How Indie Artists Can Grow Without A Team feat. Goshfather

Victor aka Goshfather, if you only had one minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could, what would you say? One minute on the clock. >> Okay, so today on Instagram threads, a gentleman named Awan Tan wrote, "So I'm curious, what percentage of making it in music do you think is social media versus talent? I personally think it's like 90% social media and 10% talent." I responded, "I don't believe in the word talent." We won't get into that today. But if we're going to talk about what talent means to me, the one hallmark of people who are talented is taking a look at their field and having an above average understanding of what's necessary to be an outlier. The talented people, aka the ones breaking through today in music, are the ones that going, "My music is great, and I'm going to learn to do whatever else is necessary to get it heard by people." And yes, a big obvious part of that is understanding and leveraging social media because that is where the majority of their total addressable global fan base is at. And it's the cheapest, most efficient place to get discovered, usually for $0 and just at the cost of the artist's time and effort. Point is, if you can learn how to do a compressor and write a song and mix master a song, that's the hard part. You can also learn social media to market yourself. Tada. >> Yeah, nailed it. Honestly, that was a very good point. Um, a lot a lot of >> We're getting right into it. Yeah, they they they feel like music should just kind of sell itself and back in the good old days that would happen. But I don't think that's ever been the case. >> But bro, the good old days is when the good old days is so long ago now. Like a lot of artists, these artists say I wish it was like you know I mean look we again we're getting right into it. Hi everybody. Hello world. Um but you know for example I I posted a video today about talking about my brand, how I came up with my visual brand, my personal brand. For those of you that don't know, I I'm a DJ. I do disco house and my brand is kind of like this. I wear this red tracksuit and I it's kind of like this Slavic Eastern European kind of drunk uncle crazy person playing disco EDM stuff. That's just my brand because that's that's just kind of what I come from. And I did a whole video talking about the mindset that I put into actually coming up with that brand and all the steps that it took to come up with that. And so many old heads are commenting, "Yeah, man. I wish it was about the music and not doing gimmicks online." But my friend, when was it not about doing something to get people to pay attention to the music that was peripheral from the music? >> There was just never simply never a time like that. You either had to pay somebody or you set the match in the fire on your own. >> So which is it? Choose one. And that's what I'm saying with social with these [ __ ] rectangles in our pockets that are connected to the rest of the world. We can do it for 0.0. Okay. You got to buy a smartphone. Okay. Hey, well, if you're participating in society, you have a smartphone. Oh, but we got to pay for Wi-Fi. People always try to do this little gotcha on me. Okay, then. >> I It's the most approachable it's ever been in the history of music. >> It's the easiest to break out as a It's the easiest quote me on this. It's the easiest to break out as a niche hella freaking weird ass music artist in the history of mankind. It's actually harder to break out as a as like a we do rock you're screwed. >> If we do Pokemon 8bit rock goth [ __ ] you're gonna you h you're going to find an incredible fan base. >> This is this is crazy >> over on our our my other podcast, My Point's podcast. We did an episode >> big fan >> people. Yeah, you were on there like I don't know when this is going live but you know recently and um >> uh you know the we were talking about how people like trying to write music for algorithms but like in reality the job of all these algorithms is to find people who like the the weirdness that is you whatever that weird is. And if you're if you're doing something generic and broad you're actually just increasing your competition and making it harder for the algorithm to like find your people. Whereas if you're more niche, it it it that kind of will sort out a lot more organically because it can just kind of find the you know, you make like Pokemon death metal or something. It's like it can >> I'm in. I'm going to I'm going to actually go like you if I saw that on my feed, dude, I'm going to watch that. I don't I like Pokemon. I don't really But it doesn't matter. It's it's fresh. And that's what I'm saying to if you're And so now so now what this conversation is getting me to kind of think, you know, it's a kind of a I don't want to say it's a sad epiphany. It's just something to think about. Just like any of the stuff that you talk about and you you know is something to think about. Maybe just maybe a lot of the stuff that artists are making is not are not is not fresh. Maybe that's what it is. And guess what, dude? You know what the beauty of realizing your [ __ ] is not fresh? You can go, damn. Well, maybe I should try to make it fresh. That's the be self-awareness is such a weapon in the arsenal of a creative person. That's that's my but a lot of people there's sensitivity and there's like some ego and there's like all these things involved. You can't tell someone that. >> Yeah. >> You know what's beautiful in my opinion about the algo the evil evil corporate