Episode 5 - Interview With Chance Munsterman

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd

today i'm going to sit down with chance

musterman for more than 20 years

chance has been riding and playing

original music as well as entertaining

people from all over the state of texas

with an eclectic blend of acoustic rock

that spans genres from classic to

alternative rock sounds he's from el

paso but he moved to north texas about

oh 20 25 years ago and i met

him shortly after he moved here so i

hope you all enjoy this session i had

with chance musterman

so man what's been going on i feel like

the last time i saw you was

i mean like physically saw you i think

it was about maybe four years ago i

think you came out and see me play at a

at a local bar up in keller yeah

i saw you and your band playing at at

that time it was called

the uh bronson rock that's how it's

called the poor sack

right so they still did live music of

course i don't know how much they're

doing right now with everything going on

right

but uh yeah uh just happened to stumble

on you and i told the old lady i said

hey

let's run down there and see chance play

and uh we were just sitting there you

got off the stage kind of walked by and

i hollered at you and you were surprised

because

up before then man i don't know how long

it's been since i had seen you so we had

a good little you know catching up and

then once again you know text message

here and there

and facebook you know hello here and

there but that but that's about it so

man it's good to kind of

virtually be face to face with you

because it's been a while

it has you know and i was thinking about

this um and i have a few friends

that i've known since i've been here so

i moved here in 1995

and and i came here to finish school

actually and i started

um in 1996 i started

djing and hosting a karaoke show

uh and i did that at a place back in the

day

called papa geez and it was over across

from the

the uh tarrant county uh junior college

used to be tcjc now it's just tcc

over off twice over off of uh over off

26.

