Danny T | DJ Life, Building A Personal Brand & Mental Health | Modern Wisdom Podcast 147

Danny T is a DJ and producer. Expect to learn... How do you go from being a local DJ to touring Europe and selling out arenas? What are the principles behind creating a personal brand that sets you apart in a highly competitive market? What are the best travel hacks if you're flying 7+ times a week? How can we retain party culture whilst protecting people's mental health? And much more... Get Surfshark VPN - https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (Enter Promo Code MODERNWISDOM for 83% off & One Extra Month Free) Extra Stuff: Follow Danny on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/itsdannytdj Check out Danny's Website - http://www.itsdannyt.co.uk/ Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  What does it feel like watching your mate walk out in front of five and a bit thousand people?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's just there's a very sort of clear vision about, you know, how far we want to take this, where it's not completely mapped out of how we're gonna do it. But I think Danny's willingness to try stuff and my sort of relentlessness in making it happen, that's kind of where it's been a real success.

• 0:23Speaker 02

  I did, because I did the O2 Academy a year before and church six months before that. So it was like, O2 Academy's the biggest venue in Leeds, where do we go next? There's a video of me on my Snapchat heading to the O2 going, one day, one day I'll play here. Nah, nah, I'm joking, but it's always nice to dream. Right, you imagine you're in Newcastle city centre and one person screams as loud as they can. You hear that person over two, three thousand people around you. Imagine that times five thousand all at the same time.

• 0:50Chris Williamson?

  For you.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  As you stepped out and you're like, oh my god, how is this even real?

• 0:59Chris Williamson?

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It's Danny T. Hi Danny, how are you man?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.

• 1:07Chris Williamson?

  What a pleasure, it's been so long coming to get you on here.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I know, we've just been speaking for about 20 minutes before this though.

• 1:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, but you can't get straight into it, there's got to be a bit of foreplay, you get what I mean?

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Alright, okay.

• 1:18Chris Williamson?

  That was the conningus before we get into this.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Oh, so good to see you.

• 1:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, hi Daniel, how are you?

• 1:21Speaker 02

  It's been, it's been, it's been a while.

• 1:23Chris Williamson?

  But it's not just you.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  It's not.

• 1:26Chris Williamson?

  Who have you brought with you?

• 1:27Speaker 02

  This is my other half, my, this is my manager.

• 1:31Chris Williamson?

  Introduce yourself.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  I'm Casey, Danny's manager and as a friend.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  He reels me in, he keeps me from getting myself in trouble.

• 1:43Chris Williamson?

  What's it like being Danny's manager, Casey?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Uh, fun alongside challenges.

• 1:50Chris Williamson?

  What's the challenges you come up against?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Um, mostly toning down his wild ideas.

• 1:56Chris Williamson?

  Have you got any wild ideas that you've not let through recently that you can say on camera? You delete a few Instagram stories.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the post of you like semi naked before your show was a. That was a bit of a battle between us.

• 2:11Chris Williamson?

  That got censored, right?

• 2:13Speaker 01

  No, it went up.

• 2:14Chris Williamson?

  I I won that one. Okay, yeah. I I won that one.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  But this is just sort of a routine back and forth between what's allowed and what's not.

• 2:21Chris Williamson?

  I understand.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  But it's all part of the fun craziness that is Danny's personal brand.

• 2:26Chris Williamson?

  I get it. So Danny, you're a DJ, I guess. That's you. You play music, right? I do. Press play on the deck. Once, just press it and stand there and. Leave it, leave it. Raise your hands a little bit. But you've had like last few years, you know, for the people that don't know about Danny's kind of. Surge through popularity, especially recently, that you just sold out Leeds First Direct Arena. Yeah, yeah. Floor standing sold out. How many, how many people's that? Five and a half thousand. Five and a half thousand people and you're just, I I mean, you're a very good DJ, but you're just some fella. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think that's one thing that's makes it more popular is the fact that I am just. Some fella.

• 3:07Chris Williamson?

  Could be everyone's pal, like, it's not like, oh, my God, I've got to go see this superstar. It's like. I know what his dogs are called. Mm hmm, mm hmm. Which is part of the kind of how the followings come, because people just wanted to be part of like. The life that I was living at the time, which has got more sensible over the years, but the parties have got bigger and bigger, haven't they? Hmm. So, you know, you're probably a pretty good role model for the local club DJ. That is now taking it to the absolute nth degree, right? Yeah, if they're really wanting to to push themselves and go further. Yeah, a lot say they want to, a lot don't really wanna put in the work.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  They think it was easy, think it was, they think what they've seen is the route rather than what I've actually done that they wouldn't have ever seen. They just think that, like, they can, oh, we can do that now.

• 4:05Chris Williamson?

  I mean.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  We, we can go there now. I'm not saying they shouldn't try, but they need to try hard.

• 4:10Chris Williamson?

  No, no, I get it, man.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  I'd love to see more people doing it. There's, there's a, there's a massive gap for where I was two or three years ago.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  And just to sort of build on that, I think, you know, what people are sort of seeing the past maybe year or so is the culmination of what I've worked with you four years now, but even prior to me coming on board. That was, you know, there's things that you did beforehand, which has sort of come into a head now, and that's, it's the culmination of all of those years of work.

• 4:38Chris Williamson?

  I think the quote that I love that kind of relates to what you were talking about there is people grind away and grind away and grind away, and it takes them ten years to become an overnight success.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that's one hundred percent true, but at the same time, I get so many messages like, oh, what's the easiest way or what's the quickest way?

• 4:57Chris Williamson?

  What did you just get a message, a question for the podcast as we started? Like, hey, man, what do I need to start DJing?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:03Chris Williamson?

  You were like, well, some DJ decks. But there's part of me that thinks, that's like asking Floyd Mayweather, like, what raps should I buy? Like, you have someone who has moved themselves through this route, right? Like, ask them the, the questions that matter. So I, ladies and gentlemen, and fledgling DJs, I am gonna, I've strapped him down to a couch and I'm gonna ask all the questions that everybody wants to know. So the first question I wanna know, right? I'm a, I'm a, a young DJ, maybe I've got a couple of nights a week, local gigs, maybe support slots, a couple of warm-ups, maybe just about getting my first, you know, main slot at an OK student night in a typical town in the UK. How do I get myself from there to getting booked in

• 5:45Chris Williamson?

  venues abroad, to having a genuine following on social media that care about me, to being able to release mixes that people listen to? Like, what do I do? Why do I start?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  One thing people get really, really mixed up is social media and real world. Social media followings can look massive and not be big in the real world. Whereas some people can have quite small social media followings, but be touring the world as known acts. Like if you look at

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Craig David's got a massive social media presence now. But when he first came back, he had like sixty thousand Instagram followers and was selling out a weekly pool party with five thousand people in Ibiza. Like that figure on Instagram is something that people focus far too much on instead of real live people. Like you imagine they're desperately trying to get more and more online followers to try and share their music online to. The value of that compared to, it might be different now, but when I first started handing someone a C D that they would listen to and stay in their car for five years, even longer.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  There was a guy stopped me in the middle of the street in Bristol that still had my C D in his car from twenty fourteen. Like, that's so much more valuable. Like investing in yourself is so much more valuable than focusing on a figure of Instagram followers, because I know people with a third of a million followers that are skinned.

• 7:22Chris Williamson?

  Man, so perfect example of that. I was talking about The Secret today. And The Secret is this book, film, where people, it's like, think it, see it, achieve it. But it removes the hard work from it. It's like, get off your ass and actually do the thing you need to do. And I think a lot of the time people use that quantifiable metric of popularity, which is how many followers do I have or whatever? How many replies did I get? It's like, bro, if you don't add three hundred tickets when you get booked by a, an promoter like myself, it doesn't matter. I do not give a flying fuck about how many followers you've got on Instagram. I want to know if I book you for X many hundred or thousand pounds.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  How many more people?

• 8:02Chris Williamson?

  How many more people are coming through the door? And if that figure ends up being around about like either zero or positive, as in you make me more money than you cost me, I will continue to book you because it's the freest money I'm ever, ever, ever gonna make.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  And just to sort of build on that, I think. If you like, essentially, social media following is a, it's a number on a screen. But particularly for DJs, like first and foremost, you are an entertainer. Your sole purpose as to why you exist is to entertain people. So therefore, rather than questioning, you know, if you're gonna start up and try and like build your brand or accumulate followers. Look at how can I entertain people? How can I, you know, start getting people to wanna come and see me? Focus on the things that matter, rather than, you know, building up the metric that's.

• 8:46Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so not focus first and foremost on Instagram. But what's that, why is that for a DJ? Tell me, what's the steps?

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Do different things in a club. If you get opportunities, take them and make sure people notice that something has changed, something's different, something's different about that platform. If they're watching a resident DJ and it's, it's a resident DJ's job to keep it like this all night, rather than smash it for five hours, because the crowd just wouldn't be able to hold it. But if you get an opportunity to step on, even if it's the last hour, if you make that last hour increase in just anything, just like the intensity, the music there, everything about the room just increases, people will want to know, why is that different?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And the more they're asking, why is that different? And they see somebody and they see their logo up on the screen, they'll be like, ah, the last hour at so and so club was so good last night, it was so and so that were playing. They can tell, tell one person, that one person takes five of their friends to go, they go away till ten people, straight away, that's fifty people that know that you're different to what they're used to, you're more exciting, so they wanna go and see you more.

• 9:58Chris Williamson?

  Why are you more exciting? Because I, I think you are, but I want you to define why you think you're more exciting.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  I don't even know, I just.

• 10:07Chris Williamson?

  Is it the turntablism? Is it the mixing in of tracks?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  It's a bit, it's a bit of like, the speed that I actually mix at. The fact, whether I do it live or not, the crowd don't care. The crowd care about what comes out of the speakers, but the, the speed and the flow of which I mix at means that there's never a lull, that's just my style. There's never a point. In my set where the crowd actually get time to breathe.

• 10:36Chris Williamson?

  Have you ever been, sorry to interject there, have you ever been a resi in clubs, like a proper resident?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:41Chris Williamson?