tech technocrats that are trying to hold down some singer songwriter in in in you know in the Pacific Northwest which is obviously not the case. The the truth is the algorithm is sort of like this ANR. Hey, I'm trying this thing. Nobody gives a [ __ ] you're in luck because you spent zero dollars figuring out that nobody gives a [ __ ] about what you're doing or the way that you're presenting it. Usually, if it was like, oh, I got signed to a label, people people invest money into you that, by the way, you have to return. You have to pay that money back. It's not like, here you go, enjoy. It's a charity. With with social, with algorithms, oh, I posted myself playing guitar in my room with poor lighting and terrible framing. No one gives a [ __ ] That's like a sign that make people give a [ __ ] Then do turn the light brighter in the room. Get yourself in the middle of the thing. Make it so the volume doesn't sound like you're in somebody's trunk singing. >> It's you know what I mean? Like there there's so it's it's almost like it's almost like a gift kind of. But people people want to get I I made a song. Damn it. I deserve the algorithm to show it. Come on. You don't want everybody to show You don't want the algorithm to show everybody your first your sixth attempt at a piece of content. You You don't want that because your shit's going to suck. It's going to suck for a long time until it's good. >> Yeah. And I don't know what the case for you is, but you know, before >> you had your first song, I don't know, but you felt was actually like a success or got some movement. How many songs do you think you had uh written before that moment roughly >> written? Um well, you know, we we'll get probably into my story, but you know, I was going to quit music in 2022 and um bec well I was going to quit m going to quit music forever just permanently in 2022. But in 2020, I moved back from Los Angeles after doing the DJ thing, doing the Hollywood Hollywood Hills networking wing in LA for so long, trying to be EDM DJ, whatever. I moved back to San Francisco from Los Angeles. I got very lucky that the timing I moved back in in January of 2020 as we all know what happened. We all know what happened. Um, and I kind of in the back of my head I was like, "Okay, now that I'm kind of away from the LAC and maybe I can kind of dip my toes back into producing. I've t Okay, I've gotten taken a little month and a half break. Settled back in San Francisco. Let's try it." Plug in my hard drive and the hard drive crashes because I'm a dumbass. And I put it on like a disc spinning disc hard drive. I'm also a brutish [ __ ] human and I didn't obviously didn't take care of it. It was It was in a shitty little sleeve. The thing died, everything was closed in COVID and I lost 10 years of recorded songs. I'm not just because, you know, for a lot of EDM DJs, that's like able to the sessions, dude. I had singers that I paid money to go into studios on on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, whatever, to go and like they would I would they would pay them. I would cut vocals, but because I was such an insecure little [ __ ] comparing myself to everybody, none of that music came out. So, how many So, how many songs did I write? There was probably 50 60 halfway to completed songs on there that other people were involved in and they're they're never going to see the light of day. They're gone. >> And that's just the ones that you got far enough in the in the pipeline that actually had vocals tracked and went to >> Exactly. that I went to the studio with. But they're gone, dude. They're [ __ ] gone. So for So let's say there's that now there's trauma associated with that. I didn't I wanted to quit. But then dude, in 2022 2023, I was like, you know what? Let me give this old college try again. And I put out a song a week for 52 weeks. And that changed my [ __ ] life. The reason I'm sitting here with you is because I used that title wave. So, at the very minimum, I wrote 52 songs. At the very minimum, I wrote 52 songs. Outside of that, maybe like 20, 30. >> And then outside of that, maybe 50. So, maybe, you know, 150 songs. Um, 80 of which are out, 50, 60 of which will never see the light of day, >> you know, and that it's it's a number. I'm sure you see this a lot too, but there'll be an artist online saying, you know, how they they've been trying to pursue music for six months and they've they've recorded like seven songs and they've released four of them and and I just sit there and I want to literally whip out like a tiny violin and sing them like a sad song because like I looked at my old hard drive and I had 1,200 songs on my hard drive, logic files between Logic and >> 1200 all the way since 200 >> I wasn't ready for that. That's amazing. >> 200 2009 2010ish I started recording music and that's that's like just songs that actually made it to recording process. Never mind songs and they're not done like a lot of them are just ideas but probably like a good third of them got to the point where they were like fully fleshed out in instrumentals. >> Yeah. Unbelievable. >> Probably there's a couple hundred that have vocals. So someone says like there's seven songs I'm just like come on you know get the [ __ ] out of here with >> [ __ ] man. Well damn. I mean, well, I guess you know, you know, I mean, just, you know, I've written Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's But dude, I agree with you. It's And also, it's >> If you were to count the stuff you just written, you probably have a couple hundred >> written