Ep 62: The EDM Cinderella - How The Glitch Mob Exploded

Justin Boreta is a founding member of The Glitch Mob http://theglitchmob.com/. Their music has been featured in movies like Sin City II, Edge of Tomorrow, Captain America, and Spiderman. In this episode, we discuss The Glitch Mob's path from unknown band to playing sold-out 90,000-person (!) arenas. We delve into war stories, and Justin plays us never-before-heard "drafts" of blockbuster tracks to show creative process. Even if you have zero interest in music, Justin discusses habits and strategies that can be applied to nearly anything. Meditation? Morning routines? We cover it all. The Glitch Mob's last album, Love Death Immortality, debuted on the Billboard charts at #1 Electronic Album, #1 Indie Label, and #4 Overall Digital Album. This is particularly impressive because The Glitch Mob is an artist-owned group. It's a true start-up. This podcast is brought to you by Mizzen + Main http://mizzenandmain.com/collections/tim. Mizzen + Main http://mizzenandmain.com/collections/tim makes the only "dress" shirts I now travel with -- fancy enough for important dinners but made from athletic, sweat-wicking material http://fourhourworkweek.com/shirts. No more ironing, no more steaming, no more hassle. Click here for the exact shirts I wear most often http://mizzenandmain.com/collections/tim. Order one of their dress shirts this week and get a Henley shirt (around $60 retail) for free. Just add the two you like here http://mizzenandmain.com/collections/tim to the cart, then use code "TIM" at checkout. This episode is also brought to you by 99Designs http://99designs.com/tim, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. Did you know I used 99Designs to rapid prototype the cover http://99designs.com/tim for The 4-Hour Body? Here are some of the impressive results http://99designs.com/tim. ALL SHOW NOTES AND LINKS: www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast

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

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Hello ladies and gents, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode.

• 0:06Tim Ferriss?

  God damn!

• 0:09Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:16Speaker 03

  No, it would seem inappropriate to ask.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Speaker 03

  The Tim Ferriss Show.

• 0:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's the usual intro music, but I'd like you to hear a brand-new version, reimagined by none other than Justin Beretta of The Glitch Mob.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

• 1:19Tim Ferriss?

  This podcast is brought to you by Mizzen and Maine. Don't worry about the spelling, all you need to know is this: I have organized my entire life around avoiding fancy shirts, because you have to iron them, you sweat through them, they smell really easily, they're a pain in the ass. Mizzen and Maine has given me the only shirt that I need. And what I mean by that, and Kelly Starrett loves these shirts as well, is that you can trick people. They look really fancy, so you can take them out to nice dinners, whatever, but they're made from athletic sweat-wicking material. So you can throw this thing into your luggage in a heap, or on your kitchen table like I did recently, and then pull it out, throw it on with no ironing, no steaming, no nothing, walk out, and you could probably wear this thing for a week straight, or make it your only dress shirt, and take it on trips for weeks at a time, never

• 2:10Tim Ferriss?

  Wash it, it will not smell, you will not sweat through it. You gotta check these things out. So, go to 4hourworkweek.com, all spelled out. 4hourworkweek.com/shirts. And if you order one of their dress shirts in the next week, you will get a Henley shirt for free. That's worth about 60 bucks. So, put them both in the cart, use the code TIM, T-I-M, and you will get the Henley shirt for free. Check it out, 4hourworkweek.com/shirts and you'll see some of my favorite gear, including the one shirt that I've been traveling with. 99designs, which is your one-stop shop for all things graphic design-related. Go to 99designs.com/tim to see the projects that I've put up, including the mock-ups and drafts of the book cover for The Four Hour Body.

• 2:53Tim Ferriss?

  As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and you can find all of the links and resources from this episode, as well as every other episode, by going to 4hourworkweek.com/podcast. Spell it all out. Or you can go to 4hourworkweek.com and just click on Podcast. Feedback, if you have feedback, I would love your thoughts. Anything at all, who you'd like to see on this show. Ping me on Twitter, @Tferris. That's twitter.com/TFERRISS. Or on Facebook, at facebook.com/timferris, with two R's and two S's.

• 3:29Tim Ferriss?

  This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I deconstruct world-class performers to find the tools, tricks, routines, habits that you can use. And of course, those experts range from billionaire investors, to chess prodigies, to Arnold Schwarzenegger, to everyone in between. And you do find commonalities. And in this particular episode, we delve into a world that I know very little about, and that is the world of music. We have Justin Beretta, who is a founding member of The Glitch Mob. And if you haven't heard that name, or you don't recognize that name, you will definitely recognize some of their music. And it could range from their trailers, or the trailers in which they're featured. So, you could list Sin City 2, Edge of Tomorrow,

• 4:14Tim Ferriss?

  Captain America, Spider-Man, to their commercial work. So, commercials for Fiat, Audi, and so on.

• 4:21Tim Ferriss?

  They also debuted their last album, Love, Death, Immortality incredibly well on Billboard. Number one electronic album, number one indie labels, number four overall digital albums. And this is fascinating because from an entrepreneurial standpoint, not only are they indie, they're not associated with a big label, they're artist owned. And we delve into all of this. How did they go from unknown to on top of the world? Playing to 90,000 people in Quebec with Deadmau5, for instance. We dig into the war stories, the creative stories, the process, how that has been refined over time. And you get to hear some never heard before early drafts of some of their biggest hits. And Justin walks through exactly how those were refined over time

• 5:06Tim Ferriss?

  to become what millions of people now love and listen to all the time. It's a fascinating discussion with an artist. Even if you feel like you have no interest in music process, you will find things ranging from his schedule to his meditative practice that you can use. It's a really fun interview. I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado, here is Justin Beretta.

• 5:32Tim Ferriss?

  Justin, welcome to the show.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Hey, how's it going, Tim?

• 5:34Tim Ferriss?

  It's going well. I appreciate you making the time. And as a longtime fan, I appreciate you making the music first and foremost.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, it's my pleasure to be here. I'm a huge fan of all the four hour empire as well. So it's an honor to get to talk to you.

• 5:50Tim Ferriss?

  And I know we, I guess, initially connected via Twitter, I think it was, is how we came in contact? Is that how the pieces came together?

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so. I think you had posted something on Soundtracking, which is an app that we both use. And I started following on there. And then, yeah, we just kind of just started chatting from there. That had to be a year or two ago.

• 6:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, it probably was. And then I've continued as a consumer of music. And now we finally have a chance to dig into the music. So the first question I really wanted to ask you is what you are world class at? Or what your closest friends or associates or band members consider you world class at?

• 6:32Speaker 04

  It's a good question. You know, I think that we're known to...

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Perform crazy, intense, and perform and produce really crazy, intense cinematic music. We're kind of off in our own category. And we're also known for being a very DIY operation. We do almost everything ourselves. And we own our own label, and we have a very close relationship with our fans.

• 7:01Tim Ferriss?

  So, how does the closeness with the fans manifest itself? And what has led to that?

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Well, you know, the funny thing about...

• 7:11Tim Ferriss?

  Because your fans are diehard. I mean, really, really diehard, which I appreciate.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 7:18Tim Ferriss?

  So, how did that happen? What do you think are the factors?

• 7:21Speaker 04

  You know, I think, you know, one of the interesting things about building something that's very DIY is it's been a very, very slow burn for us. We've been at this for a while. You know, I think the very first Glitch Mob show, just the other day, by the way, I should mention, Glitch Mob is myself, two other guys, Edit and Uwa, names Ed and Josh, who are also in the group. And when we got our start, Josh found the very first mixtape from us in, I think it was 2006, the other day when he was cleaning out his house. So, it's been a long process for us. And right out of the gates, we were interacting with our fans. I mean, this is gonna date me, but this was back in the days of MySpace.

• 8:04Speaker 04

  So, on our mixtape, it said MySpace.com/theglitchmob. But right away, what we would do is, when we first started playing shows, we would finish every show, and we would take a stack of CDs and hand them out to people. And we continued that tradition. And in fact, we still kind of do that. So, it was baked into our DNA from day one to have a very hand-to-hand, face-to-face interaction with people. And we've kind of continued that ethos through into the era of Twitter and Snapchat, Instagram and everything, where we have a very, very close, personal relationship with people. There's people that we've known, and we've been touring for quite a while now. And, you know, we actually also have a group of

• 8:49Speaker 04

  very ultra-diehard fans that are in a sort of forum called The Mob. And we meet up with them before every show and after the show. And we have, you know, we do fun projects and stuff like that. So, for us... We also get a lot of feedback back from them. When we very first started doing this, it was us. We were making these more dance floor centric tracks. And I think the more we started to realize how much music has the ability to affect people. And we started to get these stories about, back from people about our music being a part of their lives in some way. We started to take everything really very seriously. Because we have such a close relationship with people, people, they have the logo tattooed

• 9:34Speaker 04

  in their body, which in the first time we saw that, we thought, wow, this is someone who took the time to get the logo tattooed in their body, which we all have tattoos and our manager does too. So we take, we take everything very seriously and we take the power of music to be very serious. It's something that's very important to us.

• 9:51Tim Ferriss?

  And I mean, one of the stories, of course, that really struck me was the Grant Corgan story. Snowmobile, after a snowmobile accident was, I guess, basically diagnosed as potentially never walking again. And fast forward, after listening to Glitch Mob and PT and interacting with you guys, planted a Glitch Mob flag at the South Pole. After, I guess, traveling the majority of the way in a push sled and then walking the last, whether it was 100 feet or 100 yards, I don't recall, but just such an incredible story. How did that change you guys? And of course, I'm going to come back to the origin story and ask more questions, but

• 10:36Tim Ferriss?

  how did that change, if it did, your creative process or how you think about your craft after, after that type of story comes to you?

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it absolutely did. And that was, that was something that really, I'd say, got into the DNA of what we do. You know, I think... That when we really realized and when we, so when we first met Grant, actually, a friend of his had emailed us and, and this is, I think this is also part of us being really tapped into what people say is that, I mean, this, this email could have gone away, you know, but we, we pay attention to, to important emails like this and someone had emailed and said, hey, look, my friend got a really bad accident and he's, he's never going to walk again and, you know, he, he loves your music. So anything you could do to cheer him up.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  And so we said, obviously, so we had someone on our team send him a bunch of stuff, just like we signed some, uh, you know, some drumsticks and some CDs and everything. And then we just, we got a friendship going with him from there. And then he showed up at one of our shows in Reno and he was on crutches and he said, you know, thank you guys for being there so much. And, and then he came to actually, he came out to our show, we played at Red Rocks and, and when he showed us that video or the picture of him at the South Pole, I mean, we all were, were actually moved to tears. It was, it was a fantastic moment. And I think that was something when we realized that music really does have the

• 12:05Speaker 04

  power to, to transcend, or maybe it was, you know, I also feel like it's a, Grant is an amazing guy as is, and the fact that he could do that, the fact that we even helped kind of nudge him along. And I think that's also along with his friends and families and we played a part in that. It really made us take everything very, very seriously. And, you know, I think it's easy to be cynical these days about everything, um, you know, and, and music in particular, but we, you know, it's, it's a very, very serious thing to us.

• 12:33Tim Ferriss?

  That's a very powerful, powerful art form. And I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine about just the interspecies differences and similarities related to beat and music and, and just trying to determine, uh, obviously outside of music theory, but what, what itch does music scratch for human beings? It's such a fascinating question for me and-

• 12:57Speaker 04

  It's, it's so fascinating. Have, have you read this book called, uh, This Is Your Brain on Music?