i can't remember that's where i met you

but i know i've known you at least since

96

97 somewhere around there so we've been

friends a long time

oh yeah it it it does go way back there

it was uh me and my

uh good old buddy kevin mills we'd come

in and and do the karaoke thing with you

and

uh you always had to wait until like the

end of that first round because kevin

always liked to pick songs that

weren't exactly appropriate for the you

know people finishing up dinner and

you know just having that last drink

before they headed out

plus it was probably best to have some

people with a little bit more booze than

them before kevin got up there and

started screaming but

you know i was just as bad as well i

mean i i remember some of the songs that

i picked

out there doing karaoke looking back on

it i don't think i'd want my kids

sitting out in the audience while i was

singing them

but man we had a we had a good time with

the karaoke looking back on that

you know i haven't done it in years but

uh one of my favorite ones to do

was because you would sing the backup

was the if i had a million dollars by

the bare naked ladies

and i always let you do the funny part

so i don't know why i

didn't do the funny parts but you all i

could tell you always like doing that

one because you got to be the funny guy

during that

so but i always loved doing that song

those

that first of all bear naked ladies is

still a great band

and i love blue i just love that song

and it was quirky and when it came out i

was like this is like the coolest thing

ever and i had a

uh he's still a good friend of mine um

affectionately known as evil dave

hamilton and if he's out there watching

hey what's going on evil dave

but um you know he's the one that turned

me on to that and i started thinking

about some of the concerts that i've

been to over the years since i've lived

here in dallas fort worth and i don't

know if you know about this or not but

there's a really cool um there's a

really cool app

it's not even an app it's a website it's

called setlist fm

setlist.fm and you can go in and you can

type in

any place you've ever seen a concert and

it will it will list

the set list and you can log in

and it will show every like so you know

if i get my stub i'll be like all right

i usually do it now if i go to a concert

i immediately put it in but i went back

recently and just typed in everything i

could remember i went and found all my

concert stubs every time i ever remember

seeing a show

and the amazing thing is is that it

categorizes it

it puts everything together and says

okay you've seen

this band this many times you've you've

heard them play this song

this many times and uh

it's pretty cool you kind of take a walk

down memory lane but one of the first

concerts i ever saw was with uh

was with dave hamilton and he took me to

see barenaked ladies and we saw him at

the bronco bowl

i remember the bronco bowl yes

the only concert venue that had a

bowling alley attached to it uh

still a cool place though i i saw

several shows at the bronco bowl and it

had

it had a good live venue and what was

the

place right next to the bronco bowl it

was all within the same deal that

was like a smaller music venue the

galaxy club

no not the game that's in deep ellum it

was called the

yeah oh man i know what you're talking

about but you know

smaller shows there too yeah yeah i i

remember seeing some shows

uh there as well so some some kind of

lesser-known bands but still had a

touring and a following and everything

and it was a cool little place to go as

well

yeah so miss that place i can't remember

what it was called but yeah

i i remember that too yeah and the first

time that i went there

um they didn't tell me that it was a

bowling alley i

i thought bronco bowl literally meant it

was a bowl-shaped venue

and then i walked in i'm like there's a

freaking bowling alley in here

what kind of crazy crap is this yeah

no kidding and uh you know i came from

i was raised in el paso texas i mean

there's like

the nothing of nothing there i mean

there's a lot more to do there now

it's been 25 years when i was going to

high school there man you didn't do

anything in el paso you either went

across the border

to drink or you built bonfires and race

motorcycles and dune buggies out in the

desert that's it

yeah so exactly i got to i got here and

there's you know

football and stars and mavericks and

baseball and

bronco bowl i'm like this is the most

amazing thing i've ever seen in my life

well i can imagine coming from somewhere

like el paso to the metroplex and even

when you're talking about back in the

mid 90s i mean yeah

you look at what deep ellum was like

back in the mid 90s than

all those clubs that were up and down

deep ellen and there was

never a night you couldn't go down there

and find a good show

and that was when like you had the

toadies that were coming out and the

edgewater

bands like that from around the

metroplex that got their start

and a lot of times you'd have the

toadies just show up and they play

little acoustic

sets somewhere it was a real exciting

time

for music in the metroplex and and going

down to deep vellum and

getting to see all that and now it's

basically a bunch of fancy restaurants

you got three links left and i didn't

see a show with three links not that

long ago so

they're still trying to hold on to a

little bit of that music-ness

about deep ellum but they cleaned it up

quite a bit back

you know when you and i were stomping

around down there younger

the younger days listening to some

alternative rock

you remember when they slid rock fest

through here and had half a million

people up at the

texas motor speedway so believe it or

not

i am probably the only person in the

metroplex that did not go to rockfest

i was out of town i i was halfway around

the world

in australia and papua new guinea

whenever

that concert came through town i had a

ticket i think everybody

had at least two tickets to that thing

but i i went out of town and i didn't

get to go but

pretty much every single person that i

knew back then was at that show

well i didn't go to that show because

it was me and you were the only only

people that

didn't go but coming coming full circle

here the reason why i brought it up was

because

um i ended up going that night i know i

can tell you why i wasn't there i was

i was actually had class that night i

was finished i'm finishing the night i

believe it was 97 i was finishing my

master's degree in business

and i had night classes and i had i did

it was one night that i didn't actually

have to work and i remember

everyone like oh man rock fest this and

that and whatever and i might yeah that

would have been great to go to but you

know i

at school you know and uh but i went out

afterwards with some friends and we went

to deep ellum

and i went you remember the the blind

lemon and the art bar before

the four way right i walk into the art

bar

and kid you not walked in

grab a drink and sit in the corner um

well first off the uh

the man i'm completely spacing here

first off i went to the bar

and the guy that was standing next to me

was jerry cantrell from allison chains

oh wow that was crazy and i was like uh

wow that that's really that's really

nuts

and then the and then i

walk around to kind of the corner and

i'm looking

and i was like is that billy corgan

and billy corgan from the smashing

pumpkins was just hanging out just doing

just being billy corgan and it i it was

like to me it was also another surreal

moment because

you know el paso is a beautiful city and

it's huge actually even back in the 90s

it was still a million strong but that

was

you know el paso side and the water side

being that

it was combined two cities i never saw

anything like that

and um i was like i was kind of star

struck too because i i

at the time i really loved smashing

pumpkins and i still do a certain extent

they just haven't done a whole lot

recently and

um i was like oh my god i what do i do i

i kind of did that moment where

you don't know what to do and you're

like do you do you do it do you go say

something

you're gonna be that guy and i was like

i'm gonna be that guy

so i was like look you've gotta be that

guy

the people that are entertainers now if

they don't like people coming up to him

and wanting to talk to him

and say how much they mean to them you

know

ask about music say you know how much

they're a fan

then there's something wrong with that

entertainer that doesn't want to

interact with their fans because if it

wasn't for the fans and i don't care if

it's movies or music

or whatever it is if you

denigrate your fans and you try to be a

pompous

person about it eventually that word

gets around look look what

look what has happened to ellen

degeneres right now and all the back

peddling that she's had to do because of

the supposed toxic work environment

that she has and if you would have

looked at her show she's supposed to be

this you know

super nice person and not you know i

would never would have pictured it

not in a million years but you kind of

never know

and sometimes it comes back to biden

it does and he was actually really

receptive about it because i didn't like

i didn't pull the 13 year old girl act

and i was like

right that's billy gordon i i just i

walked up

and i was like i kind of gave him the

nod

and i was like hey man i love your stuff

thank you for what you do

and he was just like thanks man and

that's it it was that

but that's all i needed i was like and i

remember i was with some friends

and of all people that we saw we i don't

even know why i mean

i wasn't into the band i just they said

they were playing and they're like we

need to go check them out the polyphonic

spree

was playing in the other corner and i'm

trying to think of what that club that

it wasn't the curtain club was across

i'm trying to think what was in that

four-way complex but whatever that bar

was where the concert

venue was the polyphonic spree was

playing and i'm like

okay and i didn't even know who they

were i know now because

i i remember being there and and having

the ticket that they gave me even though

i didn't pay for it i just walked in and

they're like oh you're here for the

concert i'm like okay

and they gave me a thing and a wristband

and i walked in

right um but i remember just

how cool that was and i went up to my

buddy i'm like hey man um

i just got a beer over there with jerry

cantrell from allison chains and he just

looked at me laughed he's like get full

of it

right you can go over there if you want

i mean

yeah he's probably still sitting there

drinking his beers

he most likely was you know maybe trying

to hide a little bit

maybe hoping nobody would recognize him

but uh

yeah you're you're not gonna go into a

music club back in those days in dallas

and

you know see some kind of a guy like a

jerry cantrell or billy corgan and them

not get

recognized i mean they they kind of knew

going in but you know what they're

regular people just like me and you

they're they like to go to places they

you know want to belly up to the bar

and have a beer and you know

talk to the person next to them and ask

what you know they're up to

what they're thinking all that good

stuff so yeah yeah once you get past

that part about

the whole celebrity thing and look

they're people you know they're just

regular people

and a lot of times like you said you

know you didn't want to walk up and do

the 13 year old girl thing

and giggle and freak out and all that

the the crazy part about that now with

and of course you're talking about back

in the day where you didn't have a

smartphone in your pocket

you know there was no way for you to

take a selfie with him and then post it

to facebook and say hey look i'm with

billy corgan right now at deep ellum and

everybody you know

saw it and they all rushed down there to

do it right nowadays

i can see where some of the celebrities

get a little nervous with the selfie

stuff and all that because

maybe they are just like jerry cantrell

he was wanting to sit there and have a

peaceful beer

and next thing you know every allison

chains fan within

25 miles is flooding into that bar and

he can't sit there and enjoy himself

and you know sure after about the you

know 95th

person coming up to him asking him for

an autograph and and his beer is now

warm because it sat there so long and he

couldn't drink it you know

it you you kind of understand that i was

on an

airplane oh gosh this was about a year

and a half ago or so

coming back from atlanta i was out of

town in atlanta

and i'm sitting there and i'm sitting in

the window seat

and there's a woman sitting next to me

and she's got her cell phone up

and she's trying to take this secretive

picture of

a guy that's sitting in the row across

from us

and so i'm sitting there and i'm

watching her and i said ma'am

what are you doing she's like well don't

you know who that guy is

and i said what guy she's like the guy

sitting over there the window seat i

said no

it's like that's ti and i said

uh okay uh i have no idea who that is so

we're sitting there you know the plane's

boarding i text the wife i'm like

you ever heard of somebody named t.i and

i shoot this

picture to her and she's you know doing

the omg is he really on your plane

or whatever i'm like yeah i i don't have

a clue who this guy is and so i get this

like mini diatribe

you know you just watched this movie and

he was in this and he writes this song

and he's doing all this and i'm like

okay great you know i just thought he

was just some normal dude

other than the fact he had two cell

phones and he was talking on one and

he'd say hang on and he'd pick up the

other one

so beautiful part about this right plane

takes off

and i figure he's going to pull to put

my headphones on

and lean over against the wall and go to

sleep

no turns out he decides to talk to me

and the guy he was sitting next to and

all we did for that

about hour and 45 minute flight was talk

about classic cars

that's not one yep not one thing about

movies not one thing about music

but just talked about classic cars and

yeah

super down-to-earth guy but i'm sure he

probably appreciated the fact

because i did tell him as we were

getting off the plane i i walked down a

little ramp with him

i said by the way i know you're a

celebrity and everything but i didn't

have a clue who you were my wife had to

go

tell me who you were and he thought that

was funny he's like well you know that

that's cool i appreciate it and then off

he went to catch his connecting flight

so

right nice guy though that's pretty cool

i had um

going on the theme of you there's people

that are famous

for whatever thing that is they do

whether they're an actor or an

athlete or whatever and i had a very

similar experience um

back in like 99 right around 2000 i

think it was 99

you remember zach thomas he was a

linebacker for the miami dolphins but

then he went to the cowboys

eventually he played his last name

yeah that name really rings the bell

well he was he was

he played for tech that's kind of where

he got started and everyone knew it and

then he got drafted and

played a majority of his career for the

miami dolphins and i'm a dolphins fan

and then he ended up his last couple of

seasons

um you know in um in in dallas

well anyway um i call him my godfather

he's

closest thing i probably have the one my

dad's best friend and business partner

at the time

his cousin um

i'm sorry let me rephrase that anyway he

guy he knew was married and and his

cousin was zack thomas and so we went to

go see a miami dolphins game which was

to me was cool i was just going to go

see a game in florida i i had never

gone to a i had only been to one other

professional football game before and it

was to a cowboys game i went with to a

friend

and um he's like hey we're going to go

down to uh

florida and we're going to go see the

game and and

probably you know after the game you

know meet in the players parking lot and

we can you know meet zach thomas and i'm

like oh my god that's so cool i was just

excited about that

so the game first of all they lost which

was sucked and it was a close one um

yeah

and if i remember correctly and i'd have

to go back to look at the exact date i

