Joey Stuckey 0:00

Welcome once again to the Stuck on Sound Podcast. I am your host, little Joey Stucky, Sexy as Elvis with Half the Fat. And uh today I have a dear friend, an amazing colleague, a talented professional, Grant Meloy Smith here with the talk all things music. And Grant, so glad to have you with us today, my friend. Oh, brother, it is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me on your show. You are so welcome. I I'm I'm just so uh impressed with you in so many ways. And uh and I've got lots of questions for you. But the the first thing I want to do, and and I always do this with every guest. So uh I always like to know like, how did you get in this crazy business? What was it that drove you? I mean, you know, what kind of strange, strange things happened to you as a child that made you want to be a musician? Wow, that's a long story. Well, I'll try to make it I'm in for it a short. This is this is a listen, this on this show, we have no, we just go wherever we go. So if you can say whatever you want as long as you want, and I will I will listen gladly.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Okay. Well, at the real beginning, maybe when I was about five or so, yeah, I I really got stuck on music. I was really into it, and I had a very eclectic collection of records, being you know, five or six years old. I had Beatles Records, and uh I also had Captain Kangaroo, who was like a children's TV show back in the 1830s when I was a kid.

Joey Stuckey 1:30

I remember Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Moose. So I was and Mr. Green Jeans.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yeah, and he but the captain put out uh they put out records, believe it or not, because uh all kinds of them. And I I had a bunch of them that I really loved. And uh they were all kinds of music. And and then my my Grammy from eastern Kentucky imbued in me a love for uh what she called her mountain music, which we would call bluegrass today. And I had records by Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers and all kinds of people like, and she also liked like the classic, well, we call it today classic. It was new then, like Johnny Cash. But it wasn't that new. He was not that new, but he wasn't that old. Yeah, and so I had a very strange collection of uh music, uh, but I was principally an artist, like uh painting and drawing. Oh, nice. So music was kind of uh my second thing, you know, and art was my main thing until until the last month of high school when everything changed. Um I was like I said, about a month away from graduating high school. I was already accepted to art college, which which I did go to for a while. Um and that my destiny seemed like it was preordained I was gonna be an artist. That people told me I was gonna be an artist since I was, you know, five or six years old. Because I could because I could just draw and paint, that kind of thing. And um a month away from my school ending, I was walking across the courtyard at school and I heard uh music, uh like a kid playing the guitar and singing, uh, one of my classmates. I couldn't see who it was. Uh he was kind of over this little crest, and I walked over it, and I and I just as I got to the top, I could see him sitting on the grass, but his back was to me, so I couldn't tell who it was. And he was so he had like a little ring of my classmates around him listening, you know, to his he was playing and singing. And I said, Wow, man, I didn't, I would never have had the guts to do that at 17 years old, you know, to pick up a guitar and sing in front of other people.

Joey Stuckey 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Uh now it doesn't bother me at all. But back then, when I was 17, it definitely would have. I said, Who is that? And I got closer and I could see finally that it was my friend Scott, who was possibly the shyest kid in the high school. The shyest. He would, we would go to dances and he would never ask a girl to dance. You know, he was very shy. He was a good-looking guy, but he was just shy. And I just, my mouth fell open. I could not believe what I was seeing. Uh, and I looked at him, not just because of him, but I looked at the people surrounding him, you know, drinking all his songs in. And I looked, and they were pretty good-looking girls, mostly.

Joey Stuckey 4:19

A great motivator.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

And they're all they're they're sitting there, you know, cross-legged in the grass. They're they've got their elbows on their knees and their their chin is in their hands, and they're just looking at them, batting their eyes. I took that in for a long second, and I said to myself, I gotta get me a guitar.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

This is the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

I swear to God, that was like a switch that went off in my brain. I mean, I've always loved music. Even when I was a little kid, I had yeah, you know, real cheap guitars. And I always played music. I could, I when we went to church, I'd sneak downstairs where they had old, an old piano that they didn't use anymore, and one of those pump organs you had to pump with your feet. Oh man. And I learned to play. I didn't know anything about music theory, but I figured out how to play things, you know. I knew what sounded right. Yeah, I could find chord patterns, even though I didn't know what a chord was. But I knew I knew. And uh I just had an act, I could play by ear. So so uh I always had music in me, but it was always I always played second fiddle, note pun intended, to the music, to the music, I mean to the art, uh, until that day. And everything switched. But I did go to art school, uh, and I stayed for about two years. But you know, I was working more harder at music while I was in art school than I was at art. I was then I really taught myself to know music theory and all that stuff, and I became obsessed with songwriting. And um I think about when I was about 19 or 20, I formed um a band. It was kind of a rock band, not hard rock, but kind of orchestral rock in a way. Uh and I was a songwriter, and we got pretty lucky we got to to open up for groups like The Guess Who and Elvin, Elvin Bishop, um, even Steppenwolf, believe it or not.

Joey Stuckey 6:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

And groups like yeah, yeah. So that was that was kind of my that was really my beginning.

Joey Stuckey 6:22

Uh it's fascinating. Now, if I'm uh, you know, being a blind man, the visual arts uh are not something I can really access uh in any real meaningful way. But I believe, if I am not mistaken, that you still draw and paint and do your own album covers. Is that do I remember that right?

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah, and illustrate because my records are theme records and they have books to go with them. And I do the either do the illustration or a lot of times I'm using historical photographs, so I but I'm doing the graphic design of the book.

Joey Stuckey 6:50

Okay, you know, that's what I remember that. So you still do that. I guess they've just sort of swapped places now. They've got exactly that's interesting. Well, and you know, it's funny too because um I in a way uh had a similar experience to you. My early life was uh as as most people know, I'm a blind brain tumor survivor. So the um early years were filled with uh medical catastrophes of all natures, and uh I just sort of had to focus on survival. And also there was no, when I was a kid back in the Dark Ages, uh, there was no Americans with Disabilities Act, there was no accommodation. Uh, you just either went to a blind school or which I didn't, and you or you just toughed it out in a regular school. Right. But I remember realizing um when music uh came to me finally, um, that uh it was also a powerful way to get people to come to you, which is a big deal when you can't see where you're going. So I was able to attract uh some some female attention as well with the guitar and realized I realized that that I was like, oh, this is great because I can't walk up to these people and say, hi, how's it going? Exactly. They came to me. So it's it's that's I I think that's a fascinating story. And I think you know, several people probably have that uh in common. But now once you once you got into school and you were you were in your art school and doing this sort of thing, did you switch majors and become a music major? Or how did that how did that come? How did you get your theoretical uh chops built up?

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Uh I I just taught myself. I didn't go to music school at all ever.

Joey Stuckey 8:27

Did you read books or just spend time fooling around?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Like well, I I approached it in a unique way. One of the lecture halls that I went to when I was in my freshman year, uh, which was at Micah, the Maryland Institute College of Art, down in Baltimore. Then I switched to RISD the next year up in Rhode Island. But anyway, the first year we had this great lecture hall that had a piano at the bottom of it, uh, where the professor would read from. And I I discovered that the the janitors would let me come in at night and play it. And so I brought, I had bought some uh tablature books, guitar tablature books. And that's those are like from The Beatles and Elton John and Billy Joel, people like that, with their songs in it. And they have the the music, you know, like lead sheet basically and some chords below it on in musical notation. But above that, they have these little graphics that show you where to put your fingers on a guitar fretboard. Right. And it said the name of the chord next to it. If you have that, you have a graphical representation of what an an A or a C or a D minor are, you know? Yeah. And so if you can just follow the picture basically, uh, and put your fingers in the right place, and then you strum the chord, you go, okay, that's what a D minor sounds like. Now let's find out on the piano. So I sat there with my guitar on my lap at the piano bench, on the piano bench, and I figured out I transposed basically from the guitar to the piano. So with that, I really I taught myself a lot of the basics of music theory. And then uh with reading and so on. Of course, I had to go to the library back then because there was no internet yet, you know, this this being the 1830s and all. Oh yeah. But uh, but now now you can learn anything on the internet. Man, if we had YouTube back when I was uh that age, when I was 18 years old, I could have I could have done that in three months instead of uh you know a half a year or a year. Yeah.