  How did you, how did you make that work? Cause you've just identified and you know, for some of the people that are listening that maybe don't understand music that much, but have been out clubbing. Anyone will know when they've gone in and a DJ is just smashing the tits off it, like house tunes are getting played and you think this feels a bit fast and you're like, yes, it feels a bit fast. It's a hundred and thirty six BPM.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's got to, it's got to build to that.

• 11:03Chris Williamson?

  So how did you do that? How did you do that? Before we get back to why are you different? Like, how do you make Danny T a resident DJ in a club that plays a four hour set?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Uh. Just networking. I was partying. I was just going out all the time.

• 11:16Chris Williamson?

  What was the music like?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Uh, I started off with house music, but my first proper residency was an R and B night. Cause I just wanted to play music. I just really wanted to play music and it got to about two hours before the night was about to open, which I even had a cut of the night. Three, like me and two friends got offered the Friday night at a club in Leeds, brand new, just opening and an hour before I was like, oh wait, I ain't, I ain't got any music. So I'm there like on iTunes, like buying Usher albums and now I look back, it was the complete wrong music for the, for the night that it was, but that was a stepping stone. That was an opportunity that I got that I grasped and tried my hardest with. And that's, that's what you've got to do. Just take every opportunity and

• 12:03Speaker 02

  there ain't a rule book. There isn't a rule book either. Like what works for me might not work for somebody else.

• 12:08Chris Williamson?

  So we've touched on different because of the speed of mixing in and out. What else? What else makes your sets different? Why are people sitting up and listening to you?

• 12:16Speaker 02

  You'll see in about, in about three hours.

• 12:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. For people that again, when we're, when we're recording, I've managed to get Danny not only here and get a podcast out of him, but I've then strapped him to a set of decks and get him to play at Quids in Newcastle later on tonight. Um, but you know what I mean? Like what, what else is it? Is it, is it mic work? Is it the?

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Mic work's got a lot to do with it. It has got a lot of, you can add so much personality with mic work. You can be, you can almost make the crowd want to challenge and better each other, which is like, right, I'm going to go crazier than that person without actually saying, can you go a bit crazier than them, please?

• 12:52Chris Williamson?

  Knock each other's heads off. Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Without going too far, you can really, you can control a crowd. You can literally like.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  You can have the crowd in the palm of your hands, like you could literally like.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  I don't know, it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard to describe because I just do it. I don't think about it now, it's, it's come from, it's never been like, right, let me sit back and think, how can I do this? It's always been a slow progression of building up and yeah, that works better, so I'll use that. That works better, so I'll do that. And it's, it's been a slow progression. So to me, it's not like a, I don't think about it, it just happens now. So thinking back is actually quite hard to think, how could I do like I would be?

• 13:35Chris Williamson?

  I'm asking you to unlearn everything that you know and actually do, right?

• 13:39Speaker 02

  And break it all down again.

• 13:40Chris Williamson?

  It is, it is going to be a challenge. I, I want to ask, and this, I want to ask both of you guys separately this same question, right? Um, last long years, playing gigs, doing all this sort of stuff. And then hometown Leeds, you sell out Leeds first direct arena, five and a bit thousand people, like. What, first off, Casey, what does it feel like watching your mate and client, whatever you want to call it? Walk out in front of five and a bit thousand people?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Um, it's weird. We had a conversation at the start of the year and it was very much like, okay, obviously off the back of Leeds Arena, like. Where do we go from here? Sort of like, what's the next step?

• 14:22Speaker 02

  I did, because I did the O2 Academy the year before.

• 14:24Chris Williamson?

  Yes, yes.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  And church six months before that. So it was like. O2 Academy is the biggest venue in Leeds. Where do we go next? Like, nah, I can't do it. There's a, there's a video of me on my Snapchat after I'd had my haircut, heading to the O2 going. One day, one day, going past Leeds Arena. And I was like, I actually said this, I actually.

• 14:44Chris Williamson?

  Three hundred and sixty five days.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  I literally went, one day, one day, one day I'll play here. Nah, nah, I'm joking, but it's always nice to dream. And that was just over a year before.

• 14:53Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so he's walking out, what's it like?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I think at that time it was.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  It was just an idea, but. I think anything that we sort of set our store out to do, it like it has actually happened that way. And that's not through like. You know, you can sit here and say, oh, it's law and attraction, or it's this, that and the other. But. Yeah, I think it's it's just there's a very sort of clear vision about, you know, how far we want to take this, where it's not completely mapped out of how we're gonna do it. But. I think Danny's willingness to try stuff and my sort of. Relentlessness in making it happen, that's kind of where it's been. A real success in that he has very, very crazy ideas. I can kind of tone them down or refine them or shake them into something that's gonna elevate what we've already done. Um, and yeah, it's it's just, it's nice to see like.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Danny doing something he loves, uh, and obviously there's other benefits that come from that. But. Yeah, I think to put someone in an environment where they get to do something that they love every single day, you know, earn a living off of it. Like, that's, that's actually been the biggest reward of it. That's awesome. Danny walking out on stage, five hundred thousand people.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  I, it was just like. There's no way to describe it. Right. You imagine you're in Newcastle City Centre or Leeds City Centre, walking down. And one person screams as loud as they can.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  You hear that person over two, three thousand people around you.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Imagine that times five thousand all at the same time.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  For you.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  As you stepped out and I'm, you're like. Oh, my God, how's this even like, how's this even real? How's, even afterwards, for four or five days afterwards. I was still like, I'd watched the the wa- the video of me walking out and I was like. How have I, how have I even done that? Like, how? How is that even?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Achievable or a possibility or, like, it did just seem like, just, just not even real, not even real at all.

• 16:51Chris Williamson?

  That's cool, man. That's you, you're actualising, you're getting to what it is that you want to do.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  But no point was I like nervous. I wasn't, I wasn't nervous at all. I had loads of people messaging, oh, but you're so nervous. And I was like, take my phone. I can't see people telling me I should be nervous, because I'm not. If I didn't want to do this, I wouldn't have tried to do it like.

• 17:11Chris Williamson?

  I wouldn't.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  I've sat there and gone, I want to do this. Why would I be nervous? Because I've chosen to do it. I've not done it to impress other people. I've done it because it felt good and it was the next progression for me and myself in my career.

• 17:26Chris Williamson?

  I spoke to Cosi, I spoke to Kristoff, um, about this, and he says that even now, he'll play for him a small sized gig, which might be enough, two thousand to five thousand people, like the smallest gigs he plays, he still shits himself every time. This is a guy who's supported Eric Prids on New Year's Eve, Eve, Eve, New Year's Eve, Eve and New Year's Eve. Like for the last few years, played at the biggest venues, played Creamfields, played everything. First, the first issue lineup release for Creamfields is here, and Ultra has him on the, the top banner. And he's like drinking, desperately trying to calm his nerves, like doing his, like his ex missus got him doing breathing exercises before he goes out like.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Do you know what though? This is the difference. He's come in from being sat at a computer, making music, progressing, making better music, loving music, making music he loves, to then having to be a DJ. I've come from being a big personality, party animal, DJ, then I've learnt to make music. So the, the, the ballsy side of it, the me being on stage is no problem because I've been on stage thousands of times before.

• 18:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  It's not like I'm chucked in at the deep end. It's like, I've gone. I've gone through that, like, to me, someone chucking me in a studio with four people surrounding me, that's where I'm like, oh.

• 18:49Chris Williamson?

  If you and Eric Prids were sat next to each other.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd be like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Whereas he's the exact opposite.

• 18:54Chris Williamson?

  I think so, to push back on that a bit, Christoph's played a lot of gigs.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:59Chris Williamson?

  Back in the day, he'll have played thousands, but this is something that I know that we wanted to get on to, which is to do with mental health and other things. And I've had this in my mind for ages. It's unbelievable that there are people out there who have a particular talent in one area, like a, a, a, an eccentrically brilliant talent in one area of their life. But they don't have the personality makeup which allows them to maximise it. And obviously, the, the, the perfect example of this is Avicii. You know, you have this guy who is capable of making the music, capable of playing the shows, he does the branding, he does, you know, everything. But he doesn't have the personality which allows him to deal with the lifestyle.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  He didn't wanna do the shows though. He was pulling his shows, he didn't wanna be doing the shows.

• 19:45Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  That was it. He, he couldn't handle that much attention, albeit like the social media side of it as well would have been massive, but. Like, it is crazy. You could, you could be in a room with a thousand people. If one person says you shit, that hurts. Nine hundred and ninety nine people could think you're amazing and that feels great, but that one person that's, that could literally just. Or even tweet afterwards, that's like a, a second kind of, it's a second wave of insults now. Someone doesn't have to just say it to your face. They could tweet you afterwards.

• 20:23Chris Williamson?

  That's why a few people probably will say it to your face now.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the Mike Tyson, the Mike Tyson. Do you see the Mike Tyson thing that's blown up today?

• 20:31Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  What is it, this uh.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Social media has allowed people to be brave enough to say things, say horrible things.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Without getting punched in the face.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Without getting punched in the face, and that's so, that's so true. I've had people that have like slagged me off online. Walk up to me like face to face and shake my hand and then I realised afterwards that. They'd been slagging me off online, I was like, eh, how do you have the balls to do that online, but then in real life, you're like, just scared.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  You're not exactly the smallest guy in real life.

• 21:07Chris Williamson?

  What uh, what have you been doing then, obviously, people that don't know, can you tell us first off about what happens every summer? With regards to your lifestyle, and then can you tell me about how you've coped? With that or what your coping mechanisms are and whether there were any periods where you were kind of not doing the self-care and maybe the.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'll go back a bit further first. Cause if there's any like resident DJs that really wanna get themselves out there, going abroad is one of the best things that you'll do. Go do a season abroad. Go do five seasons abroad, go, just go and enjoy yourself, just like, yeah, just, just go, just go and do it. I, I started to build a following in Malia by using what we've discussed before. That's where it all kind of started, before the online stuff started, it started in, in real life, like I was a resident, Casey came out, this is before I'd started. Being my manager, came out as a friend to Malia for four days.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And we're like, why are you, why are you still a resident DJ? And I was like, it's ace, I love it, I get to play at these massive clubs on a weekend, it's brilliant. He was like. There's twenty five guys over there with Danny T T shirts on that you don't even sell, they've had them made themselves. And there's four guys over there, just got your name tattooed on them, like, why are you still? A resident, you could definitely get booked as an artist and that's how it all started, that is literally how. That is literally how that side of things.