• 13:02Tim Ferriss?

  I have not.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  I, I can't recommend that enough. It's by this guy named Daniel Levitin and he really digs into that whole question and it gets deep into, um, neuroscience, but, um, it, it is a really fascinating- Thing and he goes into the evolutionary thinking behind why why music does what it does. It's almost too much for me to even get into here. I can't say I fully understand a lot of the neuroscience, but um, it's really interesting.

• 13:30Tim Ferriss?

  Awesome. No, I, I, and I wanted to just talk about or ask you about really what makes the glitch mob unique and different because there are, there are obviously so many bands out there. There's so much noise. There's so many, so many people and bands clamoring for attention. But you've, you've hit a point where I was watching this video of, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think it was 90,000 people in a, in Quebec. And what is it that, well, number one, actually, I'm bouncing around a little bit, but what does it feel like to be on stage in front of 90,000 people? Is there anything you can compare it to?

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Um, you know, actually, it's a really hard feeling to describe. And the only, the only way thing I can liken it to is skydiving. Have you tried skydiving before?

• 14:22Tim Ferriss?

  I have.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  So you know the feeling with skydiving where you jump out of the airplane and it's, it's so crazy. You almost aren't even scared. It's so fucking surreal. You're like, wow, okay, I'm just experiencing this right now?

• 14:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Yes, I do.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  That's kind of the feeling of being on a stage like that is it's so surreal and it's so, there's a, there's like a terminal velocity with the amount of people that once it gets so big, it just feels like you're in a dream. It's very surreal. And it's also actually very, um, there's something really fascinating that happens in crowds that big where you can feel, even, even with that many people, you can feel the way that the energy of the music can affect people. And as you're, you're riding the ups and downs and the waves of the crowd, there's some sort of primal interaction that happens. And with that many people, it's really intense. And it's also, yeah, it's also a very meditative experience for me, you know, and a lot of, even that show in particular, when I was

• 15:19Speaker 04

  up there playing, I remember thinking, almost getting a chance to listen to my music and then see everyone experiencing the music and, and hear it along with them. And sort of getting a dose of my own medicine there. So it's a very kind of spiritual. Surreal experience to be up there.

• 15:39Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it has to be some type of communion. I mean, it's, it's, uh, having done some experimentation in the, for lack of a better term, spiritual realm, which we can get into the pharmacology of another time, but, uh, the, that energetic transmission, that interaction is, is from my just empirical experience at least, absolutely real. So I can, I cannot even imagine being the focal point of 90,000 human beings. That's, that's, uh, it, it just must be, you know, transcendental almost on some level.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 16:16Tim Ferriss?

  What, now, you did send me, uh, you sent, you sent me an email and we've, we've corresponded, of course, and you mentioned a few things and you said that these are all interesting because not only are we indie, but we're artist owned. And I wanted to, I wanted you to elaborate on that because I'm not familiar with the music industry. I'm an avid listener of music, but what, what do those two terms mean? And just to provide some context for, for people, and I'm reading from, from Wikipedia here, but the sophomore glitch mob album Love, Death, Immortality debuted at number one on the Billboard Dance Electronics Songs chart. Now that sounds like a pretty big deal and I would imagine it is, right?

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, I mean, in a, you know, in a, in a way it is and in a way it's not. I mean, I guess, you know, to be quite honest, we don't pay too much attention to the charting and it's all, I mean, it's nice to be recognized for, for what you do. And I think, um, you know, it's funny because we're, we're kind of like the oddballs of the, of the electronic music or EDM world. And I, um, which, just a kind of a side note, I, I don't totally use those terms interchangeably. I think, um, I was actually getting, getting a chance to come on this podcast, maybe kind of think about this because just for me personally, when I think of electronic music, it's just music and EDM is music plus industry plus

• 17:40Speaker 04

  apps plus festivals and Spotify, everything into one. So kind of consider them to be two separate things, but, um, that aside, um, you know, the, the whole thing with, with...

• 17:57Speaker 04

  The difference between an independent and a major and an artist-owned label. So when we first dropped our album and it did well, it hit number one on that electronic chart and it made it to number 13 in the top 20, which is pretty crazy actually because when you look at a lot of the albums that were the top 20 in that point in time, it was people like Katy Perry or Eric Church, who's this country guy, and a lot of these people are on major labels. So those are the equivalent of big, massive companies. These labels are huge. Something like Interscope is a very big company. So then you have an independent label, which is a much smaller company potentially that is owned and not

• 18:40Speaker 04

  backed by this effective, huge corporation. And then you have an artist-owned label, which means that we actually do everything. So we provide all of these things together. So it's a very in-house operation.

• 18:53Tim Ferriss?

  So your operations are not, at least the performances are, real productions.

• 19:02Tim Ferriss?

  So I would imagine you have had to wear, and you guys have all had to wear, a lot of hats. What does your team currently look like?

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's also part of our ethos and everything that has gotten us to where we are today is actually the wearing of multiple hats. And we all have our own specific things that we're good at. There was a point in time when we very first got this thing going where we actually built our own light show. Josh and I went to Home Depot and we were hammering and sawing lights outside of Ed's house while he was inside mixing down some audio. And we were very, very DIY. We schlepped this thing in a U-Haul trailer around the country. And the fact today that we actually have a team

• 19:53Speaker 04

  of people around us that can help, and actually people that are better than us at what we do, that was a... That was a big moment for us, you know, because we actually would, you know, we mix and master our own music. Actually, um, uh, well, the, the last albums, we've had other people, um, do the mastering. But, you know, we, we produce, we record, we do all the music stuff ourselves. We had actually built the, the stage show ourself. We programmed it, we programmed the lights, we bought the lights. So we kind of did everything. And so fast forward to now, um, we have a team of people that, that are really experts at what they do. So for instance, for the live show, there's a guy named Martin Phillips.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  And Martin Phillips is a specific stage show designer. Like that's just, that's what he does. So he, he, he meets with an artist and he's kind of like a creative director type, type guy, where he can hear the music and then we collaborate with him, um, with, with a bunch of other people to basically create the, this, the light, the light, um, the stage show, which was called The Blade. So then there's a guy, a guy named Matt, who, Matt Davis, who's the programmer. So he's an expert level stage design programmer. I mean, this guy is, he's, he's one of our dearest friends. He's just, he's the best. And he, he basically programs all of the under the hood stuff that makes The Blade tick.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  And so when we go out on tour, there's about 14 to 15 people total to make the show happen.

• 21:27Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And how many of those people are, are full-time with you guys? Or are the, is, is the core three, are the core three of you the only full-time?

• 21:39Speaker 04

  So the only full-time people, so yeah, so there's us, obviously. We have a manager, um, Kevin Wolfe, who has been with us since, since day one. And, um, our booking agent, who takes care of all the live shows, named Steve. And he's also been with us since, since day one. And then there's a tour manager who manages, um, everything that happens out on the road and to make everything else happen. So those are, those are the main full-time people. And then we have someone who does all of the, the social media strategy and stuff. And, um, we actually do all the posting on, and tweeting and Instagramming ourselves, but there's someone who deals with all the nuts and bolts of the, um, you know, the internet side of things.

• 22:20Tim Ferriss?

  Right, got it. And, uh, I'd love to hear a little bit, this is gonna be very nitty gritty, but I'm just, I know there are gonna be people who are very curious about this. When you're in the studio, as it sounds like you are now, what is the software that you use on a daily or weekly basis? What are the tools that you guys use?

• 22:42Speaker 04

  So, right now, we base everything on this program called Ableton. And it's a very ubiquitous program these days. I think most people are starting to produce on it. And we've actually been around the block on everything. I mean, we've used, for the audio nerds out there, I mean, we started with Pro Tools, and we moved to Cubase, then we've done Logic. So, we've tried everything. And Ed used to have tons of outboard gear, so the-

• 23:08Tim Ferriss?

  What is outboard gear?

• 23:09Speaker 04

  So, right now, the term is called "in the box," which means, everything is done in the computer. Like, our studio, it's just a monitor, keyboard, and, you know, an actual piano keyboard for playing notes. And then, some studios have tons of gear that lives on the outside of the computer. So, there's compressors and EQs, and a lot of tools that are these custom boxes that cost thousands of dollars that are really high-end stuff, that, now that the technology is getting more and more powerful, we actually sold everything outboard and moved in the box, so that we could actually travel. So, and

• 23:52Speaker 04

  it's arguable, I mean, there's the whole, it's funny, because like, the analog-digital argument permeates music in all sorts of different ways. And even in the sort of, you know, there's people who are vinyl purists, or people who like to listen to Spotify because it's easier. It's the same thing in the production side. There's some people that think that analog is the way to get the best quality sound. And, we're not really arguing that, but we actually, it's a lot easier, because also, we have a distributed studio. So, our toolbox is Ableton, a handful of plugins, and then, everything is synced on Dropbox. So, that way, we can have sessions open in all different machines. And then, we use

• 24:32Speaker 04

  these plugins called Universal Audio, that actually emulate all the outboard gear that you could buy.

• 24:39Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool. And, on the road, does that change at all? Or is, aside from the-

• 24:48Tim Ferriss?

  Let's see, aside from the actual Blade and so on, does the actual music production side of things change much when you're performing? Or are you still working off of primarily laptops with Ableton?

• 25:03Speaker 04

  So, it does change entirely, actually. But the Ableton software stays the same, and that's the benefit of the way that Ableton is put together, is that it's actually a production and a performance suite, all in one. So, we write everything in Ableton, and then because we're all basically synced up, and everything is very modular, then our... So that, there's a system that drives the Blade, and that's the thing that Matt has programmed, and it's called, we call it Lil' Kim. And it's this...

• 25:36Tim Ferriss?

  Why do you call it Lil' Kim?

• 25:39Speaker 04

  Because we just needed a name for it, and it's this big, just gnarly pile of computers and boxes and wires, and Ed just said, "That's called Lil' Kim." So it's a Mac Pro, and then it has two Mac Minis in there, and the Mac Minis actually do all the MIDI routing for the Blade. And then there's another laptop, which is a backup system. So if the Mac Pro dies, we have a button, there's a big red button that will switch, because when you're playing these huge crowds, you have to have layers of redundancy. So we have many, many different layers of redundancy. But yeah, but Lil' Kim, it's still based on Ableton, but we moved the entire thing to a more beefy and robust system.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  And then there's a lot of audio that comes out, and this is actually something that does separate us from, I would say, 99% of other electronic artists out there, is that we split out our audio, like a typical band. And what that means is, like, let's say you go see a rock band play. There's a guy playing bass, there's a guy playing drums and vocals, and then there's a someone who's at the front of house, which is the the sound booth up front, who's mixing all these together to fit the sound of the room and get the optimal sound. Now, when you go see most DJs play, they're playing music that's already been mixed together.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  So it's just it's just one one track, and there's not a whole lot that he can do. So we actually are a hybrid of the live rock world and then the electronic world in that we actually send out kick, snare, and all the different elements of the sound come out so that our sound engineer can really tweak and get the most optimal sound for each room we play in.

• 27:20Tim Ferriss?

  That's very cool. And the kick kick is the bass drum?

• 27:22Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah.

• 27:23Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And just to just to rewind for a second, what is mastering exactly?