Joey Stuckey 10:22

Do you feel, I mean, like it's it's I I love this story. It's amazing to me. Uh that the way you approached, well, I'll just music is the same no matter what the instrument is, you know, you just you you just have to learn the the nuances of the instrument. Um but the but the the compositional elements, you know, the are are the you know, as you say, are are the same. So do you do you feel that that a that an exploration of music theory is important as a songwriter uh and a performer, or or do you think that uh you know there there are plenty of guys that have less theoretical knowledge than than you and I do? I mean, I went to music school and uh you know learned all this stuff, and I can now tune uh organs in Germany using Pythagorean theorem, which I'm sure is a really a great use of my time. Um but it's sadly this is actually true. Uh but I don't know, I do not understand why Pythagorean theorem was presented to us at an undergraduate level, but whatever. Anyway, the uh my point is like do you think that that's really important? Or I mean, could you if you read like uh some of the books, like the autobiography of you know Quincy Jones, yeah, he had a similar experience where he would break into uh the rec center and noodle with the piano. So, I mean, how much do you think like intensive study is important versus like just raw inspiration? I mean, how do how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_03 11:41

I think it the answer probably depends on what kind of music you do. Yeah. If you if you're doing like death metal, you know, I don't think music theory matters too much.

Joey Stuckey 11:52

Actually, some of those guys prefer it to sound the worse it sounds, the better they like it.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Like I don't and I don't mean that to be insulting to death. No, not at all. I just mean that it's rather simple, you know? Yeah, it's like three chords, four chords, and it's and power chords, you know, it's very straightforward. It doesn't really uh uh ask for complex progressions, nor does it have any room for them, you know. It's it just doesn't fit in that world. I it so it really depends on the kind of music you want to write. And for me, I think it's it really helped me a lot. The more I the more I learn, and I still learn about music all the time. Sure. Um, the more I learn, I think the better I get. And um, in my world, you know, we use uh the number a numbering system for writing out the charts to songs.

Joey Stuckey 12:35

So you're talking about like the Nashville music system?

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And that really will help you with your theory too. Just just learning that system and how it works. I did that maybe 15 years ago. And I'll tell you, I I make most of my records, you know, in Nashville, and that is the way it's done.

Joey Stuckey 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

You better know that system. So if you want to do anything like country music or any anything in the realm of country music like bluegrass or American Roots, like I do, or or folk music, uh, that's how most people read charts. So if you're gonna hire musicians, you're gonna have to give them well, you don't have to. Most of the if you hire really great players, they'll listen to your song, they'll make up their own chart that like I can do now. I can just listen to a song and write a chart out live, you know, on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

And then go back and check it once or twice to make sure I'm right. And then I can play from the chart.

Joey Stuckey 13:24

Well, I think the thing, the, the, the key for me, well, well, okay, folks, so from my perspective, and and this this conversation is about your perspective primarily, but from my perspective as a blind person, like the more theoretical knowledge I have, the more power I have, the more that I can't use my eyes, the more imperative it is to use my brain. Uh so that for me is is it's been mission critical for me. Uh, to to and because with the Nashville numbering system or any other type of music notation, it it gives you a quick and efficient way to communicate with others. And I think that's the real, the real like benefit of it is that you can say, hey man, you know, uh here at Measure 34, we're gonna we're gonna go to the five, and then we whatever. And you know, you and and we it it's just a quick way uh because time is money, you know. Yeah, yeah. And so it's a quick way of doing that. Now, what instrument do you find that you write on the most? Since you can play guitar and piano and maybe other instruments I'm not aware of, what is it you use for your writing primarily?

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Um, I would say it goes in in three buckets. First is the acoustic guitar. That's my primary instrument, anyway. And so that's what I tend to have in my hand at any one moment in time. Yeah, yeah. Um uh secondarily, so that's probably half the time. Like half of the songs I write started on the acoustic guitar. And then the other half are broken into 25% and you know, halves again. So the other two quarters would be one, no instrument at all. I I write a lot of songs just in my head. Uh, and then the other one would be some kind of keyboard, a piano or whatever, electric piano.

Joey Stuckey 15:03

And like live, I've only seen you play guitar, but like do you play, do you ever play piano live at all?

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Or I have, I used to. I have I haven't done that recently. Um I was thinking of doing it again. I haven't played the piano live since probably the 1990s. Well, it's time. I guess so. I played a lot of, I play all the keyboards on my albums for the most part. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Joey Stuckey 15:23

All right, cool. And so so that that means so do you think uh in parts, like do when you when you compose a song, I mean, what what is it that happens to you mentally when one of those songs comes together for you? Is it mainly like lyrics and melody first, and then you you imagine the arrangements, or do you does it all come at one time? Um how's that work for you? I'm usually thinking more uh emotionally.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Like what what vibe do I want the listener to get, you know, when they hear this song? What I what emotions do I want to conjure up in their minds when they hear it? So for me, it's very kind of organic. Uh, and I'm not really thinking so much of words. I mean, every once in a while I'll have a cool title I want to write a song for, but usually not. Usually I just want to write a feelings and uh and then the words work their way in.

Joey Stuckey 16:18

Gotcha. Well, that's cool. I mean, there are plenty of wonderful examples in multiple genres of artists who you know have melody and and and vibe and style first, and they come up with placeholder words, and then you know, like Susu Studio from Phil Collins, like that. He's like, I don't know what it means. It was a placeholder, and now it's the song. It's like, you know, right, you know, and and and Bono from you too. Uh I'm a huge fan of them. I mean, you you know, you hear some early demos, like, what does he say? I mean, he just had like words that kind of felt right, but didn't really mean anything. And I found myself yesterday, I wrote a song, and and I find, and I bet I wonder if you would agree with this. I find that my best work is the work that happens fast. Um, you know, it just like pops out. And I wrote this song, and I was like, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Like, I don't even know. Like, I wrote these lyrics, like, what does it mean? And then, like, a couple days later, I sat down to finish it and then discovered meaning. But at first, I was like, I it sounds cool, but I have no idea what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Sometimes those are the best. Sometimes those kind of when you have like a stream of consciousness and you just put some stuff down that sounds it feels good to you, it sounds good. Yeah. And then you can you can always come back to it later and wrestle it into some kind of sensible shape, you know, where it makes sense.

Joey Stuckey 17:36

Yeah, yeah. Because I was like, I don't know what this means. And I I laughed at myself the whole rest of the day because I was like, this is so stupid. Um, the uh the other thing I would say is, you know, you've had um and and you know, you you're not done, but you've had a an excellent career with many milestones uh that um are exciting and difficult to achieve. And I wonder what you attribute to that process because my feeling, you know, and in just chatting with you, I've of course I've listened to your music and heard it before, but my feeling in just chatting with you here in more detail is that you know you're just kind of like doing what you do. But is is there any um any strategies that you that you feel as a songwriter you have to employ in the modern music business? I mean, is there any are there any things that you that you actively worry about when you're trying to make make a record?

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Well, um, in terms of worry, I would say I'm always worried that it's gonna take too long or I'm not gonna be able to afford it, or yeah, practical things like that. Preach. It's very I mean, you it's easy to spend a lot of money to make a record. Oh, gotcha. And it's even easier to spend 10 times that to try to promote it in some way. But it's really hard to come up with all that money. And it's triple hard to earn in much of it back. Yeah, oh yeah. I'm not trying to really, I'm just trying to, you know, the Woody Allen was asked years ago, though the filmmaker, uh, you haven't had a hit in a while, Woody. Are you worried about you know not having a hit recently? And he said, No, I don't care about hits. I just want my movie uh to make enough money that I can do another movie.

Joey Stuckey 19:18

I feel the same way.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

And so that I thought I heard that and I thought that's exactly my outlook, and it should be, it should be my output because it's really I'm not trying to be a millionaire or uh rich and famous, but I really want to make another record. You know, I'm just finishing one now, but I I already want to make another one and I already know what I want it to be about and everything.

Joey Stuckey 19:39

So yeah. I I I mean I feel the exact same way. And you know, I make honestly, like I make my living as a producer, a recording engineer, an educator, a studio owner, and that pays for my habit of being an artist. Yeah, yeah. You know, your dirty little habit. So with you, like because I don't uh uh one of the things that I can't do, which is uh um somewhat entertaining I in in a way, uh, is the fact that I cannot read liner notes, uh which is a great shame because there's a lot of interesting information there. But my so I don't know if you um are on a label or if you just put everything out yourself. What's your business model work like to get these records out?

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Yeah, I have my own label. So I I self-published and I put my records out on my own label.

Joey Stuckey 20:28

Okay, and that makes sense because uh you know that you're trustworthy. You're not gonna have to worry as much about that. But but I mean you you uh you have done some wonderful things. I mean, you've you've charted uh uh with some of the songs, you've you've uh got some Grammy certificates here. I mean, those are those are major accomplishments with a label, like with a major label behind you, let alone if you're doing it on your own. So when you do your own label, is it just you? Do you have a staff? What's you know, what kind of machine does does Grant have?