think it was dan marino's last home game

so that was the other reason why i was

excited to see it because i was gonna

i got to see dan marino play live one

time at least

and um anyway so we go out to the

players parking lot we're just kind of

standing around waiting for players to

come out and i thought it was just going

to be a quick meet and greet

and then we were going to bail so um

i get my picture with him and then he's

doing a couple other pictures and this

and this one guy he's he's kind of crazy

even though he's the cousin i guess he

kind of knew up front and

he had all of his stuff and he was like

hey sign this hey sign this and it's

like you know

15 things like balls and t-shirts and

jerseys and

i got this you know football card i need

you to sign

the coaster right it was it was kind of

crazy

anyway i was just hanging out because i

just thought it was cool that

i got my picture with zach thomas anyway

so whether

it was a kismet whether it was uh he

just saw me hanging out and thought

whatever he kind of came up to me and

he's like

dude we need to get out of here and i

was like

yeah that's cool i mean we're just uh

we're here we were here for the game and

we're going to stay one more day and

then we're taking off he's like oh yeah

when you leave and i'm like we're not

leaving until

you know tuesday or whatever it was

because the game was on sunday and

he was like well i think that uh

i think he wanted to go you know get

dinner

uh man we just took a loss i'm not

really into this uh i don't feel like

getting out anywhere

hey uh you want to come over the house

and we eat pizza and shoot pool and i'm

like

yes yes yes i would like that very much

oh but by the way did i did i say yes

did you hear me say yes

i was like in case i just bit my tongue

off because i stepped on my own foot i

just want to make sure i said yes

it was the coolest thing ever and so we

get there and he's got this house

and it typical think of miami vice

miami-dade county house

white big you know big huge windows

huge windows the white banister poles

across the

the front patios i mean just whatever

you can imagine miami house would look

like it looked like this but it was huge

and we roll up and we kind of pull in

this corner thing and

go into the house and dude this place is

crazy like you walk in and there's a

white grand baby grand piano with

like fake fur things and art deco and

it's like this whole thing and i'm just

kind of looking i'm like holy crap

and and he and he looked at me and i

don't worry about that my sister

decorated the house for a photo shoot

and i was like okay right

so he so we're kind of chilling out and

we get pizza ordered

and the rest of the entre of course i'm

with my godfather his two sons

the cousin everyone they're up their

playing pool and he and

again i guess there was that kismeter

chemistry whatever he's like hey man you

want to check something out real quick i

want to show you something like sure

so we go upstairs to his bedroom and

he's got one of those the master bedroom

was like

a house in itself okay had this huge bed

whatever and he's like this is the

coolest thing ever

i haven't been able to show anyone this

and he flips a switch and it's one of

the first ones where the tv

popped up at the end of the bed like

right this is like 99 so there wasn't

really flat screen tvs then i think it

was uh

well actually there was i mean there was

you know they had plasmas

yeah but they were like five or six

grand at the time

it wasn't like going down to walmart and

getting one for 200 bucks

and this thing was all popped up and

whatever

and then uh the strangest thing i can

tell you that not only just a celebrity

but

anyone has ever asked me in my life and

i will never forget this story he's like

hey man what size shoe you wear

it's like what um

uh 11 a half 12 you know why what's up

he's like

man come here and he opens up his closet

and he has

an entire cloth i can't make this up i

swear to god an entire closet full of

nike shoes he's like hey

pick some shoes if you want i i can't

wear all these he's like i'm a 12. if

you can fit one get a pair of shoes and

i'm like

just like my jaws drop the bike man

i tell you what i really appreciate that

but you know i think i'm good you know

i'm just kind of

excited about the fact that i'm in zach

thomas's bedroom yeah

he showed me this kick-ass tv and he's

got a room full of nike shoes

my friends are not going to believe this

exactly you're probably like hey can we

can we do the tv trick again i don't

care about a pair of shoes

i want to watch the tv trick again yeah

you want a spoon i mean let's just watch

hbo

i think there's a new at that time it's

probably sex in the city was still on

you you know you could sit there and

watch sex in the city with it and stuff

like that

hey man let's just grab the pizza screw

these guys they're playing pool i don't

know

that's beautiful but it you know it just

kind of goes back to like you said you

know everyone everyone's just

we're just human beings in this planet

trying to get along and

you know it's pretty fascinating what's

happening yeah you know

some some people are better at it than

others i mean

that's the nature of the beast so you

don't have to be a celebrity to

be mean to somebody or treat them the

wrong way or say the wrong thing

i mean i know over time i've probably

said some mean things people you

probably said some mean things to people

you look back and you said yeah why'd i

say that

why'd i do that but we all make mistakes

but uh in general

you know i think most people are well

natured they they

want to get along they want to be nice

and they don't want to be pushed

obviously some people get pushed a

little more than others do

but you know not to do the whole you

know can't we all just get a long speech

i think for the most part most people

just want to have some down-to-earth

conversations with people

i think to be quite honest with you that

is why podcasting is becoming so popular

regular people can use the internet they

can

have conversations they can talk to

different people from different walks of

life the same walks of life same

interests different interests learn

about stuff and you don't have to have

this

ginormous production behind you to make

you a talking head anymore

you know it gone are the days of the

three news channels

now you've got a bajillion news channels

you've got

independent news channels now and you've

got shows like this

that uh you know you and i even though

we've known each other for

ever and now that you've you know kind

of took that trip down memory lane with

me i didn't realize it had been that

long to be quite honest with you but

yeah well yeah it's 20 plus years

now people can get that voice heard

maybe

maybe something you say maybe something

i say or that we collaborate on

uh sparks somebody's interest and and

they say hey you know i never thought of

that or hey

that that zach thomas story man that

that's a great story

you know be careful zach thomas might be

calling me in like two days saying hey

man i remember you

and you didn't take those shoes what's

your address

i'm

i think it's great i think it's uh it's

cool that we have this ability now

to where we can put the voice out there

and whoever wants to hear it

will hear it if you don't want to hear

it you don't have to hear it

uh kind of like i said you know the

three news channels

i mean you and i grew up where there was

not much on tv

and then maybe your parents went out and

sprung for cable

and next thing you know now you have

maybe 10 or

15 channels worth watching because back

in the early days of cable there were

just horrible channels all over it not

nothing to watch

now just before you and i hooked up here

tonight for this

boy's sitting there on his nintendo

switch watching youtube videos

and i i don't think that kid has

honestly sat down and watched

a real television show right i mean it's

it's it's

youtube shows it's twitch streams it's

podcasts it's things like that it's

creative content there's so many people

out there

that can create now and with the avenues

of the internet

and things like podcasting and

everything

there's so much creativity out there

that

we're actually getting to see

so much different while at the same time

ironically

hollywood is remaking everything it's

like that the guys that we paid all this

money to go see the the movies and and

pay for the cds and

and do all that stuff right they just

keep churning out the same stuff and

then they scratch their head came away

why are these movies not doing as well

you keep making the same movie there

there's only so many versions of comic

books that

you know i can watch and it's all the

same comic book movie

granted they're good movies don't get me

wrong i mean they're good movies but

yeah i'm sure you remember i mean i'm a

huge star wars fan

and when the new star wars movies came

out other than rogue one

i was disappointed and i remember when i

saw

episode 8 in the movie theater it you

know

episode 7 came out and everybody knew it

was going to be fan

service it had been too long you knew

harrison ford was going to be in it you

knew mark hamill was going to be in it

you knew terry fisher was going to be in

it's like

okay there's gonna be fan service in

this so i always gave

episode seven a pass then rogue one came

out

and i thought man that was a great movie

and rogue one was a great movie

it was i remember sitting next to my

wife when episode

8 we went and we watched that in the

movie theater opening weekend

and when it ended she looked at me and

she said what's the matter

and i looked at her and i i honestly

chant i might have cried

i think i turned and looked at her with

a tear in my eye and said

that sucked like that that movie sucked

and i took like personal offense to the

fact that that that movie sucked

so i called some buddies of mine and our

uh our little deal we always did i

wouldn't i'd

always go see the star wars movies with

my family and then the next night

i'd go out with two buddies of mine that

are huge star wars fans too

so i said you know and they they always

knew i had already seen the movie but i

wouldn't say anything of course you know

no spoilers all that good stuff

and i told them it you know we we go in

the movie and they can tell

like i don't even want to be there and

they said max this movie sucks doesn't

it i'm not gonna say anything they're

like no we can tell just by looking at

you

and i remember getting up to go to the

bathroom

and they've never seen me do that in a

star wars movie and they're like

oh man this movie does suck getting up

to go to the bathroom

so and uh yeah

nine's a different story but but yeah i

this

this whole podcasting thing and music

too i mean

you know you used to you had to have a

label you had to have

all of this stuff just to make it in the

music business you had to do touring and

you had to do all this

and now with things like spotify and

apple

and all the other stuff that you can put

music out on now

it you don't need that backing and sure

record companies still scoop

up the people that they think they can

market in certain ways and

you know you're you're the music guy not

me but i almost look at it as

they don't really need too much on the

talent side it's more of a look side

because they can make them sound good

with all the fancy stuff that they've

got in the studios now

and they'll go hire session musicians to

actually record the music and

auto tune their voice and you know as

long as you can dance

then you know you look halfway decent

they make you a marketable person

so kind of kind of a little segway into

uh what's

what's been going on in your uh music

world

uh you know you've been plugging along

for a long time

putting out some good music and uh i

know that you

just had a new release that i'm i know i

want to talk to you a little bit about

but uh in in this era now

in the the streaming versus selling

physical copies there

how is how is that now for the artist

for the singer songwriter

what what have you seen over those years

that's been such a change and

tell me about that so here's where it

started for me because

um when i first started writing

obviously i was

a lot younger and and just kind of

learning my craft and at the time i

didn't even know it was a craft it was

just something i wanted to do when i

when i first learned how to play guitar

i wanted to meet chicks that's what

it was right and um

but then i started i just loved what i

did and then i

i had ideas and i was writing songs and

a lot of

i've told this story before is it i i

wrote a hundred songs and

96 of them were horrible you know and

so around i want to say around

1998 1999

um i recorded some of those songs and i

and i put them out well back

this was like i mean even the internet

was still

new i mean it wasn't even fully formed i

mean everyone still had an aol account

and they were thinking that oh i'm in a

chat room and this is the coolest thing

i've ever seen

well the first iteration of music

of any kind that was online was

literally

a place called mp3.com and

oh yeah it was later it was it was

purchased by broadcast music which ended

up being swept up by mark

cuban's company but then ended up

getting shut down for a little company

called napster

and mp3.com was the first

fully non-commercial

non-label website where anyone who could

create music could put it on they had

charts and you could sell your music

and the first the the first taste of

anything i

ever got was i i put a song on there and

it was one i thought was pretty good

and i don't know in like a couple of

days

i i got an email or something and said

you might want to go check out the

charts you're number six and i'm like

well

whatever that doesn't mean anything well

it does when there's 200

000 people a day going to the website

and

um it was the first time i had ever done

anything

and i actually sold i sold quite a few

um singles i didn't sell the album i

sold quite a few singles and

it it was it was a lot i mean it and it

was all

monetized like there was no they hadn't

figured out yet that oh well we're gonna

keep two per two percent for ourselves

while we're doing this it was

no one had any clue what the internet

was gonna be and

so they realized quickly that it was a

money-making operation and that's when

the smart people came in and said well

we got to shut this down

and figure out how we're going to we

can't have this the artist can't get all

the money

so right so

fast forward to you know let's say 2011

2011 comes around

and i take a couple of those songs and i

re-record them and then i wrote some new

songs

and i recorded those and at that time

all that was available spotify wasn't

around yet all that was available was

apple music and it was

big because you know uh even nine years

ago i mean

the iphone was just coming out at that i

think by that time it was in

you know maybe the 3gs or whatever it

was and

uh but i was able to you know jump on

board pretty quickly with a newer

technology that no one knew about so

in 2011 i was able to go hey i got a

song on itunes and everyone's like what

how did you do that

and so that did a little something okay

but even then it was

all right if you sell your song for 99

cents

you're gonna get 79 cents and i was like

oh that's a pretty good deal

i can put my stuff on apple music and

they're only gonna take 20 percent

i was like yeah i'm totally down with

that i'm okay and so i sold a few

records that way

and um so then i

i kind of went through a lull you know i

played in a band called bad karma

and i did that for about 15 years off

and on but for the last 10 years since i

put that record out i was concentrating

on playing gigs and doing cover music

and doing all this stuff and i kind of

put down the songwriting thing

even though i always liked doing it but

i just never quite had that connection

with someone to go do something

and uh so a couple years ago i guess

it's been almost three now 2017

um bad karma played sort of their final

show um we did a big blowout

i got to play for stan lee uh

of marvel comic fame yes and uh yep

i played at his private event for a

comic-con

on new year's eve for 28 2017 going into

2018.