• 27:29Speaker 04

  So mastering, so let's say we finish our album. I'll give you a real example. As we finished writing Love, Death and Mortality after after two years of writing it, and mastering is the process of taking it from being an unfinished product to basically a finished listening product that you would buy in a CD or something. And there's there's stuff that happens. A lot of it has to do with evening out levels or changing the the quality of the sound. There's certain things that have to happen to have it be on a recorded on a recorded medium. And it changes depending on what music it is. But it's really just the finishing process that the last final thing that makes music all sound consistent.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Or for instance, you know, let's say some of the like one song is quieter than the other. Well, the mastering engineer, who's not us, would would go through and tweak everything just a little bit so that it gets to be a consistent listen and then the bass and the treble and everything is matched throughout it, the the record.

• 28:32Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And I know I'm bouncing around here with Ableton. So Ableton has come up a few times for me recently. And one of the contexts which I was surprised by is that, not that I have any right to be surprised because I know nothing about this stuff, but Ira Glass of This American Life uses Ableton for his performances when he does speeches and wants to layer in audio and so on.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 28:55Tim Ferriss?

  Do you if you were to create a podcast yourself, would you do would you use Ableton for that? Or? Would that be overkill?

• 29:04Speaker 04

  No, I would. I would use Ableton. I mean, I guess it's hard to not be biased because I use it all day, every day. But I actually think that you can do, you can do some really complex and interesting stuff with it, or you can do really, really basic stuff. I mean, actually Ableton's a program that comes up a lot. Because the learning curve is not too bad. For instance, a friend of mine just had his girlfriend's 12 or 13-year-old little brother wanted to learn to DJ and produce. So that's, you would give some, a beginner, give him Ableton.

• 29:41Tim Ferriss?

  Really?

• 29:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 29:43Tim Ferriss?

  So it's easier than Pro Tools, for instance?

• 29:45Speaker 04

  A hundred percent, yeah. It's really, it's not too hard to learn in the grand scheme of things.

• 29:50Tim Ferriss?

  Interesting. So I'm at a point where I'm interested in audio. Not that I plan on doing it everything myself, but I'd like to have a fundamental set of audio editing skills because I find it interesting. If I'm starting from scratch and I'm trying to choose from GarageBand, Audacity, Pro Tools, Ableton, and I'm starting from ground zero, so I have no training in any of them, Ableton would be your recommendation?

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say so. Also because Ableton is so robust and it's used so widely, you get the benefit of people like us hammering on it. And so for instance, there's, Ableton has a very reliable crash feature. So if the program crashes, it saves your undo history. So that means that it will pick up, so you won't lose a whole lot if it crashes. And other programs have that, but because it's really, you know, it's a very living, breathing piece of software and it's used so much by the community, I think that it's really the right way to go. And the stuff that they're doing with it over the next couple of years, I think it's going to be really crazy and it's worth the time to figure it out. And also...

• 31:01Speaker 04

  You can do all sorts of other crazy stuff with it, but even for the really basic things. I mean, yeah, even for instance, you know, there's progress. It's arguable. Some people will tell you that Pro Tools and Logic are more robust and powerful in what they can do, and that might be true. However, I would say that Ableton, you get the most bang for your buck. I mean, we didn't choose it because it's the absolute best and most complex Swiss Army knife. It's actually the fastest way to get things done.

• 31:33Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. Okay, no, say no more. That's a great, that's a, that's a great way to convince me. Sold. I, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about the, the commercial success that you've had because I find it so fascinating and encouraging that you are artist-owned, very DIY, yet you have, you've, your music shows up all over the place. I mean, it's, I remember you sent me a number of links, some of, some of which I had, I had seen before, whether it's Sin City 2, Edge of Tomorrow, Captain America, Spider-Man, and just the list just goes on and on and on and on and on.

• 32:17Tim Ferriss?

  How, how did you, as this, this artist-owned upstart, and I should, I suppose, ask, have you always been artist-owned? So maybe you can answer that too, but how, how have you ended up getting into these massive motion pictures, for instance?

• 32:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, and we all, we have always been artist-owned, yeah, absolutely. You know, just to jump around one, one little bit here, I think that, you know, the, the part of our whole genesis was really just out of the love of music. You know, when we first started in 2006 and 2007, we started doing this. You would never say, "I'm gonna be a producer because I want to be rich or famous or even cool." In fact, at that point in time, electronic music was relegated to raves and I don't know, it just wasn't even anywhere fucking close to mainstream culture, which now it is.

• 33:11Speaker 04

  So it was funny, I mean, even remember doing interviews at that, when we very first getting some traction, people saying, "What do you make?" We're kind of like, "Oh, you know, electronic music." Because it was rock and hip-hop was really the thing. So we almost had to love it because it felt like that's just what we were doing. We were just kind of the oddballs of music. And that's cool because we just like to do what we do and we are fascinated with. There's a really interesting merger between technology and artistry, which is part of the whole thing. It was sort of like, we're tech guys and tech fans and at the same time, we also like the art of music. So for us, it was really a passion project. Like, none of us ever decided to, "See, you know what? Let's make a band, we're gonna call it The Glitch Mob and we're gonna do this." It just kind of happened.

• 33:58Speaker 04

  So, that said, that's always how we've done things. And when we started making, when we wrote our first full-length album, Drink the Sea, before that, we were making, I would say, more dance floor tracks. It had a more hip-hop swag kind of, it was really like more cut-up hip-hop style stuff, where it was just more dance floor music. And so we made Drink the Sea, people expected us to do that. And we took a left turn and we all were having, you know, we were all difficult, we had a difficult moment in life and Drink the Sea for us became, it was funny, we all collectively were like having a sad about something, like breakups and heartbreak. And so we said, "You know what? Fuck what people expect us to do.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  We're just gonna make this thing that was a very cathartic record for us." And it was a very personal record. And we didn't play that for anybody, you know? We didn't play it for our managers, we didn't play it for our friends. We just basically disappeared for a year and- When was that? That was like 2009, 2010, I think, is when it came out. Okay.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  And-

• 35:06Speaker 04

  I think it was 2010 Drink to See came out. So that said, we had no particular intention with that. About how it would be received or anything. It was very like a diary piece for us. It was a very introspective record. And the interesting thing is that the the commercial success or the superhero movies that started to glom onto it

• 35:37Speaker 04

  just happened naturally. We never intended for that to happen. I think we didn't even understand why. We said, oh, wow, this is really cool. And we also just happened to like superhero movies. So it was a really cool thing.

• 35:47Tim Ferriss?

  Were you a comic book nerd growing up or no?

• 35:49Speaker 04

  No, I wasn't a comic book nerd, but I was definitely into Transformers.

• 35:52Tim Ferriss?

  And I don't say that in a derogatory way since I have like, I was a major comic book nerd.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  No, I, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't, I never really got into it. I had the Ren and Stimpy comic. That was the only one I really had. I loved Ren and Stimpy. I was really into horror movies and Stephen King. I was read a lot of Stephen King books growing up and stuff like that. But, but yeah, but you know, we never, I guess we never really just intended for that to happen. We, I actually didn't understand why these movies were choosing our music to use. And I, I think there's something inherently cinematic about our music. And something else that I learned later in time was that it was about the dramatic changes in tonality that happened. So this, which is something that we did naturally. So like one of our songs will start off with an emotion and we'll say, okay, now this feels

• 36:41Speaker 04

  eerie and ethereal. And then boom, it switches to zombie attack mode. And then it becomes really violent and then back. So we kind of go, we play with emotions texturally like that. And that was just more of an explorative phase for us.

• 36:57Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any particular songs or tracks that exemplify that, that people should listen to?

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Um, I can, I can actually play you something right here.

• 37:11Tim Ferriss?

  That'd be great.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  Let's see, so I'm gonna play, this is a track um called Animus Fox off of, off of our very first album.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  There you go. So you can kind of get the idea of there that something felt very tense and you didn't really know what's gonna happen and then it goes and switches right there.

• 38:29Tim Ferriss?

  Right. No, I mean, that's, it's kind of, and I mean this in the most positive way, it sort of screams movie preview, right?

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 38:37Tim Ferriss?

  Because you need that sort of tension buildup, shock, curiosity, and then go see the movie, right?

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:45Tim Ferriss?

  Now, tell me, I'd love for you to tell me a story of the first movie that you considered a, a real movie to reach out to you guys. Like, how did that happen? What was the email? What was the phone call? Did you guys believe it? You know, like, tell, tell me a story of, of one of those.

• 39:06Speaker 04

  I'll tell you one that sticks out, and that was actually the Sin City 2 trailer. And that one was special because I love Sin City. And the funny thing was that we were talking about making a video for Can't Kill Us, and that's the song that's in that video. So we were, we made it, we had a visual.

• 39:27Tim Ferriss?

  So they're like, hey, no problem, we'll make a $20 million trailer for you.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And apparently, Robert Rodriguez, who I'm a huge fan of, I love Machete, and I love the whole, his whole thing and Grindhouse. And so when he said, hey, we want to use this song for the trailer, I was like, well, we don't have to make a music video. And you know, it's just, it's just the most badass thing possible. And a lot of the times, they will, the people who cut movie trailers, who are actually, in general, the people who make movie trailers are a separate, and I'm not an expert on this by any means, but this is from what I understand, is the people who make movie trailers are different from the people who make the movie. Especially in these big, these big companies. But it's different with Robert Rodriguez. So he actually does everything himself. He's, he's kind of like us.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  So he actually chose the song, he found it, and then he stuck it in there. And I think that song, Can't Kill Us, was just, it was for us, it was just pure distilled badassery. And the fact that that ended up in that movie, I was like, really? Are you actually, is that gonna happen? I couldn't even.

• 40:32Tim Ferriss?

  Doesn't, doesn't hurt having Jessica Alba in there either.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  No, that moment did not suck.

• 40:39Tim Ferriss?

  So, did Robert Rodriguez just email like [email protected]? Or like, give me some details here.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  So there's a company that, that basically is, serves as an agent for licensing and everything like that. So they're called, they're called Zinc, and they're from Los Angeles. And they basically have our music, and they have relationships with people in the film and TV world, who I actually don't, I don't know a whole lot about that, aside from just making the music and my minimal access to that. So then I think the way it works is that the people in the licensing worlds have, so like, if you're Robert Rodriguez and you're cutting a trailer, you put a, you put a call out, and maybe your producer will.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  Get basically demos or a bunch of different companies will submit ideas for what this might be. And they'll put in what they'll call a temp track, which is something that is, has a general feel of what you might want. And you know, every now and again, that doesn't happen like that, actually. You know, sometimes there'll be a director who, I mean, I don't know. You know, he might've heard the album and just said, oh, that's it. I actually don't even really know, but when we got that email, I kind of lost my shit.

• 41:56Tim Ferriss?

  And did, how did, how does someone like Robert Rodriguez find, I'm looking at your website right now, theglitchmob.com. How does someone find Zink, for instance? Do they go to some music specific IMDB and then search for your band and find the contact info for Zink? Or how does someone, and I ask partially because not too long ago, and I love your timeline, by the way, for your band. Because if you look at your like 2006, 2007, and then you have 2010 for the first album. It matches my first book and second book. And I remember doing a trailer for the, for Our Body.

• 42:38Tim Ferriss?