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Well, there's three of us, three of us, me, myself, and I. The three of us we get to I hope they always agree. Sometimes we argue in Baker a little bit, but I always win. Yeah, oh, that's good.

Joey Stuckey 21:16

But that's well, that's good. So so how did you come to and we're gonna talk about the creation of the any collaborative in just a second, but but how did you come to know the business side of music so you could take your creations and give them the the intention and the and the reach that that that they deserve? I mean, how does how does that happen for an independent artist?

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Well, I would say it you just have to have a lot a lot of perseverance and do a lot of work. It helps to talk to people too, the who have done it, to find out, you know, what they did, to work with other people that that have done it before, that know how to get stuff out to radio stations or to get reviews from, you know, critics and that kind of thing. Right. It just takes a lot of, but when you're all alone, like I am. I mean, I I hire people. I can hire, um, I'm hiring a publicist to help with my new record starting next month. So they're they're gonna do more work than I could. I just don't have enough hours in the day to do it. And they have a lot more contacts in the, you know, among critics and so on than I than I do. So um it's good, it's good to hire other people. Of course, I hire other people to play uh on my records too. I hire the best I can possibly find, you know, mostly mostly in Nashville. That's what makes records really good. I it took me a while to learn that. At the beginning, I tried to do everything myself, and I and I realized, you know, I'm not as good as Rob Ice on the Dobro, not even close. I'm not as good as Mike Johnson playing the steel guitar or Scott Vestel playing the banjo or anybody else that I've hired. They're all masters at what they do, and they've played on a thousand hit records. Those are the people to hire.

Joey Stuckey 22:54

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's so true. I mean, I think like knowing where you're where you shine and knowing where you need assistance is a big thing. Yes. And, you know, a lot of people in the in the music business, and I I say this with no ill intent, but a lot of them are a bit divorced from reality um when they think that they're the greatest musician that's ever lived, and you know, and you know, they can everything they do is perfect, and you know, and and you you have to you have to realize like I won't call it a limitation, but you have to realize where your expertise doesn't lie just as much as where it does. And and I think that's really important. One of my early mistakes, and I don't know if you made this, but one of my early mistakes from uh from from a laziness factor was you hire one person um that theoretically can help you do everything. And what you what you find, or at least what I've found, is that really what you do is hire the very best multiple peoples and let them do their specialty and and and and build a team. Um, I tried to stick with one person that could provide a lot of different services because uh it was easier to communicate with one person than with 20. But you know, you and less expensive, of course. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So but but it didn't work because they claimed you'll do things they really couldn't do or or at least didn't do at the level I needed. So I think that's really interesting. Did you but have you ever been on a label or have you always been on your own? No, I've never really been on a label. So that's that's that's really cool because you know a lot of people have such a misapprehension of what a label is and what it isn't.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

That's very different now than what it was 30 years ago.

Joey Stuckey 24:35

Well, you don't see artist development anymore, really. And you know, and the other the other problem is that I think of labels uh essentially as banks. They're gonna loan you money based on a a gamble that you're gonna do well. Yeah, but but but the all the money that you get up front that you think is free money, that comes back to them plus some before you see anything.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

That's for sure.

Joey Stuckey 24:59

So, you know, you need to you need to keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

So, so now uh I'm and they're usually, by the way, also gonna own your masters probably forever or a long time.

Joey Stuckey 25:09

Listen, the contracts are terrible. I mean, I you know, I I have an entertainment attorney and I'm pretty well versed in uh all the legalese and stuff, partly because it fascinates me and I have the kind of brain that that digests that kind of information well. But even so, I still send everything I have to a lawyer uh and uh uh he's making more money than I am, that's for sure. And uh and with less overhead, which you know, if he wasn't my cousin, I'd be mad. He actually does give me a discount, uh, but it's it's 500 bucks an hour instead of seven. Oh, yeah, yeah. But anyway, when uh this this independent spirit that many of us have, and uh, you know, by by temperament and by necessity, I would say, um must be a a large factor in you, along with uh Eileen, um creating this indie collaborative. So tell me a little bit about that and uh and what that mission is and how to be part of that. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Yeah, Eileen and I started uh co-founded the Indie Collaborative uh uh 11 years ago in uh 2015. We had been going, we didn't really know each other that much. She's a musical theater uh writer, right um, lyricist, and so on, uh, with her sister who writes the music, um, and based in New York City. Her sister's in California, but Eileen is in New York City. And we had bumped into each other at various like Grammy events, you know, get togethers. I used to be in the New York chapter. I I switched to the Nashville chapter, but anyway, I used to go to the New York Chapter.

Joey Stuckey 26:40

Where do you live now, Grant? Are you in where are you now?

SPEAKER_03 26:42

I live in uh Rhode Island.

Joey Stuckey 26:44

Oh, okay. I'm there I'm gonna come visit you.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

You're always welcome. We have a a really nice guest house too.

Joey Stuckey 26:51

As long as you've got a bathtub and some jello, we're straight. I can I can make that work.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

You want the bathtub filled with jello or just separate?

Joey Stuckey 26:59

Well, that's my preference, you know, but I'll work with whatever I gotta work with. It makes it a little softer.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

It's a walk-in shower, so probably it could only get about an inch on the Yeah.

Joey Stuckey 27:07

Well, I guess I'll bring an air mattress.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Uh but but we met each other a few times at these events, you know, people would do social events. The Grammys had events, of course, they had events, and then people would during when it was the time for when people were promoting their Grammy projects, you know, their entries into the Grammys, they would have events. And we went to some of those too, you know. And uh when when that time of year is over, everybody gets, you know, you go back to your corners, your respective corners, and life goes back to normal for, you know, for until the next Grammy season comes around. Right. But but what we found was um that we missed it, you know, we missed seeing our colleagues and and musical friends. Because we, you know, we did events in New York and LA and other places around the country. And uh it's it's cost a lot of money to go to all that stuff. But you know, if you're if you're promoting your own thing too, then you're you know, you have an incentive to go and press the flesh and you know share your project with other other Grammy voters. But so that year when it ended in 2014, we both had the same, we didn't realize it because we didn't really know each other that well, but we both had the same feeling of loss. Like we wish we could have events like these all the time, not just and not just about the Grammys, not about the Grammys at all, but just about getting musicians together and sharing, you know, playing a song or two, and then uh, you know, talking about what we do with other people to become to form kind of a a community. You know, musicians don't really have well, sometimes they do, but largely, especially indies, you know, you know, you're you're doing your own thing. You're playing in clubs or wherever you're playing, and or maybe just at home recording, you don't you're not really part of a community, even if you're in a place like New York, which is amazing. So we decided we would we sat down one day and we we both had the same idea and we thought, we'll just let's make kind of like a club, you know, that's free to join, and we'll call it the Indie Collaborative, because what we found out was when these events happened, people would talk to each other and go, Oh, you write lyrics, but you don't write music. Well, I write music, but I I don't really write lyrics, you know. So why don't we write a song together? So form a collaboration. So that was our goal was to make it a place where you know we could build a community and people could find collaborators of all kinds. Maybe you need a producer, you know, to produce a track of yours or a co-writer or whatever. And so we did an event uh in June of 2015 in New York City, and we didn't know, we sat there, you know, like we got the room arranged, and we didn't know if anybody was gonna show up for real. And we had this room, and and it as soon as the doors opened, the place was packed. We had like 75 people in a room that was probably made for 50 people.

Joey Stuckey 29:59

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

And one by one, people got up and shared what they were doing, played either a song or a bit of a song, if it was, you know, 20-minute song. You don't play the whole thing, but um it was like this amazing revelatory experience. And so we we codified it and made an actual organization and you know, website and all that kind of stuff. And and now we have more than 2,000 members, and they're from they represent every kind of music you could imagine, and from every continent of the world except Antarctica.