i got stanley signing you know the drum

head of our drummer's

stuff i mean he came up up on him on

stage while we're doing the countdown

it was like if you want to talk about a

bang big bang going out for

the band that i had been in for 15 years

we had just done it i was like you know

what

i'm good i'm good now hey that that

right there is tough to top

yeah so how are you going to top that

show right so we kind of left when we

thought well we'll still get together

now and again but everyone at this point

had side projects

except me and i wasn't doing anything so

um

the guitarist and i decided that we were

going to kind of keep going but we were

going to do an acoustic thing so we

turned it from bad karma into acoustic

karma and it was like all right we're

still going to play and just get out

because i still like doing that

but i started writing some songs and i

started just thinking about what i

wanted to do

and i wrote a song in 2018 that i

actually

sat on i sat on it for a reason and i

don't i don't tell anyone about it it's

one of those things i keep that to me

but i sat on it because i didn't think i

wanted to release it and i sat on it for

almost a year

and i put it out at the beginning of

this year and the song is called every

step

and it is uh it's a it's a it was

cathartic for me it's a hopeful song and

i just wanted to put it out i could care

less whether it had done

anything or made any money it wasn't

about that it was about just getting out

the song and seeing if i could touch

someone else's life like it made me feel

and um it's since now gone on and done

pretty

pretty well it's done pretty

successfully i've i have a little over

180

000 streams of that song on spotify

and that's great yeah it is

but let's take let's take the timeline

now

mp3.com in 99.

