The hard way to an easy life

some live streaming in here, playing some music. So and that's an interesting thing we should talk about. Is that. Be looking on my social media coming up, be looking for us to be putting out one or two or three live streams a week. We're gonna do different sets, So comment below on this video with your set list request, with songs you want us to play it. It doesn't matter how old the song is of mine or how new the song is of mine. We would love to

be able to read through that. And we're going to put together these set lists for you, guys, and man that I wish we could get to your city. I wish we could get to you right now. It's killing me to not be on the road, and this is the next best thing we could do is play these songs on a live stream and I just I wanted to be able to scratch that itch somehow. The second thing we're going to talk about Isyee Apparel summer launch

June the twelfth, So this is really important. The reason I'm I'm gonna push this now is because the last several launches we've had have sold out really early. And when I say early, we launch at ten am, which we will on June twelfth. We launch at ten am, and we have we have sold out in minutes of some of our some of the more popular items, and so we are making more orders and we're we're increasing

our inventory a little bit on these. But the balance is that we want to be able to sell out quickly, to push that product quick and then and then it gives us a good idea of what to reorder, et cetera, et cetera. All being said, and that none of that matters to you. What does matter is ten am June twelfth, Yee dot com or ye apparel dot com. Make sure you go and check it out and be ready, uh

to get this new stuff. It's really good. I've been working my butt off this week doing videos and taking pictures and working with Parker and Tyler and Paul and Brian and ant Man and all these photographers and videographers that have come in and and really helped us to create what we are really proud of in the summer launch, So be looking for that. How are you guys doing.

How's the state of the world. I know that there's we have now entered a time of the world where there's pockets of people that are doing pretty normal, pretty great. There's pockets of people that are really locked down, and uh it, it's amazing. You just cross a couple of state lines or a few international borders and you're in a completely different place as far as this shutdown is concerned. So how you doing? Comment below, let me know, let

me know your pulse. Us here in Texas, we feel very lucky, We feel very blessed to continue to have low numbers and to also be opening up faster and faster, and we're seeing good results and it feels very normal. Touring as a Tory musician will probably be one of the last ones but to go back to work, which is why we're doing this live stream, and so we set up also this Venmo account at Granger Smith so that we could hopefully get some tips for the band

during that. It's like passing around the virtual pickle jar. Back in the old days of playing bars every night, we would pass around a pickle jar that said band tips on it. So we'll be doing that virtually. You know, we've resorted to that these days with zero touring. All that being said, a lot of exciting things coming soon. Uh be watching the socials for the live stream, and be watching yee dot com for the summer launch. Today's guest my brother Tyler Smith, my middle brother. Last week

we had Parker, the youngest brother. This week Tyler, and Tyler is a fascinating dude. And so I ran over my time on my interview with him today and uh so I apologize it's going to cut off a little abruptly, but he is such a fascinating dude. He has he just will spit out these these little moments of like

genius wisdom. Its just to just come out and you'll hear him say it in a minute, and it always shocks me and and me and him that we butt heads a lot because I'm I'm he's very directive and passionate and I'm very loose and creative, and so it works really well in business, but it's times sometimes it clashes, and we'll get into that a little bit. You'll get to know Tyler a little bit. But we're also going to have to continue this interview and do another one.

I don't know if it'll be next week, but it'll be. It'll be. We'll do a follow up once so you could hear more about him because we got to talking on this one. So I think you're gonna like it. You're in for a treat. He's he's It's not just saying that because he's my brother, but he's literally one of the most interesting people they over meet, and so it's Parker. I'm very proud of both of them. Without

further ado, welcome to the podcast. Here's my guest. Okay, we were walking down the hall to bring you in here, and you're like, what are we talking about? And I admittedly said that I don't have a plan and that kind of scared you. You're like, well, you sure you want to do something without I'm sure you don't think about it. But usually on this podcast that's just what I do. Okay, don't plan anything. And you are one of the most, if not the most interesting humans I