Joey Stuckey 30:33

Well, I'm sure there's a penguin out there somewhere that wants to be, you know, part of it. You know, right about uh fishing. Um, but it's that's fantastic. And and you know, you can find I I myself, um you were one of the people in this conversation. Now it's been a minute since since I had this conversation, so my memory is not perfect on this, but you were definitely one of the people I talked to about this. You know, my weakness is obviously graphic design. And uh one of the places I kind of went to look for someone to help me do that better was the indie collaborative. And you've got all these different, you know, you've got all these different people you can you can look up their profile and and see, you know, who has the other. So so that really that was really helpful for me because um, you know, I just I just it doesn't impact me. I don't, I don't know how to I don't know how to care about it. I don't I mean I care that I want it to be good, I care in that respect, in that in that sense, but I don't really have any real way of transmitting what the music's about visually. I just I just don't I just don't know how to do that. And like I say, the art just doesn't impact me. So uh which is which is kind of funny because uh we got a chance to go to Paris for 36 hours when I was on tour in Europe, and we we hopped over and saw a friend of mine, and uh and uh and and this guy came up to us in security and uh said, Hey, you're in the wrong line. And we're like, Oh, what have we done? You know, and he saw me with with the with the cane and stuff, and apparently uh, you know, people with a disability get uh to jump the line. And you know, I that's fine with it. I'm okay, I'm okay with that. A little nepotism. Uh so uh they put me about a foot and a half in front of the Mona Lisa, and so there's these hundreds of people. Uh I I that may be a little bit too high, but there's a lot of people standing back behind this rope. And I'm like, I could reach out and touch the Mona Lisa if I wanted to, which of course I would not do. And I thought, how ironic is it that I have the best seat in the house, can't see this thing. I mean, it's just but but I I enjoy we got a nice selfie, and my wife was mesmerized and it was a good day. But anyway, um that's nice. I do want to I do want to say that the any collaborative in that that regard, you know, just being able to look at other people's skill sets, and I mean, it's really fantastic. And I know that you usually have a couple events a year, like there's one usually in New York, and if I'm not mistaken, at Carnegie Hall is one of the venues, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah, we've done two shows at Carnegie Hall and two uh up uptown a little bit um at Lincoln Center.

Joey Stuckey 33:07

Oh, nice. I I've been to both those places to to hear music and uh but never performed there. It's definitely on the bucket list. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

I mean, if it wasn't if it wasn't for the indie collaborative, I wouldn't have been able to play Carnegie Hall twice so far, you know. So there's strength in numbers. Absolutely. And I mean, that's what IC is about. And you know, anybody can join it. If you just go to ndcollaborative.com, you can join. That was my next question.

Joey Stuckey 33:33

That was my now. Let me let me switch gears on you a second and say you you have done something that I think is is profound. Uh, and what it what it is is that you are creating uh musical um physical product that is really sophisticated. You're not just getting some songs, you get this experience with you, right? Right. And I really think, you know, uh I I'm I'm I was born a warrior uh because you know, brain tumor survivor almost died a bunch of times. So I I I have a mind that uh I wouldn't I I'm not I'm not fearful and or or worrying in that sense, but I chew on things and think about things a lot. And uh when you when you can't see, uh you know, you got a lot of room for thinking. Uh because you're not looking at nothing. You know, there's there's nothing really taking up your consciousness. There's no distraction. There's no I'm just I'm just thinking about stuff. So I and I ask my wife sometimes, like, hey, what do you think about it? She's like, nothing. I'm like, how can you be thinking about nothing? I'm thinking about 50,000 things right now. And so anyway, my point is that one of the things that I've kind of come to terms with in the modern music business, at least from my perspective, which is somewhat educated, um, is the fact that when we, you know, music has become a little more disposable, specifically here in America, but in Western, Western culture in general, I think Europe still has, I think Europe still makes music a little bit more important in their daily lives than we do. But at any rate, you know, when I make a record, um, if I expect to make money off streaming, I'm living in an alternate reality that bears no resemblance to this one. And also, um, you know, people say, why do you make a CD? Well, really what it is, is we are selling souvenirs of people's time with us uh when we have merchant shows. Yes. And and that's a very powerful way of connection, and that's really important. But you have taken this to another level um you know beyond what I've done or or really anyone I know has done. And you have created these works of art, these box sets that are just incredible. And and I want you to talk a little bit about your current record and and this experience that you're giving people, because that's what we're selling these days. We're not really selling the music as much as we are the experience, in my mind. So yeah, you're telling me about that.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Exactly right. Yeah, well, as you said, like this whole Spotify and digital music in general thing has uh had dramatic consequences for independent artists. Uh also for the big guys. That's why it costs uh that's why they they are constantly touring and charging three to a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars a seat to go see them. I'll tell you.

Joey Stuckey 36:22

And good seats sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

No, I know. So so that's good for them. They can charge that and people will pay it, but they won't pay $300 to see you or me. Yeah.

Joey Stuckey 36:33

So uh my mom unless something really weird's happened. If I come, if I come dressed in suspenders and nothing else, maybe. Just how about just a barrel? Yeah, you don't have a barrel. Maybe we can borrow one.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

My my Kentucky ancestors would definitely wear.

Joey Stuckey 36:48

You've got some barrels. Okay. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah. But anyway, um I, you know, 10 years ago, I started accidentally, I wrote a song called uh this is a weird songwriting story. So I'm writing a song and I wanted to have it to be like I've done this. The idea, the concept was, you know, I've done this and I've done that, and I've been here and I've been there, and I've seen this and I've seen that, but I've never the payoff line was gonna be, and it just popped out of me, but I've never seen the rain. And I was thought, well, that's that's good, that's a placeholder line. I'm gonna change that eventually. So I started writing this song and I wrote all the verses. You know, I've been here and I've been there, all that kind of stuff. And some of them are kind of poetic and profound in a way, some are more um rooted in reality. And but try as I might, for weeks I couldn't replace that line, never seen the rain, because I could find other lines that fit there, you know, musically, they fit there. But they just didn't feel like that when I sang it to that melody. It just didn't feel right. So I said, Well, crap, I gotta, I'm gonna keep the line. So now how does the song make any sense? Everybody's if you can see, you've seen the rain, right? Yeah. Unless you live on the moon or something, but nobody lives on the moon. So not that we know of. No people, yeah, yeah. Bacteria or something. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So well, maybe it's so I thought to myself, well, maybe it's an exaggeration. Like it hasn't rained in so long that you would say something like, I've, you know, we just never it just never rains here, you know? Yeah, that's a that's a common exaggeration. Of course it does rain, but obviously it's like in Arizona, it's infrequent. It's so infrequent that it's like, oh, it never rains here, you know, this never happens. But so then I thought, well, what kind of an event would be that it hasn't rained in a really long time? Obviously, a drought of some kind. And then I remembered something about the dust bowl from school. You know, that's what a big drought that happened in the 1930s in the Great Plains, where it and I looked into it, I just got on my computer and Googled it, you know, because I couldn't remember much from school, uh, from you know, 20 years before, and um or more, more than 20 years. And I Googled it and I looked up the Dust Bowl and I sat there for five hours reading about the Dust Bowl. And um, I became so fascinated by it, all the history of it, that I thought, I'm I'm I'm gonna make this song about the Dust Bowl, but I think I'm gonna make the whole album about the Dust Bowl. Every song will have some aspect of it, of its history told through, you know, regular people's eyes. Uh, there could be love songs, you know, a farmer and his wife or a rancher, you know, going through that terrible travail together where the crops wouldn't grow and you know, the dust storms were so severe that you couldn't see the at high noon, you couldn't, it was like pitch black at night. And people would get lost in their own front yard. People would literally have to tie a rope to themselves and their and their the little gate by their front doors that if they went outside, they could find their way back into the house. Some people literally got lost and buried alive because it was something. That's that's wild. No, I really cannot. It's almost like biblical when you think of the like a plague of locusts or you know you're right. So there's so many great stories that that changed my whole life. That one day when I had that weird songwriting experience, because it it turned a key in a lock that opened up what I do now, which is now I've I'm just completing the fourth one of these um theme albums. The first one was, of course, Dust Bowl. And um, and that was also the first one where where I really invested heavily in hiring a lot of really good players, like not good players, great players in that in Nashville, the best, really the best. And um and they're not it's not that expensive to get the best players in Nashville, honestly, it it's not doesn't cost a million dollars. I don't have a million dollars. So uh and then uh the only problem with these theme records is it takes a long time because I do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of a lot of books, a lot of websites, a lot of you know, everything you could think of, documentaries that have been made. Um the next one I made was called Appalachia. So it's about you know that part of our country where most of my family's from. You know, most of my family would be from eastern Kentucky, but Appalachia is bigger than that, you know, and the whole state of West Virginia is in Appalachia. That's the only state where all of it is in Appalachia. But of course, it also covers uh, you know, the Appalachia and the western parts of Virginia and North and South Carolina, and the eastern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, and even a little bit of the middle, uh bottom middle of uh Pennsylvania. Because the mountains go up into there.