uh everything i owned everything i did

i probably only sold i don't know i

might have sold

8 000 copies of that single but multiply

that times a dollar

you know so yeah not bad right

and then hey that pays for some guitar

strings

and you know a new guitar and a few

other things

right so nothing really bad let's you

know realistically i don't really care i

tell people i made i have not haven't

made any money in music it's not about

that for me

but let's say i made eight eight to ten

thousand dollars in 19.99

in 2011 i put out some records on this

new thing called

itunes that everyone's freaking out

about and i don't know i sold

i don't know thousand singles at 79

cents

so i made like 800 bucks 800 bucks

yeah and then uh i got 180

000 listens from a single on spotify and

i just got a check for

i just got a royalty check from spotify

i could even screenshot it to you right

now

literally came in yesterday i'm getting

a check for 87

well i you know i've i've heard those

stories about you know

the streams and whatever it is like .006

or or whatever for a stream or point

zero zero three yeah

i knew it was some minuscule amount

right uh but

i i think you hit the nail on the head

and you and i

when we talked earlier we kind of talked

about this uh

you know in getting in with the

podcasting thing my

uh co-host and i you know we weren't

running out there

and trying to see if we could throw ads

in it and

put ads all over the place and think oh

you know somebody needs to be paying us

for this time

look like music to us the podcast thing

it's something that's enjoyable it's

relaxing and we both made an agreement

whenever this became not fun

when we dreaded the fact that hey you

know we're going to meet once a week

and we're going to have what we call our

production meeting which is basically us

just you know sitting back and forth

saying hey what do we want to talk about

and then we record some podcasts that

the day

that we say man you know what i i just

i'm not

feeling it we just hang it all up and

and we walk away because

it's got to be fun like you said you go

out and you want to play the acoustic

shows because you like getting up in

front of a crowd

you like playing the guitar you like

singing you know get you

you like that part you're not sitting in

the background going like this

trying to figure out how am i going to

control the world and get all the money

in the world for doing it

so as long as you keep up with that as

long as you say i want to put that

stuff out that i enjoy somebody out

there is going to have that same taste

and somebody out there is going to have

that same sense of humor that same taste

in music

that that same kid you know like my boy

who's 13 years old might

see you play the guitar or even you know

when i pick up the guitar at home and

play that's why he's playing the guitar

now

he's not thinking he's going to be some

big rich rock star

he enjoys playing the guitar and once

you take the enjoyment out of stuff and

you make it a job

then it's just another job so why you

wouldn't do your regular job and not get

paid for it right

so if you if you turn it into a job then

it just takes

takes all that out so when you

brought out this new song and one of the

things i wanted to talk to you about

with that

uh especially with the kind of the

spotify deal and everything

are albums just kind of going away now

i mean there's really no reason for a

band or whatever to sit down and put

10 12 songs together because nobody goes

to

walmart or target or that you know

there's no cd stores there's no

blockbuster music anymore

where you go when you you flip through

cds

is the album dead is it going to be just

slow releases of singles and maybe if

you're some huge band

and you've been a band for 30 years like

and since we brought them up to smashing

pumpkins

and in fact i think it i'm not a hundred

percent on this but i think even the

smashing pumpkins did some like

just single drop releases here and there

yeah are alby's dead are we not going to

get that anymore

is it going to be singles i think that

we're going through a reversal a little

bit we're kind of

coming back through this like cyclical

era of music

but think about this in the 50s nobody

bought albums

everybody bought singles they were

called 45s and they already had 45

and they had the big hole in the middle

yeah they did they bought 45s as a

matter of fact and i i know i'm a little

bit older than you

um i maybe even be a lot older than you

but you know

that's what i bought i mean i had you

know everyone still had 45s

i went to the music store as a kid and i

still have them i mean i've got

probably a stack of like 50 45s

everything from

prince to van halen to

whatever was popular in 1982 1983 they

were still putting out 45s

people were buying singles they weren't

you know but albums were still

really big albums got huge right at the

end of the 60s

you talk about the beatles started doing

everything with their singles but then

man meet the beatles comes out then you

get all the great stuff that they got

going then everyone's like oh my god

i've heard you know help and i've heard

you know i saw her standing there and

now i want to get

all of them on one record so i don't

have to keep flipping these things

around and then

early 70s comes on and you start getting

some really

big bands you're getting pink floyd

you're getting led

zeppelin you're getting aerosmith you're

getting all of these

like what you call now classic rock

arena type

multi you know fasted instrumentalist

bands

and they want you to buy their album

because a pink floyd record like dark

side of the moon

you know yeah money might be a single

but it doesn't make any sense unless you

hear it with everything else

and so yes i think

right now it's singles and i think the

reason why though isn't because

people enjoy buying singles i think it's

because our target audience at this

point now is

is i think the attention span is so bad

that

if you don't put out something hot new

and and fresh

every it feels like almost a couple of

weeks you're not doing it right i can't

do that i mean i'm

i've got three i'm got this one i just

released

i'm gonna have another one next month

that i did a collaboration with with

someone

and i'm gonna i think i've got one more

for me so i'm gonna do like four a year

and i think i'm good one a quarter

and i'm pretty good because you know

whatever but

yeah i i'll at the end of this year i've

got enough songs that i could put an

album together and i may call it an

ep i might call it an album but i mean

uh i made 50 copies of of

actual cds that i thought hey this would

be cool you know people might want this

and

whatever and i've given more away than

i've sold and

obviously and but i'm okay with that too

because i just think

i'm still old school i like having

something physical on my hand

you know this is i think i think that is

where

vinyl is making such a comeback there

was an article that i read

i want to say this was about two weeks

ago or so that for the first time

since i believe 1984 1985

yes vinyl outsold cds yep because

yes just like you said i'm the same way

i want to put my hands

on something when i want to have that

listening

experience if i'm working on the

computer

i'm just got my spotify going music's in

the background right

if i'm mowing the grass i've got my

phone in my pocket i got my

air pods in and i'm just listening to it

because of the absolute convenience

factor

but for those artists that you know

really mean something to me where i want

to

physically tangibly hold something i

want to hear

that crack when that needle hits the

vinyl and i want to watch that spin

around

and and yeah i do want to get up off the

couch

couch and and cuss just a little bit

because i have to get up

and flip the record over or i get one of

those that's

too vinyl and it's like okay now i'm on

side c

because i got to get the second record

out because you know keep listening to

but look that should be part of the

experience

and especially in this covered world

that we're living in now you don't

really have

live music per se i know you've got some

of these drive-in shows

you you've got some things like that so

the only

real way to experience music and make it

an experience rather just some

background noise to me

is vinyl and the numbers are starting to

speak for it so

i think the only way albums will survive

is going back to the vinyl i i think cds

are going to become coasters i i don't

think

any of my kids even own any cds my

oldest is 17 right now

i don't think she has a single cd you

know she's got her spotify account

she's got downloads that she's done off

itunes and that's it

she doesn't really want cds she'd rather

take that money

and save it up for a concert ticket and

go see him live

that makes sense makes sense but i do

remember one of

my favorite bands uh when i went to see

them

live i don't know this was several years

ago actually got to talk to the

guitarist in the band

and i said hey i i need to tell you

something uh

i kind of feel bad about this but i saw

y'all play

like three or four years ago and i liked

you all so much

i went home and i went on napster and i

pirated all your music and i'd burn it

onto a cd

and then i made some copies of that cd

and i gave them to some friends

and he said and we really appreciate you

doing that

he said because if you wouldn't have

done that they maybe never would have

heard of us

and maybe they were going to come buy a

ticket to the show

i don't want to say who they are in case

i might get them in trouble for

saying hey we appreciate you pirating

our music

but but yeah it's it's not but

at least spotify yeah you know you're

0.003 cents or whatever

you can actually look at that in real

time and say hey

this song's been played 181 thousand

times

you could give me a cd and maybe that's

my favorite song of all time and i play

it 10 times a day

every day for the next 10 years but

you're not going to know if i played it

once and do it in the trash

or i play it on repeat and at least

spotify tells you

hey people are listening to this it it

they they care it's not just i sold 50

cds

so i just kind of forget about it after

that

so so

what do you think about the and and this

is kind of going along the same line to

the

the internet the streaming and

everything the

social media portion now that it's

played on music

because used to it was that the posters

stapled to the telephone poles

and the word of mouth and and your

buddies saying hey you know my friends

in a band and doing this

now you can go out with social media and

you can say you know

hey follow me here i'm on this facebook

and instagram and

and all of this and you can have people

that you've never even met

actually find your stuff whether it be

virtually or actually show up to a show

without having to do the word of mouth

but you don't also have that intimate

connection so

the social media for for that part good

or bad good for new followers

you do have to do some marketing though

to get new followers because

just like anything else i could put a

song on spotify and no one's gonna know

about it unless i advertise a little bit

there's no way uh because i'm i'm not

i'm nobody i'm just

i'm one of one billion artists that are

out there that are putting stuff out

there

um it's not bad but it's not

great for your social networks and i'll

tell you why

as a matter of fact i was just talking

about this with someone the other day

um i had in the last six months i've

been

obviously way more active online i've

got this show

live at chance's house i've got uh music

that's coming out

i've got um some charity work that i'm

doing where i'm trying to raise money

for people

i'm kind of i'm a little bit i'm a

little bit too much out there and i

recognize that as a matter of fact

um i gotta i gotta scale it back a

little bit as much i think

i might even you know i might have even

irritated a few of my friends and maybe

even just a few of my followers because

i was so excited about getting this

stuff out and oh check this out oh i got

this

oh i got this oh i got this and one of

my best friends reminded me he's like

hey man you have

five different pages and you have

you've got an instagram account a

twitter account you've got

soundcloud you're on spotify you've got

reverb nation you're on last fm and you

just told me that you're on pandora now

good god in mind

when you post something i get like 15

freaking

notifications he's like i love you man

but you got to stop and i'm like

i i honestly didn't think about it and

so i'm trying to dial it back a little

bit i have a dedicated page now and

you know just for the music stuff and if

it's something important then i'm gonna

post it up and

i'm gonna say hey um but man people are

tapped out a little bit and i gotta i

gotta

i gotta dial it back you know i can't

just be that guy all the time because

people are gonna be like

ah i'm done you know and i don't want to

make anyone mad or make them think i'm

spamming them because that's not what it

is i'm just excited

i'm excited about what i'm doing and i'm

excited to share what i'm doing with

other people

but even with the the fundraising that

i'm doing right now

i have to remember and as a matter of

fact i just put out a post it's kind of

funny you say social media and i'm

wearing people out

um my cause isn't your cause it may not

be it maybe it is

maybe what i'm supporting right now you

think hey that's that's cool i'll donate

five bucks i'll donate 50 bucks i'll

donate 500 bucks whatever

but just because it's my cause now

doesn't mean it's your cause now you

might have something else

you know and if maybe i had just