written written. I have a couple hundred. Yeah. Ideas ideas that are like fleshed out, almost ready to think about, but like ready to have been released and not been released. Yeah. We're talking about 150. But there's But yeah, dude, it's it's also just like I want I want to, you know, so so so much of like what I've learned through this entire process of like me doing everything that I'm doing and this is the what I try to tell like up and cominging artists is like this is like a com this entire field of being creative in music. It's a it's a very in my opinion very right down the middle. It's a very like logical kind of business thing and it's a very like practical kind of thing and it's also a very emotional kind of thing. So it's like your life is your life and your life experiences and how you've dealt with them increases the quality of your it's the halfway of the creation of the music. The other 50% that most people don't meet it at is the logical business. We have to crank it. We have to go to the creative gym every day and do our >> creative ups. We can't just be oh my god we're a great I'm a great musician. Why can't anybody like that's that's what I'm saying. And it's like for me all of the music that I've made and everything that I've made, it's all part of just my experiences like kind of coagulating to create something. And I think that a lot of people and it took me a long time to realize that like you have to take that take your experiences, take the emotions and you have to combine it with some kind of practical get on a schedule, put stuff out, sit down, and you don't feel like being creative, but you got to be creative. That's the kind of stuff that I've learned through this entire process. That's what I think has changed that I realized. I guess really what it comes down to is like you can't be entitled. You can't be you can't you can't think that your [ __ ] is the [ __ ] and you can only get to that point through creating a lot of stuff. >> Yeah. >> Having a bad day and then making a song that's emotionally fueled by it >> and then listening to it three days later when you're happy and going, "Damn, I was in a dark place." But recognizing that that's how it works. Creating a body of work. A lot of people look at fame or they look at their heroes and something inside of them doesn't allow them to rationalize that they are only witnessing the tip of the iceberg. That's what blows my mind. Like you look at Squirrellex who to me is like that's God and I'm not even making that kind of music that he's that he's known for. But dude, he's making up like 50 things a day. He's a psychopath. He can't not be creating things. Anybody that's ever worked with him, he's impossible to get Hey, hey, Sunny. we have a we have like this big you know shoe sponsorship it's going to be worth we got he doesn't have time he's on the laptop >> that and that but that's why he got to the point of where he is because he is about that life he's always creating things and I think a lot of artists have that in them but they don't because they're comparing themselves because they they're not approaching it kind of correctly from this place of this is like this devotional creative thing they're always thinking about well my three songs that I'm sitting on the minute the world's going to hear them That's not how it works, dude. >> Anyway, this [ __ ] gets me fired up, as you can see. Like, this this specific part of the part of the topic, it really gets me. >> Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being a being a hobbyist. We're doing it for as a as an as a art project, but like if you're trying to do this as a business. >> Yeah. >> You know, you you can't expect the, you know, the the Matt Bacon to be hiding in the back with a cigar, right? >> Yeah. Exactly. Hey kid, sing kid. I like the cut of your jib. Like, that doesn't happen, dude. It doesn't happen. >> It doesn't really exist for the most part. Like every so often people get lucky. But the reality is most of the people that are getting signed today had to had to work their ass off before to even get to that point, >> right? And that's and that's the part and that's the thing to me, dude. That's the See, now we have the other part of all this. The the other See, I'm glad we're talking about this because I really hope that somebody listening to this that is like falling victim of these patterns, mental patterns in their own life really takes a look at how they're operating. for somebody to have a following. Oh, he just does social they're they're something in their brain is not connecting. So they so they both at the same time hold two different truths at the same time. Social is difficult for me and I don't get it and I don't want to do it. But people that are good at social that are getting signed to record labels are getting opportunities have the easy way out. Which one is it, my friends? Is it that social's hard to grasp and uh that it's difficult for you to hang by time or everyone that does socials is hella stupid that's why they're getting opportunities? So which is it? So then if the stupid people are getting opportunities and they're so shitty and they just nepotism then why don't you just do it? Why don't you just do it then? Well, don't you want to be signed and and on tour and opportunities and playing all the they're letting anyone play boiler room these days? Then why don't you do what they did and go play boiler room? >> I won't do it. There is there's something to be said that uh it's definitely not the most talented people who