Joey Stuckey 41:52

I didn't know that. Of course, geography is not my strength.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

It's hard to see a map.

Joey Stuckey 41:58

Yeah, yeah. I'd like I'd like to blame my my poor geography on blindness. I I don't know that it's true, but we're gonna go with it.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Well, I can't imagine uh being good at it without being able to visualize it.

Joey Stuckey 42:09

Well, I hope that that's true because I that's my spelling and geography are my two kryptonites. Everything else I'm pretty good at. And I'd like to blame it on somebody else. Anyway, go ahead. Go back to your story.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

Yeah. So I made a and when I made Appalachia, I decided I'm there's so much research here that I'm gonna write a book that goes along with it that explains why there's a song about, you know, uh a coal miner, for example. Right. Like, why does that matter? What does it have to do with Appalachia? Well, obviously it's a lot to do with it, but there's more than just the fact that it happened there. There's a whole history of rise and fall of coal and all, you know, all the associated stories that go with that. So I wrote this book and it was about 40 pages, and I also released it on vinyl as well as a CD. And I made the that was the first box set that I did. And that was really well received. Uh so then I started, and each one of these takes two to three years. Oh, sure. So so then the next one I did, which was released two years ago, was uh Mississippi, which is about the uh the river, not the state. Okay. It involves the state a little bit, but it's mostly the river. Yeah, yeah. And uh so all of these have the subtitle of American stories. So there's Dust Bowl, American Stories, then Appalachia, American Stories, then Mississippi, American Stories. And it seems like, and by the way, the new one is Wild West American Stories, the one that's gonna come out this summer.

Joey Stuckey 43:32

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

Uh it seems like each one gets bigger. So uh more songs, and the books get bigger. So like Dust Bowl didn't even have a book, had a little pamphlet that went inside a CD. Yeah. Um but it was like 12 songs, and then I think uh Appalachi was 13 songs, and Mississippi was 16 songs, and now this one is almost 20. Oh my gosh. The new one. Oh, it's I'm gonna release Wild West uh in September. September, uh, although people are already ordering it on my website, but it's gonna be officially released in September.

Joey Stuckey 44:06

And what's that? Let's just get that in there real quick.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Yeah, it's my my website is Grant-Molloy, M-A-L-O-Y-Smith.com. And then you'll see, you can click on music and see all the records that are there, including Wild West. Um, but it's gonna be two vinyl LPs. Wow. In a box set with uh a hardcover book that's almost a hundred pages long. Oh my gosh.

Joey Stuckey 44:30

And uh also are there are there are there drawings and photos in there, uh Grandma? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

There's all kinds of um, there's all kinds of historical photos because you know the Wild West encompasses it's the whole 19th century, basically. You know, starting at the very beginning in 1803, we bought the Louisiana Territory. Thomas Jefferson bought it from Napoleon Bonaparte. We bought it from France, and we doubled the size of the country with a stroke of uh uh Jefferson's pen. And then he sent the Lewis and Clark to explore what we just bought. Okay, we bought this huge thing. Uh, what did we get? No one's been out there. I mean, there were some fur traders that brought stories back, but no one really helped. Yeah, exactly. But no one really knew, and no one had made maps or anything. Right. Um, people were thinking it's empty. No, it's not empty. There's millions of people out there, but they're Native Americans of all different tribes and you know, and uh affiliations. So, but we don't know anything. So he sent them on that expedition. There's a song about Sakagawea, who was the the Native American woman who she was like 16 years old with a baby on her back, guiding them or helping to guide them thousands of miles through the wilderness. And she was she had been abducted as a child. She was from some of the places that they went through. And so she spoke many of the languages that uh that were spoken. And it's a good thing that I don't know if they would have made it back alive without her as a as an like an ambassador, you know, through the Native American controlled areas. Because, you know, white people weren't necessarily terribly popular, you know, in in certain places because they come in and then all of a sudden there used to be 10. Now there's a thousand, now there's ten thousand. Well, there's the blanket full of smallpox too that probably didn't help out. Yeah. So there's songs about all of that. There's songs about uh what happened afterwards, which was when uh uh the wagon trains started and people started going across the country to fill in, you know, to emigrate, to to set up shop under the home of the stories about about the uh the famous outlaws.

Joey Stuckey 46:40

You got any outlaws?

SPEAKER_03 46:41

Yeah, there's a couple of songs about lawmen and and bad guys, you know, outlaws. There's one about um uh lawmen that's called John Henry Holiday. That's the actual name of Doc Holiday. I didn't know that. Who was you know what? He was a young, uh very charismatic young guy, very glib, very articulate, uh from Georgia, where you are. Oh and he he went to dental school up in Philadelphia, became a dentist as a young man. And shortly thereafter, he he started a little, you know, dental uh shop of his own um office, and then shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with consumption, which is what we call tuberculosis today, you know, a lung, a lung problem, very big lung problem. That was fatal back then. I mean, you were not gonna live too long. So he knew it was a death sentence. He knew he wasn't gonna probably live to 30. So they said, you know, the best thing you can do is leave the east coast because of the the air is very humid. Go like Texas, Arizona, go out there where it's dry. You'll live longer, you know, because of your lungs. So he did. He went to Texas and then he met Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Wyatt Earp was a very famous lawman, and uh and he became he they became fast friends. And Doc Holiday was a an amazingly good shot with a gun. Amazingly good shot with a gun. And he was, I think he was incredibly brave too, because he knew he was gonna die. He almost had a death wish in a lot of ways. So he was not afraid to step, he saved White Earth's life at least twice that we know about. They were to they were together in the shootout at the OK Corral.

Joey Stuckey 48:18

Yeah. So I've seen the movie Tomstone, that's about as much as I know.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

Yeah. So there's a song I I went on maybe a little bit too long about that, but there's a really cool song, uh uh song in his voice, basically. Yeah. Uh and there's another one about Bass Reese, who's a famous um, he was as a young man, he was a black slave, and he escaped. He escaped, he escaped to freedom, and he became the first black deputy U.S. Marshal uh in history. And he was uh amazingly good at capturing bad guys. That's what the marshals do. They go look for guys, fugitives, right? Fugitives injustice, people who escape from jail or they know they've committed robberies, they just can't get them. So he he was great at that. He had a very long, distinguished career um at getting the bad guys and bringing them back. He didn't kill very many of them, but he could. He was in like like uh Doc Holiday, he was great with a gun. He could shoot while he was riding a horse, which is not so easy.

Joey Stuckey 49:17

That sounds that sounds pretty tough. I mean, just getting on the horse is hard for me, but uh imagine. I have a question. So like like when you do this, this uh I think calling it a theme is is not not really appropriate because it's more than that. But when you when you come up with, okay, this is what the record's gonna be about, I mean, it sounds like an enormous amount of research. Do the song comes but my question to you is this do the songs come before or after the research? Like, how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 49:48

Because uh kind of in the middle of it. Okay, because that's I'll get into it. Yeah, uh research a topic. Like I I sort of have to do a top-level overview to familiarize myself with what are the you know, you could write a hundred very large books about the American 19th century. Sure. You know, so I have to decide what are the key things that I want to I gotta touch on in 18 or 20 songs. That's not very many songs, like you could write a thousand songs about what happened in the West in the 1900s uh eighteen hundreds. So, but you got to pick the ones that will resonate most with people and that are you know the most significant, like the Gold Rush or the Transcontinental Railroad or the Telegraph, but connected the country, both of which connected the country.

Joey Stuckey 50:32

Yeah, telegraph's a big deal, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Exactly. Suddenly, you know, the Pony Express was there for only 18 months where they had these fast riders, and every 20 miles they would they they jump on a horse and with their mailbag and race as fast as they could for 20 miles and then get off. And it was like a relay race. Then they'd hand the mailbag to the next guy and he would tear off so they could deliver mail between Missouri, which is in the middle of the country, all the way out to Sacramento, California, in just a like two days, which normally would take three months or four months back then. Yeah, very dangerous to do, by the way, too, because of uh, you know, Native Americans, not all of which were unfriendly. I'm not, I don't mean that they were all unfriendly, but it was it was also just dangerous. You had to cross, they didn't have any roads or bridges, you had to cross streams. Yeah, exactly. You could die if you could just fall down and break your neck, and there's no one to help you and no way to signal for help, right? It's impossible. No TV, no, no televisions, no radios, no, no internet, no nothing, right? So you're on your own. Um, but the minute that telegraph was connected between the east and the west coast, the Pony Express went bankrupt the next day. Wow. Because you could suddenly send a message in you know three seconds instead of paying a lot of money to have people.