• 22:30Chris Williamson?

  Why does abroad make a difference? Why does the season make a difference?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Everything's more heightened abroad. Everyone's more excited. Everyone's got to, they hold on to those memories. They see someone seven nights in a row on holiday. They associate that with having a great time, being drunk, meeting new people. And if you've made their night, seven nights in a row, they'll love you forever. There's people coming tonight that saw me in Malia in two thousand and twelve, thirteen, fourteen, like, they'll remember you forever. They're literally like, people, people are trying to book me for like, can you, oh, can you come and play at my wedding? I'm marrying a girl I met in Malia in twenty fourteen. People remember like.

• 23:07Chris Williamson?

  I would love, absolutely love to see a Danny T wedding set.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  I did, I did run in the Dominican with my friends, uh, uh, my friends, I went, I went over to the Dominican.

• 23:16Chris Williamson?

  What was the first track?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Lion King. Big wobbly Lion King, Lion King bootleg.

• 23:22Chris Williamson?

  Jeez. Okay, so go abroad and then tell me, like, what's a week? Give me a week, Monday to Sunday, what's a week?

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Right, so that was when I used to actually go and just live over there for like a hundred days or whatever. Now, the last two years have been, I've had like three or four weeklies in resorts. It'd be Friday night in the UK at a gig somewhere, anywhere in the UK, Saturday. Same again, a gig in the UK, straight to the, straight to the airport Sunday, fly to a resort Sunday. Play in that resort, then the Monday, two flights to get from one Greek resort to another Greek resort. Last summer I managed to get two days in Zante where I was just working the Monday and then Tuesday I actually just got to chill.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  And then two flights to Napa on the Wednesday, fly back Thursday, have a day with my missus on Thursday, and then straight back to UK Friday, times fifteen weeks.

• 24:22Chris Williamson?

  So it's like sort of May until September.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, June, June till September. I did like eighty seven flights, I think it was last summer. And I was petrified of flying, like, I was like, I don't like, I hate the word anxious and anxiety, but that's, I was like sweaty palms. Oh my god, we're gonna die if we turn right. Like, I was the worst flyer. Dave was laughing behind the camera.

• 24:46Chris Williamson?

  What, uh, what are you like after eighty seven flights then?

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Uh, I've conquered my own fear through breathing exercises.

• 24:56Chris Williamson?

  No, Cosi's done the same thing. Kristoff's done the same thing, not through breathing exercises, but just through exposure therapy. It's like, if your dream is to DJ around the world and the thing that you have to overcome to do that is flying. It's like, you have something which allows you to transcend your fear.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Hmm. Hey, Prince won't fly.

• 25:15Chris Williamson?

  Prince, no, he, so he does, he does on, on, on very, well, I mean, how do you think he gets back out? Like, he doesn't swim.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought he had to get traded both.

• 25:23Chris Williamson?

  No, no, no, no. So he, he does, he does fly, but it's very limited. And Cosi said this, so he doesn't fly across America. Doing an America tour, imagine if you're doing east coast to west coast, like he's on a, he's on a bus with Cosi.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:36Chris Williamson?

  And like Kristoff's just sat there like, I could have fucking been there in three hours.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I would just got on the plane, I would just go fly.

• 25:44Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so you, we've spoken about, about the flying, but you know, that's a, your sleep's being messed up, your diet, your training, your nutrition, like. How are you, what's your headspace like? Have you had periods where that's really damaged you or did you have periods where your headspace went wayward in?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  I've been more physically exhausted, mentally exhausted than actually like felt low. Like, a lot of DJs, a lot of DJs will play a massive, a massive gig. Play in front of loads of people, whether it's an artist or a resident, leave and then they feel horrendous. They feel really low, upset, they don't like what's going on, they're like, they feel as if they've let everybody down. It's like, and I get where that would come from, but I love that time afterwards, like after, after the arena show. Five and a half thousand people left.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  I went and had a wonder and a smile, just wandered around the arena like as if all these people came and stood here like that to me, I I loved that. I I like a bit of like private time.

• 26:52Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Whereas for a lot of DJs, especially when like alcohol amongst other things are involved, it's like, oh my God, this is amazing. The nice building there.

• 27:02Chris Williamson?

  It's a big drop.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Where's all my friends?

• 27:04Chris Williamson?

  That's that's precisely what Christoph brought up on our podcast.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:07Chris Williamson?

  For him especially because of how ruthless his tour is, he'll go three or four days without being in a bed sometimes.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:16Chris Williamson?

  Because of the the length of the flights, the change of the time zones, the number of flights and and transfers and stuff. And he said, um, I wonder whether or not Casey is this part of the saving grace for this and the fact that you've constructed a team that is around you. Because Cosi doesn't have a tour manager.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 27:34Chris Williamson?

  So he plays this gig, he'll smash the smash the arse off supporting Fair Play or Adam Behr or whatever it might be. And then come back to a hotel room on your own, surrounded by a bit of room service.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  That's David, that's David. Casey Casey doesn't talk with me. Casey's like, Casey lives his life how I live my life when I'm not DJing, like I'm in bed by ten o'clock.

• 27:56Chris Williamson?

  Good.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think like sort of going on even sort of further to what you said, like the fact that you kind of had your heyday and party day when you was a resident in Miami, you've kind of lived those experience. Now, because you are so motivated musically and with your career, et cetera, there is for some DJs that that drive an urgency to have that escapism, you know, with like drinking after their sets to avoid that sober come down, if you like of, oh, this is the reality that I'm faced with. I've just gone from being on stage and having this massive high. And then, you know, sort of the realisation that comes after that, whereas some people will try and escape it with the alcohol, et cetera.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I think for you, because you can kind of embrace it and you actually like it and you want to be motivated the next day for work, like that's where you get the.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  For me, the lowest of the low feeling would be telling myself I'm getting up at eleven o'clock and waking up at seven P M and thinking, oh, I'll just let myself down here.

• 28:54Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  That's that's much worse for me like, but if I'm on stage for sixty minutes, as much as I'm thoroughly enjoying myself, it's still a job. I've got a job to do. I've got a job to. Just to smash it out the park for those sixty minutes. The time afterwards is reflection on how good the job was.

• 29:16Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Or how good the. I can't, I don't, I don't wanna call it a job, cause when I first started, I wanted to do it for free. It's just, it just so happens to pay now, but.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  The performance, I like to think about it afterwards and be like, yeah, that was sick.

• 29:32Chris Williamson?

  Do you listen to your sets back ever to?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  No, no, I can just remember we've, well, obviously we have video content for every gig.

• 29:39Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I know which kind of drops have been the biggest, I and I always, I'll be like, yeah, that one was good. Make sure we've got a video of that.

• 29:48Chris Williamson?

  There is, there is a period of your, uh, post-work reflection that allows you to iterate on improving that though, right? So I was, I've literally today a podcast's gone out with James from podcast.co. Um, where I talked about mine and Rogan says that he never ever listens to his podcasts back, which is interesting. Because he always listens to his stand-up routines back and I think it's because. First off, he's gonna be so busy that after having spent three hours recording with someone, then spending another three hours listening to it back is a little bit much.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Tired of your own voice.

• 30:18Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, uh, but I think the other thing is that he, he finds podcasting to be so well within his domain of competence. That he doesn't need to, but for me at the moment, as someone who's still trying to improve and iterate on that. I think that reflection period is really, really important, but you, you touched on some real important issues. I think. A lot of DJs don't consider their job a job.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:41Chris Williamson?

  And I'm, I'm telling you, like, I am the guy, I'm a fantastic example of who you need to impress. I've got four nights a week in Newcastle, either, you know, multiple rooms of those, there's probably a hundred grand. Of wages going out to DJs between all the different rooms, all the different bits. So I want a person who's gonna turn up on time. I want someone who's gonna put some social media up during the day without me asking.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:07Chris Williamson?

  Without me having to fucking go, ah, mate, would you mind fucking?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  This is our book.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Do you know what it is? I think that's kind of, initially Danny's. Sort of appeal to DJing was very much just an amplified party lifestyle and the fact that he was.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  But I would still never, I would still never. Delay or sack it off or not do the best job I could. I would never drink myself into oblivion and do a really, well, I would.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Well.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  But I'd still be able to perform. I'd still be able to do, I'd still be able to do the set.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  But I think that sort of that, you call it DJ etiquette, that sort of those lower level basics of professionalism. It seemed to be absent for quite a few DJs. There was something I sort of observed and I think. Even you in the early days, because you had that and that was just because you wanted to be everyone's friend and you were that larger than life personality. I think particularly DJs don't realise how far that goes, you know. Yes, you need to be a technically good DJ and obviously be able to read a crowd and all of those sort of fundamentals, but if you're not a nice person. Or, you know, you're late or you're not posting on social media, you're not supporting an event, people aren't gonna wanna book you.

• 32:14Chris Williamson?

  I mean, the, the DJ skills are what get you through the door. There's this blog post that someone sent to me the other day that talks about why nice guys thinks that, think that girls should like them. It's like, hang on a second, you think that because you're kind to your mum and you're always on time and you always put kisses at the end of the day. That girls should like you. They're like, fuck you, you do not know what girls like. There is a man out there who can do all of that and he plays the guitar. And you're like, that's it, that's the fucking guy that plays the guitar.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  That's, yeah.

• 32:44Chris Williamson?

  So you've.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Going back to like just, just being that happy, friendly, jolly guy. I was on the phone to somebody, but our Sky weren't working in our bedroom last night.

• 32:55Chris Williamson?

