I think is the best way to take.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. One thing I would love to talk to you about, because it sounds like something that's made a huge impact on your life and your career and your success has been, you're surrounding yourself for early finding the right mentors and the people that have been able to guide you along the path.

Michael Walker:
I think a lot of people, almost everyone feels like, "Gosh, I need a mentor. I need a guide. I need someone to help." But a lot of us, we don't necessarily know how do we find that person or who's the right person? Who can we trust? I'd love to hear your thoughts on one, your own mentors. How did you find your mentors? What kind of impact did they have and how can someone who's listening this right now find the right mentor for them?

Adam McInins:
Michael, that's a really good question. I'm going to tell you the short and the long answer, right?

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm.

Adam McInins:
The short answer is mentors are always looking to mentor people who are similar to them. They see people who are reflections of the younger selves, right? If someone's successful, they probably had a really great work ethic. They probably took a lot of no's. They learned how to make them into yeses. They probably made a lot of mistakes. They probably had to be humbled and they probably learned to constantly keep growing and showed up.

Adam McInins:
That word showing up is so important because there's a lot of people that if I was to say, this is going to happen at 1:00 p.m. today. Everyone will be there on time. You're going to see people come late. The person who's showing up is someone who's like, "No, I'm going to be there 15 minutes early, because I'm going to make sure I'm front and line." That's the kind of show up when I say that word.

Adam McInins:
Most of the mentors who are very successful, they can recognize when someone was the earlier version of themselves. They want to help that person because like I was exactly there. I know what that guy's going through. I know what that girl's going through. I can help them because if they can just see the things I saw, they would be on this similar path, right?

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm.

Adam McInins:
That's the first part about mentorship. Regarding my mentors, I met people at, especially when I was first interning and I think internship is so important. People ask me all the time, "Adam, what do you think about internship?" I go, "Well, obviously it depends on who you're interning for. Don't intern for a maniac, but if you're just talking about the act of working for free to in exchange for learning knowledge that you can't find somewhere else, then that's a hundred percent yes.

Adam McInins:
There's too many people who think they need to be paid before they've even actually gotten any credits or any value and they're like, "Well, I graduated Berkeley." I'm like, "So? What does that mean?" You still have to be an intern. You haven't worked in real sessions with major artists. You still have not written a song that is a placeable song yet. Your production still need work. You're not ready to be paid yet.

Adam McInins:
This idea because you went to college and you spent money means you now deserve to be paid, is just crazy because if I was to put you in the room with a hit producer, they would mop the floors with you. You wouldn't even be able to hang the speed. If you told me you're one of the best and I saw it, that's different. That's different. But even then you probably want to intern because they can show the people in the room how great you are. They'll be like, "Oh my God. This person's so good."

Adam McInins:
No matter how it works, you get to kind of take a back door into the nightclub by being an intern. You don't need to show your ID. You just walk in the door and everyone's like, "Oh yeah, you're the intern here." Then, you show them what you can do. Next, you start working on projects. There's this concept that by interning, you're wasting time. It's so far from the truth.

Adam McInins:
By interning, you're learning the secrets of the people who spent 15 years to figure out all the hacks. For most musicians, let's say, I'll speak from producers because that's a lot of things people, I guess, producers and songwriters and artists, they can take two weeks to finish a song. Two weeks finishing a song in any real record industry is way too long, unless you're working on the hit record single right. That you're doing mixing, but I'm talking and over and takes and all this stuff.

Adam McInins:
I'm talking about the writing and production process takes about six hours for anyone professional. You're in and out. The song is done. I'm in so many camps with people all around the world. In six hours, were done with the whole entire song. When someone says two weeks, I go, "Do you know how much you would learn from being an intern to figure out how to get to six hours? How much time you would save of your life if you learned all the hacks that we can show you?"

Adam McInins:
I remember we had an intern one time. He had graduated college. He thought, "I'm an intern. I'm an engineer." We put him on a couple of sessions and he just was not quick enough. His organization wasn't there. We asked them to reorganize some things. We're like, "Hey, throw some of these samples in places that you think they would sound good." He wasn't even throwing them on the right beats and the measures. I'm like, "Wait a second. This guy's a college graduate and he's literally doing things that are so far from paying for." He spent money on this and they did not teach him the right things.