happened to tap into that thing then you

would be more likely to donate so

i'm i've been frustrated over like the

last couple of weeks because man i just

i want to do good for this

organization i want to i want to present

well like this is the first time i've

legitimately had someone kind of go with

me and say hey really you're going to

help us raise money that's great here

here's some stuff and go out and

fundraise and it felt like i was kind of

legitimizing what i was doing when

before

it was real grassroots it was real just

hey there's a button on spotify go hit

it

and it almost feels like i've pushed too

hard and

um for anyone who's watching this by the

way i'll be the first one to apologize

and say look that's never been my intent

my intent is

you know i've always said be kind and

listen to people that's the first thing

and then the second thing is is that i'm

just trying to do a little good in this

world where i feel like that i can make

a difference

and it's not about me it is absolutely

not at all about me

and i can completely and 100

c that people might think it's about me

and

it's not so i got to dial it back so to

answer your question about social media

i think that developing a fan base

starts obviously with people you know

you have to there's no way you can't

okay it's right friends and family

that's where everybody's got to start

it but here's what you don't want it to

be you don't want it to be like freaking

amway where you're like hey man

uh what are you doing tonight you want

to come over because i got the wife and

i got

we got dinner and then you walk in and

we're trying to sell you freaking toilet

paper which

although right now that might not be

such a bad plan yeah

but no that's true and that that amway

thing was kind of the segway i was going

to go

with because it seems like media it

entertainment right

it there's ways to support that without

somebody having to do

and i'm going to use an old man term

here open up their checkbook

right because there's so much of that on

social media where it's like

hey like my page because i'm starting

this business and i'm going to sell you

this widget

because i went over to this party with

some of my girlfriends and now i'm in

this pyramid scheme

and so i'm going to bombard everybody on

facebook because

that you know these essential oils or

whatever

are going to make me rich and now i'm a

small business owner

and so when you see the the creative

stuff

there's always that knee-jerk reaction

in somebody's head like okay

max or chance is trying to get me to

click on something

to where i'm gonna eventually have to

pay for something because they're trying

to sell me something rather than just

saying hey

look here's something creative i'm doing

listen to it let me know what you think

you know that's all it takes i'm asking

for a little bit of your time that's it

i'm not asking you to buy anything i'm

not asking me to sign up

in some pyramid scheme nothing like that

or

and i'd love to you know bring me over

for dinner and then show you all these

amway products you know

but there's so much of that so much of

that that goes on social media

and you know it it doesn't take anybody

any time anymore now to you know take

their facebook profile and turn around

and create a facebook page

and say you know here's my business and

i work for this

and you know next thing you know is oh

somebody's peddling something again

but what i will tell you is the like the

instagram post or the facebook post

whatever where

like you for instance uh which i mean

one of the reasons why i kind of wanted

to reconnect with you

with the podcast deal and you're live at

chance's house deal

was i wish there was so much more of

that

if i see somebody with a picture of them

playing an acoustic guitar saying hey

you know i just wrote this song take a

listen

i'm going to stop and take a listen i

mean it might be five seconds it might

be the whole song

you know if you do some live video and

you're sitting there and you're you're

playing for 30 or 40 minutes you know

i'm going to listen to that

i'm not going to click on your page if

you're you know trying to fill me

essential oils or some goofy thing like

that because

those same people it'll be that and then

two months later they're selling

toothpaste and two months later after

that they're selling some other

goofy thing but show me the creative

stuff i i miss the days of social media

where it was

pictures of the kids and i went to this

concert

and you know here's my music i'm i'm

trying to make it

maybe two people my mom and my dad are

the only ones that are ever going to

listen to it but

at least they're throwing something out

in the world because i'm sure

even the beatles at one point and i know

they're you know one of the groups you

like were

pink floyd you know you got your your

poster there in the back pink floyd

let's

take them at some point they were

sitting there

and the only people that were listening

to their music was

their dad that was probably screaming at

him saying turn that down

you know what is all that noise that

you're making and

everybody starts somewhere yeah no

absolutely well you know

actually let me ask you something

because you know you've been talking

about this podcast and we're just kind

of dancing around a little bit i mean

but what

you know you're you're asking me all

these questions is kind of like you're

trying to figure it out but

why the hell are you getting into it why

what what's what what's the wolf in the

shepherd and where did that kind of get

started

i mean why yeah well

a buddy of mine and i would sit around

and talk

and i i'd go over to his house he'd come

over to my house

and and we didn't just talk about you

know what the

the greatest play of the cowboys game

was the other day

and and stuff like that we we always got

in these deep discussions

and we like to argue with each other

debate a lot of stuff

we're you know right there together on a

lot of stuff we're really far apart

he's from england i'm from texas so

much different you know outlook but of

course you know he now lives here in

texas

and so then i started listening

to podcasts and i didn't know he was

also listening to podcasts

we never spoke about the podcast we were

listening to

or or the topics that were brought up or

anything and

one night we're sitting there and we're

talking about some topic and i

it's hard telling what it was and we

went on for

over an hour about this and i stopped

and i said

hey do you know what a podcast is he

said of course i do

you know i listen to this one this one

i'm like yeah i listen to this one this

one but do you realize if we would have

just been

sitting here recording this that would

have been an episode on a podcast

and he kind of sat back in his chair and

he said

yeah but that sounds like a lot of work

and we're both by the way very lazy

people

and i said yeah you're probably right

that sounds like a lot of work well

that was about a year ago like i say and

here recently i said you know we we've

gotten in several more of those

discussions

i said look all we're doing is doing the

same stuff you and i already do we talk

about things and we

bounce ideas back and forth and all that

why not just record it there might be

somebody out here that enjoys listening

to it and he said

oh i you know i don't think that's ever

going to happen nobody's going to want

to

listen to us well a little bit later we

end up in this kind of same deal but we

had another one of our buddies over

and he was sitting there as him and i my

my co-host and i were we're talking back

and forth and our buddy stops us and he

says

you know i'm glad i'm here listening to

what y'all are saying

but i'm gonna have to look some of this

stuff up and you all

explain it very well i just can't really

interject anything but

it's really informative and entertaining

what y'all are saying and i looked at

him i said

see see right there there's somebody

right there that basically listened to

our live

podcast that we didn't record because

we're too lazy to sit down

and actually do it okay fine

you know figure it out and and let me

know what i got to do

and so you know here here we are and

you know putting stuff out there having

fun with it and

we've uh you know as of today we've

we've been on the air a week

you know the this uh this that will come

out on on my side of the uh

the podcast realm will be our sixth

episode

so uh you know we're we're still in the

infancy of it

but i'm thoroughly enjoying it and

surprising enough he's thoroughly

enjoying it in fact

uh before we hopped on here i shot him a

text message saying

i'm recording this tonight really wish

you were in town and he said

yeah you know i wish i was in town too

and once he found out we were doing the

zoom thing he said

well if i had known you were doing the

zoom thing i'd have brought my laptop or

something like that i'm like

dude it's too late it's too late i've

already got all this

stuff lined up so and we said a long

time ago there's going to be some

episodes that's just going to be me

there's going to be some episodes that's

just going to be him so

you know i i can see how two people

trying to interview

one person could be a little

intimidating

even if we're all sitting around and

we're friends it's still like

okay i've got to explain to these two

guys and i'm just one dude right

and now there's two people trying to ask

me questions and bounce stuff back and

forth so

i think our interview steps probably

going to be a lot of one-on-ones like

this

so yeah but but yeah i i you know i just

i don't play the guitar anymore that

much i show my kids and stuff

uh i wrote some books about i don't know

10 or so years ago

did that you know kind of one of those

been there done that i'm like

you know i i always have had that

creative thing i like to create stuff

but i can't draw and you know i can't

color anything or

something like that and i thought man

let me give this podcasting thing a try

and

like i said so far just it's been it's

been really enjoyable

and even in the short time we've been

doing it and you know

virtually met some cool people along the

way and and seeing some

newer podcasters getting started it

seems like every day there's new

podcasts popping up but

quite honestly i think it's great i

think anybody that

wants to start a podcast ought to start

a podcast because

you're not going to know unless you try

it and you know so what if it doesn't

work out for you

i mean we we still don't know if this is

going to work out for us or not we hope

it does we're we're having a blast with

it

but our our deal was even if we're only

talking to

three people so what we're having fun

with it and we're gonna stay true to

what we've been doing with it in our

format and all that good stuff

you know we're not gonna sell out

basically it's what i'm trying to say

yeah i have um speaking of of what that

is i mean

i've i've kind of watched over the last

um

you know let's say 30 to 45 days i've

been watching

each week as i've been doing you know

the live broadcast that i'm doing i'm

watching it

do something and it's it's weird i

understand it now it's what i was

explaining before i might just be

wearing people out

um so i'm gonna i gotta get back to

basics a little bit you know i'm gonna

just keep it simple and

um continue to play music because that's

what it is it's called live at chance's

house for a reason

but i always end up playing for at least

an hour or sometimes hour and a half i

played last thursday for an hour and a

half without stopping because i'm taking

requests i'm like this is too much fun i

don't have anywhere to be i was on

vacation i'm just doing that

right but i have a core group of of

really

just some of the nicest people and

and greatest greatest friends that that

come in week in week out and regardless

of whether i've got

100 views or 500 views and

i've had this i've had it all in between

um

it really doesn't matter because you

know in the last six months

i have made uh some of the most

important connections with people

that i may have ever made in my entire

life

and this core group of friends are

people that i've known

for years i mean just this is

just as much as just as long as i've

known you and in the last six months

um i feel like that they are the family

that i

you know never knew i had i feel like

you know

one of one of my friends who i've just

been we've been friends forever and

we've always

we've always been more than

acquaintances we've always been friends

but um i mean

he's like my brother i mean i wouldn't

anything he'd ever asked me to do i do

and we just

have fun it doesn't matter what it is i

mean i come up with

stupidest ideas i've got some really

lame ideas i'm not gonna lie

and i've got this new thing now where um

i'm having people throw out songs and if

i know how to play them i i just play

them even if i don't know how to play

them

i'm playing them uh and i'm i'm really

not that great a guitarist

i'm pretty good all right i'm pretty

good but i i

cheat and i gotta look it up and i'll

look it up and go oh really that song is

only four chords

uh hell i can play this check this out

uh sometimes i surprise myself but about

about 60 of the time i completely trash

the song and i have no idea what i'm

doing and it's really freaking funny

so that's yeah that's the bit yeah but

you know what yeah but

you're having fun doing it yeah and

that's the great part

you know you you can take something like

that and have fun with it

and butcher a song and say you know that

sounded terrible but i

i hope you all enjoyed laughing at me

i didn't mess the words up too bad right

but uh

but yeah and and then at least you know