  I know it wasn't because I, I've had to put someone on for four.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  So I was, I don't even know if I've, I put it on my story, I don't know if you've seen it. So I was on the phone to someone from Sky. And he were cracking a few jokes, like he thought he were, he were like a, a funny guy and he, he weren't quite entertaining to be fair. It was like. It was a bit of breath of fresh air that somebody that was sorting you, like fixing your Sky was actually like putting a bit of personality into the call. And it was like, oh, so, uh, what, what were you trying to watch when it's not working, blah, blah, blah. And then. We got talking and I was like, oh, where, where are you from in the North East? Could tell he was from the North East. It was like, oh, Newcastle. I was like. Playing there tomorrow. He's like, where at? I was like, digitally. He was like, we love digital. Oh my God, uh.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  He goes, I'll tell you what, I'll do you a deal. If you sort me out, if I fix your Sky tonight. You put me and my friends on in VIP at digital tomorrow night.

• 33:50Chris Williamson?

  It's a fucking easy, easy deal for you, mate. It's my daughter.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  And you know, and Rebecca, my missus Rebecca said, as soon as she was like, as soon as she heard that, she went, my god, you'll make friends with anyone. And I was like, that's, that falls back into this. It's just like,

• 34:08Chris Williamson?

  demeanor, conduct.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Why would you not? I totally respect people that don't want to make loads of friends, but just, I don't know, I just attract friends. I just like.

• 34:17Chris Williamson?

  I think the, the point that you've made there is you are at a competitive advantage if you can.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:23Chris Williamson?

  Right? Because it's just.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Especially in this, this industry.

• 34:26Chris Williamson?

  It's people, man, you know, like, and we touched on it before, like, you have to be able to deliver the product. I'll happily sack a nice DJ who's shit at DJing, but I'll pick over two DJs that are the same. I'll pick the one that's pushing the social media. I'll pick the one that does everything else. But as we've said at the very beginning, a lot of DJs look at all of the ancillary shit, all the stuff around the outside where it's like, are you releasing a monthly mix? Probably a pretty good player. If I was a DJ, first thing I would do would be to have, like, build up a mix following. It sharpens my skills, keeps me relevant with people.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  And you're searching for new music.

• 35:03Chris Williamson?

  All the time.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  You've got to put the same stuff on every mix. You've got to constantly be hunting for new stuff.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  The foundation of kind of what I put into play with Danny in the very beginning was your, your personality is great and you know, musically, people know who you are and they will watch you on Fridays and Saturdays, potentially Sundays while they're hungover and scrolling through their phone. But that midweek between Monday and Thursday, what are you doing to grab people's attention? Like, are you engaging with those people? Are you putting out a mix? Like, as a DJ, you're meant to be their resource of information for music. Like, how are you keeping them engaged? How are you, like, letting them know about music? So a monthly mix was a great foundation for us. And then, yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Or some weeks I'll put three mixes out, three mixes a week out. When, when my, my SoundCloud was at its height, SoundCloud's dropped off. Everyone's kind of gone towards Spotify playlists now rather than actual DJ mixes. You can still get, get good players on DJ mixes. People still do want them and still like for them, like them, but they weren't, SoundCloud was just like the one. And as I could see everything progressing, I was like. Wait, I can put out two mixes this week. Go on, I'll put another one out tomorrow. And I was like, cause I was just sat at home, just hun- hunting for music, like even even when I was in Malia, I'd wake up and the lads had like

• 36:25Speaker 02

  like go past on their on on their peds past a restaurant and beat the horn laughing and joking. Cause I was sat staring at my laptop and they were going to sunbathe for four hours. And I'd be sat there.

• 36:35Chris Williamson?

  But did it feel like work?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  No, no, cause I was enjoying it and sunbathing is boring.

• 36:41Chris Williamson?

  That perfect. Another thing that keeps on coming back in a lot of conversations I'm having, your competitive advantage in life is doing what for you feels like fun, but for everyone else feels like work.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:52Chris Williamson?

  That is the easiest way to find. And for me, it's this, you know, like I've got work tonight till three in the morning, which is even later than you, depending on whether or not you're drinking.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  We've got to go back to Leeds.

• 37:02Chris Williamson?

  Um, so, you know, I've got that tonight, but I I hassled you to come and do this podcast because I'd have felt remiss like I'd oh, I I wanna know what it's like to walk out on stage in front of five. So for me, I am a competitive advantage for other people for whom this would be, you're lovely. But this would be fucking torture, right? I'm enjoying it and so is everyone that's listening. But some people wouldn't want to have this conversation.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:24Chris Williamson?

  Even some of the audience.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  But that's just you taking, not taking advantage, but that's you, like, yeah, taking advantage of an opportunity that that could arise for both of us. It's just you. It's the one, it's you've got to want.

• 37:38Chris Williamson?

  I would do this. I would do this, even if there was no opportunity coming off the back of it. I would do this and not put it out.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  It's there from you doing what you love. And I think literally, like a big part of my job is, I said this to you at the start of the year, like that feeling, that sensation that you got walking on stage at the first direct arena, my job through and through is to facilitate as many of those moments as possible this year. And beyond, like, the fact that you get to do what you love, if I can make that happen time and time and time again, that's wholeheartedly why I exist. That is my job role in its entirety. The same for you, the fact that you're able to do what you love, like, why wouldn't you do that over and over and over again?

• 38:18Chris Williamson?

  And the thing as well is on top of that, you're, this brilliant example I got from James Clear, a guy that wrote Atomic Habits. And um, he was talking about Steffi Graf. Remember Steffi Graf, the tennis player?

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Uh, no, no, I'm I'm only ninety.

• 38:32Chris Williamson?

  So Steffi Graf was.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Did she get start? No, that was, did she get shot?

• 38:37Chris Williamson?

  She's still alive.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  No, not dead, just shot.

• 38:40Chris Williamson?

  I don't know. Why would, that's a weird thing to happen. If anyone knows whether or not Steffi Graf's being shot, please leave it in the comments below. Um, so.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  I thought, no, no, it was the other one that got stabbed on court. Tennis player.

• 38:53Chris Williamson?

  Is this in, have you imagined this, Danny?

• 38:55Speaker 02

  No, what is she called, Monica Sellers got stabbed on court.

• 38:59Chris Williamson?

  If anyone knows if Monica Sellers has been stabbed on court, please. So. She's about twelve years old, she's in the German youth tennis setup. They do an assessment, two broad spectrums. One of them is capability athletically and the other one is mindset. And it turns out that Steffi Graf was um the highest rated in terms of her technical ability. She was also the highest rated in terms of love for the sport. So it's like, hang on a second, let's say that you have all the talent that Steffi Graf does, she'll still outwork you and it won't even feel like work.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:34Chris Williamson?

  You know what I mean? Like, that is a formidable person to come up against.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Do you know what, it's, so aside from managing Danny, I also like consult with other people and the one thing that's been consistent throughout it is if you're an entrepreneur, a creative, or someone where, you know, you're putting something out there to some people. You have to have your why, and if you don't love what you do, like, you'll end up giving up. And I think the fact is, like, it hasn't always been easy for you, but the fact that you just want to DJ and you absolutely love it through and through. That's what gives you the consistency to like continue going, even when it hasn't been ideal, hasn't like been as smooth as people may perceive it. Like, I just think if you wanna be successful, like, having your why in terms of, you know, really, really loving what you do. That's what will enable you to.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  I've, I've said on, like, if I stopped enjoying this, I'd, I'd stop.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  I wouldn't just carry on doing it just because it pays the bills, I'll go get a job, like it's. I wouldn't do it making me miserable because it's made me so happy. Over the years, why would I want that to go down, like, stay on a high, like, stay, leave, just leave, just park it? Park that, I don't enjoy it anymore. Do a retirement gig, make loads of money and then and then do uh and then go on and do something else. Yeah, whatever come whatever comes next or whatever.

• 40:52Chris Williamson?

  Well, there's that Nietzsche quote, which is a man with a strong enough why can bear any how. Yeah, there you go. Like, I'm I'm happy to go through fucking fire and brimstone if kind of the challenge is worth it. So, you know, you there have been nights where you've been basically no sleep, getting on a plane, fucking strapping your eye mask on. I've seen photos of you. You look like you look like a telly tubby just from the face up with like.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  That's some tech, that's some techers, that's flying techers.

• 41:20Chris Williamson?

  So, um, I'm gonna break the fourth wall a little bit. To the people that are listening, Danny's been teasing me with his travel hacks. Oh, man, I need to go. I've got the best life hacks in the world to travel.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  That I can't even share with you, because if they start doing it, they'll cotton on to it. We won't be able to.

• 41:33Chris Williamson?

  You'll ruin it for the rest of them.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  There's a few I'll tell you afterwards.

• 41:36Chris Williamson?

  And and I want you to be able to give us some that you're prepared to make.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Right, sleeping on planes. Bearing in mind, I used to be so anxious on a flight that I just had to cling on to the seat in front and couldn't couldn't let go until we'd stopped for average of four hours, seven, eight flights a week. You can imagine how painful that was to start with.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Now, the whole summer, last summer, eighty seven flights, I was awake for no more than fifteen minutes on each flight.

• 42:10Chris Williamson?

  What do you do? What's your process? Talk me through it.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Good headphones that go over the ear.

• 42:14Chris Williamson?

  What do you use?

• 42:15Speaker 02

  I've just got Beats, like soft, soft grey Beats that go over the top. So make sure they're soft, because if they're in your ear, you could wake up because it's hurting the inside of your ear. Ear pods don't work. I I love my ear pods, but they don't work for this. So, over the top of the year, um, I just use the the Headspace free trial. Just loop the ten, the ten meditation, ten minute meditation.

• 42:40Chris Williamson?

  You know, they've got a a s- the sleep noise, which is like white noise but for sleep. Have you heard that? And it's like different levels of hums and.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  I have that to go to sleep. It's an app called Sleep Aid.

• 42:51Chris Williamson?

  Okay, similar stuff. Okay, so you've got some white noise.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  And an eye mask, an eye mask that doesn't touch the lids of your eyes.

• 42:57Chris Williamson?