Adam McInins:
Then, at one point, he came to me after work, only working for us for three weeks and he made tons of mistakes. He was like, "Adam, I really need to start getting paid because I can't keep coming." We said, "Hey man, listen, we're trying to help you. You are so far from being paid in a real studio that there's no way we can do it, but there's also no one around here who will hire someone unless they're really quick."

Adam McInins:
You live in Los Angeles and any big studio needs really, all the engineers in big studios are great in LA. There's no kind of sort ofs. Everyone in a big studio in LA is a really great engineer. Great. They can even produce vocals. It's just this expectation. I think of, I want something because I just paid for something. I mean, that doesn't always transcend.

Adam McInins:
Internships I think is great for mentors. Obviously, the Billboard 500 Club, that's the club that I run. That's a beautiful place for mentors because we have over 40 mentors. We have Grammy award. There's eight award winners in there. Grammy award winners, platinum producers, BMI award winners, ASCAP award winners, Kpop award winners.

Adam McInins:
In that group, not only do we have music people, but we also have business investors who come on and teach on business. We have a guy in there who's a billionaire who teaches on business. We have entertainment lawyers who come in and teach on reading contracts. They will literally take out your contract and read it for you and show everyone how they would negotiate it.

Adam McInins:
In that club, and it is the reason that the artists in that club are learning more information than any artist that I've worked with beginning of the career and I've worked with tons of upcoming artists, but if you were to take any of the artists from that club and put them in the room with other artists, our club would just run around circles with people.

Adam McInins:
It's because of the information and because of the community. It's like when someone learns something, they'll even show their collaborator in the room, "Hey, did you learn this from the last mentor? Oh, I'll show you." We watched the video. Let's take notes. It's a different thing.

Adam McInins:
Now, I will say the last part about mentors is some people that you meet, you're going to be given an opportunity and if you are ready for that opportunity or not. What I mean by that is sometimes you're going to meet people that's going to feel like synchronicities, because it is, and you are meant to meet that person. You are meant to hear that person. You're meant to run in contact with them and you can feel it. You're like, "Oh, there's something here. I don't know what it is. We kind of know each other, but we don't know each other." You've ever had that feeling where it's like, "How do we know each other, right?"

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm.

Adam McInins:
You might be given an opportunity, but if your ego or your fear holds you back, that's where the actual choice of your career just happened. That's the splitting of the roads in a sense, if you were to follow the, remove the ego, remove the fear, remove all that stuff.

Adam McInins:
You might follow down a path where someone's actually going to open up everything for you and show you all these things and change your life but if the fear and the ego part are more part of your identity, then what happens in that is that you tend to not see the opportunity or you throw it away or then you don't validate it. I've seen a lot of that.

Adam McInins:
When it comes to mentors, that's the best thing I can say is internships, finding people who are like the older version of you, removing your ego or your fear because that seems to head up, that hurts a lot of people nowadays. I see so many people lose opportunities because of their ego. They think that they're right around the corner of being famous because they saw someone else on TikTok do it.

Adam McInins:
Then, they'll get good opportunities and they just ruined them. I've seen a lot of that, but then at the same time, they'll go and complain like, "It's so hard to find a team." They're like, "No, you're the person who's destroying the teams. It's you. That's the best thing I say about mentorships.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm. That's so good man. Yeah. Mentorship, I feel like that's one of the most important things that determines someone's success versus failings like having finding, having the right mentor, being willing to learn.

Adam McInins:
Thousand percent.

Michael Walker:
There's a quote that I heard like this idea of, that we tend to become like the five people that we surround ourselves with.

Adam McInins:
Yup. Yup.

Michael Walker:
That network effect is so important. Yeah. I firstly invested over $150,000 in the past two years in mentorship and 1000% it's like one of the best investments because it buys you back your time.

Adam McInins:
Yup.

Michael Walker:
I mean, as you're describing like the Billboard 500, I'm like, that sounds really cool. I'm personally interested in that. I want to collect more of that, but I'm-

Adam McInins:
Let me just say, before you said a thing, what did you say right after the first thing you said after I talked, you said something. I want to [inaudible 00:34:56].

Michael Walker:
Yeah. We were talking about just like how valuable mentorship is and the five people that you surround yourself with.

Adam McInins:
Okay. Yes. What I was going to say was, what I also tend to notice in that part about what you said about investing, that's a major part of it is that in the school systems, people aren't taught how money works. There's only, and I made this list and I posted it in our club, I created a list that's basically the eight commodities that are on this planet. We're trading them, bargaining them at all times, even if you don't know it.