because of your love for music

and what you do with music you you've

got your actual recording stuff that

you're doing and

and you know that's kind of your serious

stuff like you know

i got a funny side i like to laugh and i

like to you know laugh at myself but you

know

i i do have that serious side so let's

let's talk about

this new song that you just released uh

last week correct yeah yeah so so walk

us through

this new song uh the song is called back

from the mist

um it's a song that actually got written

many many years ago um it's it's a much

older song

um i wrote it with at the you know he

was in my wedding he's one of my closest

friends he's like my brother his name is

gil valencia

and the first guy i ever wrote songs

with

when i was you know 19 years old he

showed me how to play a few chords

we wrote songs together and um

he was part of that group of that

classic 100 songs i wrote and 96 of them

were bad

um well he moved here

around 97 98 like i did he was traveling

he

you know in his business brought him to

dallas fort worth when he was from el

paso too and so we had a couple of years

together

here in the late 90s and um

we ended up writing some songs what's

funny about this song is is that

i called him and i said hey i'm

re-recording back from the mist and he's

like

oh that's that's cool great you know you

wrote that song anyway i'm like

uh no i know i didn't because i've got

the sheet music with your

handwriting on it you wrote you wrote

the music

i wrote the lyrics and he was like i

didn't write that song anyway it was

funny because it was so long ago he

didn't even remember

and um but what i did with it was i had

about five years ago i had just tracked

it again and i said you know i can sing

that song way better now i've gotten

i've gotten a lot better since 99 on how

to you know to produce music

and i just liked the song and it's very

it's a very personal song

and it's um it's not even something i

need to tell you about because it's one

of those songs where you kind of

if you listen to it it's going to speak

to everyone in their own way it's a

it's a song that was that was developed

from a moment of hopelessness that leads

to a moment of hope

you know which is all you can ask for

and so

i called him and i said hey i'm

re-recording this song i hope you don't

care and he's like

i don't care remember i couldn't even

remember i said i wrote the song

and he and he seems to remember that i

wrote everything and then i

it was funny so i said i need all your

information man because you're about to

be a bmi artist

i said i'm gonna put this thing out i'm

really recording it and i need your

stuff because you're

gonna be a composer on the on the record

so get ready

and uh so we've had fun going back and

forth about that but the the song is um

it's a little bit of a throwback it's

it's kind of got a 90s feel

and it's something that just in my

wheelhouse because i love like 90s music

anyway but

it's it's been it's been more fun than

anything else and i

really really think that it's you know

this and the last couple of songs i've

done i really think just some of the

best work i've done

and i i'm just proud of it so you know

it's doing okay

it's been out for a week it's just i

think it just hit over a little over

three thousand plays

i remember when every step came out and

it hit like ten thousand i told one of

my friends like there's no way it's

gonna do much more this he's like i bet

you

that it's gonna hit a hundred he's like

it's gonna hit at least a hundred

thousand mike there is

no freaking way it's gonna hit a hundred

thousand

uh and he's like you wanna bet me and

i'm like

sure whatever you want and he's like

okay if it hits a hundred thousand

then for halloween you have to dress up

like ron burgundy and say i'm kind of a

big deal

and uh yeah so i gotta pay up that bet

um and now it's on its way to 200

and who knows what's going to happen

with this new one i mean it's pretty

exciting i will tell you this is that

these first 3 000 plays though that has

happened have been completely organic

i i haven't started promoting it yet so

i know for a fact

that people that followed me on spotify

or followed me on apple music

or the one of the coolest things that's

happened to me recently is

my songs getting shazamed well you can't

do that at all

it has to be playing publicly somewhere

someone has to go

wait a minute who's that well i get i

get notifications

apple owns shazam now so they send me a

weekly update and they'll tell me how

many times my song got shazamed i'm like

are you kidding me

so the organic growth is happening it's

just it's just

taking a long time because i don't have

millions of dollars to put in

advertising to tell the entire country

hey check out my new single

sorry but you know what it doesn't

matter it never was about that it

still isn't i'm just very blessed and

thankful for the

the people that are in my life and the

friends that i have and look my social

network in general i mean

everyone that's on my social network for

the most part i can tell you i know

i know my only rule is is that i've met

you at least once

and i can i can tell you a story of

where we met that's it

if if i don't know anything about about

you that's okay

but everyone's been really nice um

look the fundraising's been going great

uh people are really supporting the

songs and it just is cool

and i love doing it and i'm gonna you

know

good deal well let's have a listen to

the new song

okay that sounds great

man that sounded great uh i i think

honestly you might have a race on the

other song

so i i i know i i know the

uh you know this one just came out like

i said that you just released it last

week

right so it's got some catching up to do

because

the other song had a head start so in

all fairness

maybe you need to look at those metrics

as they go on but you know

both great songs uh looking forward to

to

what's coming next and uh i always

always enjoy your music chants and i i

appreciate you sharing that with

everybody

uh both for you know your listeners and

my listeners as well

uh it's just absolutely great stuff

great stuff man thank you

thank you i i had a lot of fun doing it

and it's just one of those things that

i'm gonna keep doing and the next one's

already on its way it's been done and

it's in the can so to speak and

we're gonna set a release date and maybe

i can do that

thing where we talked about earlier i'm

going to catch everyone's attention like

about four weeks from now and go here

you go

another single there you go yep yep

and hey nothing wrong with that so so

you got another one in the can and you

said

you know maybe you know try to release

something quarterly right so

yeah so in this in this covet area

that we're in right now if you were

going to collaborate with somebody

on a song and you couldn't do it

sitting you know face to face or in a

studio

how would you do that what what process

would you go through what arrangements

would you make right now

to get that creative juice flowing that

you don't have by sitting in that room

and seeing somebody play and and being

there

live with that how have you made that

transition

um this new song that's coming out in

october i did exactly what i'm about to

tell you and we did that um

the person that uh i'm collaborating

with

it's a song i wrote okay i wrote the

song however i

wanted to do something and his name is

xavier valdez

um i've had him on my show and the way

we met

is i put out an ad on instagram from my

first single every step

and he clicked on it and went uh i dude

i never click on he even told me

straight up he'll admit it i never click

on instagram ads he's like i clicked on

it though you hooked me because i like

the song

so he sent me a message and said hey man

i just checked out your tune i think it

was really good

that was it i said thanks that's awesome

i really appreciate it and the next

thing you know just kind of organically

we started

chatting on instagram and he's like hey

man i got this single you should check

it out

i checked it out i listened to it and

just like we just like in the old days

where

word of mouth gets around you burned a

cd from napster

and you gave it to some people because

you wanted your friends to check it out

you thought dude this band is killer you

need to check this out

i did the same thing i listen to this

guy's music i'm like damn this is cool

this is this is music that i like too

and it's different though it's indie

rock it's

it's very um i've told him that

the best description i can give for

xavier's music is like gorillas

oh okay okay it's got rock it's got

hip hop it's got indy it's got swirling

dreamy atmosphere

it's got chill it's got ambience it's

got trance it's a little bit of

everything

and i've always always always wanted to

write a song that sounds something sort

of like that

and so i said hey man i got this new

song that i just wrote

you want a partner and he was like yeah

dude that'd be that'd be killer

he's like what do you want to do i was

like i'll tell you what let me send you

a song

so i recorded the vocal and i recorded

the guitar part

in logic i shot him over uh a mix

and said here you go it's at 96 bpms

it's the kia c

take a listen and let me know what you

think um

we did one zoom call and talked about a

couple of things he's like well this is

what i'm thinking

i kind of got this idea and what do you

think and i'm like i think that's a

great idea maybe not this

let's try this it's like oh that's a

great idea we zoomed

for we zoomed for an hour and

three days later he sent me a demo track

of the entire song that he had redone he

took out my acoustic guitar all together

he had made a beat

he put a bass line down he throwed in

some guitars

and he said i'm just gonna delete your

vocal the track's done

i'm sending it back to you i need you to

give me a solid track for vocal and

we're gonna send it to mix and master

and i'm like done

and we had the song completed in

i don't know two weeks all right

yeah and so then that but now we also

talk i mean like as a matter of fact um

i sent him i just got the final mix

today we had to tweak here and throw

some extra bass in here and pull my

vocal back

just what you normally do i said dude

it's done and i had texted him and

literally before we got on this call

um i he texted me he's like dope drop

he's like that's dope bro i can't wait

because he's

way younger than me and i'm like yeah

it's going to be awesome so

but that's how we did it and we're going

to release the song um

he's he's getting producing credits and

he's also we we worked out a deal in the

back end

at the end of the deal i'm the i'm the

publisher i wrote the song no matter

what i still get credit for it because

that's just the way the music industry

works

um but right there's no way that this

song would be as cool

as it is right now if he hadn't

contributed

give him the ideas and put it out there

and we even took it a different step

which even took it a different way and

had it

you know mixed again and produced and

had someone else listen to it and we put

some effort into this thing

and um it's it's had its hand you know

people have had their

their turn with it and it's really come

out to be a great production so

you know he's gonna be listed with

producing credits he's he's uh

unfortunately he's not a composer it

would be like if he did a cover of my

song it's basically a remix

but it's not because he created

something

and i created and we put those worlds

together and we got a killer song so

the title of the song is called shining

through and so when i feature it it's

going to be on my channel

but when we feature it it's going to be

shining through featuring xavier valdez

just as if beyonce

and jay-z put out a song

jay-z's definitely not put out a record

featuring beyonce it's the other way

around

well yeah right so so so so what you're

saying is you're you're the wife in the

marriage then no oh

my god first of all that came out

completely wrong

and the other thing is yeah i'm not

saying that listen my buddy xavier is

talented as hell and

i that my point was is that she was the

talent

that wasn't making comparison to me i am

no way

you know okay all right well we'll we'll

we'll let that slide chance

we'll let that slide i'm not queen bae

it's not

happening now

earlier uh you know to kind of shift

gears we were talking about that

when we had our kind of like pre-phone

call before this

of catching up and we kind of got into

it a little bit earlier about that

the karaoke days i mean i i remember

when you were

doing the dj thing and you were doing

the karaoke hosted thing

uh lots of uh interesting nights

uh that we had uh doing those shows uh

two that came to mind

for me was i remember of course this is

you know the internet's still there

but it's not you know in full fledge

like you say it's kind

it's still kind of the aol days i

remember going in one night

and telling you that rage against the

machine broke up

and you had not heard that news so i

mean in today's day and age with the

internet and social media

if rage against machine would have

announced today

they broke up you would have known about

it within

45 seconds to a minute yeah you would

somehow went that whole day

and didn't know that rage against

machine broke up

you you made a phone call or two and

and verified that it wasn't just max

making stuff

up because max likes to make stuff up

and that whole night

in between all of the karaoke songs or

all the karaoke singers whatever all you

did was play play

all night long and uh i always thought

that was great

but here's here's a

here's a crazy one for you and this is a

little bit spooky

uh so when we had our phone call uh