  And I just wanted from the very beginning in my head, I had Splinter, this track from Seven Dust in my head. And I wanted to license it and with a larger label now. Suffice to say, I was like, cool, just reach out to the band, get the okay, no problem. And it was the most complicated quagmire of an experience. It's like, oh, wait, no, there's 17 people. This isn't true with Splinter, but you look at some songs, it's like, no, there's 17 people who own it. But then there's 17 people who wrote it. And then there's 17 more people who you need to get permission from. And I was like, oh, my God, this is really complicated. So it would be really nice to just reach out to, for instance, an agency or figure out. It was hard just for me to figure out who owned what.

• 43:19Tim Ferriss?

  So how does someone find the Zink agency and then reach out to them about your music, for instance?

• 43:24Speaker 04

  Well, the interesting thing, and this kind of actually goes back to being artist owned, is that we're a very small and nimble organization. Because there's not, that's part of the thing, when that's, that Clusterfuck experience you had.

• 43:40Tim Ferriss?

  That's exactly what it was, yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, it's.

• 43:44Tim Ferriss?

  And now, in fairness, just because I don't want to, I want to give them full credit. The, the seven of us guys are total sweethearts and we're awesome. It had, it was, had nothing to do with them not wanting it to happen. And it did end up happening, and, which was very generous of them. But it was just on the, on the label side, so, not to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure I said that.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Of course, no, it's, I think that's, that's, that's important to say. And a lot of the times, bands on, on labels don't know what their managers are doing to represent them, or sometimes it's hard to get a hold of them. And I just think that actually, and there's, I know people that work at labels, there's a lot of super brilliant, amazing people who work at labels, but I think institutionally, they're, it's just, it's, it's, it's a difficult way to get things done when you have to telephone anything through seventeen people to get a yes or no. It's just, it's just complex. But for us, yeah, I mean, our manager, our manager, Kevin, for instance, I mean, the way a lot of this stuff comes in, we'll go straight through, through him. And, you know, he's really the fourth member, and we call him a manager, but he's just like one of our best friends, and he's really, he's like the, the fourth member of the band.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  And so a lot of this stuff comes in that, and I think because, I mean, I can't speak for, for other people, but, but yeah, I mean, we, I'd say he reads most emails that, that come in. And people, some, like, sometimes people will tweet us, and I actually read all the Twitter posts, and so do the other guys, and so between all that, we have a, we keep our ear to the ground as far as, as, as what's going on. But you can, you can also check out Zync, it's like Z-Y-N-C, music.

• 45:21Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. No, I I'm just so fascinated by the inner workings of all this because LA and music in general is just like one big labyrinthine, if that's the right word. It's just this this huge mystery to me in so many ways.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  It is. You know, I I must say that it is to me too, and I and I I have to say to take everything I say with a grain of salt because I actually don't think that I know that much about the music industry. I because we're so strange, I actually don't. I think that I'm really, the glitch mob is kind of the edge case here, so.

• 45:53Tim Ferriss?

  No, that's what this podcast is all about, though, studying the edge cases. No, I I'm so that's that's part of the reason I really wanted to to chat with you guys. And so just to to to rewind to Sin City 2 for a second, was that the lead domino that triggered the other movies or?

• 46:12Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let me ask you maybe a slightly different question. So, and I apologize, I'm blanking. Your manager's name, the fourth member?

• 46:17Speaker 04

  Kevin.

• 46:18Tim Ferriss?

  Kevin. What is Kevin's superpower? What is he? What is he? What is he world-class at?

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Kevin, we it's funny, we we joke about him, but we call him the the Buddha. And he he is someone that in a world that is, it's in, it's in, it's a, it's a complex.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  It can be a very stressful, very last-minute, high-demand world. Kevin, as so what he does and what and I I gotta say that a huge portion of of glitch mob's success comes back to Kevin. And obviously, it's a it's a team effort because the music is really first and foremost. But something that he's always

• 47:01Speaker 04

  pushed us to do is just to do us. And there's been times where he's never asked to hear any hear our music, or he's never pushed us in a certain direction because he he just wants to foster what's been our natural voice this whole time. And some managers say would say, OK, maybe this thing is cool right now. You should do that. Maybe that thing is cool. You should do that. And he's always. Allowed us to just and and and really helped us just do us. And I think that um part of that whole process is that he helps us, helps navigate and insulate us from a lot of the bullshit that can happen because ultimately the creative process for us can be long, it can be fragile, it can be difficult and

• 47:42Speaker 04

  he basically is there to let us do what we need to do to focus on and music and just write good songs because like you said, the music industry is a really complex, crazy place, but when you really boil it down, aside from, you know, all the the industry side of things, I I'm just here to make music and we are here for that primal connection we were talking about that music provides between between people. So he helps to um to create that dynamic.

• 48:14Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool. And uh

• 48:19Tim Ferriss?

  maybe you could tell me about an internal debate, you don't have to name names, but I'm really curious to know, you've you've had this success, which I hope will continue on an upward trajectory, that creative process, uh in the beginning, you it's just you and a couple of guys in a room making music, right? It's it's all the things in your head that you're that you're bouncing back and forth. At a point, there's a lot of inbound, there's a lot of feedback from fans, there's a lot of feedback from um host a host, uh just multitudes of people. How do you how do you guys resolve the the external pressures with the the sort of

• 49:03Tim Ferriss?

  silence and void necessary to do good creative work?

• 49:09Speaker 04

  I think that um, well, it's it's definitely having being so plugged in is a double edged sword because I think that if you are plugged into a certain extent, you're going to internalize some of the stuff that that comes your way, whether what. Um, I I think ultimately for us, the

• 49:33Speaker 04

  I think three of us helps, for one thing. The fact that we have three of us to check each other, and it's a very ping pong style creative process that by the time it bounces off all three of us, the average of our own creative worlds is just kind of glitch mob. You know, and I think we have a very small trusted committee of people. And to be quite honest, I don't actually think we take anyone else's feedback. Even the very small committee of people, we really just listen to ourselves. And even if someone who we really trust is saying, you know, I don't like this or I don't like that, then we still just have to follow what has gotten us to this point.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  And that is our own intuition and our own creative sensibility. And telling, really telling our own story, but what that might be in the particular moment, you know, and whatever that might be, we have ended up being the type of artist that can kind of go many different directions. You know, I think some artists make similar albums and say the same thing.

• 50:39Speaker 04

  Not the same thing, but I guess texturally speaking, actually, some of my favorite artists, for instance, I don't know if you've heard this group called Boards of Canada.

• 50:47Tim Ferriss?

  I have not.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  They're...

• 50:48Tim Ferriss?

  Boards, B-O-A-R-D-S?

• 50:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's very droney, beautiful music. And their albums, for me, are, it's almost like a familiar old friend that I can revisit over and over again. And they have this sort of one world they put you in. And we've ended up being, that's just kind of their DNA. And for us, we like to keep it exciting for ourselves and change things up. And that's just really, that's really part of our process. And following that intuition, I think, has kept everything true. And really not listening to what people say or what might be cool. And that's kind of also how we end up being the, you know, the quote unquote oddballs of the current electronic music industries.

• 51:36Speaker 04

  We don't really pay a whole lot of attention to what our peers and contemporaries are doing.

• 51:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know, it's, when you're chasing what's cool, it's already too late, you know what I mean?

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 51:45Tim Ferriss?

  It's, you're gonna be, you're gonna paddle like hell and you're gonna be 20 feet behind the wave.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 51:53Tim Ferriss?

  But I'm curious to talk a little bit more about this committee because I don't ask...

• 51:59Tim Ferriss?

  I ask for input, but I'm very selective about the type of input that I let through into the process. And I'm curious to hear how you solicit feedback, what you ask for. Because for example, in my writing, before I ask anyone to tell me what they like or don't like, I ask them to read through a draft and just indicate what is unclear or what is confusing.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:26Tim Ferriss?

  And that depersonalizes it. It makes it, and you get more of a consensus also. If I have five people read it and they all flag a couple of areas as unclear, it means those need to change. That, I won't debate that. That's just, that's a poor job on my part. What, what type of feedback or how do you solicit feedback?

• 52:47Speaker 04

  So this is an interesting process. I think there's something about music that is about intuition, right? It's like, it's about getting your brain out of the way. And so this is a funny thing that happens where I'll play it, let's say for my mom or for a friend who doesn't have to be, happen to be a musician. And in a lot of times, well, I'll value that sort of feedback tremendously in this sense, because people, they'll say something like, you know, I'm not a producer, but this song to me feels like X, Y, Z. And, and for me, it's a more pure response. And I just want to hear how it makes people feel or what the very first thought that, that comes to them versus someone who's a producer,

• 53:31Speaker 04

  a friend of ours who might be there to, who's going to zoom in on the details.

• 53:37Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 53:38Speaker 04

  So really looking for just the general feeling or what, what is the song elicit in you? What, what sort of images does this, does this bring up? And I wouldn't say we're really prone to changing stuff too much, although.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  With the last record, we had recorded all these vocals and we actually wrote all of the lyrics and all the melodies. So there's a point where we thought this record was just about done. And we had said, you know what, we're gonna do this because we want to try our hand at it. And there was just something not right about it. There's, it's hard to put your finger on when you listen to a song. It's just, it's such an interesting mixture between technical and intuitive, but when we played these songs, there's just something that wasn't quite right. And I think at that point, that's when we go play it to someone else to almost confirm or deny what it is, I feel. Yeah, that's like, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, does this sound bad to you? I would just play it for someone. They're like, yeah, I don't know, it's, it's kind of sucks. So,

• 54:35Speaker 04

  okay, great. So, we actually had an entirely different record done. We had vocals that we wrote and recorded and we deleted everything. And that's why some of these songs ended up having two, 300 revisions. So, we, we had a tour booked in September of 2013 and we had all this stuff pending on that. And then we canceled all that because we said, you know what, the album's not good enough. And then what we ended up doing, and all the songs you hear now were done in an entirely different process, which was that we gave the song to a professional vocalist and lyricist, whose that's what they do. And we just let them, let them run with it and, and, and be themselves. And we realized

• 55:19Speaker 04

  that at least at this point in time, that writing lyrics and melodies is not our forte. So all the, all the, um, the lyrics you hear now are done in this way.

• 55:29Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And what, when you're in the studio and you don't have a semi-finished product, right? You're, you're starting from scratch. What does a day in the studio look like when you are trying to work on a track that is nothing?

• 55:44Speaker 04

  So the way we're working and, and you know, our process changes so much. I'll, I'll speak to what's happening right now. We're actually in the studio at the moment. I'll be heading over there after we hop off this call. But, um, what we've done is we take some time in our, in our solo studios and we write what we call sketches. So we have a very basic palette of instruments. It's just like, it's almost as if you were painting and you just had three colors or even just a pencil. Like, what can you do with this? So it's focusing on the structure, the feeling, the, the overall picture of the song. So Ed and Josh and I all went to our own Studios and wrote about five sketches each over the course of a week.

• 56:25Tim Ferriss?

  And by sketches, you mean you were all independently DJs before the band was formed, is that right?

• 56:31Speaker 04

  Correct, yeah. And we are all producers, DJs on our own.