Adam McInins:
One of the things, let's say, money, which is on that list, people aren't taught how savings work. They're not taught how interest rate works, loans, credit cards. None of that stuff is actually taught at a high level in schools. When people get out of school and they're given a credit card or they're given the opportunity to spend money on things, when you say you should spend money on mentorship, or you should spend money on that, there's this mindset of like, "No, I'm going to do it on my own."

Adam McInins:
Here's the trick about this, right? Most of the artists that are on top Billboard 100, like the charts and Grammy award winners. Let's just go through some of them. Demi Lovato, mentored since she's a kid. Not only does she have voc coaches, but she had acting coaches and she was on TV, so she had directors and producers, everyone mentoring her, telling her how to become what she did. Demi Lovato.

Adam McInins:
I said Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Ed Sheeran, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Maroon Five, Little Wayne, Drake, Jermaine Dupri, Pharrell, Chad Hugo, Timbaland, if I went... Ryan Tedder, just go through all the people who had mentors that they were on a TV show or like Christian Aguilera and Britney Spears, these people all had mentorships.

Adam McInins:
Now, it might have been vocal coaches, but that's a mentor. It might have been a director, but that's a mentor. It might have been a producer, but that's a mentor. These all people who were already successful at what they were doing and they were able to teach it to someone else who was younger to them. That's what a mentor is. If you're not around those types of people, it's much better to pay for it than to wait for it. It's so much better to pay for it because then you get it instantly.

Adam McInins:
If you pay for it, that means next week, you're starting, you're getting the actual information. If you wait for it, it could be years until you're at the level to where you're even reflecting, like I said before, what a mentor want to mentor into you to take the time because it does take time. I noticed that. When you actually see the artist out there and you go, "Oh my God, all these people have mentored by high level mentors." That just kind of good. Talking about Beyonce had an amazing voc coach. He worked with her for seven or eight years. That's why she sings like that.

Adam McInins:
If I told someone else, you should probably hire a vocal coach, they'd be like, "Oh, but I don't have the money." It's like, yeah, but you have the flat screen TV and you have the $30,000 car and you got that leather jacket and the leather couch and all these other things you could pay for, but when I say pay for thing, that's going to actually make you a career then all of a sudden, I can't, I can't, I don't have.

Adam McInins:
There's this scarcity mindset that's taught to musicians, surrounding this idea of like struggling musician. I think that theory it's just a program that has kept people almost like in their own sense of mental slavery for many years, especially with musicians to where it's kind of like a rite of passage. I'm a struggling musician. I'm like, "Yeah, but you got a car." You have a $15,000 car, right? All right. Well then you're not struggling that bad. You have a credit card. They gave you a credit card? That means you can use to buy equipment. You can use it to buy things. You can use it to build up your business.

Adam McInins:
If I was saying this to an entrepreneur, at least an entrepreneur who went to real entrepreneurship school, not business school and college entrepreneurship school. They would understand that. Here's a simple reason why, they don't have a connection between their identity and ego based on something that comes from them, like their voice or their music, right? If I say to an entrepreneur, you got to invest in your own stuff. They're like, "Hell yeah, I do." Because they read the Gary Vee book and the Tony Robbins book and Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Adam McInins:
They read all the millionaire fact. They read the things that they understand. If you want to make a million dollars, you're going to have to invest in yourself. It's not given to you. If you say it to a musician, they haven't read those books, they don't know that information, they've only seen movies on TV shows and all the movies and all TV shows have the same exact plot. Here's what's scary. I'm going to say the plot and you're going to realize it's the same thing through all of them.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm.

Adam McInins:
There's a kid who wants to be a singer. Parents tell them, "Don't put your time into this. It's not worth it." The kid sings in the mirror and just keeps playing around, sings in the mirror and sings in the shower and best friend knows that they sing, but they don't do it publicly.

Adam McInins:
The person grows up. They go to a bar or open mic one night and they're on stage. There's a bunch of people drinking in the audience and they get on stage to sing a song. The lights come on them. It's almost blinding them a bit. You're smiling because you're like, "Oh." Starts to blind them a little bit. They get to the microphone and the microphone feeds back every time. It's like eww. They tap on it. They're like, "Check, check, check." Someone's like, "Just sing the song already." There's hecklers in the crowd, right? It's their first time but there's still hecklers already.