  What eye mask do you use? Do you know where you got it from?

• 42:59Speaker 02

  It's an Amazon one, but it's like a round pad.

• 43:02Chris Williamson?

  Ah, yeah, okay.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Goes around, if it touches your eyelids, you wake up with really dry eyes and your eyes all stuck together.

• 43:07Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  If it doesn't touch your eyelids, you you literally wake up and you're, I shouldn't have done that. You literally wake up and you're like, fresh and ready to go.

• 43:14Chris Williamson?

  So they're like, um, for people that are just listening, they're kind of like furry goggles, aren't they, but with something over the front of the goggle as well?

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, they look like, like a world war, world war one pilot goggles. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I've got a, like a, a, uh, it's. It's like a, it's not a breathing mask, it doesn't help you breathe, but it just stops. Like planes are literally the most unhealthy air in the world, it's just.

• 43:41Chris Williamson?

  Oh, so you've got.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  I have one of those that clips around and just.

• 43:44Chris Williamson?

  Do you know where you got your mask?

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Just, I'm, I buy everything.

• 43:48Chris Williamson?

  The, do you, can you remember the brand at all?

• 43:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I can't.

• 43:51Chris Williamson?

  I'll try and get you to send it to me. If I can find it, it'll be in the show notes below.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:55Chris Williamson?

  So you got that, what about, um, a cushion for the neck?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've got to have a so, I've got the same one and it, the same one I've had for like three years now. And it's, it needs a wash, it needs a good wash, good wash now. But I've never found one that's better. You've got to make sure when it's clipped together. You can't touch like your ear on your shoulders.

• 44:16Chris Williamson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Cause otherwise you end up like, I woke, I woke up before I went out and I'm being like, oh my god. How am I gonna, how am I gonna DJ? I'm like pushing my head.

• 44:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  I'm like, oh my, like, what have I done to myself?

• 44:30Chris Williamson?

  Got your ear glued to your shoulder.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:32Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so we got that. What about sort of posture? What about seat choice?

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Seat choices.

• 44:37Chris Williamson?

  Aim for an aisle, aim for a window, aim for the front.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  That's a hack within itself.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  That's, that's a hack and a separate conversation, which I'll speak to you about afterwards.

• 44:45Chris Williamson?

  Secret info.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  But if you book a, if you book a seat towards the front of the plane, it isn't as turbulent as the back.

• 44:52Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  You don't get shaken as much. If you think about it, the wings are there. This, the wings are there left and right, your first point is the first bit. It's the wings that are going up and down, not the front of the plane. So as the wings are going up and down, the back's moving more than the front.

• 45:08Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  So you always get worse turbulence at the back of the plane. I might have just made that up, but in my head it works. And I always have. I always have some, I always, no, I think that's true. I, I've like, but I'm, I haven't researched or read that.

• 45:22Chris Williamson?

  If you made it up, someone will call it out.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  But I've, I've, I've been on loads of flights at the front, they've been fine. Loads of flights at the back and the back flights are always. A lot like they feel a lot bumpier, even like when there's no turbulence. Like, you know, when they don't have the seatbelt sign on, even when you're allowed to walk around, the back of the plane definitely balances more.

• 45:44Chris Williamson?

  What's the um, most efficient way to get through an airport?

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Run.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  It is worth paying two pound fifty in advance for fast track security.

• 45:57Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Straight through. If you book it well in advance, it's two, two pound fifty.

• 46:01Chris Williamson?

  Is that with anyone that's like easy jet or?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  No, no, you book it direct through the airport.

• 46:06Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  I've been on, I've been on flights before that if I didn't. If I didn't have that, I'd one hundred percent miss my flights, like.

• 46:15Chris Williamson?

  I suppose the problem is, it's all well and good. I can turn up to pretty much any flight departing from Newcastle, cause from here it is ten minutes.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:23Chris Williamson?

  To the airport. I can leave here an hour and fifteen before I need to depart, even with whole luggage and be on the plane fine. Unless there's a queue at security.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:33Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And if there's a queue at security, you done fucked, like.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  No, no, if, if you, if there's a queue at security, all you do is run to the front and go, I'm about to miss my flight and they'll let you go straight through.

• 46:43Chris Williamson?

  Okay, there's a hack.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  There's, there's a good hack.

• 46:46Chris Williamson?

  What about other stuff? What about, are you taking water on board? Are you making sure if you've got like?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Every airport's now got a tap at the other side, so just take an empty bottle of plastic water if you don't.

• 46:54Chris Williamson?

  Tap at the other side?

• 46:56Speaker 02

  As soon as you go through security, there's now a drinking tap.

• 47:00Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  In every UK airport, yeah.

• 47:02Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  That's, I don't know if they've legally had to put it in, but they've.

• 47:05Chris Williamson?

  You've noticed.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Everyone I've gone through now, they have one of those little.

• 47:08Chris Williamson?

  So you've got like a protein shake or like a good chili.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, just take, take a bottle. To be fair, I'm like so in a rush, I'm not even like that prepared sometimes.

• 47:17Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  I'm just like, right, quick, grab it. Well, water's free on the plane.

• 47:21Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, you wanna have it, do you know what I mean? You want the big bottle that you've got with you all the time.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:26Chris Williamson?

  I've got a good one, it's already been on Lifehacks, but uh WH Smith versus Boots. If you go into WH Smith, they've got buttered saurin loaves, uh and it's fifty pence less for the, for the meal deal. Uh and they've actually got, I think, a more premium selection of sandwiches, so. Fuck Boots, that's what I'm saying. Sorry, I'm still after a sponsorship if you wanna give me some free toiletries. What else? So what else have you got from?

• 47:53Speaker 02

  You've got to, got to, got to, got to make sure your liquid's in a bag, cause that could save you twenty five minutes there. Don't make any mistakes. No, well, it depends how, how many times you travel. If you travel a lot, I know my laptop has to come out. I know my phone charger has to come out. That's, that's always good to have, a, a phone charger to take on the plane, cause if your iPhone's not the latest one, they make sure it doesn't last four hours. Um so always have like a phone charger, twenty quid for the massive ones. And it, it charges your phone six or eight times. Yeah. I could literally take that on, on the road for four days. And it'll just keep charging my phone.

• 48:32Chris Williamson?

  I'm going to Athens this weekend for my birthday and I'm taking an external charger and I don't need to worry about having a plug socket. I've got nothing else that I need to charge. My Kindle will last for five weeks, cause they're monstrous. Um and uh, yeah, you're right, you've got your external charger, you don't even care about what the power port is.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  I just bought one for my laptop to take on.

• 48:51Chris Williamson?

  A laptop external charger?

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:54Chris Williamson?

  No way does that exist?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's for the, that's for the road. I just bought it. Hundred, hundred quid off Amazon.

• 48:59Chris Williamson?

  How many laptop chargers?

• 49:01Speaker 02

  I haven't tried it yet.

• 49:02Chris Williamson?

  What does it say? It must have told you. How many laptop chargers do you get out of your charger? One?

• 49:06Speaker 02

  I don't know. I just went for the biggest one that Davos, Davos obviously knows about carrying camera equipment through. And if it's over a hundred watt, you're not allowed to take it through security if they spot it.

• 49:18Chris Williamson?

  In hold luggage.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  So I knew that it wasn't allowed to be more than ninety five watts. So I just, I just got the one hundred watt one. Which was the, like, that was the biggest one, but it's about this big. It's not even that heavy. It's got a fan built into it to keep it cool. It's like, it's not even that heavy.

• 49:32Chris Williamson?

  Some cool piece of kit that though. Like, I mean, do you run out of battery on your, on your laptop that much?

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, on the road, yeah, not well, not well with my old laptop that had lasted about fifteen minutes. I've got a new laptop that uh that.

• 49:46Chris Williamson?

  Significantly better.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  My last one's stolen.

• 49:49Chris Williamson?

  What about for on the road then? Let's say that you that you're driving. Have you got any cool travel hacks for for driving around on the road? Like, have you got a preference on?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Most, most um service stations have got, be it Russell's or or baby milk free microwaves. So you can actually take decent food on the road. You don't have to just live on meal deals.

• 50:10Chris Williamson?

  So you could potentially pre-cook all of your stuff?

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:13Chris Williamson?

  Pre-cook some stuff.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  That's what I do. I've got it. I've got it in a bag here.

• 50:16Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm. Well, do you want to use my mic here? I'm fifty p.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  No, right.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know. Road hacks. Come on, you're with me all the time. What? Um.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Drive at night. How to not pay for parking?

• 50:33Chris Williamson?

  Drive at night?

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Drive at night.

• 50:35Chris Williamson?

  Man, I mean, anyone that's between the hours of like seven A M and nine and then three thirty P M and five thirty. The roads are just.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Oh, Leeds is till eight. Easy.

• 50:47Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Can't move.

• 50:49Chris Williamson?

  Especially around the arena as well, I'm guessing.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Uh, not even the arena, the whole of the city centre is just just mad, isn't it? My my parents live ten miles away from me at the opposite side of Leeds. It's half an hour and no traffic, an hour and forty five minutes if it's busy.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  I live in London, it's just all.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Get the train.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Train.

• 51:06Chris Williamson?

  Have you ever been to L A?

• 51:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:09Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen the traffic in L A?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's horrendous.

• 51:11Chris Williamson?

  It's it's beyond anything you've ever seen, like. And the thing as well is it's there's so many lanes. It's mind blowing that you're on a motorway and you're like, oh, there must be a crash ahead. You're like. No, this this is just what traffic is like out here, nose to tail for miles.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  It's like like Dubai. It's like at one point the motorway, the freeway in Dubai is eleven lanes each way wide.

• 51:34Chris Williamson?

  But the thing with Dubai, this is what blew me away, is that is a city which has been designed for millions of people to live there. So you can be doing seventy miles an hour, ninety seconds before you reach your destination in the middle of the city. And then you'll peel off on this like real weird spaghetti junction and then it just deposits you on like the Palm Jamira Beach or whatever. You're like. How the fuck did I was on a motorway two seconds ago. Um, yeah, that's, that is good.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Or if you take a wrong turn, you've got a seventeen mile detour to get back to it.