• 56:34Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. So you're creating that, and again, I'm not from the music world, but in the same way that say, a the Neptunes might create a beat that someone would listen to to lay their music on top of. You guys are all creating those, that type of framework of sounds. And that's a sketch? Got it.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's like something so like, you know, we would all be in our own individual studios and create, create a sketch that's just a really basic. And the reason it's a sketch is that it's just, when you have instruments that don't sound glossy and super complete, it's just like a basic piano patch, very, very basic drums, you can really focusing on the songwriting itself. And so it's, it's just, it almost sounds like, like a demo from GarageBand or something. Like, it's really crappy. If you heard our sketches, you'd think, wow, really? Like, that's, that's what, that's what the song started as.

• 57:27Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, man. We, that might, we might have to get that as a podcast bonus. A sketch versus finished product would be amazing.

• 57:34Speaker 04

  Actually, I have some of those loaded up.

• 57:35Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, do you? Oh, my God. I would love, can, could we listen to a sketch and then the finished product for something?

• 57:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know what? Let's, let's do it, actually. And but while, while we're here, we should, we should jump in really quick.

• 57:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  I, you know, this is funny. So no one else has, has ever heard these before outside of the Kishma, so I thought this, this would be actually a perfect opportunity to, to illustrate the difference between both of them. So,

• 57:59Speaker 04

  this is a song on our new record called,

• 58:04Speaker 04

  Our Demons. And this is, this is about two years of, and about 300 revisions in between these two. So, here's the first one that we wrote out and we moved to Joshua Tree in the desert. I mean, we lived there for a month to write music. And this is the very first one, um, version six.

• 59:08Speaker 04

  So that's a sketch. And then here's the completed version. Version 394.

• 1:00:16Tim Ferriss?

  That's version 394.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:19Tim Ferriss?

  God, it's like my blog posts.

• 1:00:23Tim Ferriss?

  No, I love that though, because I've interviewed so many people on the podcast. And if you look at the top performers, and correct me if this isn't the case, but there's a very significant degree of just obsessive perfectionism.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:39Tim Ferriss?

  Required to get to the point where you create something that has any degree of... Sort of pop and longevity.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Absolutely. There's, there's a really, I mean, and it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily have to have to be that way for us. I think that, but the, the attention to, I mean, the attention to detail is really, it's just microscopic. And I think that, that really, it goes back to caring about, and the funny thing is that it's not for anyone else either. It's like, you just have to know that every, every punctuation point is there and that, you know, everything is just right.

• 1:01:18Tim Ferriss?

  What do, do the, and I don't know if I should call them songs or tracks. My vocabulary for music is off. What do you prefer to call songs?

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  Um, actually I kind of use them interchangeably.

• 1:01:28Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So what are your most, the songs that have had the, the widest appeal, that have ended up most popular? What do they have in common, if anything? Whether that's the actual, in the, the end product or in the process that goes into it or otherwise?

• 1:01:46Speaker 04

  There's, there's two, there's two kind of points to that that are really interesting. So, I would say one of our most popular songs, and I've thought about this a lot, and, and one of our most popular songs is Fortune Days. And the, the interesting thing that, that happens with this, um, this is a funny side note because I actually have the, the sketch loaded up right here if you want to.

• 1:02:11Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:02:12Speaker 04

  I'll play it right for you right after this. But, um, so when we work on songs, we have working titles. So when we make a sketch, we just write something to some whatever. That's like kind of on our, on our mind at the time. There's a really funny working titles for all these songs. So Fortune Days used to be called Something's About to Happen. Because it feels like if there's something, it's just tense. I don't know. Something's about to happen. There's songs like the, that are, there's another one called Yacht Sex or Super Bangin' Tracks. It's like kind of just ridiculous funny stuff. So Fortune Days, Something's About to Happen, when we wrote that song. Which ended up being one of our biggest tracks and it's the same with our other ones are the ones that we didn't expect to be the biggest tracks. This was not the lead off

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  single or anything. It just took on a life of its own. And so, and it's the same thing happened with Love, Death and Mortality. The ones that we thought were gonna be, okay, this is definitely gonna be the one that takes hold, absolutely was not. And in fact, in fact, Can't Kill Us, which we wrote, the whole, which ended up being the one on Sin City and the one that was, if you look on Spotify, it's our most played track from that record and it's the video on YouTube and everything.

• 1:03:23Tim Ferriss?

  Can't Kill Us.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Obviously, Can't Kill Us, yeah. That one obviously resonated with many people. But that, again, that was the one that we didn't think was gonna be, that was the, we're like, let's just write one just really kind of weird, off the cuff badass song. But for us, that was us just letting go a little bit and running with something that, that we didn't really care if it had any, any sort of resonance with, with people.

• 1:03:52Tim Ferriss?

  I love it. So, Fortune Days, one of the most popular tracks from the Glitch Mob. You have the draft.

• 1:04:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Tim Ferriss?

  The sketch. I'd love to hear the sketch and the finished product or, or the later draft.

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  Totally. Yeah, no one else has ever heard this, so it's just you and I here, Tim.

• 1:04:09Tim Ferriss?

  Just us, just the two of us.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  Okay, so- Got it. Kind of get that vibe, so then I'll play just a little clip of the finished- Which version was that? That was, um, it doesn't have the song number in there, but that's July 2009. Okay, got it. So that was, that was probably about, uh, we finished the album in winter, so that was about six months.

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  Very cool. So yeah, I think that, um, you know, the only consistent thing that shows the songs that resonate with people are the ones that we're never gonna be able to tell, so we just, I've just given up trying to figure that out and just kind of make more music.

• 1:06:49Tim Ferriss?

  It's kinda like the Costanza principle. He's like, Jerry, I figured it out. I just need to do the opposite of everything that I think I should do and it'll be perfect.

• 1:06:57Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:06:58Tim Ferriss?

  You just have to take all the tracks that you do for yourself that you care the least about, or that you do for the hell of it, end up being the ones that pop. It's funny how, how consistent that is even with my writing also. You know, I'll put, and I have an attention to detail in both cases, but I'll put so much effort into something I'm sure from the very outset is gonna be a huge hit and it'll just fall completely flat. And then I'll just kinda vomit something out that, that has a lot of emotion in it. And that rawness, I, I suppose, just clicks and it's, it's depressing or really, uh, you know, encouraging, depending on how you look at it, because, you know, I'll, I'll do these

• 1:07:40Tim Ferriss?

  things very quickly that pop and do very well. Like this recent blog post on what my morning journal looks like. And I think it's just called what my morning journal looks like, which took me, you know, a half hour or maybe an hour to, to get out. And then there are other posts I spent 30 hours on and I, it's crickets, just crickets.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  Wow. No, I would like to ask you, so is, is the morning journal, I was gonna ask you, what is a post that you've done that you didn't think was going to do well and then resonated with a lot of people? Is that, is that the morning journal one?

• 1:08:09Tim Ferriss?

  That, that is one example. There's another that I put up, which was, uh, let's see, it's, it's called something along the lines of, do you need to borrow some strength or borrow some strength today? Watch this. And it was just, it was a YouTube embed, uh, embed with a bit of context. And it was about, um, I believe that in particular cases, Kyle Maynard, who's this, uh, he was born a quad amputee, but ended up being a very successful competitive wrestler, uh, did the military, he was the first person to do the military crawl all the way up Mount Kilimanjaro. He's just an incredible guy. I've, I've had the privilege of meeting him and spending time with him. Very short, very, very emotionally

• 1:08:50Tim Ferriss?

  open. And, uh, you know, it makes me wonder if that's the case with the music as well, even though it's conveyed through sound and not through words.

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I, I think so. And, and you know, that, that actually just, just made me, um,

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  You know, that what you just said right there reminded me of something. So one of the people on our team, our art director, Dean, who helps curate all the visual aspects, as we could do a whole other episode on everything visual from the show visuals to the album cover. Dean's a super old friend of mine and he designs everything for us. Everything you see visually passes through him. And the other day he sent me a

• 1:09:33Speaker 04

  a text and he said, "You have to go listen to this podcast, this Radiolab show called In the Dust of This Planet." And the episode, if you haven't heard it, I implore you to go listen to it. It's just fascinating. And the whole thing circulates around this philosopher and the nihilism. I won't go too far into it, but it's about kind of the apocalyptic feeling of what's happening right now in the world. And how the what I took from it and how it resonates with Glitch Mob and what he, the reason why he sent it to me was that there's something about badassery and stuff. And something that, and they even say that in the podcast about why does,

• 1:10:16Speaker 04

  what is it about something that is badass that is resonating with people right now? And it ultimately has to do with music being like a force field or a shield. And when you said, "Can I borrow some strength?", it just really made me think of actually music. And part of the reason why our music resonates with people is it's almost like, and the darkness of say our album cover has this samurai figure. But there's something about it that says that I've seen into the darkness, I've seen it and I'm not afraid. And what they say in that podcast really resonated with me. And I almost see music in the same way of some of the stuff that you do of you're handing people these little tools,

• 1:10:59Speaker 04

  although maybe music is a different sort of emotional or spiritual tool. I mean, a lot of people will work out to our music and if it helps you. Get out a couple more reps in your set, then I think that, you know, that that's really one of the benefits that it has to offer.

• 1:11:13Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. Oh, yeah. No, I need to, I need to pick up, this is your brand on music as well. There's another one called Musicology, I think it is, or Musicophilia, one of the two.

• 1:11:22Speaker 04

  That's Oliver Sacks?

• 1:11:24Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly, which I really want to dig into. And, uh, back in the day, I used to take, uh, five-piece drum lessons and got into hand drumming recently, which-

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:11:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, with the djembe and a couple of other types, which, which I'm really enjoying. And it's just very therapeutic.

• 1:11:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Tim Ferriss?

  And actually, do you find, so for you, do you have a, uh, do you play any traditional instruments? Or have you, have you, uh, practiced any traditional instruments?

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

  Um, so, the short answer is no. Uh, and I think that's, that's kind of a funny thing. And you actually, when you had tweeted this morning, and I, I posted on our, on our Facebook, asking some people what they would want to talk about. And something that come up, one of the guys posted something like, "How important is it for you to learn traditional instruments to play, to perform or produce music?"

• 1:12:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:12:15Speaker 04

  And, uh, none of us have any traditional music, uh, instrument training. We've, we didn't go to music school or anything like that. I actually can't really, I mean, I can kind of get around on a piano. Um, I, I did go to UC Santa Cruz, and I, and I studied, um, if you could call it that, in the electronic music program.

• 1:12:36Tim Ferriss?

  (laughing)

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  Which is more about, um, smoking pot and playing with crazy synths, to be quite honest. But, that, that aside, I, um, Ed, Ed and Josh both played, um, can, they can play guitar and, and keys just a little bit. But none of us are really that good at playing, playing instruments. Um, although I feel like, at this point, I have an intuitive understanding for, for music, but I've come at it from a very non-traditional angle. I actually came in more via technology. Um, I'm, when I very first started messing around with music, it was, it was through computers. Um, and we do stuff to make up for the fact that we're not, we're not really that good at-

• 1:13:21Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm saying we can, we can get by and Ed's a pretty good piano player, but nothing compared to like a concert pianist or someone who's classically, classically trained. But for instance, one of the tricks we use, which actually we were using this yesterday and I thought this is a very, Tim Ferrissian trick is, is so for instance, in Ableton, there's a plugin that allows you to, to transpose a scale. So what that means is, is that it allows, allows us to only know one scale. So in, in the piano, let's say you study C major. That's just one combination of keys that all sound good together.