Adam McInins:
Then, all of a sudden the person closes their eyes and they have a flashback to like grandma telling them they could do anything they wanted or something like that. Just believe in yourself. It's some sort of flashback that takes them into place. Next thing you know, they start to sing and they always start off very quiet. They're just reading the room like, "Is everyone accepting me now?" Then the big notes starts to come. All of a sudden, they start to unleash this voice and it's like time stands still and everyone drops their jaw, "Oh, my God, look at this person."

Adam McInins:
They hit these big notes. They shock themselves, which is such bullshit because no artist, every artist knows what they're capable of doing. There's no like, "Oh my God. I didn't even know I could hit that note but I did the first time here in front of people." Then, what happens? They run off stage and the best friend's like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you did that. That was wild. Oh my God." At the same time, there just happens to be a producer or manager in that audience just happens to be there.

Adam McInins:
The first time they actually sang the big note. They just happen to be there. They say to the person, "You know what? I think I can take you in the studio. I think we can do something together." They don't ask the person who do you manage. They don't ask them what are your credits? They instantly just go, "Oh and they keep the card. They keep the business card. The best friend says, "You better call that person. You better do it." They're like, "Should I? Should I not??"

Adam McInins:
Now, they're questioning it and they're going to call them, right? The rest of the movie is showing the highs and the lows of them just going to recording studios totally free. No one talks about the contracts or how much it costs or who's coming in. Then, it's the success and it's sex, rock and roll and drugs. They just show the ups and downs throughout the rollercoaster.

Adam McInins:
Now, they're on jets and everything, drinking champagne. They always have sunglasses on. It's this, you've seen this movie because it's in every movie, right? That's the only information that artists actually have to start building a career. It's those movies. It's those TikToks of people showing money. It's a faked storyline.

Adam McInins:
These entrepreneurs who are reading hardcore books and going to hardcore events and learning from hardcore mentors, it's because those mentors don't care about ruffling some feathers by saying you got to work, but if you said to musicians, they might say, "I think so and so is natural. It's either they're born with it or not. That comes down to all that.

Michael Walker:
Thank you. That's so good that narrative and it's totally on point. I mean, that's like the through line and so many of those and I think you're right, that's part of the reason that we've always been like brainwashed to think that that's just the way that it is. One of my favorite analogies when it comes to this idea of like, investing and kind of this idea of wanting to get something for nothing, right?

Michael Walker:
Something doesn't come from investments. It's like planting a seed and growing into a tree, the tree, it doesn't just magically appear there. You plant the seed and then you have to nurture it and it takes time and dedication. You got to keep coming back. If you try to dig it up too fast, then you're going to be hurting. The tree's not going to grow. The fruit's not going to be there from day one. You got to like, you got to keep on... Something doesn't come from nothing. It comes from this investment, like putting into it and it grows. I think that what, yeah, what you're sharing is so on point.

Adam McInins:
What you said about a tree, I'll just expand on what you said is also the fruit is not ready until it's ripe. Just because you're growing a fruit does not mean it's ready to be picked yet. That's another part too, is that some people will rush. "I want to get a record deal." I'm like, "You have 200 subscribers." Whoa, slow down. "I want to get a publishing deal." "How many songs have you written?" "I've written five." "Five? Okay. Slow down. You're not ripe yet." Once again, it's that thing of wanting something so fast because of an idea, but no one's actually showing your process.

Adam McInins:
I thought about this. I have never seen on a TV show, entertainment tonight or an actual documentary where someone sat down and said, "Let me show you how many songs we've actually written before we found the hit. Let me show you how all those songs were great sounding songs. It wasn't just like a pile of crap. It's like we recorded 60 songs for this album. You heard 12 and you like the 12, but there's 60 and they're all written by hit songwriters.

Adam McInins:
It's like, it's just these very high filtered rooms created all this music and they just pick up the even highest filter to show to you because that's not seen, there's a lack of massive amounts of information. Because of lack of information, it's almost like not having a compass on a map because no one's actually showing you where north is. You're just like, "Okay, I got this map and I know I want to go to this country, but what's the best way to get there because no one's really showing me?" That, to me, is unfortunate about the music industry.