know in what way? And I feel like I've known I do know a lot of humans just from traveling with touring and what where music has taken us across the world. We've met some interesting people, Presidents of the United States, you know, foreign ambassadors, crazy rock stars. You were one of the most interesting people I know. It's that a good thing or a bad thing. It's a good thing. And that's why I wanted you on this podcast. Last week we did Parker, and so we didn't have

a plan with Parker either. We just would y'all to talk about I didn't listen to it. You didn't listen, did you not? Really, it's good. We talked about basically his role here at EE Apparel and how he we brought me and you stole him away from another kind of career he would have had in real estate from A and M and then he's the CEO. Yeah, yeah,

it was a quick rise. Yeah. I also talked about how I still missed that little boy that Parker was since there's thirteen years difference between me and him and ten years difference between you and him, and how we mom and dad took us to fud Rutgers and told him told us that they were pregnant, and then then we talked through his role here and how we've kind of changed the business plan. And so with you, just off the top of my head, I guess we can

go and talk about us growing up as brothers. A lot of people in the comments to Parker's were like, put Tyler on there, put Tyler on there, which is understandable. And so where from where we sit right here, Tyler's office is on the other wall, on the other side of this wall, and Parker is over here. So I think it's a huge blessing that we get to work together three brothers. It's you know, it's not always easy. Me and you have a lot harder of a time

than you and Parker, or me and Parker. And that's because park partly because Parker is so passive. You know what I just realized. I don't know if I'm telling you you should tell this from everybody. You can edit it not, but you don't edit these by the way. You know, what I realized today was exactly what you're saying.

For whatever reason. Our personality is, like we obviously do really well together, but sometimes we have some issued minor issues brothers stuff, right, but and both of our relationships are different with me and you and me and Parker.

Yeah okay, But what I'm getting to is, in my head to was like because London lately, she she has little tendencies of things that you do, and I find myself like thinking to myself, like like trying to like get get back at her a little bit, like we kind of like we don't bicker, like but you know what I mean, Like it's the same stuff you and me do, and like you and me go at each other,

obviously I don't go after London. But then Lincoln and Parker, like I have the same relationship with Lincoln and Parker. Like Parker's, like you said, for ten years younger than me, so he was a little baby when we were kids, so there's still that little and so same with Lincoln. But with you and London are similar in that way. It's weird because London is so strong willed and I could independent. She's very passionate her way in no way, and I'm kind of the same way and a lot

of times her way is also wrong. Yeah's is similar to me. You know, I'm very I get very passionate about a certain way. But she'll never admit that she's wrong. What do you trying to say? Well, so that's so, that's part of our story, is that you know, so here we are the brother Crew, the three brothers. But you and I go back much longer than Parker has been with EEE. Even though Parker was there the day EEE was said as earl and it is, it needs to be said that me and you go back way

before Parker. We go back to two thousand and two thousand and eight. Well, these mics are really directional. It's like officially, but I remember being at Rice and I used to go to the spot on campus where nobody else was. I don't know what. It was, just one random building and I'd go down to Houston and the Rice University in Houston. And I graduated in two thousand and seven May, so I'll go down in that basement and book shows specifically, remember booking shows. I still got

that green book. So it was before two thousand and eight. It wasn't full time until two thousand and seven. I graduated, and I went and worked at a bank, which I hated, gave them a I committed to it, though, so morally I wanted to give them a year, you know, do what I could. And so anyway, that so that was like literally to the day that I started, let's just say summer two thousand and seven, quit summer two thousand and eight, and then was full time like everything then.

And basically you're what you usually say is you were mad that nothing was happening. I was putting out these records and no one was going to the shows, and I wasn't getting any more shows, and no one was really hearing the music, and you were mad. I was with a big management company out in Nashville, and I was living in College Station, Texas. So I was their only act that was in Texas. I was the only act that was in a small town really in Texas

doing the van and trailer touring. And so understandably I was forgotten and I didn't think about it that much as much as you did. It really bothered you. And so I remember you getting so mad while you're working at that bank that that I wasn't getting shows booked, et cetera, et cetera, and so you said, screw it, I could book a hundred times the shows that you're getting. And so the first year that you came on was it eight when you when you first came on and

we started playing all those shows. Yeah, we were playing like Wednesday through Saturday, and it was the crappiest show. So you came through it. You delivered under your promise. And so you really didn't start as manager. You didn't say I want to manage you. You You said I want to book you. So that's how you started. Well, I don't. Yeah, I did love booking, I really did. I had a passion for it. I loved working numbers. I guess I

was fresh out of school Econ. I guess like Econ, But I just loved entrepreneurship and building brands and success and and and money and numbers. Yeah, so we started booking.