• 52:05Chris Williamson?

  It's a little bit challenging, yeah, you don't wanna fuck up with that.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  I try. Tight Yorkshireman coming out here, so. We've, we've been to Dubai, me and my missus have been to Dubai like four times now. Not the last time we went, the time before that, bearing in mind, you can get a taxi from the airport to any hotel in Dubai for about fifteen quid. It's not actually that expensive.

• 52:26Chris Williamson?

  Outrageously cheap out there, it's insane.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  It's so cheap and there's even like the local taxis are even cheaper than Uber. Um, so we got there and I was like, right, no, we're gonna explore, it was night time as well, it was pitch black. We decided to get the train, which it was, it was probably about six o'clock or seven o'clock, it had gone dark, but it wasn't like the middle of the night. The train was still running, I was like, right, we'll get dropped off at the bottom of the palm and then just walk up to five, which is the hotel we're staying at. It's only a hundred yards or something, got there and I was like, oh my god, there's four motorways in between here and the bottom of the palm. Uh, there's no footpath, you can't walk anywhere, so I was like.

• 53:07Chris Williamson?

  I couldn't believe it.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  How are you gonna flag a taxi down here like?

• 53:10Chris Williamson?

  Where do you need to go? Um, there.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  And I looked, and I looked and we were literally at the bottom of the palm from the hotel, uh, from, from the airport on the train, bottom of the palm. Flag down a taxi and we were, I, I thought it was gonna be two or three hundred yard walk from the train station. It was a seven mile car journey to get there in taxi once we've got there. Cause you can't just go straight up, you have to go like round and then, don't go too far, cause you'll end up on that motorway and then back on yourself and then up the palm and then. You have to go a mile past five to turn back and come back down the palm to get to it like.

• 53:50Chris Williamson?

  It is mad, I mean.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  See, if you go to Dubai, don't be tight, just, just pay for a taxi, it's cheap.

• 53:54Chris Williamson?

  Cheap man, yeah, you're right. Um, so we wanted to touch on some mental health stuff today as well.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:00Chris Williamson?

  Have you guys been having sort of many discussions about this recently? Has there been any?

• 54:03Speaker 02

  We have a lot just in life anyway, just.

• 54:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  We, we wanna write a book called. How to be an idiot. No, no, how to survive in a world full of idiots.

• 54:13Chris Williamson?

  As an, as an idiot?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 54:17Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay. So how, how do I survive in a world full of idiots?

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Oh, how long have you got?

• 54:24Chris Williamson?

  Mate, with with with the the.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Our our most common thing that we say to each other is that common sense is the least common thing in the world. Like, it's actually so ironic because common sense is not common at all.

• 54:37Chris Williamson?

  Give me an example of some uncommon common sense.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Oh, uh, how to undo a light bulb. Eighty percent of people don't know how to change a light bulb.

• 54:48Chris Williamson?

  Where have you got that stat from?

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Oh, I can't remember, I've read it somewhere, but.

• 54:52Chris Williamson?

  Is this the same place that you read being at the back of a.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  I've probably just made that up as well.

• 54:58Chris Williamson?

  I I can't remember, I mean, bayonet things are a little bit like non logical, like the way that you put a bayonet light bulb in. What else? What else is uncommon?

• 55:06Speaker 02

  I know loads of people that don't know there's two types of light bulb. Two types of fixing.

• 55:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  They didn't know, like, people that are buying houses, like grown adults, twenty five, thirty year olds that that don't know that there's two different types of light bulb.

• 55:19Chris Williamson?

  There's people listening now that are going, fucking two types.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Two types.

• 55:22Chris Williamson?

  Um, what else? What else uncommon?

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Let's do, let's do the mental health thing, that's gonna be.

• 55:27Chris Williamson?

  Cool.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Easier.

• 55:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, hit me. What have you been thinking about recently? What have you been talking about?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Well, it's obviously massive and it's it's it's probably the biggest buzz word. I don't know if buzz means that it's like a positive thing or not, but it's it's so, it's so talked about in life in general, in the media. That that mental health is this big problem, that I think. I've never actually sat there and like Googled, how do I not have mental health? Like, everybody's got mental health. I've just put some things in place that I think work to make sure I don't have any problems.

• 56:09Chris Williamson?

  What like? What are they?

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Like, like the feeling of nostalgia, it's good to throw back to your childhood. I've got a bicycle, I do like loads of bike rides and that that to me is not just a bit of fitness. That to me is like, I finished the bike ride and I'm like, ah. That were amazing. I felt like a big kid again. It's like the feeling of going whee when you're a kid going down a hill. Like, that is a feeling of like, the best, not that, not that your life might be bad now, but like, the most trouble-free, easy, calm, happy times of your life is just being a kid when you have no worries. So putting things in place

• 56:49Speaker 02

  that bring you back to that. I think I just, it's a tiny little thing that you can do to, to make yourself happier.

• 57:00Chris Williamson?

  Hmm. What about you, Casey? What have you been thinking about to do with mental health recently?

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Um, I think gratitude is something that's very, very underestimated, uh, in terms of how it can benefit your mental health. Um, I just think it's a good foundation and I don't know anyone who is like happy or like, I'd say really has like a productive mental health setting that doesn't actively or proactively practise like gratitude.

• 57:28Chris Williamson?

  How have you instantiated that? How have you structured that into your life?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Uh, six-minute diary.

• 57:34Chris Williamson?

  Ayy, link in show notes below.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  It was actually a recommendation from your podcast.

• 57:39Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, that, there's, there's other little things where I think, yeah, just like proactively taking measures to.

• 57:45Chris Williamson?

  It's bizarre. If you, if you don't have a formalized structure like you now do with the six-minute diary or anything else, if you're not innately built to be grateful for things and to be reflective in that way and to focus on the good, um, it is a real change. Very, very drastic difference between the two. And I, I, I don't know about you, but I've done, I think I've filled like five or six in now. So I've been doing it like three years. And now I find myself doing things and thinking about things in a way that gratitude has taught me to. So I'll do some.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  It's entirely perception. Yeah, it's just, it's entirely how you choose to look at something and you can be presented with something. And the difference in mindset between how I choose to look at something, be it. From, you know, what is this teaching me? Uh, and, you know, am I looking at it from a position where? Say, for example, you people who go through trauma, it's quite easy to sit there and blame that trauma for, you know, how bad it's made you feel. But at the same time, that trauma is also responsible for all the good things that have come out of it. And literally just by being great, not saying that you need to be grateful for trauma, but being grateful for the experiences and the lessons that you have learnt from that. Nothing has changed in that dynamic, you know, it's just choosing to look at it from an entirely different perspective.

• 59:11Chris Williamson?

  Couldn't agree more, man. Yeah, you were very much in control of your response to any situation. Um, and that's, I'm reading Man's Search for Meaning again for like the third time at the moment, Viktor Frankl's book. This guy, Holocaust survivor, who also created a school of psychology called logotherapy. And the, the quote from it is, um, the final thing that can never be taken from any man is, is his ability to respond however he chooses to any given situation. And that's it, right? You can be in the worst situation in a, you know, Auschwitz, but you can still choose how you respond. Someone says something to you, that is a freedom that can't be taken away. Obviously, it can be, you can't say, oh, I'm gonna fly away, I'm not a bird.

• 59:54Chris Williamson?

  There are certain things you can't do, but there is always something you can. And I think that switching a victimhood mentality makes a big difference.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I think as well, like even with Danny's social media, you know, I think, as I said before, if you are creative in any sense of the word, you're obviously putting some sort of creation to the word. So it's, you're gonna have people that like it, people that don't like it. How you choose to respond to that ultimately is a major influence on your own mental health. So, Danny having people saying that they don't like his DJ and they don't like his mix.

• 1:00:24Speaker 02

  It's not quite as nice as that is.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  No, it's not in any way, shape or form, but again.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  That's the, that's the.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  That's the. Sold down version of it. But again, how Danny chooses to respond to that.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  But like, I'm, I'm laughing about it, I'm laughing at people. I'm not laughing at them, I'm just laughing about the fact that people can be so offended by a combination of chords and sounds to think that I they have to type that your music is as bad as AIDS or cancer. Like, that's, to me, that's, that's hilarious. How can you actually, like, how is someone's brain that stupid to make those links like music I don't like? You could just switch it off and be happy about switching it off. Instead, you have to, right, let me get my phone and tell everyone how much I don't like it. Like, that's so sad. That just, it shows how much of an unhappy

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  person you have to be to to do that, like.

• 1:01:21Chris Williamson?

  I think it's, everyone has these thoughts, right, that sort of verbal below the surface, it's when dealt with jealousy or envy or genuine just dislike for something that you do. The problem is that social media rewards things that we either agree with or things that outrage us. And that's one of the reasons, I think, why every conversation now is getting polarised to the extremes. You have people that are grouping into spheres of awareness on both ends of the spectrum, and then you have the people that just come out with shock tactics.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  There's no rationality on social media. I don't think people were able to have conversations either. It's literally, I agree with you and I think there's such an eagerness as well for people just to say the first thing that comes to their head or jump on something that they think is a popular opinion.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  People sit there and plan it out for hours how to be the funniest they can be to get the most likes. Not even the funniest, just the nasty, what's gonna get, right, what's gonna get me the most likes today?

• 1:02:16Chris Williamson?

  I really think you'd be surprised, man. I think maybe some people that have that trolling mentality may constantly have, is this an opportunity to troll?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:26Chris Williamson?

  In the back of their mind.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:28Chris Williamson?

  I don't think that any of the stuff that you see like that, the real vitriol comments, I don't think any of them are considered. I think they're all visceral.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  I think a lot of times, like, they don't even mean them either, they're not, they're not even like.

• 1:02:39Chris Williamson?

  They just say it. It's just a thing, and this is.

• 1:02:43Chris Williamson?