Adam McInins:
I partly think the reason why it's not shown is because if people actually lift up the veil, they would realize a lot of it's smoke and mirrors. No one's lifting up the veil and saying, "Oh no, no. You think she made how much? No, no, no. She didn't make that much. They just put that in the tabloids to make everyone think that she was that. No, no. That's not how much she made. Not at all." How many downloads? No, no, no. That wasn't, that many downloads? The label bought 200,000 downloads. That's how they did it. You know what I mean?

Adam McInins:
If people actually saw how the business worked, then it wouldn't drive the idea of this thinking. Right now, there's just a lot of, I want to be out there because I want everyone to know who I am, because I want to be famous. It's unfortunate because if you look around, the fame of today is not the fame of 30 years ago. Why would anyone want this? I'm just keeping it real.

Adam McInins:
You got people on stage doing things that you're like, it's like children and you have people's lives thrown out on public. People are trying to hack their phones and other people are trying to get links so they can click on the tabloids. It's like click bait about someone else's personal life.

Adam McInins:
This is an actual person. They have a real life. They're a husband. They're a father, they're a wife, they're mother. These people are real people. Paparazzi is stalking, but we call it paparazzi and now everyone's got a phone. Everyone's part of the paparazzi. It's like, "Where did things go left?

Adam McInins:
For anyone who's like, "I want that." I'm like, "Listen, I don't think you know what you're getting into. You should be doing music because you love music. You should not be doing music because you want the fame of today," because this stuff will, the fame of today is trying to see you fall. That's how they make money on their clicks is something that's shocking. That happens.

Michael Walker:
That's so true. Yeah. It's so one kind of question mark in my mind is like, it's a very common quote, what bleeds leads, right? We tend to, our brains just go to like the shocking stuff. It's almost like a natural thing that we have to like kind of set things up intentionally in order to avoid our minds, just reacting to those kinds of things.

Michael Walker:
I feel like it's kind of a good segue to before we officially started the interview, you're telling me about how you're in Costa Rica and you have these retreats and it's really about kind of reconnecting with the essence of who you are and kind of unplugging from the shock and the awe. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about your retreats and what you guys are doing.

Adam McInins:
Sure. Well, the things that I can share because there's certain parts of our retreats that it's kind of a formula and a process that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. That's something I have to keep a bit private, but the parts that I will explain is that whenever you're away from, and I call it the matrix, but I mean high levels of dopamine, adrenaline, shock, when you're away from that, an interesting thing happens with your body, which it goes back to its homeostasis setting point. It goes back to its reset calibration.

Adam McInins:
It takes a couple days for that to happen. Sometimes it could take a week. Sometimes it takes two weeks, but there is a moment where it happens. You actually feel it for myself when I first started coming out here. I remember I was a total night owl. I would always, I make, I would stay up in the studio all night long and that's why I make my best music. I'm still drinking and still would smoke cigarettes. That was just part of the years of thinking like, "Oh, this is all part of living. This is how the party is, right?

Adam McInins:
Then, after I spent a little bit of time and then my body started to recalibrate and I started to take a sip of something. I was like, "Wait, that doesn't taste the same." It doesn't taste the same. That's weird. I go to smoke a cigarette. I'm like, "Oh, this tastes disgusting. Why does this taste disgusting? That's weird because I used to smoke these things. Why does it taste weird?"

Adam McInins:
I started to realize when you're around back in nature, when you're really back in nature and when you have no pollution, which means you remove that filter when you have fresh foods, which means you're now creating a body, like you're putting things into your body that are actually in alignment with your body. That's a big thing, which means there's no additives. There's no chemicals. Actually, your body's reacting exactly how it should.

Adam McInins:
Before, if I was to have like a chocolate bar, because it had so many chemicals in my body already, it was just like, "All right, whatever. We've got tons of stuff in here already. We'll take it on but after I started to eat healthier, then all of a sudden you eat something like that and you're like, "Oh, I can taste it. Something's wrong with this. Something's it's not pure. There's something off, right?

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm.

Adam McInins:
As that started to continue, your sleep goes back to normal pattern where you actually want to wake up with the sunrise. You actually want to go to sleep when the sun goes down and like your creativity starts to come. It comes in massive waves because you're not being bombarded with text messages and phone calls. Buy now, you don't see on sale, buy now, hurry up. There's no stoplights. There's no press green, go, fast and people trying to run people over and people on caffeine like, "I need to get there."