are making it to the the opportunities. It's the people who are the best at getting the word out >> for sure. >> And and like that's part of what people complain about. >> I got it. >> Um sometimes they're the same thing, right? Sometimes the most talented people do win, right? But >> or they get someone to do it for them, whatever the hell it is, >> they get someone to do it for them. >> Believe in their talent enough. Like if you are that talented and you do the work, like you can be the exception. But the problem is, >> you know, a lot of people don't want to do that. >> So it is a lot of work, right? Like >> it's an incredible amount of work. 24 hours a day. >> Insane amount of work. Yeah. Overtime >> all the time. Like you're not just working 40 hours a week. >> Oh, if I could give if I can give somebody an idea of what I'm doing every single day. I mean I literally in the past so I you know I've been doing these tours by myself. I'm very proud in the last 3 years. I have made a point to talk about all the time. No team. No team. There was a time for 3 months when I did have a team at the beginning of this year but other than that last three years I've had no team and um I'm very proud of that because it taught me a lot of things and one of the most important things it taught me was agency. There is I am I and this is what I talk about all the time and I don't care if it's you know artists reach out to me to get advice. People that just don't downloaded Ableton last month to people that are on tour. Okay. DJs and artists and all that. And I tell them, listen, >> you can do I'm not trying to just be like, "Oh my god, you can do any of this [ __ ] You can learn anything. You can learn ads. You can learn how to present yourself better. You can learn style. You can learn how to make content. You can learn how to mix and master your music. It's all possible. But at the same time, and there's all these other soft skills. Oh, I don't I'm too scared to send DMs. Someone's doing it. Some idiot is sending DMs and smoozing. Why can't you do it? You can learn how to do it. But what it comes down to, dude, and I think this is the thing that I'm really coming to terms with, especially in the last 6 months, cuz I think what is it that makes me do all these like peripheral things in addition to the music that is now, you know, accounting towards my success. It's because, dude, there's something more to this than just I my why my why do I want to do this? I want the world to hear my music. I want I think the music that I'm making needs to be heard by people. I think that the energy and the joy that I put in when I know when I'm making a track, I know when I'm doing a mix, I'm how happy I am and how like those singular moments really give me actual joy. It gives me fulfillment. I want to share that with somebody. That is what gets me doing things like make a 7-second video on Yes, it's annoying. It's [ __ ] annoying. I'm not enjoying every second of it. Yes, it's scary to DM today. Oh my god, just before I got this call, I just got curved. She had a very good reason. She had much higher follower than me. I I offered myself to do a hey collab. She has like 300,000 followers, whatever. She was a fant. She has this like product. Hey, can I get my song in it? She broke it down. It's like, you don't have enough followers as me. I'm getting curved, dude. But I'm sending those DMs anyway, you know, networking with people, talking with people, getting taking on, you know, rides sometimes with people that are big talkers, wasting my time. I'm doing this because I have one singular goal. I want to share my music with people because I think they deserve to hear it. That's what I think a lot of artists and that is what gets me to do all these peripheral things. That's what gets me to work 90 hours a week on music. You know, every little DM that I'm sending, that's work. So, I think for a lot of artists, they don't have their why locked in. Cuz for me, my why is so locked in that like doing content, it's like it's like making toast. It's something that needs to be done. It's like it's or it's like brushing my teeth or something. You know what I mean? It's like it's something that needs to be done for the the day to begin. I feel like you've done a really good job of it almost feels like you're >> you're the ring leader of this new movement, >> right? >> Like when I look at what the content you're posting, you're like you're constantly posting things like disco house is going to be the biggest genre of 2026 or something. You're kind of like pushing this movement along and then >> I keep moving the goal >> 2027 coming up. >> Today is a great day to to finish and share your music with the world, right? So, you've created all these one like habits and and things you do, repetitions, but but also like you're kind of the ring leader of these different movements like you're >> you're the ring leader of like go finish your music and share with people. You're also kind of the ring leader of like disco house, right? I'm sure there's other people in the space in your genre that bigger than you if you ever >> but it doesn't matter. You're part of that scene, >> correct? >> And you're like repping that scene and it kind of gives you >> I mean like when people rage for their like their political party or their sports team or whatever whatever they have, right? um it it kind of can become easier to fight for something you believe in than feeling like you're necessarily like whoring your music out, right? So I think like if you you kind of pivoted