  For never in human history have all of the things that we've said been recorded ever. Right now, this conversation should, if it wasn't for technology, just between us three and the two guys behind the camera. That's what it should be. But now we have technology that allows us to do that. And you have the lack of friction that means that you can say something 24 hours a day that is recorded forever on the internet. You know, and we're seeing this, so the Caroline Flack situation that's occurred this weekend. Um, the Sun had put a particular article up about it and then as soon as

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  Deleted the article.

• 1:03:16Chris Williamson?

  They took the article down as soon as they realised they could get some

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  And that's the thing, I think, like particularly with media publications like that, the fact it's, I think Idris Elba done a very good quote about this where he said, you know, people don't really care whether, no, it's Denzel Washington. It was like, people don't really care if it's true or not. They just want to be first, like see it and say it. So I think particularly for the Sun newspaper, it's what headline is going to sell the most articles. It doesn't matter if it's true. Because they just need people to read it and they know they can get away with a small apology afterwards.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  And it's a lot worse now than it used to be. Like, there's so much clickbait out there. Like, people will read the headlines and go, oh my god, it's gonna snow sheep tomorrow. Sheep are gonna drop from the ground. And when it, what it'll actually say is the article will be about some wallpaper of sheep falling from the sky. That's actually a picture, but the headlines grip people and sometimes they don't even read that deep into it. They're just like

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Because there's so much

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  I believe everything that's online, like everything that's online.

• 1:04:12Chris Williamson?

  Didn't someone do a troll of this where they said like, um, this huge big article that got reshared tons and it said 89% of people don't read past the first, first headline of an article. Then the rest of it was explaining how that was a lie.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:04:28Chris Williamson?

  And you're just like, yeah, it's just people that grab a link and reshare it.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Chris Williamson?

  Um, but yeah, you know.

• 1:04:35Chris Williamson?

  It's it's challenging for me to see the things that I do online. So you're someone who's got exposed to more incoming social media than most normal people will do. What are some of the strategies you use to deal with that? Is it just ignore?

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Like Casey, like Casey see it, not me.

• 1:04:54Chris Williamson?

  I'll source it to someone else.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  I don't see it. I don't wanna see it. Whether it's positive or not, like, I'm not putting it out there for people. If I read a hundred comments of, oh my god, it's amazing, I love you, like, although that makes me feel amazing, that's not the reason I'm doing it. I'm putting it out there because I thoroughly enjoy it and I want it to continue this journey that I'm on. It's like, so for me to not see the positive comments means that I don't see the negative comments. That's absolutely fine.

• 1:05:22Chris Williamson?

  Price you're prepared to pay.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  And what's at the point, I think, going back to what you said in the very, very beginning about, you know, I think the real support from Danny's following comes from the people that come to see him in the shows. And the fact that people are there appreciating what he does firsthand, like, that's where you can get your satisfaction. It's not from people like commenting or anything like that, but the fact that people are willing to spend their hard-earned money and see you as a source of entertainment and, you know, they're there supporting you at your shows, et cetera. That's a much easier metric for you to gauge how successful you you are. As opposed to sitting there reading loads of comments of how many likes you got on a video.

• 1:05:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  I I used to reply to like, if some something was bad or I didn't agree with it. I did like a few years ago, I would reply like, I remember once, and this is what kind of changed it. I won't say where, which club it was, but I was playing in a club. And someone DM'd, messaged me on, it were on Snapchat, I want even on like Instagram or anything. It was a private message on Snapchat. Saying, um, you fat bastard, I've just paid a ten, as if I've just paid a ten, a tenner to come in here and see you. You're getting stabbed when you leave here.

• 1:06:33Chris Williamson?

  Nice message.

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  And I replied saying.

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  Bearing in mind his username was his full name.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  I replied, I s- I sh- I sent it, I showed it straight to the manager who was stood next to me. And he went, right, he's banned from here, I'll find out who he is, pub watch, whatever, we'll make sure his name not getting, so I literally replied saying. Um, congratulations mate, you've just got yourself banned for life. And that was it, that's all I replied saying. The next day, he screenshotted that and put it on Twitter, saying, my reply, he didn't put what he'd said. And then his, his comment was, all I did was call him a fat bastard, look at the response, ha, five hundred likes.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  He said that he didn't like your set and that you'd got him banned.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  Alright, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was something like, oh yeah, put up the screenshot that, but he said, all I said was I didn't like his set.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  Or something like that.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  And my reply was completely not to that whatsoever.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Did you get your screenshot and then put it in?

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  You can't, you couldn't quote tweet with a screenshot then, so what did I, what could I do?

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  And it had vanished by then anyway.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  I get it, yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  I was literally like.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  Bitch.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Like, it, I think it only, I think it got like three hundred likes, his actual thing, but to me, that was three hundred people that hated me and were happy to see my demise. And from that day, I was like, I can't see this stuff, it's, it's gonna stop me from doing something I love because of people that. Are not benefiting me in any way anyway.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  So if you care about the people that don't love what you do, like, that's the wrong energy, you don't need to focus your energy on.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  Battling the people that are never gonna love what you do or benefit your career anyway or.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Being like, like, being sort of authentically vulnerable in the sense of appreciating that, you know, not everyone is gonna love what you do. And you're okay with that.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Like, the journey that we're kind of on, it's like, there's obviously people that aren't gonna like it, but there are thousands and thousands of people who do love it and it's. Let's focus on the steak, not the peas, like.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Those are the people who are paying to support you.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  I like steak.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Let's entertain those people and do it, do a very, very good job of it.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  I think that's, you focus your energy on that, it's a totally different perception.

• 1:08:40Chris Williamson?

  You touched on something there, Casey, about, um, the people who follow. Their content, favourite content creator or DJ, whatever it is, the ones that are buying their music, that are going to their shows, that are doing whatever. Now, I say, you know, there's been some people over the last few years who've been like, man, like, I've taken a lot of value from the podcast. Thank you very much. I'd love to buy you a gift or whatever. And honestly, honestly, the best thing that you can do is just share it with a friend. Like, if you get me one more sub, that's, that's it. So, you know, for the people that are listening, I said, I did this tweet that went a bit viral the other day. That said, um, uh, gas your friends up. It blows my mind how many people will support a Rihanna by pure collaboration,

• 1:09:25Chris Williamson?

  but won't like their new, their friend's new business on Facebook. It's like, if you want to feel like you're helping a content creator, just do the thing, stick to the thing that they do, like help them, gas them up in that sort of a way, suggest it to your friends.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:09:40Chris Williamson?

  Because I think you have a, a unique mindset with this, Danny, in that you don't need that. Uh, not confirmation or validation, but you don't need gassing up from your fans because you, you kind of have faith that they're there for you.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Chris Williamson?

  Um, but there are people out there, and I'm one of them, who I really, I'm still early on in the journey with regards to the podcast. And I take so much pleasure and so much motivation from seeing those messages.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:08Chris Williamson?

  That for me, it's still an important part of it. Do you know what I mean? Especially to be people out there, most projects are solo projects. It's hard to find someone else that's on that same path.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Chris Williamson?

  And with that in mind, it's like, if you like what someone does, message them, tell them, like, remove the friction. Because you've just spent the last twenty minutes scrolling through Instagram stories of people you hate.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Chris Williamson?

  And you, are you like, well, why don't you just fucking support your guy?

• 1:10:33Speaker 02

  Like, no, I do, don't, don't think that I'm like, I think I'm above reading people's messages or anything like that. Because I will go through every single message.

• 1:10:43Chris Williamson?

  My point is you don't necessarily hate them to heart either way.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  Two or three days later, once all the bad ones have been hidden.

• 1:10:49Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Just so that I don't like, it's not that it'd even bother me that much. It's just, why even see anything that's gonna bring you down?

• 1:10:58Chris Williamson?

  Exactly.

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  I've seen, I've seen a video before that a DJ had released. Um, he was playing Ministry of Sound in London and he'd made a bootleg, like a drum and bass bootleg of a big, a big house tune. And he put up a video, two hours later, it was on a hundred thousand views. Like, it was going, he'd not put a penny sponsor on it, it was flying. And because of all the negative comments, it deleted the video because it was getting to him too much, it upset him.

• 1:11:26Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, despite the fact that it.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  That could have had a million views, that could have changed his life, changed his career, that could have. But for something to go viral, equally as many people that hate it, in music especially, a song. It's got to get slated to make it go viral, an equal number of people have got to share it because they hate it. As like it, because that doubles the amount of views, that doubles the amount of exposure it's getting.

• 1:11:50Chris Williamson?

  Johnny, the guy that's usually sat where you are, Casey, he's got a, he does PPC and like, um, advertising Facebook ads every day. And his synopsis for all of that is clicks are clicks.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:03Chris Williamson?

  You know what I mean? Like, which is the old adage, it's better to be infamous than it is.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  But I've literally, I literally saw this, this video was gonna get a million views, the speed it was going at. The speed the views were going up at, and he couldn't take.

• 1:12:16Chris Williamson?

  Couldn't bear the criticism.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  He couldn't take the, not the criticisms, it was like nast- like nasty stuff. But because he hated it so much, he, but if you, eh, an agent could go to somebody and go, I got a million views in two days.

• 1:12:29Chris Williamson?

  We should get that guy, we should give him a crack at Ibiza Rocks warm-up set or whatever it might be. Um, so how do you deal, Casey, obviously to you that is kind of in the vanguard, you've taken point on shitey social media comments. It must be challenging for you to see people online saying bad things about your clients slash friend.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Um, nah, you don't, you don't see it like, like I'd see.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, do you know, in the early stages, I think, because even I was quite protective of what we were trying to achieve, I was like, okay, well, what are we doing wrong? Why don't people like what he's doing, you know, and I think maybe it was inexperience or whatever.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Because there's no, there's no rulebook, no one gives you a rulebook and says, these are the rules, like, if people start slagging you off, you're making enough noise that you're actually being successful. So there's no rulebook, so you're like, why do these people not like me, what, what happened wrong? Like, I, I don't, I don't dislike them, I don't know who they are, like, why?

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  And I think because it was, uh, because we was putting a lot of content out there, it was, you know. There, there's no consistency, there's no theme, there's no, there's nothing was measurable in terms of what would get good comments or what would get bad comments, it was just. At the mercy of the, the social media public.