Adam McInins:
There's no peacocking of I'm wearing Gucci and you're not. You're not in my... All that stuff is removed, which means I have to see you for who you actually are, which for some people, that's scary because that means they have to unmask for the first time in a long time. We have to unmask. If it take off your high heels, they don't serve you out here. They take off your makeup, that doesn't serve you out here. They take off your ego as a guy of like, "I'm the big guy. No. You're out here by yourself."

Adam McInins:
You don't have your whole team. Your crew is not here. All of a sudden what happens is that people really do get back to being people. When that happens, you start to create a tribe and most tribes are based, you think of the word community, communities are based on common unity. That's what the word means and communication. When you get back to square one, those things are at the very center point of how you interact.

Adam McInins:
That's the mainframe of the retreats is we bring it back to square one with healthy foods and you're in the water, so your skin is being detoxified by the salt. You got vitamin D from the sunlight and you have gyrotonics and Pilates and chef catered meals and all this stuff is built in a place to where it's to make you the healthiest feeling.

Adam McInins:
It's not about, the party still goes on. Everyone has a great time. You choose to do whatever you want, but we're not saying the party has to be where you're wasted with poison in your body. That is such an old paradigm of like, think about it, and I didn't start questioning this stuff until I got out for a while, but I remember when I was in college, if or right out of college when I was living in Los Angeles.

Adam McInins:
You go to a bar and people would sit there and they'd, let's say if I was talking to a woman or something like that, and they might say, "Are you going to buy me a drink?" There's a theory of that. Are you going to buy me a drink or can I buy you a drink? This whole nonsense, right?

Adam McInins:
When you realize that alcohol is actually a poison that goes into your body and disrupts your neural pathways enough to where it makes you not be able to make logical decisions that are in your best interest, that theory of buying someone of poisons that way they can't make the best decisions, so they can make poor decisions with you is such a low vibration act when you actually call it for what it is and not the branding of it.

Adam McInins:
I think we've gotten so sucked into the branding of this world because everyone's now a branding expert but if you look, if you went back and hit, that's why it's called spirits, it's because people would let out side of them that was not always the best. They were letting out these sometimes spirits that's called wine and spirits. If you look at this stuff and you go, "Okay, you're right. Back in the day, they would had some poison and it was just to get people kind of off their equilibrium in a sense."

Adam McInins:
Now, we put it in a nice bottle and we put a nice logo on it. And we pay someone to just twist the top off and pour it. We have these layers of nuance that create idea of like a hierarchy, but when you call it for what it is, it's a bunch of poison in a bottle. That's what it is. Then, all of a sudden you can disconnect from the identity that it creates. Also, unfortunately the sabotaging elements that it creates.

Adam McInins:
Like I said, the more and more that I spent time away from all of the, I think stressors, and I'll say that when we have a lot of stresses in our life, which especially living in a first world country creates, there's a lot of stresses from simple things like parking and parking ticket. Like in LA, I just think of the simple things. You have to find parking, right?

Adam McInins:
You have to actually go and like purchase a ticket to park on a street, or you have to go in a certain area and like all these little things. People want Starbucks coffee, and then you have this kind of food and you have to be on this waiting list and you have all these little things. You have high rents, taxes and all these things, right?

Adam McInins:
Homeless population is going out of control. All these things that are these stresses when you're out there. When you remove those stresses, you don't have to cover them or mask them with alcohol. You don't have to mask them with drugs because they're not actually there. If you do alcohol or drugs, let's say, you're doing them because you're going to experience maybe a shift in your consciousness for that moment, but not where you want to keep on forging into it because you're trying to pack some sort of depressive state.

Adam McInins:
I've tend to notice and I've met a lot of people, I met a lot of people who, when they came out here, they were addicts of some point of something, right? Within one year, they're like, "I don't even think about it anymore. They're like, "I don't even know who that person was." I've met a lot of people over the last couple years and that they say that same thing, "Yeah, I used to do this. I used to do that." Da, da, da. I couldn't even think about myself doing that anymore.

Adam McInins:
They're like, yeah, because you got out of the most stressful area and you didn't realize how much stress you were living under. That's one thing I've realized, you don't know how much stress you're under until you're away from it. I think some people have this idea of like, "No, I think I'm pretty good. I'm not stressed." It's like, you're basing off what you think, but your biological responses, your primal responses are not the same as your thoughts.