the how you have to talk about yourself, you're not talking about yourself like listen to me, listen to me. >> It's like listen to this movement we're building. >> Andrew, I think you're the first and I'm I'm so grateful for this conversation because you're the first person. >> Thank you. Like I'm about to I'm about to kind of cry a little bit because like I I swear like you cuz cuz I really have in the last like six seven months I did pivot to this. It was it was a strange thing. It was like a very it was just me being a human on the in you know constantly online person kind of being a pattern recognizer and then just realizing that wow I've did the song a week. Okay I didn't blow up for 52 weeks then didn't do [ __ ] Okay. Oh I need a brand. Okay that helped me. That got me to another plateau. red jacket doing enough. Okay, I have a brand and I have music and I'm touring. That still is not getting me to It's another plateau. Me one year ago is somebody else's. It's going to take them 5 years. Do you see what I mean? My this year, my last 6 months, I'm serious. Like what you just said is just so it's really put into perspective. It was this thing where I'm like something's missing. Something is still missing. I'm playing EDC. I'm doing all these things. What the [ __ ] is missing? It's standing for something. That is what was missing. It's standing for something concrete that I can run with, that I can galvanize, that I can bring other people in. I have these micro communities. I think you eventually want to talk talk about in this in this thing, too. I have a community of like disco house producers. We call ourselves Discoll Illuminati. It's a cheeky freaking name, but we have a lot of big people in that group. A lot of big people that are that are just that are doing this disco for the Yeah, go ahead. >> I gotta say your your brand is like on point, I will say. like one like your name is just badass. Like the I was forget >> I think I was talking to uh Katie on on my team. I think it was her at least. And I mentioned like like when when we set up this interview, I was like, "Oh, I got an interview with Goshfather." And she was like, "I don't know who that is, but that name is [ __ ] awesome." Like she loved it. It's just so like instead of Godfather, Gosh. It's just so silly, right? It's such a such a fun, silly, easy to remember name. I cannot believe >> no one in the world had that before you. It is shocking that no one thought of that. >> Yeah. >> And um >> Thank you, bro. That makes me so happy, dude. Thank you. >> The second part is like just the the look that you have, right? You're pretty much always wearing red. Your Instagram backgrounds are red. You pretty much always have sunglasses. You're this big hairy dude, right? You got this long. >> You got this thick beard. And so you got this this look. >> Um and I I I looked up something about you in this. And >> the interesting thing is it's not random either, right? You you picked the your aesthetic with intentionality. >> Yes. I just I actually did I just did a whole post about it. So because I did that I did that post about um my story. Um I did a I did like I kind of wanted like the post is one of my most successful posts and that to me makes me so happy because it's like hey look another lesson from the world of content. Content is not about your Tik Tok dance. Content is about how deeply authentic can you tell a story to relate to other people to use media to be social. People don't get that. So for me, I didn't do like a sick mix. I talked about my life. Talked about what it took me to get here. And so then I did another Instagram story yesterday where I said, "Hey, thank you so much for checking out that story. Anybody want me to elucidate or go deeper on any of these aspects of my story?" A lot of people asked me about my brand. So three stories were me like literally God, I wish I could show it. Um, we're we're >> you can share your screen. >> Could I could I show it? I mean, it'll be like a very like quick >> every single week and I was making like little content and I didn't have the red jacket. I didn't have the hair done. I didn't have the glasses. I didn't have the look. I didn't have the attitude of that I kind of have today. Talking about Disco House, doing all this stuff. So, I was putting out stuff and I was just doing like little like random memes and little funny content. And then in August, around August of 2023, I had a video that went viral about me doing some funny [ __ ] And then I asked one of the people that like randomly followed me from that video. I said, "What do you think it is that I do?" They're like, "Oh, you're a comedian. You're a travel blogger. You're a food blogger." And that made me realize, "Wow, I don't have a brand. Nobody understands that I'm a [ __ ] musician." So, even if I keep on going viral with these stupid videos and nobody knows what the [ __ ] I do, there's no point of me existing on the internet, no one has any idea what I'm doing. So, I was like, I need to have some kind of brand. So, I thought about like all of the Russian kind of Eastern European people that I grew up with. They're all wearing the Adidas track jackets and I kind of in integrated that into my brand. So now you're this like Soviet Union kind of disco thing and it's works for me and it's hella funny. So when I came up >> okay we can we can we can get into that but the point is that's that's the baseline and like here I can unshare but but anyway we we can we can send you the video what however the folk going to want to