• 1:13:58Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:13:59Speaker 04

  And then you use the plugin to move that around. So I actually only know one scale. There's so many different things to know, but I play that one and then Ableton will actually translate it for me. So,

• 1:14:09Tim Ferriss?

  What is the name of that plugin? Do you know?

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  It's just, it's just the Ableton pitch plugin.

• 1:14:15Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:14:16Speaker 04

  So there's, there's a plugins that come with an Ableton that allow you to,

• 1:14:21Speaker 04

  to program chords and transpose your, your playing around so that you don't, it's, it's basically just, just some shortcuts. So, man, I went on a tangent there, but.

• 1:14:32Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, I love, I love tangents. That's the whole point.

• 1:14:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, well, I think that, so, so yeah, so we are actually an example of people that have had,

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  you know, we've, we've, we've made a, a career, but not actually fundamentally being able to perform music.

• 1:14:51Tim Ferriss?

  I'd say. Well, with traditional instruments. So how, how have you found that to help you?

• 1:14:57Tim Ferriss?

  Compared, compared to if there are people you know in EDM who have traditional backgrounds, you know, how, how has that lack of, of formal schooling helped or hindered you? Do you feel?

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think there's, there's a couple of things there. So, you know, so one, one thing to, to mention is that, you know, Ed, before we were doing glitch mob, Ed wrote music for commercials. And I think this is, this is an interesting piece of the whole puzzle. It's also Ed is a, is a increase. So the, the detail focus, the really hardcore detail oriented stuff comes from, from Ed. And he used to write music for commercials. And so what that, what that looks like is let's say that you're writing a. A commercial and it's it's a cheerful commercial for bubble gum and he would have to write something that sounds like that or say that there's a dark commercial for

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  a new car that's really technological. So for years and years, he was basically writing jingles. So he has the ability. So you can say, Ed, we need to, we need to have something that sounds this and he can actually just like piece together something really quick. And I think it kind of comes back to some kind of the Gladwell 10,000 hour thought where Ed has spent so much time just churning out different emotions, just really little short snippets of different feelings and emotions that he had that that kind of training, but it's a very real world style training. It wasn't like an actual music school. And so

• 1:16:33Speaker 04

  that said, I think, you know, for me, coming into it, really bending the rules from right out the gates and having that be part of the way that I see music, I think has been beneficial because I didn't understand music, really. Just I just kind of understood my own little corner of it. And I was just doing my little thing. And I remember when someone first explained a chord to me, I was already actually like, you know, having a decent amount of commercial success, but I didn't understand a very basic idea of music. That's like what a chord is. And, and, you know, it's the same thing. Like before we went to go play our very first show with our new live gear at Coachella and I was up there

• 1:17:18Speaker 04

  playing drums. I had never even picked up a drumstick in my entire life. So which is, sounds like something that that you have done. I, which I actually, I saw the episode of your show where you did that. I feel the pain.

• 1:17:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that was, uh, that was stress inducing being on stage. I'd never been in front of a, of an audience for any type of music. I actually, I'd never performed music for anyone, uh, whether one or two people, let alone a sold out auditorium with, you know, with an actual band. Uh, yeah, that was stressful. I, uh, I, I, uh, I, you know, but it was euphoric at the same time. It was this very sort of pleasure, pain mix. It was interesting. Uh, and once, once I got into the flow, it was fine, even though, uh, I, I feel like audiences are more forgiving. If you're, if you're, if you're transmitting the proper emotion for a few minutes, they're very forgiving, as long as you maintain the flow, it seems.

• 1:18:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's true. And I think that's, and that's something why people, you know, like when people come to see us, you don't come to see us play because exactly like what you're saying is not, wow, they're really, really good at their instrument. Like if you go see Santana play, you're thinking, wow, he is incredibly good at playing that guitar. That is unbelievable. You don't see us, but at the same time, you're still, you see, you get the feeling of us being up there, being emotive and, and, and playing the songs. Um, and I think just to jump back, as far as, as, as what has helped or hindered, you know, I know a lot of people that have gone to music school and gone to electronic music school or electronic production school. And I think there's, there's, it, it can

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  help you and hurt you because in one way you learn how to make a song sound finished and proper, but you also learn the rules. And I feel like most of the really good music that you like is music that inherently kind of breaks the rules. And that's just what's exciting about music is something that, that inspires you or something that colors outside of the lines. And I think that had I gone to a music school and learned the correct way to do it, that they, that's the, a fast track to being an engineer and being someone who works in the studio and helps other people produce albums. And that's, that's actually a really cool thing. And that's something that I would love to learn how to do and figure out is to be a record producer, like a Rick Rubin style. I mean, I just, he, Rick

• 1:19:47Speaker 04

  Rubin is one of my biggest inspirations, seeing at what he does. But it's a very different thing than someone like us who are, um, you know, we're just kind of off in our own little corner, creating our own. Little soundscapes.

• 1:20:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, it's funny you mentioned Rick. I'm hoping to have him on the podcast, so I might tap you for questions. The, so if you were to, and I have just, just one or two kind of longer form questions, then I'd love to hit you with some rapid fire questions from some of the listeners.

• 1:20:22Tim Ferriss?

  If you were sort of assigned, it sounds it's a very dreary word. If, if you volunteered for

• 1:20:31Tim Ferriss?

  teaching me how to produce music or make music using the tools that you have. Cause I've always found music very intimidating, but let's just say I were to spend a month with you and you, you're, you, you had, you know, you, the, the prize was several million dollars to get me to the point where I could create a finished track of some type that didn't make people cringe. Where would you, where would you have me start? What does that first week look like?

• 1:21:00Speaker 04

  That's a great question. So I think that the, the core of a really good song, it really honestly has to do with, with what you want to say. So I would actually do some, like, let's say I would, I would ask you to go find 10 tracks that are, that resonate with you or something that, so maybe I would want to produce a track that sounds like this, or this is really what I'm feeling right now. I just to get, get you in the, the general creative space of thinking about what you're really trying to say.

• 1:21:35Speaker 04

  And then the next step would be

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  creating, let's say a sketch, kind of like, like we do. And, and focusing on some very basic building blocks of music. So, you know, the, a very basic electronic song will be a combination of drums, melody, chords and bass. So those are the building blocks of a song and you can, and electronic music is so fluid. You can kind of move all of those, those things around. So we would, we would go over.

• 1:22:07Speaker 04

  What all of those different things are and how they play together. And, um, and actually, I wouldn't spend too much time on learning music theory. You know, and, and this is kind of goes back to what I was talking about before. Is there just ways to shortcut all that stuff to where we could just learn one scale? Or maybe not even just learn, okay, these notes sound good together. And there's a, there's a thing in Ableton that you could lock the keyboard to a scale, which means that like if a cat walks on it, it'll still sound good.

• 1:22:37Tim Ferriss?

  You could have an entire band of six cats on keyboards.

• 1:22:40Speaker 04

  That's actually a great idea.

• 1:22:44Tim Ferriss?

  The cat mob?

• 1:22:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:22:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, man.

• 1:22:46Speaker 04

  So we would get.

• 1:22:47Tim Ferriss?

  Get out the trademark lawyers.

• 1:22:50Speaker 04

  That, that actually sounds like it could.

• 1:22:52Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just fucking with you.

• 1:22:54Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 1:22:57Speaker 04

  So, so, yeah, so we would, I would put some tools in place to, um,

• 1:23:03Speaker 04

  to get everything fixed. So no matter what we did, it was going to sound good. And then, and then just kind of, I, I think the, the next step is, um, you know, the interesting thing, something that's, that's changed over the past couple of years since we started is that you can actually buy sound sets that are really good. And this, this wasn't, this didn't exist when we very first started. It makes me sound like, hey, Sonny, we used to have to.

• 1:23:29Tim Ferriss?

  Walk up the soundscape uphill both ways.

• 1:23:34Speaker 04

  I mean, I mean, compared to what we actually had, I mean, if you take to people who have actually been doing it for longer, it's, it's probably, I probably sound like a snotty child compared to, I started in 2006. There's people who, who actually had to write music on punch cards and stuff like that. And it's actually pretty crazy, but that said, you can like, we could walk into Guitar Center. Now, I mean, I don't know if this is a good answer. I'll be like, Tim, let's go to Guitar Center. We're going to spend a hundred dollars and like buy. A great sample kit because the stuff that people have now are because it, you know, out of the box stuff sounds so good. So we would find some really good samples that resonate with you that you like because a lot of music production has to do with starting with really

• 1:24:17Speaker 04

  good source material and then, and taking away stuff is actually a lot more important than adding to it. So what I mean is like if we went to Guitar Center and bought a sample CD that was good and it had really good source material and then you put a bunch of stuff together, it's a lot easier to, to start shaving away and removing the stuff that's not there to, to get everything fitting in its right place.

• 1:24:40Tim Ferriss?

  When you have a finished track, let's just say like the, the finished Fortune Days, and I, and I, and again, this is speaking from pretty deep in my ignorance pool, but if I look in say GarageBand and you have multiple tracks, right, for different vocals or music tracks or whatever, how many separate melodies, drums, et cetera, do you have in a finished song like Fortune Days?

• 1:25:10Speaker 04

  It really changes on a song to song basis.

• 1:25:14Tim Ferriss?

  What would you say the average range is?

• 1:25:17Speaker 04

  So then, you know, the average is, is somewhere around, you know, 50.

• 1:25:21Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 1:25:22Speaker 04

  And it can, it can be much, I mean, some songs we've had over 100 tracks and some songs have been, have been less. Also because the, the tracks that we write are, especially something like Fortune Days, there's, there's so many different parts to it and the way, the way that it's talked about in music terminology is so it's like each section you assign a letter to it. So like the intro is A and then the first, the first thing that happens right after that when the drums drop will be called B and then it goes back to A. So it could be like, you know, and a pop song can be A, B, A, C style layout, something like that.

• 1:26:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:26:00Speaker 04

  And you know, our songs are like A, B. C A D C B and it goes on. It kind of gets, we have a lot of like complex pieces moving around. So because it's like that, um, we don't always recycle, um, the sections over and over again. Then it can be, um, you know, each one of those sections can have, you know, 10, 20 tracks. And, and there's really a lot of layering that goes on too. And I say that's, that's something that if there are any, um, producers out there listening that are looking for production stuff, that's a, that's a big, um, that's something that we spent a lot of time on is the layering of the sounds and the sampling. And, um, all the sounds you hear have been processed and, and are, are complex packs

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  of many different pieces together to make one sound so that it sounds custom and not like anything that comes right out of, uh, of the box.

• 1:26:53Tim Ferriss?

  What, uh, what percentage of your samples would are, uh, sort of off the rack versus custom?

• 1:27:02Speaker 04

  Um, you know, it, it, it changes on an album to album basis, but, um, say a lot of the stuff is, is custom. Um, we're, we're pretty like, so if, let's say you open a synthesizer, a very popular synthesizer, um, that's used right now is called Massive. So you can open it and there's a set of presets in there and you can cycle through them or you can, um, you can clear out the synth and then design from the ground up. And we do a lot of that. We do, we do both, um, but a lot of our sounds are, are customized. And what that allows us to do is really, really control the sound. And if we do use stuff that is out of the box or preset, we, we mash it and process

• 1:27:46Speaker 04

  it and layer it to the factor where you really couldn't tell.

• 1:27:49Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Who, besides the glitch mob, uh, what other bands might you recommend people listen to if they want to hear good layering?

• 1:28:02Speaker 04

  That's a really good question.