Adam McInins:
If you having trouble sleeping, if you're constantly looking at your phone, I don't know if you've seen the people on TikTok now, these kids are actually having real tics now where it's a form of, what's it called Tourette's where they're coming in, they're having these crazy tics. They found that the only thing that they've all had is that they're heavy users of TikTok.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Adam McInins:
It's because it's actually making a mental crack in the way their body reacts to things and adrenaline spikes and literally their bodies can't stop ticking. These things are infecting our hard wire and it's playing with our evolution. Until you get away from them, do you actually go, "Oh my God, I didn't realize because I was in it. I was always on defense mode and I'd even know because I was waking up and I was smiling. I figured everything was good. You don't know once you get it.

Adam McInins:
Anyway, long story short, what we do is we do these retreats where we bring artists from all around the world. This one that we have coming up, these are established artists. That's part of the part where I said, it's private. We have established artists coming in and it's the first time that they're all going to be collaborating with each other.

Adam McInins:
They'll be disconnecting and retuning for three or four days. Then, it's open recording sessions and performances. It's all done at these big private mansions and it's just like a really cool connecting point for people from all around the world who've never met each other, but who are insanely talented to making music again and not just for radio or not just for something like that. The other retreats we throw are for upcoming musicians but they're only for people in the Billboard 500 Club. It's only for our private club that we throw those for.

Michael Walker:
Cool man. Yeah. Sounds awesome. Yeah, I think that what you're speaking to in terms of like our society, our culture or something that all of us can feel like in a certain way, it's just like the stress of like the go-go, consumerism, like wanting more and more, more, more, not enough, not enough, not enough.

Michael Walker:
Certainly, there's some things built in the system in terms of how do you sell things by making people feel like they're not enough and by like showing and it's like our thoughts are like machines that help us to create our future selves that in some ways can kind of like help us go towards it. If we identify with it too much, then we can just live in total misery and not like really be connected with who we are.

Michael Walker:
I think that what you've created sounds so awesome as a way for people to really reconnect with their true self and with nature, which really is like, when you take everything else out of it's just the natural state of the way that it is.

Adam McInins:
Exactly. Think about this, I've actually asked some of my friends who are, I'm lucky in the sense where there's a bunch of us. It's like probably five of us that know each other for 15, 17 years. When we first started music, we're recording in our closets and stuff.

Adam McInins:
Over the years we've all become award winners and we've all been very successful. It's kind of cool because we knew where it was when we first started and the grind of it all. Whenever something big would happen, I'll be, "Yeah, this would happen and then it would fall through. Oh, that didn't work out. All those things. I asked someone one day, I said, "Listen, imagine if I was opening up a laboratory," and they were like, "All right."

Adam McInins:
I said, and someone came in and they said, "Adam, I want to rent out your laboratory because you have the best facility." I said, "Okay, well it's a hundred dollars an hour to rent it out." I said, but first you got to let me know what you're be building in my laboratory. They said, "Well, I'm going to design a poison that I'm going to put into the water stream. It's going to make people sick.

Adam McInins:
If they told me that, I would say, "You can't do that in my place." "I'm not going to do that." Okay. Let's take the fact that a lot of people call the studio a laboratory and that someone will say, "I want to record this song." I said, "Okay, what's the song about?" It's a song is about how everyone should be doing drugs right now. Everyone should be degrading the women and everyone should be shooting people, and like robbing people. That's what I want the song about.

Adam McInins:
I'm like, "Oh, you want to create a mental virus?" You want to create it with a spell in a sense, because what music is magic. You want to use the form of magic as a spell and you want to put that into the, you want to broadcast it because that's what it is. It's casting a broad spell. Do you want to use my laboratory to do that. "No, I'm not letting you use this thing."

Adam McInins:
Because people have not taken a step back to go, "Oh wait, those are exactly the same things." as bad as COVID is and was, when you think about what's more powerful, a virus that can be passed through a cough and might go away after two weeks and some people might have some really bad effects, or a mental virus that can bore your subconscious and last with you for 25 years. You'll never even know it's there.

Adam McInins:
This whole time you've been trying to seek validation through the completely wrong ways. You've been putting yourselves in really, really treacherous situations. You've been losing your morality. You've been selling yourselves short and selling yourselves quick and selling yourself cheap. All these things have been happening from the mental virus that was implanted by some of this music.