do it but the point is with that video yeah there's intentionality in it because I guess again as much as I want to talk about my brand and stuff how can somebody learn from how I discovered my brand because there's and I hope there's going to be kids out there that listen to this and go that that brand [ __ ] sucks. I hope you guys come up with a better idea for your ownelves. That's the goal. Then you guys blow up, you'll be happy. But the bottom line, >> what was what do you think like if you had to come up with a checklist for how someone can figure out what their brand will be? Like what are they going to look like? How are they going to act? How are they going to talk to their people? Like how should someone figure that out? >> So So check this out. So foundationally, right, you got to it's it's it's a multi-pronged attack. Number one, the visual branding. It helps your it the visual brand having a strong whether it's colors, whether it's your hair, whether it's a certain way that you dress, whether it's a certain environment that your content, your music videos, your music is made in something. You got to own what it is because that is while you're sleeping working for you. my videos with me in the red jacket playing disco music with my hair out and being a [ __ ] crazy guy versus my competition of sick looking dudes with the [ __ ] bleached hair and the black shirts techno sick. There's a thousand of those son of a [ __ ] You can scroll past them, but only three of them, right? John Summit, Domala, maybe a couple guys under him. That's all anyone's going to give a [ __ ] about ultimately. If you're entering the game becoming a 400,000th banana down the line, then don't be surprised when nobody gives a [ __ ] about you. Nobody, that's just from like a visually branding perspective. So for me, how do I be the antithesis of everything that exists and do it in a way that is interesting to me? I grew up my family's from so former Soviet Union. I I speak fluent Russian. I grew up with Ukrainian kids and Bellarussian kids and Mulovanian kids. We all had the same culture. It's all the same [ __ ] How do I put that into how do I put that into what I'm doing? >> And like how because that's the world that I know. I think it's funny. I can immediately take references from po posts Soviet kitsy Russian drunk uncle haha Slav squatting cuz I know that world. It's funny to me. I grew up with it. So for me, you see what I'm saying is like I took this sound disco house which again already [ __ ] unpopular and niche. I love it. I'm addicted to it. Zeroed in on it. Niched down, right? Because what people try to do is they try to appeal to everybody first, then they're cooked. You can't be I'm like I'm the like for example, I there there was a video that I saw the other day cuz I always talk about this. This like I'm so fascinated talking about music brands. There was like there was these guys that did they're all like they're wearing like beanies and like wife beaters and they're like in the hood and they're like going they wrote this thing called ghetto metal. It's a bunch of African-American guys and they're playing [ __ ] metal and it's sick as [ __ ] It's raw. It's got the like the energy of like a rap video, but they're playing guitars and they're screaming and like you cannot you cannot ignore that because it it has everything that they want in one spot with me disco. So again, to take foundations, you have to take a thing that you the genre that you know that you want to make, the genre that you really really cling to, and then multiply that by some kind of unusual aesthetic that you actually know that kind of isn't on the market. It's it's you're a tech house regular DJ and you use, you know, what kind of what kind of video games did you play as a kid? Like Street Fighter, are you wearing like military fatigues? And are you like guile? Are you like kind of I don't know. That's a stupid example, but it has to it has to make sense to the individual because that's how you don't burn out when you're working on your brand. Because for me, with my brand being this like Eastern Eastern European, Eastern block disco DJ crazy guy, I have infinite material to draw from from that. If you say Street Fighter, I mean, that's a stupid example. What I always what I always say, my limus test, dude, my limus test when I talk about brands with with artists is like dubstep and gardening. And the reason I I love that is because it's like there is not one artist that corners that one of one of an aesthetic of like fairy ethereal garden with the greenery everywhere and like aggressive dubstep. But if that existed, I'm telling my friends about it. I don't [ __ ] listen to dubstep. I'm if it's on my timeline, I'm going to go, "Dude, you got to see this Lord of the Rings ass dubstep guy or girl. She's got the pointy ears and there's like beautiful flowers everywhere, but she's headbanging." Yeah, >> that is >> well the you you also um >> one thing I want to I cover for a little bit before we wrap this up is um you you you mentioned >> I don't remember where I heard this about you but you somewhere online you talked about >> this like Instagram DM thing you did right and um I know some people who have had shockingly good results just by >> talking to people who would have thought and like people who have sold out entire tours off of just DM M conversations and so I'm curious to hear what what you did with Instagram DMs and building like an online community that that perhaps might have been a game changer in your >> absolutely game