Joey Stuckey 51:50

Well, you know, our much of the recording industry that you and I take part of is is uh all thanks to the telegraph as well. I mean, the when we uh you know, the the the concept of of uh of transmitting audio and then and you know back then, of course, it was you know tones, I guess, but um but but but yeah, I mean we the the our whole business, you know, really uh in many ways goes back to that. I mean, we're still using in professional studios, uh well, I should say not professional, but commercial studios. Yeah, we use we use TT cables, which are from leftover from the telegraphs and and and telephone operators patching people together, you know, right and that sort of stuff. And you know, we use all kinds of different things. How much of um because you do so much uh of your art, you know, um yourself, you've got the label, you've you're obviously the the uh the art the artist, you you hire the people you need. How much of the sonic uh character of the record do you worry about? How much how involved do you get in the recording process, the engineering process, the microphone selection and stuff like that? Do you hire just a great producer, or how much of that do you involve yourself in? Because it seems like you're a renaissance man that can do it all.

SPEAKER_03 53:05

So you know Yeah, well, um I every record I do more. Like this record, I completely produced it myself. Nice. Um, and I hired players, of course, of course, and uh and had them play in different states, mostly Tennessee. Um, but that's changed. Like when I first made Dust Bowl, I did hire a a producer, Jeff Silverman out of Nashville. Oh yeah. And and I learned I learned a lot from him. He's a great producer. And I watched him, you know, uh when we brought people into the studio to to you know to to cut the tracks. So basically the way I work, I'll back up just a little bit, then I'll get back to the where this point. Yeah. I I normally I write songs and I have my own recording studios at my at in my basement of my home. So I make my own demos. And um, but now I don't just make demos. Now I make the basic track, you know. So but then I'll bring it to a real studio. Well, my I have a real studio, but you know what I mean, like an e an outside studio, like in Nashville, and uh and bring people in. And um sometimes we'll cut the tracks live, but usually we we we use my basic track, at least as a starting point. Yeah. So so the when I first made Dust Bowl, uh Jeff and I produced it together, but I I give him more credit than me. I mean, he really produced it, and I was like the assistant producer. Yeah and I but he he laughs now and says, I really taught you a lot, didn't I? Because every time you make a record, you hire me less.

Joey Stuckey 54:36

That is the danger.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

Now, when we made Appalachia, it was a weird situation because it was during 2020 that we made it and we couldn't go into any studios. No, and no one could come into Jeff's studio, yeah. And um, so we did that one remotely. So what happened was the the you know, the really good players that I have, I mentioned some of them earlier, you know, they all had enough money. They couldn't work either. So they bought recording equipment if they didn't already have some. They bought, you know, a nice interface, some really nice microphones. They had their room retreated so it sounded good because they're playing acoustic instruments like Dobro and Mandolin and fiddle and that kind of thing. Right. Um, and that we remotely we use Zoom to talk to each other and see each other, and we were remotely tracked. They were in their home studios, and Jeff was in his studio, and I was in my studio, and we were using Zoom to all look at each other, and then they would uh record the track along with our, you know, with a the basic track I had made, and then uh they would send their parts in. And then I did I did the comping and uh editing, basic editing, and then sent the my edits and my comps to Jeff, and he would put them into the main the main Pro Tool session there at his place. Right, right.

Joey Stuckey 55:51

I I love what you know the thing about um our our modern industry uh honestly is is a wonderful thing because uh you can collaborate with people all over the world by trading files. Now, you have to get certain things right. Uh everybody needs to know what the sample rate and the bit rate is. And you know, you gotta you gotta you got you got some some some little nitpicky things that you gotta make sure is right, and you also have to make sure that people aren't sending you truncated files that you have to drag into place. You want them to send you a contiguous wave file so you can drop it in and it lines up, you know. And I can't tell you how many people that are on the more novice side of things, like, oh, your file is not lining up in my doll. You must have chopped something off. Send me a building.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

That's my worst pet peeve, but I I'm happy to say that it hardly ever happens with the people I work with.

Joey Stuckey 56:42

Well, well, yeah, and you're you're working with you know guys that this is all I do. Yeah, um, but but you know, I'll occasionally get uh something, and I have a percussionist down here who is a genius. Uh, he's for the Dominican Republic, he is one of the most gifted, talented musicians I've ever met. His his tone is so good with congas and hand drums, he's a great drummer as well, but that that I'm literally spoiled. Like there are few people in the world, and I mean this with absolute sincerity, that I would listen to. I mean, I he's so good that I'm I'm just ruined. I mean, it's just like you know, some you can have a guy that's that's yeah, I mean, I you know, there's a guy that has a doctorate in percussion that is a uh an acquaintance of mine, but he's just not as good as my friend. Now, my friend is uh a world traveler and has gone and like lived with tribes in Africa to study how they do their hand drums. This guy's like a real deal percussionist. But my point is I had a client uh in another state send me a file, and I thought, God, am I just stupid? Like I it it doesn't line up, but it does line up, but it doesn't. And so I asked my drummer friend, I was like, can you make sense of this? He's like, no. So I was like, okay, it's not me. So so but anyway, I I that is the thing that I I'm really you know that you really have to be nitpicky about, is like, yeah, you know, matters. And and files that are labeled where you can understand what they are, like guitar one and guitar two helps me not at all. Like, tell me something, arpeggio and chorus, something exactly just give me some data. But anyway, I I think that's so interesting that that you do that. And you know, there's always a place for the bigger studios, like what I do. Um, you know, I have a building with multiple rooms and all, you know, big console and all this stuff. There's always a place for that. Certain things are real hard to get uh right without a more a more elaborate uh thing. I think I think drums and horn sections and things like that are you know trickier. But you know, with the guitar and a piano and some vocals and you know, you know, even the strings and stuff. I mean, you you know, you can do a really a lot of things remotely uh these days. So it's it's it's it's changed, but I think it's changed in a positive way. And I do there's there are programs that I'm just now kind of getting involved with, like uh this program Audio Movers, which is allows these you know multi multi-channel studios all over the world to connect and do real-time sessions, like no lag, no lag. And you know, right now it's not super accessible for the blind, but we're hoping that's gonna change. Let me move you to uh I want to make sure that you've told me every told everybody everything you want to tell them about your box sets because uh I think everybody should get one. Uh I think every every home, every home should have it's like the Gideon Bible. Every home should have one.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

You should have uh two cars in every garage, a chicken in every pot, and one smith box set in your bedroom.

Joey Stuckey 59:34

Yeah. So I mean, but but I mean this, it's so exciting. I think what you're doing is so clever. Um and you know, and and obviously, as we've chatted today, I think everyone would be uh impressed with the amount of effort that goes into what you're creating. You're not just you know you're not just making a record and saying, here, here's some music. Uh this this is a more I mean this is a big experience. And I want to I want to ask you about something um that uh I may have misremembered, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that I heard from you that this record, the the new one, will not be on the streaming services.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:16

Ah, I'm glad you said that because I was I was saving that to mention, yeah. That's true. It's the first thing I've well, since you know, since there has been streaming. Yeah, um, this is the first thing I've put out or will put out that will not be on.

Joey Stuckey 1:00:31

I'm not gonna put it out digitally. But tell me, tell me your thought process behind this because I I I don't I I think I think that's a really interesting choice. And and I I I actually think it's the right choice, but uh especially for because of the kind of experience you're providing with the box set. Yeah, uh, but tell me a little bit about your thought behind you know process behind this as a music business decision.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

Well, but I'm investing an enormous amount of money in the in the books and the and you know, the vinyl LPs and the the box that everything goes into, the artwork, the way it looks, the way it feels, the weight of it, the texture of it, and of course, the music that's behind it all. That's the that's the essential IP, you know, of the whole thing. But I want people to experience it, and you're just not gonna, if you're just streaming a random song once in a while. You're just not gonna get it. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get any any money from that either. The only thing it's gonna do is stop people from buying anything. So what's the point? If I was Taylor Swift, you know, and I made $10 million an hour on Spotify and Apple Music, that would be a horrible situation, yeah. But I'm not, and and most people are not. 99.999% of people are not like that. So at least I don't see the point in it. I don't, I really don't see the point. You know, five years ago, maybe four, I did a show and uh somewhere in tennis, I think it was Knoxville, and uh after the show, um, you know, people come over to your merch table, you know, like you said earlier, when people experience you and you're playing and they hear your voice and they, you know, they watch you and they hear you, you know, there's a connection there, and then they want to talk to you afterwards, and people come to you. It's like a magnet. Suddenly you're accessible because you've, you know, you've left your heart out there singing and you know, making them feel something. People come come to you and they want to touch you, they want to be around you. And uh that's a that's one of the greatest things about being a musician and playing live. That's for me. I don't know. I just're 100% right. You're I feel so good about that. And I want people to do, but anyway, at this show, I went to the merch table and some people came by and bought a few things, but CDs were kind of on the way out. People were not buying, and streaming was really ascendant at this time. Yeah, and uh this lady came over and she's fiddling with her purse, trying to you know get her uh get her wallet out to buy some stuff, and she's saying, Oh, I just love you so much, and I love the I want to hear that song again about whatever I don't remember, some song she really liked. And and then she she looks at me and she goes, Wait a minute, are you on Spotify? I'm like, uh well, I can't lie. Yes. She said, Oh, and then she puts her wallet back in her purse and goes, and she just turns around and goes, Oh, I'll just go on Spotify.