Adam McInins:
What's the difference? What's worse? Any logical fiber will tell you the mental virus is way worse, but it's because the branding is so good that people get caught up in it.

Michael Walker:
Mm-hmm. Wow. That's definitely a really interesting perspective. I think you're right. That's something that we don't normally pay attention or we don't think about it that same way that like literally a song that's just all venomous and it's poisonous and it's like degrading to everyone. That's literally poisoning the water well. Oh man.

Michael Walker:
Well, hey, I want to get ready to wrap up here, but yeah dude, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and for doing what you do. I think it sounds awesome. I personally am very interested in learning more about the Billboard 500 Club and the retreats that you do and for anyone that's listening or watching us right now, we're going to learn more and you'll see both in terms of the resources online and also the retreats. Where can they find more about that?

Adam McInins:
Yeah. If anyone goes, I do something interesting. Now, I just started on Instagram. If you go to Instagram, it's under Music Industry Contact. That's the heading of us. Then, on Instagram, what I do is a thing called pass or trash, and that happens twice a month.

Adam McInins:
Basically, what that is, is pass a trash is a way for me to help you in a real way in your career. If you have a song that is really great and you're just looking for someone to pass it along to an A&R, pass it along to a real record label, pass it along to the real artist that you're shooting for. I will do that. If someone's song is amazing, I will show them online. I'm now connecting you with the head of Universal Records. I'm putting in an email, your name, their name, and your song because I believe this song is that good, right? If it's not that good, then we say trash. It goes aside.

Adam McInins:
We had one recently and there was one song that got passed along. We passed immediately to the head of the Sync Company. The president of Sync Company. I was like, "Here, just heard this song at pass or trash, I think this is great track. What do you think?" Then, I connect the people too. It's not like a I'll do it later. It's like, I'm sending the email right now. You're on the email, your CC, you can see each other's email addresses, you know it's legit.

Adam McInins:
I do that on Instagram every two weeks. Every Monday for the next two months, I do a thing called Monday Motivation where I break down things about the music industry that you can't find in books that you can't find in colleges. These are the real actualized way of how the business works. That is at such a nuanced level that most people never get there, but if you understand it, then it just makes everything else, like so much easier because you have a clear path. That's on our Instagram page.

Adam McInins:
If you're looking for the things that I go in depth, like I have in depth courses that literally can teach people how to produce high quality songs within like a month or two, if you just pay attention to them, they're like the quickest fixes that I've seen at least online of how to produce, how to write hit songs, because there's a formula to this stuff.

Adam McInins:
Most people don't know the formula so they can't teach it and most people don't have the ability to break things down on such a finite level that I do that I'm able to kind of literally walk people step by step. When you get done, you're like, "Oh my God, I've created that song." That song sounds just as good as some of the songs I hear on movies and TV shows. I do that in two days. I teach these things in these private courses.

Adam McInins:
If you go to www.thebillboard500, so it's the billboard and then the number 500.com, you could see all those private things. I have like a ton of hacks on there. As far as the private retreats, those are only done for people who are members of the Billboard 500 Club. If anyone is talented and driven, you can apply and that's www.thebillboard500. You'll see a click here to apply. It's kind of similar to, I wouldn't say a music college because there is application process but what we're looking for is someone who is hardworking, someone who has good skillsets and more importantly, someone who has intention.

Adam McInins:
We get a lot of applications and sometimes I go to their Instagram page and I'm just like, "No, I'm not going to show them the secrets," because the secrets that I give to people I've literally helped so many people find success like sign publishing deals, get songs on TV shows. I have one of those freak of nature type things that if I touch it's going to turn to some sort of gold and I'm not going to give those tips and energy and secrets to people who have really negative intentions, especially if they have negative intensions to like for shock value, for other people. If you're a good person and you're doing music for the right reasons, then that's how you have ability to get into the club.

Michael Walker:
Very cool. Awesome man. Well, what we'll do is like always, we'll throw the links in the description, so people have easy access. Thanks again, man. It's been great connecting with you and it's definitely refreshing to talk about what you guys are doing and really kind of helping people to cut through some of the noise and the static to really got to reconnect with their true nature. Thanks for what you do. Thanks for the time and until next time.

Michael Walker:
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 guests today. If you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us. That really helps us out. Third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music career to the next level. It's time to be a modern musician is now. I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.