changer. I mean there's no there's no question about it. So here's here's the deep here's the deep psychology about it. You got to like I see what's happening what is happening because see I'm getting like feedback. Anyway, the psychology here is like this. It's very logical to go and bounce people to Discord or to a WhatsApp. For example, if I'm an up andcoming like kind of like Tik Tok kind of um for example, I have a homie right now. He like he's like doing this like goth kind of like Tik Tok kind of goth or whatever new whatever. I don't know how [ __ ] explain it. >> Goth kind of synth way of I don't know what the hell to explain. But the point is his his crew is >> 18 to 24 year olds. They know what Discord is. Discord is part of their how they communicate with people. If you're an always online young person, you're you know what a Discord community is. You probably have homies in there. It makes sense for me. My crowd is like 25, 35 years old. To for me to go and tell a 30-year-old, go on Discord, 30-year-old guy or whatever, finance [ __ ] bro, whatever to go and hey, young professional, hey bro, come on Discord and hang out with me and talk about Disco House. You might as well [ __ ] might as well start that conversation. But if I can go tell people in my kind of target audience, yo, it's just a it's just a DM conversation. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> They're on they're they're doom scrolling Instagram every second of every single day on a lunch break. They can come in and pop in and if if the conversation is niche enough or something interesting enough for them or for example, if they're a fan of me, they have access to me. I'm addicted to Instagram. I'm on there all the time. So, what I start doing is I put I start putting these little conversations together. For example, one of the conversations is disco house music producers. Music producers that are in my niche. We share samples. We new song comes out. We're all supporting each other. There's a reason to come back. It's like interesting. There's a there's a pull. It's part of the dopamineergic cycle of using this app. If I say, "Hey guys, make sure to >> Instagram like DMs or is this what that thing they have?" >> It's DMs. With DMs, you can have up to 250 people. >> Instagram communities or whatever. Whatever. >> No, no, no. See that I I really feel like they're going to sunset that soon because it's a big failure because the thing is people can't talk to each other. That's the key. You can only pontificate for them, but there's no them. >> Yeah. And guess what? All artists use it incorrectly because what do they do? They just take the [ __ ] that they're promoting on the main and just regurgitate it into there. And it's so funny. You can see when they first open the It's called a broadcast channel. When they open the broadcast channel, huge engagement. Then the next thing is, "Hey, check out my new single." 44% engagement slashed. Hey guys, hope you guys are still there. Check out my new song. 90% engagement slashed because they don't give a [ __ ] Why should why should we go on to a new channel within the channel just to get the same information? >> And that is something that people should realize >> that when it comes to social media, it's about having a conversation in the middle of your releases, in the middle of the next big sale. Because when the people feel like they're on your team, not feel, it has to be authentic. It's not a manipulation. With these different groups that I'm in, so I have the ones with music producers, then I have one that are just music fans. I have one that's all just like artists that I'm kind of mentoring them, giving them ideas about social media, helping them navigate the industry. That's 150 people and they talk to each other. They're sharing stuff. Now I have them collaborating with each other. But now one that I'm actually going to build tomorrow that I'm actually kind of scared of, but I should have done this a while ago is just fans, no musicians, no no music industry [ __ ] people, just homies that like this go house. People that always in my DMs talking me about music, sending me music. Hey, have you heard of this guy? I'm going to bring them all into one group. They're gonna have access to me. Hey guys, what's going on? Happy Thursday. We can have listening parties together. And they're using the app already. >> It's not a new, "Hey, close this app that you're on 24 hours a day. Open up Discord that you never use. >> It's cooked." So, dude, it's been huge because now my engagement goes up because I'm actually speaking with humans. You know, people talk about the thousand true fan theory, bro. This What about the What about the 50 fan theory? What about 20 people giving a [ __ ] about you >> that have nothing to that are not your friends, your family? It it it number one, it also shows that's a lot of a lot of artists. This is this is for a whole different conversation, but I have this theory, dude, now after talking to so many artists like off threads and stuff. >> A lot of people just don't think they just don't know what a fan is. They can't recognize when someone likes their music, so they just don't talk to anyone. >> Can you can you do like a live stream in a group? >> No, but you can announce it in there. That's what I'm saying. That's the beauty of it. >> True. >> You know, you think about what what is the biggest like most lucrative, most um bang for your buck, most the biggest thing in the on the internet is streaming, right? Live streaming is big. And what my I