But those shows, I remember that there was always just so many secrets and tricks, not really tricks, but just it was always about just being a good person and being honest and booking these shows and telling the promoters if I could ever get them on the phone, that's a whole other topic, but telling the promoters, look, I'm not guaranteeing that we're going to sell your place out, but we're going to put on a good show and we'll only take you know, X amount of the door

five dollars ticket price. They're basically telling them to the people that are watching that there's gonna be no risk on your end. You know, we're not going to ask for a high money guarantee and all that stuff. So anyway, well, like you said, we go do those shows and like nobody would be there. Like when we say nobody would be there, we don't mean there was one hundred people there. It was just a waitress. So my job never ended.

And my job at that point was to buddy up with the owner that I called and booked that show with and talk to him in his office for about whatever he wanted to talk about, and just be a chameleon and and win his trust and be his friend, get his number, text him and say and so basically when I'm getting it, as we built that trust and that friendship, where when I called this guy back and said, hey, can we get another date, first of all, I would try to get a date in that office as we're

closing out, And a lot of times that was a big trick and a ticket, like we leave and we got another date. But I would call him back and he'd say, hey, Tyler man, look you're awesome. I love you, I love your brother. You guys got to get a great band. But we lost money last time. Nobody came. But I like you and your brother. I will give you another date. So that was kind of the trick, and then we would we just slowly built it that way. We got into a lot of places that we shouldn't

have gotten into a lot earlier because of that. And we should say one of your you call it tricks. One of the techniques you used was on email on the subject line. Should even say it on this podcast.

It's such a it's such a Tyler technique. Bring we still need to get in so that there needs to be many podcasts with Tyler, and so this is hopefully be the first of many because there's so many stories and if you're a beginning artist or a beginning musician, you could learn a lot from Tyler and the path that we took. In one one way you could look at it is you do not need to go get you a big Nashville manager or LA manager, or you

just need somebody that believes in you with everything. Yeah, yeah, and and nothing is going to get done though. Nothing is going to get done unless you do it. That is the bottom line, and so on. One technique Tyler used when these people he would email them and say, hey, my name is Tyler Smith. I book a band, Granger Smith. And we would actually try not to play up the brother thing too much because we didn't want to sound

too homegrown. So we would he would email and make the pitch and then not hear anything, and then not hear anything, and then not hear anything. So the technique Tyler would use is We'll say Bob at Silver Creek Saloon whatever, I'm just making, just making names up. He'd say, the subject line of the email would say no longer working at Silver Creek Saloon question mark, and then the body of the email would say, Hey, Bob Herd a rumor you're not with Silver Creek. I'm just going to

say it. It was Don Don Don started BUCkies. For all of you guys that know BUCkies, absolutely love that place. It's a gas station in the South. We live in Texas. There everywhere and amazing food, clean a streams like they're just top, top notch, and so they're they're they're they're also very supportive of regional artists, musicians, that sort of thing.