earlier

this morning and and we were talking and

we kind of you know lined up everything

hey

here's the time and here's all this good

stuff right i had spotify going and i

have a

big playlist that's honestly i think

i've got it up to like 32 hours now

and i just you know i hit play and

shuffle and it goes and

it could be frank sinatra and then it's

going to be

you know rage against the machine and

then smashing pumpkins and then

theme from star wars it it is just the

messiest playlist you've ever seen so

we got off the phone and i hit play on

there you know because obviously i

didn't want to have music in the

background when we were talking

don't remember what song finished

but the very next song that came on was

banditos

and i remember the day of september 11th

you were hosting a karaoke show and we

went out that night kevin mills and i

were there

and you you had lost some friends in the

attacks or i can't remember if you lost

them or you were

in fear that you had and you played that

song

over and over and over again because of

the line and the song

everybody knows this world is full of

stupid people

and i just thought that was so eerie

when we had talked in the very next song

in my playlist with that

was that song and i had to bring that up

to you because

it started playing and i thought you got

to be kidding me

you know spotify is not that smart they

they weren't hanging out with us

19 years ago when that happened how did

spotify just all of a sudden play that

song so

i i do remember you know you you always

hear about where were you at on

september 11th i mean i remember that

morning

obviously you know where i was but then

that that evening of saying you know hey

you know we we gotta we gotta go do

something to get our minds off of this

and i was surprised that you were even

there you know a lot of places closed

down

but there there was something about just

getting back to the normalcy of

getting to do something that was normal

that that made you kind of forget about

it

and i i will never forget that night

when you replaying that song

over and over again so

like you said before you and i go way

back i don't know if you even remember

that or not but

you and i were together that that day on

september 11th so i um

i do remember that actually and what's

interesting is

you've brought something up that no one

knows um

because it's it it's one of my favorite

songs is because i think it's a funny

song and i think it's great it's

so poignant and it's just a good track

um but about

i don't know three months ago i made

like i made a video

of me playing it acoustically and i did

like six panels of you know

here's me and here's me singing my

backup and here's me playing guitar and

here's me playing shaker and here's me

playing tambourine

and doing some silly stuff because i

like the song

but i've liked that song for a lot of

reasons and i

i actually do remember that and that was

a hard day for

so i mean for our entire nation it was a

hard day and

yeah i was fearful for some people my um

my wife

lived in new york for for many years and

we kind of didn't have

you know we didn't know what was going

on we couldn't place it and phone lines

were out and we were trying to get a

hold of people and

it was it was important and it was we

had no idea what was going on and so

yeah i do remember that and that's

that's a great memory thank you for

sharing that too because

sometimes we forget those moments and it

it takes just a minute to to reflect

back and go

yep that was a big deal and here's why

and it meant something to me

and uh you know that's one more reason

why

while we may not have been in uh

you know contact for many years you know

you and and me and all of our we i mean

we still have a kind of a core group of

people that used to go to those things

that you know i'm still friends with a

lot of a lot of them

actually all of them i'm still friends

with and

um we've had we've had connections we've

had important connections we've had big

ones we've had

happy times we've had sad times we've

shared you know funny moments we've

shared drunk moments we've shared a lot

of stuff

and um you know it's kind of amazing

though but you know how just our worlds

intersect but then yet

then they slowly drift away if you don't

maintain and and just kind of nurture

those

relationships it's not on purpose it's

not hey i don't like this person anymore

it's

our lives went a different way because

we found something that was important to

us

i got married you got married i got out

of karaoke you

you got into you know your business i

got into my business

you know everything that has evolved and

you know this is another perfect example

of why i love doing live at chance's

house and why you probably love doing

podcasting now

um we have now just reconnected

something

where i'm glad that we did i i now have

another

person that's in my life that i remember

and still have truly memorable moments

with and you just reminded me again why

stuff like this is so very important i

i agree and even in this you know

covet era that we're in right now or

people call it the new normal which i

i truly i hate that term because i hope

this isn't really normal i hope this

is the temporary and we do truly get

back

to the normal uh i i don't want

everything to be

zoomed phone calls and you know you

never see anybody and you can't get

together and you

you know it'd be like if you and i were

in the same room but because of

everything going on

the first thing we probably want to do

is shake hands but then

i haven't seen you in a while it's like

okay well it's chance shaking hands

and you're thinking well max shaking

hands and

the the bizarreness that's going on with

the social interactions because of

of all this is is kind of putting a hurt

on things

but in in the same respect though

the one thing i think that has shown a

benefit

is there might not have been a time

where

you and i could have met up and said

you know hey let let's meet here for a

drink or you know let's

let's try to get together and chat but

it's very easy for us to go ahead and

plug the computer in

and click a link and you know see each

other face to face even if it is through

a camera

and catch up on old time so i hope

honestly with things like zoom calls

podcasting

all that good stuff that that people are

starting to make some more connections

maybe

you know rekindling some of those old

friendships or

catching up with people and saying you

know and i i haven't thought about you

in a while what's been going on what's

new

and all that because i think a lot of

people have

already watched everything on netflix

they've already watched everything on

hulu

and now it's find some new content to

entertain myself

and catch up with some people from the

past

and make some new friends uh i i hope to

meet some new people through you know

your connections i hope you meet some

new people through mine i hope

there's people that are gonna you know

listen to your new song reach out to you

and say hey man

you know it might not have been for this

podcast i might not have even heard of

you or

or heard this song but it's a great song

and all that good stuff

i think that's where we could look at

one thing this whole good mess might

drag us out as a better society even

with that

that word of mouth now it's that digital

word of mouth

but people are saying hey there's

there's some talented people out there

there's some funny people out there

there's

some interesting stories out there and

there's some old conversations that i

need to get into

and do a little reminiscing and

move forward with with things like that

so

hopefully that's the silver lining on

this the horrible gray cloud we're in

i i couldn't agree more and i i um i

appreciate the sentiment and like i said

this is

this is great when you texted me a

couple of weeks ago i was like hey man

i'm doing this thing and

you know i mean actually it actually

made me made me feel good and it made me

kind of proud because you're like hey

man i see you're doing this thing hey

can you

tell me kind of what you're doing and

what's going on and i'm like yeah man

it's great and you're like

you wanna do an interview i'm like yeah

man that'd be awesome let's do it you

know

you know i wasn't expecting that i was

just you know hey we connected and

again it's that that fringe of people

that you know and you kind of always

have them there but then

you you know i don't want to use the

word take advantage you just

it's the idea that you always have

people that in your life you just we

have to take the time every once in a

while to stop and go

damn it i gotta call that person i gotta

call my that

that friend i gotta call my brother you

know i gotta call my parents you know i

mean

we get into it with even with the

closest people in our lives we get into

that stuff where we

just forget because we get so

overwhelmed and consumed with what we're

doing because we feel like that's all we

have

yeah and it you know one one good thing

that a lot of us probably

have going on right now with you know a

lot of the work from home and everything

so you've cut out the car time so we do

have a little bit more time at home now

and maybe we're at a point now where

we're starting to think about those

relationships because

it's well i gotta i gotta get up at this

time and if i don't get out of the house

by this time i'm going to have all this

traffic and then you're stressing out

about that

you're getting into the office you're

doing all that stuff then you're

fighting all that traffic home and by

the time you get home

you've got a couple hours to talk to the

wife play with the kids

you know do whatever you got to do

around the house and go to sleep so you

can wake up the next day and do it all

again

and now that we got a little bit more

free time

now we're actually finding the stuff

that's important in

you know relationships talking about

stuff that's what's important

yeah absolutely well i'll tell you what

why don't you tell me real quick where i

know i can find the wolf and the

shepherd on spotify

where else can i find you yeah so uh

we're on all the major podcast uh

providers uh

google podcast apple podcasts uh spotify

of course

and all the other ancillary ones uh we

do have a website

that uh is almost done right now if you

go to thewolfandtheshepard.com

uh it's going to point you to all our

podcast links and of course it always

will

got a placeholder page there but if you

go to thewolfindshepard.com

you can find all of our back catalog

podcast uh my co-host who could be with

us tonight

uh he's gonna be doing some blog posts

on there and stuff

he's he's a much better writer than i am

uh

and if uh you know for those that that

listen to this podcast all the time

like i said he's he's away this week on

what i call vacation but what he would

call

holiday so he decided to go on holiday

this week

and uh so but but once he gets back he

he's going to be adding some blog posts

and

uh you know we're going to have links to

guys like you you know that that have

come on the show

and that way if somebody's listening to

this show they can jump on the website

and go find all your music so uh

but yeah the wolfintheshepard.com we got

a facebook page too

uh like i said we we launched a week ago

and the uh amount of listeners and the

amount of followers has

really blown us away uh we we were

expecting maybe five

that we we were going to be happy if the

two of us

and uh maybe three other people listen

to it and

it's it's taken off and and we're happy

about it we're proud about it

uh we just we really enjoy what we're

doing

and and we're happy that other people

seem to be happy with it as well so

that's awesome well i think what we're

going to do um you know kind of at this

point is called a call tonight i really

appreciate uh

i really appreciate you connecting and

saying hey let's do this thing this has

been a lot of fun and

i love the fact that this was you know

yeah there was a couple of questions but

i really feel like this is just a

conversation with two friends that have

been able to catch up after a long time

and

uh yeah i'm glad that we got to do it

i'm glad we got to do it

i i most certainly am too and uh i i do

feel that

that way as well i mean we you know we

did talk about some

some stuff but it was some catching up

and and that's great and i hope uh

whenever the next song comes out you'll

you'll hit me up and

and maybe we can do something like this

again in the near future

yeah i'd look i'm looking forward to

that i think that's great the more that

we have an opportunity not only just to

catch up but maybe network

together a little bit and bring our

worlds together i think that's a great

thing

um you can find more information about

what i'm doing

uh at uh chance munsterman on spotify

but just about every link that i own

known to man is at music by chance if

you go to instagram you go to my

facebook page you go to my facebook

group you go to the whatever

it's listen i'm not even gonna go

through it at music by chance you can

pretty much find whatever you want

and that's kind of what i got going on

so

hey man great catching up with you and

you as well

thank you very much and uh let's uh

let's stay in touch we'll talk soon okay

all right sounds good thanks chance have

a good one

thanks for tuning in to this episode of

the wolf and the shepherd i hope you

enjoyed

my catch up with chance musterman uh

coming up very soon we're going gonna

have another interview and once

the wolf gets back off holiday we'll go

back to our regular scheduled

programming

so hope you enjoyed this podcast and

look forward to

talking with you all very soon