Joey Stuckey 1:03:22

Oh, that's oh my god. I'm being granted, I'm being triggered. I'm being triggered at this moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

That just was one of those turning point moments where I said, Oh my god, the party's over.

Joey Stuckey 1:03:41

We are we are sort of inherently lazy, and I have to admit, much as I despise streaming, uh, I use it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Yeah, well, the thing is, you know, they to they took the CD players out of the cars, they took them out of the laptop computers, they took, you know what I mean? So we're most people don't even have a way to play a CD.

Joey Stuckey 1:03:59

Well, the thing, you're you're absolutely right about that. I'll tell you that I think from a business, music business standpoint, what you're doing is catching, or actually, you're at the beginning of a wave because I have noticed here in my little town, which much as I love my hometown of Macon, Georgia, uh home of little Richard, notice reading, and many others, uh, we do not have a real musical infrastructure here for success. Uh, we just don't. I mean, we we we we have all the talent in the world, uh, and yet there's just not enough things for us to thrive. I mean, if I have an issue with my analog equipment that I spend way too much money on, uh, someone has to come down from Nashville or like past Atlanta and charge me two hours of drive time. It's just a whole thing. So, anyway, my point though is that I have been seeing um that this little record shop in my hometown is doing really well. And they primarily sell vinyl. And they do sell some other things. Um, they do sell like posters and some t-shirts and stuff, but they they've in the past, I think they've been open 10 years, something like that. Um, and they have actually doubled in size. And um, it I I felt like that was indicative of a shift. And one of the things I've heard, not enough to be able to guarantee that this is a thing, but enough to make me suspicious is that Gen Z is starting to feel a bit ticked off that they don't own any of the music they consume. Yeah, and they they they are becoming a little weary, even though it's convenient of the utility what we what we in music biz weirdos utility model or the subscription model of streaming. You know, you don't own any movies, you don't own any content. And you know, there's been a Fura a couple months ago. I don't know if you like Star Trek at all, but I'm a huge fan. And and there there was a Fura a couple months ago that Netflix removed. I think all the movies from from their sort of them is Netflix or Hulu or something. I can't remember which one, but it's one of my favorite Netflix. And so all the Star Trek fans are up in arms because now this the movie they could just go watch anytime is gone. And so now, like if they don't have the DVD or they don't have the Blu-ray, uh if they don't have the disease like Joey has of being a collector, uh then uh you know that that option is gone, and and you have no real power to change it. And so there's there's this, I think there's a shift coming, and this is gonna lead me to my last question with you, but there's a shift coming where people want a different experience and a physical experience again. Right, right. And and I tell you, you know, I was a child of the 80s, and when I was 12 years old or 13 years old, uh, you know, my friends and I would get together and we would bring over the new album we just bought. Yeah. And we all sit down. I had the best stereo system, so we'd all come to my house and we'd all sit down for hours, and literally each person would play their new record.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

Yeah, yeah.

Joey Stuckey 1:07:02

And we would sit there and just it was an experience, it was an event. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

That's an experience that's large. I mean, it's basically gone, right?

Joey Stuckey 1:07:10

It it is, and and I think, you know, as a blind kid with a with a turncable, I I I think I probably single-handedly broke Michael Jackson's career because I had to buy four or five copies of Thriller because when I wanted to play Billy Jean over and over again, trying to find the needle and put it on the right group was not really something the blind guy is suited for. It's hard for anybody, really. It is I scratch those records up, man. But what I my point though is I love the fact that you've created something to be listened to start to finish. Yeah, it's you know, it's an experience, and and I think that's so brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:45

So I'm gonna let me just mention one thing. Um, of course, I understand the fact that a lot of people are buying this, they're already ordering it on my website. They're buying it, and some of them don't even have a record player or even a CD player. So what I'm and but they want the book, they want the whole experience, they want the physical thing in their hands, you know. Interesting. But what I'm doing is I'm including uh the uh uh a link where they can digitally download the music that they can put it on their phone. But server. Yeah, yeah. Basically they can they and they can have it, they can have the files and they can put them on their phone or whatever they play music from.

Joey Stuckey 1:08:24

Nice, okay, very cool. That is I'm glad you I'm glad you brought that to my attention. I think that's fantastic. And because that is the way people, you know, consume things and and and and and you know the the other thing is that um with with a Spotify, and I mean, you know, we typically vilify them the most, but there are other culprits as well. Oh, yeah, for sure. But everyone loves to hate Spotify, so that's just what you get. But anyway, it's easy. It's easy to work I know. So but the thing is, I mean, you do sort of get the the problem with with the streaming services enjoying an artist uh is you know, the the goal of the service is to keep you on the service as long as they possibly can and to advertise to you, um uh, you know, or or or to make you want to spend more money or whatever to to can to make you consume their whatever they're selling. So um they want your time. And a lot of times what will happen is once they've sort of played your song or two or album or whatever, they want to push you into, well, you know, you you should maybe enjoy this artist, and they push you over there. Yeah, so it really kind of becomes a conflict of interest in a way, um, you know, having your music up there um and and and being pushed into because you know, radio curation is terrestrial radio, is a little bit different than hour curation. Right. Um, which which moves me to the the final point that I'm gonna take up your time with today is I and I I want to warn you ahead of time, uh I I do this to all my guests because I think it's important. So if you have to drink after we're done, know that I feel know that I feel sorry for you and I apologize. But how do you feel? What is your what are your thoughts on our current disruptor of AI? I have to ask you.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Wow. That's a that's a that's probably another half hour discussion.

Joey Stuckey 1:10:06

That's a tough one. I have I have a lot of thoughts about it, uh, but uh but yeah, well, I'm I have two minds about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:16

Um I think like like any new technology, it can be a good tool, but like any good technology, it can also be used for evil, you know? Sure. Like we we invented uh how to do a nuclear reaction, which can you know provide power to the world, but it can also make bombs that destroy the world, you know what I mean? Yeah, so every invention has uh uh could can be a double-edged sword. It can be obviously wielded for good or for evil. And so I'm not totally against it, but I'm very wary about it. I'm hearing that, like we mentioned Spotify, but it's not just them. I've I've heard rumors that um that maybe more than half of the music that's uploaded every day to these services are generated by AI. And they love it because they don't have to pay royalties to anybody.

Joey Stuckey 1:11:09

Yeah, that is that is definitely the the scuttle butt. Um, and I have made the past year uh like you've deep dive to the dust ball. I I I've been deep diving into artificial intelligence because I really think it's it's a paradigm shifting technology.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Yeah, yeah.