have a friend I'm right now I actually, you know, like I said, I always I want to keep learning. I'm in this program right now by this guy name or meets world. He's an incredible brand marketer, one of the most brilliant, one of my heroes really. And I'm in this I paid money for this program for to it's it's a 30-day course called Cut 30. Shouts out Cut 30. And um you know even then I'm like learning like so much new stuff through just being a community of people that want to get better at like marketing themselves whatever their brand is. And um he said something very interesting. This guy Orin he says dude it's called time under attention. Time under attention. Time under attention is the most lucrative like signifier of if people actually give a [ __ ] about what your thing is. Because if somebody will tune into a live stream that means they're on your squad. This is that's worth more than a like, a comment, a hundred shares. If people are locked in to watching you speak live and are participating, then you're locked in. That that's a huge that means that whatever your brand is is having an impact on somebody to be able to really give you their undivided attention in a world where everything is trying to take everybody's attention. So, being able to do these chats, >> you're in a conversation consistently with people that give a [ __ ] about you and you have the opportunity to go and give show that you give a [ __ ] about them. And that kind of like interaction is a gamecher. You you know what I'm saying? Like it it's >> I I attended this talk at NAM last year which is our music conference and um >> Rich if if you go next year let me know. >> I'm down dude. I've never been. >> But um but uh there was this talk from this various different people who are like experts in social media and Instagram whatever. And I attended three different ones about social media. And every single one talked about how, remember this is January 2025, talked about how for the rest of 2025, 2026, Instagram DMs are going to be like the most important part of Instagram. And and they were they g they all these various reasons. I don't remember all the intricate details, but they were talking about how essentially like one of the best things you could possibly do is have a two-way conversation with someone through Instagram DMs where they message you and you reply. >> Yeah. >> Because essentially what Instagram does, they assume like you guys are friends. >> Period. It's not just like they follow you, they're interested, you're friends. And therefore, every time you post, they should see your stuff. Even if you don't follow them back, >> period, dude. >> Essentially, the more you can have like a two-way relationship on social media. >> Period. >> The more likely your your engagement is going to be. >> It's the ultimate, dude. It's the ultimate Well, dude, like who who do you who do you and I text on a daily basis? It's people that are important to us or people that there there's some kind of value enough that we have to text them because we want >> it's it's simple. You know, it's funny. It still comes back to social media, right? It's social media. >> And the thing is, when you get enough of those people that are kind of strangers, because it's a different context, right? Texting your grandma, texting your uncle, texting your cousin, then that's a different thing. But when you're texting texting along with people that are your fans, you're creating that foundation. >> This has been awesome. Mr. Mr. Victor/godfather found go and check you out. Aside from I mean threads. And uh you know again I you mentioned this way earlier in the chat but like for all y'all watching that aren't on Instagram threads yet make a threads account because honestly probably the best organic reach I've seen of any social media platform in the last >> since Tik Tok was new. I would say it's the best organic reach. >> Um and you don't have to do video you can just talk. So it's actually easier like it which is why it's my favorite social media platform right now. So, um, I would say go and follow Goshfather on threads for sure. Uh, because you are always giving great motivational tips and talking about stuff and and it's just kind of cool seeing how hyped you are about what you do. But, uh, where where else should people check you out? >> Uh, Instagram. Uh, you know, check out I have a new song that just dropped today as we're or tomorrow as we're recording this. It's called Soul. Check it out on Spotify. I'm very proud of it. It's a very me that if you want to know what my sound is, that song is great representation of my disco house sound. Um, but otherwise, you know, reach out to me on threads, reach out to me on Instagram and Tik Tok, whatever. And like the other thing is like since the point4 cents podcast with Jesse, um, I at the very end I said artists, feel free to reach out to me anytime you want to talk about advice if you're in the dance music world, happy to give you an advice, happy to listen to a song, happy to really elucidate anything we talk about here. And um I guess my only my only regret from this uh from this chat is like again I've consumed so much of your content Andrew and of um that I I wanted to ask you more stuff but I was just so hyped into what we were talking about. I wanted to ask about you and your background >> but u I was so hyped what we're talking about I couldn't get but we'll we'll get there some >> we'll have to set up another one but yeah man thanks for coming on. >> Excited. Thank you Andrew. Thank you so much, bro.