• 1:13:35Chris Williamson?

  The internet.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, the internet, um. But now I even put videos up deliberately to troll certain crowds though.

• 1:13:41Chris Williamson?

  I think when you can do that, when you can get to that stage, I've got a friend called Michael Malice, who was on a couple of weeks ago and he's been on Rogan five times and he is, you know, Loki from Avengers?

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:53Chris Williamson?

  That he is Loki for American politics and Twitter in general. And his approach is just, so he tweeted the other day, um,

• 1:14:07Chris Williamson?

  Hitler built the Berlin Wall, Trump wants to build a wall, you do the maths. Hitler didn't build the Berlin Wall, but he just like,

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  bait.

• 1:14:17Chris Williamson?

  Such bait and the Berlin Wall trended in America because of this, because of this tweet and it's like,

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  I love stuff like that.

• 1:14:25Chris Williamson?

  When you can get yourself to that stage, I think, and you don't take yourself too seriously, that's the, that's the real sweet spot.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  But I think for me, I just, I really couldn't care less. I, I think that's why I'm probably the best place, but like, Danny's happy, I'm happy. Danny's doing well. I consider us both to be doing well. I don't, I think there's a quote, uh, Brene Brown refers to it by Teddy Roosevelt, where it's like, um, I can't remember it word for word, but it's like, it's not the, I can't remember exactly, but it's basically saying, if you're not in the arena taking part, I don't care for your opinion. And I think for those people, you know, unless you're someone who's value Y opinion, unless you're doing something similar or, you know, putting yourself out there or, you're actually trying to achieve something great, I don't care for your opinion. So for anyone who has something to say about Danny's opinion or Danny's career,

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  if I value their opinion, they would have commented directly to me and we would be having that conversation. It would be constructive. But for someone who's just posting nonsense online, I couldn't care less. It doesn't affect how much I get paid, it doesn't affect how much he gets paid. So, yeah, it's not gonna deter him from going out.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  And now, now we definitely don't see it. It doesn't affect your happiness. Yeah, that's all that matters.

• 1:15:40Chris Williamson?

  You know, as a takeaway for anyone, I, I've been trying to push as many people that are listening as possible to like, uh, go and. Do a project, start the business that you want, whatever it is, follow a passion that you have, because you can do it with such a low investment in terms of time and resources. Um, the podcast I did with James from podcast.co, which I'll put in the show notes below as well. That has my full working process from the gear I use to the filters that I have, to the mastering program, to the way I upload to my hosting platform. Because nothing would make me happier than for someone else to go and do this. Like, the internet is a very, very big place.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  And how rewarding would that be for you?

• 1:16:17Chris Williamson?

  To someone else go and then be like, hey, man, like, not only did you make a podcast I enjoyed, I'm now making a podcast because of you.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:24Chris Williamson?

  You know, like, how many people might have listened to this, hopefully today, who are like, oh, do you know what it is? Like, my DJing career was kind of a bit wishy washy, but, you know, Danny and Casey said, give it a fucking shot and really go after it with energy and put mixtapes out. I'm gonna commit for the next 12 months, I'm gonna do a mixtape a month and I'm gonna go around giving it out to people or whatever the fuck it is.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  I love seeing people do well, especially when they really, really, really deserve it. There was a, there's a lad who, he'll probably listen to this to be fair. Came to a DJ workshop I did, uh, four years ago. He was 14. You had to be 16 to go on the workshop and his mum booked him on, didn't say anything. And I was, I was like, it was no problem. She, she just said, oh, can I stay with him for the day? And, um,

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  oh, literally like showing DJ routines and helping, helping people do stuff. He was four deck mixing at 14 years old. At the start of this session, I was like, I'm gonna have to make something more complicated up for this guy.

• 1:17:26Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  And he's now just turned 18. We've kept in such sins, he's been like, how can I, he's been almost saddened, like, oh, I can't get any gigs, I can't get any opportunities.

• 1:17:38Chris Williamson?

  You're a child.

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  I was like, you're, you're sixteen.

• 1:17:41Chris Williamson?

  You're legally a child.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  You're sixteen, chill out. You're seventeen, chill out. Now he's 18.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Just old enough to go to clubs.

• 1:17:46Chris Williamson?

  I got finally allowed to get into the club that you want, that you're complaining you're not getting booked at, yes.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  I got a phone call saying. I need a resident for a Friday night at this bar, blah, blah, blah. He went and did the set at this bar. He's now got three residences a week and he's on five hundred quid a week DJing. A week after his eighteen.

• 1:18:09Chris Williamson?

  Making more money than ninety nine percent of eighteen year olds.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  One hundred percent would not have got that gig if it wasn't for him showing his enthusiasm, being nice, being hungry to progress and keeping in touch with me. And he didn't pest me all the time. He was just nice. Do you know what I mean? And now he's like, now he's just straight away as an eighteen year old walked into twenty, like twenty odd grand a year's worth of gigs.

• 1:18:36Chris Williamson?

  It's the beautiful thing about networking and this is why I am glad that my background over the last thirteen years of being a nightclub promoter, it lends you toward going networking first. And the beautiful thing about networks is they're the only thing which don't share when you multiply them that, do you know what I mean?

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Chris Williamson?

  Like they don't divide, they multiply.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:18:57Chris Williamson?

  Like, and you, you get to continue, you build out all of these different stuff. There was a guy who sent me an email like six months into when I started the podcast, who was a bunch of book recommendations and said, I really think that you would, this would be a good guest and a couple of other things. And Jordan's now one of my best mates. Now he books people onto the show, he helps me source guests. George McGill sent me another one saying, hey man, I know that you like Chrome browser extensions. Here's a list of them. By the way, um, if you're ever in Manchester, let me know. His episodes that I ended up recording with him last year are the first and second most played ever. Bigger than Aubrey Marcus, bigger than James Clear, bigger than Robert Greene, bigger than Christoph, bigger than everything. And he's just some fella.

• 1:19:39Chris Williamson?

  And all it cost him was a DM. All the, the only cost was a DM. You know, and reaching out to people like that, it, it can change everything.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  I did that at seventeen, so prior to working with Danny and like before I even got involved in nightlife, I just messaged a guy because I wanted to work at his club. Um, and I messaged the owner just saying I wanted to learn about it. And then I got an internship in a nightclub in central London, just from that message as a seventeen year old, like. You have nothing to lose from our skin, and I think just having the vulnerability to put yourself out there. Like, what, what's the alternative?

• 1:20:13Chris Williamson?

  I can't remember, um, I can't remember who it was that told me this story, but this was, this was, this was on another episode where there was this, uh, young American black guy who lived in quite a poor neighbourhood, and he wanted to work out how to be rich. Went round knocking on, just thought, I'm gonna knock on the doors in the richest neighbourhood in town. Second person whose door he knocked on was the acting CEO of IBM, who gave him an internship there and then. And you know what I mean? You're like, holy fucking shit, like, people that go out of their way and make things happen.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  But how many people?

• 1:20:42Chris Williamson?

  Would think that that was lucky.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'd be like, oh, that was lucky, but then won't do anything about it.

• 1:20:47Chris Williamson?

  So here's the thing, Taylor Pearson, who's coming on in a couple of weeks' time, and I just keep consuming his content. TaylorPearson.me for anyone that's interested, he's an absolute motherfucker, like, I cannot believe the sort of stuff this guy puts out. And he's got this, this post that he's written about procrastination, which is just beautiful. And he says, the thing about procrastination is the reason we do it is because we're scared of failure. We don't undertake the thing that we want to try and do in case we might fail at it. But the weird thing about procrastination is that by trying to inoculate ourselves from failing publicly, we guarantee that we will fail privately.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:24Chris Williamson?

  Like, okay, maybe you didn't fuck up in public, but by doing nothing, nothing happened. Like, you can only benefit from doing something and taking action.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Chris Williamson?

  So, you know, I think that, that action-first approach is a really good way to go. Look, gentlemen, we made it. There we go. It's Danny T and Casey. Where should people go? They wanna find out your music, they wanna check out your socials. At It's Danny T DJ on everything. Sound card as well? Yeah, so everything's the same. Casey, where can they, where can they hassle you? Oh, is it not?

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Spotify is at It's Danny T.

• 1:21:59Chris Williamson?

  Was DJ not available?

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:22:02Chris Williamson?

  Someone's gone on and taken at It's Danny T DJ.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  There's actually an Australian Danny T, but we don't talk about him.

• 1:22:10Chris Williamson?

  I can't do an Australian, I was gonna do, it's Danny T in an Australian accent, but I can't, anyway.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  He actually, no, we'll get it.

• 1:22:17Chris Williamson?

  Don't finish it.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  We're friends now.

• 1:22:19Chris Williamson?

  Casey, where can I get you? Are you online? Or you just get you through Danny?

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  Casey just hides away.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Do you know, this is the

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  Casey don't want followers.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  I, um, yeah, I only have Instagram and it's, what is it? I don't even know, like, I see social media as a business tool, so I'm not big proactive on it.

• 1:22:34Chris Williamson?

  I'm gonna send everyone there anyway, it's gonna be in the show notes as well.

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  When was your, when was your last picture? It's gotta be three, four years ago.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Two thousand seventeen, fifteen?

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Chris Williamson?

  Well, you've got someone else's social media to deal with, haven't you?

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's keeping me busy enough.

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:49Chris Williamson?

  Look, gents, uh, ladies and gentlemen, everything will be linked in the show notes below. Any questions you've got for Danny, feel free to leave them on YouTube. Like, share and subscribe, you know what to do. Danny, it's been fantastic, man. I'm looking forward to tonight.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  I can't wait.

• 1:23:00Chris Williamson?

  It's gonna be buzzing.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna get you drunk.

• 1:23:01Chris Williamson?

  Uh, no.

• 1:23:04Chris Williamson?

  Bigger people than you have tried.

• 1:23:05Speaker 02

  I can try.

• 1:23:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you can give it a crack. Thanks, man.