Joey Stuckey 1:11:27

Uh it's not just the difference between a landline phone and a cell phone kind of shift. It's a huge shift. And of course, you know, as a blind person, I can foresee, and pun intended, by the way, uh, I can foresee a usage of integrating me into the digital and physical world uh by AI being able to take the place of my eyes. So there's there's good in that. And there's a lot of people that have actually, I've been preaching that that should be done for the past 10 years. And it's finally being done. And we're moving away from more clunky, code-based uh accessibility solutions. So, you know, as you aptly say, it's it can be good or evil. But the but I will say that the the sort of two things that I keep, well, the three things that I keep coming back to is first of all, there is a lot of ambiguity around the exploitation of copywriting uh an AI work and and using it. Now, you know, the Library of Congress, and we have a whole episode of this podcast with my music attorney talking about this for those of you that want to check that out. But the the current copyright is that no solely generated piece of music uh being made by AI can be copywritten. There's some there's some uh nebulous language that says that perhaps the copyright office would consider a percentage of uh AI generated work uh copyrightable if you can prove that you were the generator and the AI was not. But what that percentage is, according to my music attorney, uh you will find out when a judge and 12 jurists tell you. So that that is that is that is very nebulous. So so from my perspective, and I've been saying this since Grammy Week of this year, by the way, uh, and nobody seemed to have the idea besides me, uh, was um you you can't exploit the copyright, so you're wasting your time. You you know theoretically, that means you cannot monetize it. Now, of course, you can get around that uh by not selling it as a as a song, but maybe putting it on your YouTube channel and monetizing the YouTube channel because you've got 10 million hits because of this song, so you're not monetizing the song, but you're monetizing advertising that comes to the YouTube. Or I mean there's there's there are workarounds I've you know, that's just the one that occurs to me. Uh, but the other thing is um, you know, I'm offended, frankly, uh, by the CEO of Sunos and others who say music's too hard to learn to play an instrument, and you know, and I'm just like everybody's gonna make music whether they know anything about it or not. I'm like, well, where's the value in that? So that, and then lastly, I will say, um, to your point, and again, this is show supposed to be about you, but I'm gonna say this anyway. Uh the point is that uh when you look at some of these tech corporations, uh, they by and large, and not everybody should be painted with the same brush, I'm aware of that, but by and large, the tech corporations have spent millions of dollars making sure that our government does not regulate them, that there are not guardrails in place to protect from the abuses of AI. I mean, they're currently, you know, I'm I'm a governor on the Grammy board uh here in Atlanta, um, and we we uh are are always advocating for the rights of creators. And so, you know, I'm I'm well aware that there are no federal laws in place uh to protect intellectual property vis-a-vis VAI. You've got places like you know, Tennessee that has the Elvis Act and some things like that, but again, they're not fully comprehensive. And then you read these 22-point manifestos that some of these tech companies put out, like, hey, the people that invented technology should be rulers of the world, and it just scares you to death. So you you're just like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:12

So what they're doing now is uh saying that uh if if you put any guardrails uh any restrictions on us, then China's gonna win. And so they're making it be like a like a national security thing that they get from trillionaires and can who control the whole universe.

Joey Stuckey 1:15:26

That's right. And it's so 1984 stuff. I mean, I just there are days I'm blind and I think blind and drunk are really bad, but there are days where I think, you know, a little a little bourbon might hit the spot. But in all seriousness, I just I just really uh I really I just wanted to say I I had to get your your your take on it. There are people that that use AI very creatively and cleverly as an assistant.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:51

So, you know, yes, that's how you should look at it. Um, not as a way to write songs for you. I mean, come on, man. What are you doing?

Joey Stuckey 1:16:00

Well, and and the thing is, I mean, uh Michael, I don't know if you if you know this gentleman, but one of our guests, um, Michael Binehorn, who uh worked with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden and Herbie Hancock and all these different ones, said, I'm paraphrasing, but basically he said what I've said, he just said it better, but he he said, you know, I don't think that AI will ever replace uh you know the human creativity because the AI has never lived, so it has nothing to tell you. It has it has nothing to say. It may be a nice simulacrum of music, but when you when you come down past the um you know, past the surface level, it won't give you the Grant Molloy Smith experience. It will not give you uh that that deep uh you know neat that that emotional content, that that human content. And that's where that's where it's about. So that's that's from my perspective anyway. That's you know that's my hope as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:58

I I hope that's true.

Joey Stuckey 1:17:00

Do you what what is your next what's the you've got this project coming out in September? Are you already planning your next adventure?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Yes.

Joey Stuckey 1:17:10

And and do we get a scoop on that today, or are you gonna keep it secret?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

No, I don't mind. It'll it'll take uh two or three years for me to get it out. So it's not like it doesn't really matter. Um part of the part of the this album, the Wild West album, is um the gold rush and silver rush that happened in the 1800s, you know, people flooded that they fled, I shouldn't say fled, but they emigrated in great numbers out to the western states because uh they heard rumors there was gold in the hills. There's gold in them hills and then the rivers and so on. And there was uh not everybody got rich, a few people did, and silver and copper and so on. Um but that also happened in Alaska in the Yukon. Wow, I didn't know that. That's a huge frontier. I've never I've I've been to 49 states, but Alaska's the one I have never been to. Get busy. And I think I think the next American Stories series uh series album should be called Alaska American Stories. And a lot of it will have to do with the Native peoples that are there that have been there, that the history, and it was owned by Russia before we got it. Right. Um and they didn't have a very good track record. I've done a little research already, just a little. And they took it over and they really abused the native peoples that were there. I mean, they really treated them badly, and um, and then they they were very happy when when uh they sold it to us. Um so I think um that will be my next record.

Joey Stuckey 1:18:39

Now, the good thing is your your visit to Alaska uh for research can be a tax write-off. Yes. So you should you should make it your mission to go to that 50th state.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:51

Yes. Oh, it is. It's it's definitely on my on my calendar. I'd like to go next year. I I'm doing some shows in Scotland next around this time next year, but I I hope I can uh I hope I can also get to Alaska. I I really want to.

Joey Stuckey 1:19:04

I have not been to Scotland either, but I've been I've been wanting to go, and I know that I'll get sucked into buying some tartan. So um, you know, I'll say my last name's Stucky, what you got for me, you know. But give me Oh, yeah. Give me the study.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:16

I have a lot of Scottish I'm my mother married a Smith, but uh she's her whole side of the family is all from they're Scots-Irish from uh you know who emigrated. They call them the Ulster Scots. They were Scots people that were moved into Ireland, to Northern Ireland and to Ulster, yeah uh uh to balance the religions back then before all that stuff happened. Yeah. The big the big war, then which ultimately led to the separation of North Ireland from Ireland, you know. Right, right. Like today, North Ireland Northern Ireland is part of the UK, it's part of England, right? The UK. Um, whereas uh Ireland itself, the Rehu Republic of Ireland, is an independent country.

Joey Stuckey 1:19:55

And it's well now when you when you tour EU. Yeah, yeah. When you and I I know that's caused an enormous amount of confusion with Brexit. Uh yes, because I I tour the UK, uh, you know, I I do a lot of work over there, uh, you know, usually one about once a year. Um primarily I I I play my music, but I primarily go as a lecturer to different colleges. But um the the other thing I'd say is uh when you tour, do you do you often usually tour like just you and the guitar? Like, do you find that that's enough to translate what you want to do? Because I do that a lot because it's just yeah so much easier.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:28

Well, yeah, I kind of have to. I mean, I wish I could put together a 10-piece band and go everywhere, but I just don't have the budget to do it. So uh since COVID, I mean, before COVID, I had a band and I traveled around the country to you know to some degree. But since COVID, it I haven't done that again yet. I would like to, I just haven't had the the financial wherewithal to, you know, it costs a lot of money.

Joey Stuckey 1:20:50

It it really, really does. People do not understand how much it costs to tour. I mean, it's just it's just so difficult. Yeah, and if you go to venues that prize original music as well, yeah, yeah. Now you're dealing with a smaller market. You know, that's the thing. And Joey has gotten too old to want to play four hours in a bar playing covers. I just I cannot do it anymore. I wouldn't do any of that. I'm just I'm done. My friend, what a pleasure to spend this time with you today. I I really appreciate it. And uh just want to people, people we want to hit this one more time that that you can pre-order the box set now. It is available to put uh under your tree for Christmas. It's it's there's plenty of time for that. Um, and and you're gonna get the vinyl. And and are you doing like like 80 gram vinyl? Like what's the what's 100?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:40

It's 180 grams. 180 gram. Okay, you're doing the two vinyl LPs. Yep.

Joey Stuckey 1:21:44

That is so exciting. So and this, by the way, might just be the thing you need to pull the trigger to buy that turntable you've been saying you wanted for the past ten years. So you know, I think it's so fantastic. I appreciate you so much for spending some time with me today. And uh, and and I'm such a a fan uh of your of your ethic, of, of your spiritual countenance, of your musicianship. I thank you for it. We need more people uh like your good self out there doing the good work and and uh showing that you can be independent and uh and and compelling and relevant.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

Well, thank you, my friend. It's it's always great to talk to you. Um this is the longest we've ever spoken, and I really, really enjoyed it.

Joey Stuckey 1:22:28

Me too, my brother. Thank you so much. And uh as always, you can check out all of our fantastic guests on the Stuck on Sound Podcast, wherever you find your podcast, or at www.stuckonsound.com.