• 1:28:06Speaker 04

  I'm listening to right now. So there's a there's a producer who's a good friend of ours called

• 1:28:13Speaker 04

  Amon Tobin. And his music is so complex and layered and his album Foley Room, like he out-layered everybody.

• 1:28:23Tim Ferriss?

  What was the name of the album again?

• 1:28:24Speaker 04

  The album's called Foley Room.

• 1:28:26Tim Ferriss?

  Foley, F-O-L-E-Y, like the sound effects?

• 1:28:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. And he went out into the world and recorded sounds of, I mean, just, there's actually a little mini documentary about it. It's really fascinating, but he's recording sounds of animals and motorcycles and walking around on weird sticks and rocks. And he made a whole album that's almost entirely comprised of stuff like that. And, and so when you really, if you put that on your headphones and, and, and listen to that, that is a real master level mix engineer creative undertaking.

• 1:28:59Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool. I would love to ask you some, some quick questions from from some of the listeners out there and then perhaps we can listen to another track and then wrap up for this round one. So the first question is, I'm gonna, he gave me two and I'm gonna have to take the more ridiculous. This is Jen Habich. Do you pee in the shower? I assume the answer is yes. I mean, every guy pees in the shower.

• 1:29:28Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:29:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Speaker 04

  I think it's actually at this point, especially in Los Angeles, you, you're you have to, the drought police would come and get you if you don't.

• 1:29:37Tim Ferriss?

  Ian the BT Winter, this is the, this is the desert island question. So if you could take one book, one album and one luxury, I would just say one third item of any type to a desert island, what would they be?

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  That's a great question. So I think my album would have to be

• 1:29:58Speaker 04

  FX Twin Select Ambient Works.

• 1:30:01Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:30:03Speaker 04

  Book.

• 1:30:05Speaker 04

  Oh man, that changes so much. So Book is going to be The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

• 1:30:10Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:30:11Speaker 04

  And third luxury item, maybe my Chemex.

• 1:30:18Tim Ferriss?

  Man, that'd be a... You need to... You gotta hope there's some coffee beans on that island.

• 1:30:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:30:24Tim Ferriss?

  Chemex is great. Have you tried the Aeropress?

• 1:30:28Speaker 04

  I have tried the Aeropress. I really like it.

• 1:30:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah. Aeropress is great. If you're gonna make coffee for more than two cups, though, the Chemex is a good way to go. Very cool. All right, next question. You know, this is one I think a lot of people are curious about, so if you're comfortable answering it, what are your different revenue streams for the band, for the work you guys do?

• 1:30:50Speaker 04

  So, this is an interesting point, actually, that I don't think a lot of people know, but

• 1:30:57Speaker 04

  we don't make any money from touring, to be quite honest. I mean, there's a lot of money that comes in, but we take all of it and we dump it all back into the show. So,

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  that touring for us, I mean, hopefully at some point it gets there, but it's really labor of love. I mean, the whole, the process of building The Blade and all of the bits and pieces that make the whole thing tick was really expensive, and we just decided that we want to do this, and so that is not a revenue stream for us. You know, eventually, I mean, it's kind of like an investment. I mean, you know, as we keep touring with it, maybe we'll make some money down the line. And touring is a very, it's a very expensive undertaking, because, you know, there's people that have to set the show up, and everything has to travel around and be freighted internationally and everything, so there's a lot that goes into that. A lot of people do make money from touring, but right now for us, the equation is not that.

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  So, most of our, our, um, um, the, the, what keeps the lights on is actually mostly the licensing for us. And the music, and the music sales.

• 1:32:05Tim Ferriss?

  Very cool. Do you guys do any merch? You probably do.

• 1:32:08Speaker 04

  We do. Yes. We have, um, we have, actually, that's, that's another thing is that, um, I'd say part of our whole DIY ethos is that we, we have a lot of merch and we've actually worked on and designed a lot of the stuff ourselves. And almost everything you see in Glitch Mall World is something that has passed through us. Um, but yeah, you can see our, our merch stores, a lot of really cool stuff. And we collaborate, we've collaborated with some friends of ours and made some, some, uh, some cool stuff.

• 1:32:34Tim Ferriss?

  Very, very cool. Uh, are there any bands that you're aware of that you suspect make the majority of their money through merchandising?

• 1:32:42Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, you know, that, that's, that's actually, I was just talking with someone about this yesterday. Now that's, that's kind of why you mentioned that, but, um, in, in, uh, the kind of punk rock landscape, as it's evolved into a lot of those bands, the whole Warped Tour, um, and, and I, I don't actually know this to be a fact. This is someone who, who, somebody else who told this to me. But a lot of, a lot of what happens if you go to Warped Tour, it's a lot of young, younger fans there. And, uh, the bands who play there don't get paid a whole lot of money, but they make a lot of their money from, from merch sales. I don't know if it's sort of the majority, but, but, um, there's, you know, that whole touring entity is set up around the fact that

• 1:33:24Speaker 04

  they have these huge merch stores that, um, there's like a big merch mall in the middle of, of the Warped Tour as it travels around.

• 1:33:33Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. Yeah. Sounds like Ozfest also, uh, which I've been to a couple of times. That is a blast. At Shoreline Amphitheater at least, uh, just insane.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  I bet.

• 1:33:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Uh, let's see. Um,

• 1:33:51Tim Ferriss?

  so this, this is a good one. This is from, I'm going to paraphrase here. This is from Agatha Fox. What are, what are some of your fears?

• 1:34:01Speaker 04

  What are some of my fears? Oh, that's deep.

• 1:34:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 04

  That's, that's a, that's a good question. Um.

• 1:34:09Tim Ferriss?

  I have a very light question to follow this one up.

• 1:34:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:34:14Speaker 04

  What am I, you know?

• 1:34:21Speaker 04

  You know, I had a crazy, long conversation with my dear friend Ben Deru, who's another music producer. Just the other day, we were coming back from the gym and we were talking about how the climate is fucked and how seemingly everything is turning from what could we do to prevent total climate catastrophe to now that it's happening, how are we going to wrestle with this catastrophe? And the more I think and read and learn about what's happening with the current state of Earth, it seems to be pretty doomed, maybe not for

• 1:35:06Speaker 04

  us in our lifetime, but definitely for our children and our grandchildren. So that is a, it's a, it's a pretty scary thought.

• 1:35:16Tim Ferriss?

  It is, it is. Just as a side note for folks, I just recently interviewed Peter Diamandis, who's the chairman of the X Prize. He does a lot of work with space technologies and he's co-founder of a company called, for instance, Planetary Resources, the idea being to send ships to close orbiting asteroids to mine precious resources to bring back to Earth or use extra planetarily. And he is very, he would be called by a lot of people a techno optimist, but I was similarly just in the last year or so, especially after talking to climate scientists, getting very depressed and kind of put into a malaise

• 1:36:01Tim Ferriss?

  about like, wow, the whole planet's just going to be boiling in 30 years if we keep it up. Peter was talking about, I won't spend too much time on this, but talking about how they could actually put up a pane in space that could be rotated very precisely, almost, you know, to enlarge or lessen its profile as it, in between the Earth and the Sun, to modify the amount of energy hitting the planet's surface. And that, he basically said, even, like, I think we're going to be able to predict, or, I'm sorry, prevent sort of catastrophic meltdown, but if we're not, the good news

• 1:36:44Tim Ferriss?

  is there are actually technologies like this that we can absolutely deploy to minimize some of the damage. I was like, huh, that's the first time I've heard anything of that, so.

• 1:36:51Speaker 04

  Wow. Isn't there a Simpsons episode about that? Isn't Mr. Burns Block the Sun?

• 1:36:55Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I wouldn't doubt it. Maybe, maybe we'll all look back in 50 years and be like, oh my God, The Simpsons fucking called it, that's amazing.

• 1:37:03Speaker 04

  Once again.

• 1:37:04Tim Ferriss?

  And the, no, exactly, like with the, didn't they have Barack Obama, like, versus Mitt Romney prediction, like, like, you know, 10 years ago? I mean, The Simpsons, I think there are people with, with ESP working at The Simpsons as writers, but.

• 1:37:17Speaker 04

  That does make me feel a little bit, a little bit better. Also, just, I, I am with you to, when, you know, following someone like Elon Musk that is saying, you know what, I'm just gonna go and make this reality better, because, I mean, I get just everything that, that, that he does completely boggles my mind. So it makes me feel a little bit better to know that there are real-life Tony Starks out there, um, doing what they can.

• 1:37:38Tim Ferriss?

  Working on the problem. Uh, so, to, to ask a, uh, a much lighter question, um, sort of a, what is your favorite pastry? This is from Medium Rare.

• 1:37:49Speaker 04

  My favorite pastry, I think it would have to be just a plain croissant.

• 1:37:56Tim Ferriss?

  And you said it correctly, too. I, uh, is there any particular way you guys celebrate after shows?

• 1:38:06Speaker 04

  No, you know, we have a pre-show meditation we do.

• 1:38:10Tim Ferriss?

  I want to hear about this.

• 1:38:11Speaker 04

  Before every single show. And we've been doing it for a couple of years now. And before we go on, we have a huddle and we just, it's just a quick 30-second meditation. And we say, we say, here's to the now. And it's just a way to let everything go and focus and go on stage. And it really, it really helps after the show. No, we don't really celebrate too much.

• 1:38:35Tim Ferriss?

  I love the pre-show. So is it here's to the now and then 30 seconds of silence?

• 1:38:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. We count down and we say it in unison. And we also grab whatever other team members are in the room. And then we do, do a quick meditation. Yeah, just like take a deep breath and then have silence.

• 1:38:51Tim Ferriss?

  I love it.

• 1:38:53Tim Ferriss?

  When you think of the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind?

• 1:39:00Speaker 04

  That's a great question.

• 1:39:02Speaker 04

  You know, I don't know if I could actually pick one person, but I would, I would say that I'm so fortunate to be surrounded by so many people that I consider to be successful. And I guess it can be boiled down to the way that I define success is someone who's really genuinely excited about what they, what they get to do and, and is carving out their own path. Anyone from, someone like my sister who's, who's in medical school, working to be a doctor, who I was just talking to, who I think is, has an incredibly, it's an incredibly difficult path.

• 1:39:44Speaker 04

  But what, you know, what she does, I mean, I guess it's difficult in the sense of, you know, I was just talking to her, she's working at the ICU right now. And I think it's a, it can be a really heavy job. And I think of other people who are, like my artist friends in LA, who are getting to create and do these things. But the fundamental link between all of these different people is just doing something that really lights, lights you up on the inside.

• 1:40:15Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 1:40:19Tim Ferriss?

  Let's see.

• 1:40:21Tim Ferriss?

  If you could give, how old are you at the moment?

• 1:40:24Speaker 04

  I'm 34.

• 1:40:25Tim Ferriss?

  34. If you could, wow, we've got pretty closely matching timelines. I love it.

• 1:40:31Tim Ferriss?

  If you could give your 20-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

• 1:40:36Speaker 04

  Chill out. Calm down.

• 1:40:40Tim Ferriss?

  In what, in what way?

• 1:40:42Speaker 04

  I feel like myself and other people I know that, you know, and that are in the early to mid twenties get really wound up about things having to be a certain way, or is it, I don't know, it's just, I think that, um, enjoy because it all kind of doesn't matter as much as you think it does.

• 1:41:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's the truth. Will this be, will you remember this in 10 years? Probably not.

• 1:41:04Speaker 04

  No, no, people don't even remember a tweet 12 minutes later than this is 10 years from now.

• 1:41:11Tim Ferriss?

  That is the truth. Into the slipstream. Is there, I have never been to

• 1:41:19Tim Ferriss?

  an EDM show of any type.

• 1:41:23Tim Ferriss?

  What show or festival should I go to?

• 1:41:29Speaker 04

  That is, that's a great question. I think that, um, if you've never been to a show,

• 1:41:37Speaker 04

  I think, well, you should come, you could, you should come to see us play.

• 1:41:39Tim Ferriss?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 04

  Be biased, especially because.

• 1:41:42Tim Ferriss?

  No, that has, that has to happen. I remember we missed, I think we missed each other by day in San Francisco or something like that, and I was gutted. So, yes, that must happen.

• 1:41:51Speaker 04

  Next time you should, you should come.

• 1:41:54Speaker 04

  There are, if, if, you know, if Daft Punk ever plays again, if you're gonna see one show, your desert island show, I would say if they do another tour, you have to go see them play because what they do, and they have really set the bar for everybody, but it's just, it's the perfect, their, their live show is the perfect marriage between just fun, visceral, classic dance music and crazy techno-futurism. I mean, it's really, it really changed my life.

• 1:42:22Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, that's a strong statement. I love it. Okay.

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that would be it.

• 1:42:28Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any particular morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

• 1:42:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. And you know, it changes also because the way the glitch mob works is very much in phases. Our years rotate from phase to phase. So there's, there's studio phase, which we're in right now. Then there's tour prep phase, tour, tour recovery, and then rinse and repeat.

• 1:42:54Speaker 04

  So right now, I get up, say probably around eight, and I meditate every day. And I have-

• 1:43:04Tim Ferriss?

  For how long?

• 1:43:05Speaker 04

  Twenty minutes.

• 1:43:06Tim Ferriss?

  What type of meditation?

• 1:43:08Speaker 04

  I practice transcendental meditation. And I've tried all sorts of different, different types. And this is just the one for me, which I've heard you say in the podcast, too, that just kind of stuck. I've done-

• 1:43:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I did it this morning.

• 1:43:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's great. I do it. So I don't actually do it twice a day, every single day. And I hope my teachers don't hear me say that.

• 1:43:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know, I wish, since it's just the two of us talking, I, the two, I feel like a failure if I mentally commit to two and then can't do two or don't do two. But once in the morning has a tremendous effect for me.

• 1:43:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's really, it's really changed my life. It's been a couple of years for me now. And a friend of mine sort of gifted me a course because he works for the David Lynch Foundation. And so I got to take the class. And it's really just been life changing. And it's because I've been able to stick with it and actually keep it. Because just reading, I've read so many books about mindfulness and meditation, and I've taken different courses. And it's just, whatever, you know, TM just happens to be something that you can do on a day to day basis. And it's really, it's really quite simple.

• 1:44:17Tim Ferriss?

  Do you do it in, in bed? Do you just wake up and sit up against the headboard and do it? Or is it after you brush your teeth, after breakfast? What's, when do you do it?

• 1:44:27Speaker 04

  So I think, you know, actually, an important part of my, important part of my morning ritual is that I get up and I don't look at my phone or my computer for the first hour. And I have this quiet time and I think, and I, I, I used to be the type of person where I would get up right away. I'm like- Emails, texts, tweets, whatever, looking at the the hamster wheel of my phone and realized how much that was scattering my brain. So meditation for me actually was something that got me out of that state. So, so I wake up, I don't look at any technology. I make tea, I make matcha tea usually, or different, um, sunshine, some kind of green tea. And then

• 1:45:09Speaker 04

  I meditate and then I'll have breakfast or do a, do a quick morning workout that's like separate from a, a different like, you know, weightlifting gym exercise just to kind of get the blood flowing. So I'll do, do something quick, then I'll have a breakfast and then I'll intentionally plug in after I have. And I also will, part of this, uh, this time it will be reading. So I, I get, uh, even just, even just 20, 20 minutes to read a book in the morning before I plug in and jump on the information superhighway.

• 1:45:40Tim Ferriss?

  What is the, what would the workout potentially look like? Let's say the current workout or the most recent workout, what was the, what were the movements?

• 1:45:48Speaker 04

  Um, this morning I just did some, uh, some kettlebell swings.

• 1:45:53Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  And that's, that's kind of like a, the quickest bang for my buck, um, thing to do. And I've been working on, on mobility quite a bit more, especially with so much time in the studio. Actually, I've been really, been getting really into these, um, the yoga tuna balls. They're these like hard, um, these, these, these balls of different sizes that, you know, you can take. And I think for people who spend a lot of time sitting down, I've been using them a lot, even when, when we're in the studio, when we're not sitting in the chair, each one of us will have a foam roller, these yoga tuna balls and we're doing mobility stuff so that, actually, because sometimes we'll have these sessions that go, you know, 12, 14 hours a day. And, and so I think it's important to, to do

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  the, the focus on mobility. Um, and then I'll, I'll have another workout later on in the day, which is, um, weightlifting or kind of like CrossFit style workouts.

• 1:46:46Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And your breakfast after that morning workout, what does that look like?

• 1:46:49Speaker 04

  Um, you know, I, I've, Follow a very like paleo slash for our body style eating. I'm a big fan of, actually, I've definitely evangelized your book to many friends of mine along the way. So thanks for that.

• 1:47:05Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you.

• 1:47:06Speaker 04

  I have eggs almost every single day and I'd actually, I love the, I love the either scrambled eggs or just fried eggs with vegetables and coffee.

• 1:47:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's the breakfast champions.

• 1:47:21Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:47:22Tim Ferriss?

  Well, one more question, then I'd love to maybe close out with a track.

• 1:47:29Tim Ferriss?

  What is the best piece of advice you ever received, the most important?

• 1:47:34Speaker 04

  The best piece of advice I ever received?

• 1:47:44Speaker 04

  And it's something my father told me when I was very, very little, when I was probably five or six, that just kind of stuck with me and that was, don't force it.

• 1:47:56Tim Ferriss?

  Don't force it. And what is that? Is that everything? Is it referring to work? What is that referring to?

• 1:48:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's seemingly such a simple thing. That's really just, just stuck with me and it's been kind of one of the, it's become something of a, it's an aphorism that's, that's really stuck with me. I think that for the creative process, that's really our guiding light, you know, if something, if something is not working, if something is not happening, I think it's really important to just let it, let it be.

• 1:48:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:32Speaker 04

  And just let things happen organically.

• 1:48:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like that. It's very short, easy to remember. And if I think about, you know, all those posts that I put. Tons of time into or chapters that I put tons of time into that ended up failing or just not doing what I wanted them to do. There's almost always a point where it was just like, wow, this is a grind. Like, this is not, it's not coming together, but I'm just going to force it to come together like a Frankenstein.

• 1:48:59Speaker 04

  Exactly. Exactly. And I think that that that very rarely has the intended results. Whether it's something creative or just in life in general, is trying to force a square crack into the circle hole.

• 1:49:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would love to perhaps listen to another track for a bit and then then you can come back and we'll we'll learn where we can find out about you and all things Glitch Mob. But is there something we could listen to before we do that?

• 1:49:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, let's, I'll play Can't Kill Us off of our latest album, Love, Death and Mortality.

• 1:49:37Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful.

• 1:50:55Speaker 04

  So, the best piece of advice I ever got was, actually it was from my sister and yeah, she's a doctor and she was, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of she was, um, she was working, or she's caretaking for some, uh, some older people who are nearing the end of their life and they were just talking about what things that they valued had sort of come in, closing the door in life and closing the chapter and they're talking about what really meant a lot to them. And then it was the things like love and friendship and these personal relationships. And I think for me, there was just something about the essence of distilling down to, once all the bullshit aside, what

• 1:51:39Speaker 04

  really matters in life. And I, and I'll never forget that, using that as a guiding light to, to just, uh, keep in the headlights.

• 1:51:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, it's incredible how easy it is to get caught up in the minutia nonsense. It's so easy. It's, uh, particularly with technology and just the never-ending stream of information and inputs.

• 1:52:04Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's something to music and as a statement like that or anything that, I don't know if there's a word for it in some other language, you might know this, but the feeling of when you feel really small, like when you look at the stars and you're, you're, you feel like your problems don't really matter. I think that feeling like something you're connected to something bigger than yourself.

• 1:52:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is, this has been a blast and hopefully we'll be able to do a, a part two sometime soon. But where can people, where can people thank you, find you, ask you questions online? Where are the best places to learn more about you and The Glitch Mob?

• 1:52:41Speaker 04

  Uh, you can check us out at theglitchmob.com or on Twitter, everything, uh, at The Glitch Mob and myself at Borretta, B-O-R-E-T-A.

• 1:52:51Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful. Well, thanks once again, man. This has been great and hopefully we'll get to do a jam session in person. Maybe I'll get to, to play around with Ableton and cause some trouble.

• 1:53:02Speaker 04

  Let's, let's do it. Thanks, Sam.

• 1:53:04Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Thanks, man.

• 1:53:05Speaker 04

  Take care.

• 1:53:08Tim Ferriss?

  This podcast is brought to you by Mizzen & Main. Don't worry about the spelling. All you need to know is this. I have organized my entire life around avoiding fancy shirts because you have to iron them. You sweat through them. They smell really easily. They're a pain in the ass. Mizzen & Main has given me the only shirt that I need. And what I mean by that, and Kelly Starrett loves these shirts as well, is that you can trick people. They look really fancy. So you can take them out to nice dinners, whatever. But they're made from athletic sweat-wicking material. So you can throw this thing into your luggage in a heap or on your kitchen table like I did recently, and then pull it out, throw it on with no ironing, no steaming, no nothing, walk out,

• 1:53:51Tim Ferriss?

  and you could probably wear this thing for a week straight or make it your only dress shirt and take it on trips for weeks at a time. Never wash it. It will not smell. You will not sweat through it. You gotta check these things out. So go to fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts. And if you order one of their dress shirts in the next week, you will get a Henley shirt for free. That's worth about 60 bucks. So put them both in the cart, use the code TIM, T-I-M, and you will get the Henley shirt for free. Check it out, fourhourworkweek.com/shirts and you'll see some of my favorite gear, including the one shirt that I've been traveling with. This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by 99designs. 99designs is the world's largest online marketplace of graphic designers.

• 1:54:36Tim Ferriss?

  And I have used 99designs for years, including to get cover concepts for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become number one New York Times, number one Wall Street Journal. It was a huge hit. And here's how it works. And you can check everything out, including some of my competitions. You can see these book covers and so on at 99designs.com/tim. Whether you need a logo, a car wrap, a web design, an app, a thumbnail, a t-shirt, whatever, you go to 99designs.com, you describe your project, and then within a week or less, you have tons of designers around the world who compete for your business and submit different ideas and designs and drafts. You have an original design. You love or you pay nothing. It is fantastic. I have used it.

• 1:55:21Tim Ferriss?

  I have mentioned it before, including in the Four Hour Workweek as a resource. Check it out, 99designs.com/tim. And if you use that link, you'll be able to see what I've done on the platform. You will also get $99 as an upgrade for free, which will get you more designs, more submissions. So check it out. And until next time, thank you for listening.