So we we had like T shirts already in there in that in their stores, and then we came out with our energy Drinky Energy, and so we were just calling everybody we could to try to get it in there. And we we already had our stuff in BUCkies. And so a mutual friend of ours, somebody that runs our website knew the owner, hooked me up with their email, connected us on an email, I should say, and he never responded to the email. Was you know, he's one of many? Though, yeah, Don's one of many. Oh yeah,

I'm just this. We just still joke about that. That was just a big example. But but the the key thing to this whole thing is if you if no one's replying to you, if you put in the subject line Bob no longer working at Silver something. I emailed Donald two two times, three times. Nothing. I was like, screw it. So I said, I was pissed, and I said, are you know no longer working there? Like in the subject don no longer CEO of BUCkies or owner of

Bucki's did you get fired? Like I was like jabbing at him, and I knew he was going to respond, and sure enough, literally like after weeks of no return emails, literally literally five minutes after I sent that email, he sent back a reply, really pissed in short yeah, like something like yeah, what are you talking about? Who told you that? And I was like, Hey, don now that I got your attention, thanks for a response. We got ee energy. We're looking to put it in your store.

That is playing to someone's ego. They cannot stand to let an email go by that says that there's a rumor that they're not working at the company that they're actually the CEO or the bar owner for, or the booker for. And so Tyler's been doing that trick for twelve years or maybe more to these small town bar owners. We had so many problems, like sometimes I remember one specifically, was it Brownwood, Texas. You know, you would get the show booked, and this is once again no one knew

who we were. So Tyler's just going on merit with these gequa Yeah. Yeah, so we were booking it based on hey, I know, I know they're not going to draw anybody to your club, but the people you do have there will love this band and they'll want to come back. And that was our goal, get them, get them one at a time where the people that were there would start to be fans, and so you would do it on merit and then we would we would send them a contract, you know, but then they hardly

ever would sign it and send it back. They would prefer we just showed up. And so this happened a few times. One specifically Tequila Something in Brownwood, Texas. We showed up and they that guy that booked it with you was had been fired and they didn't know we were coming. And then no one knew we were coming. They were all locked and so here we go on a Friday night with the van and trailer and all

the band. Who's going to get you know? I was paying them like a hundred bucks, I know, and no one was there, and I you know, that was just one of those days where were you with us? Or was I called selling merch? Yeah, you're selling merch. So we've come a long way, and that's why these conversations are so interesting, especially if you're if you're a beginning musician, you're listening to this podcast you're thinking about it. I can't stress enough that first of all, you don't have

to leave your little hometown. You don't have to move to a big music city. You don't have to sign a big record label or big management or a big book an agency. You could do it with you and your brother. Now you've got to be passionate about it. And you got it. You gotta work. You can do yourself as long as you can hopefully find somebody that. Uh so, then fast forward things start going good. We we get to we get to a place, fast forward through a lot. Well, I'm fast forward, get good. Yeah,

we had a lot of bad days. We we had We had some moments like me and you had some heated moments and empty parking lots and a lot of the frustration with no one coming to the shows and no one listened to the music that we were so

passionate about. We worked so hard on building something. And when you would continually hit your head with a hammer every Friday night, when especially when you would build, we would build something a little bit like say we would have one hundred people at a place and commerce Texas thirsty mule, drunken mule. We would build something, and we'd have one hundred and twelve people at Drunken Mule Commerce, Texas on Friday night, and we'd think, Dad, gun, we're

kind of kind of working here. This town's really coming around. And then we play there again a year later and there'd be eighty four people were like, well, we're going down. And so you remember the time you were selling merch and commerce and you looked up on the railing and you had put what a sticker, that Granger Smith sticker on the wail. It was the don't listen the radio, that white one. And you realized that we had been doing the same plane at the same place for years

and nothing had changed. The numbers hadn't gone up. In fact, maybe they had gone down. And you lost your mind about that. And another time happened to me in Nacodochius or Tyler Texas, Tyler Tyler Texas Electric something. It was the we played it twice one with Robert ro'keeine and like Josh Abbott, and then once or twice by we always played the Electric Cowby. That was yeah, anyway the other no way it came and I was in the parking lot and I remember just that was one of

my bigger breakdowns in the music business. I just I asked the band, how's it looking, and they're like, well, no, no one's in there, and you know, years of work, and I just I just remember throwing suitcases outside in the parking lot. I was chunking them out of the trailer, and I just decided to just take go for a

walk and just leave. And I thought I had disappeared, and you found me at a storage unit lot, hiding it in between the storage units, just curled up in a little ball, and you somehow, I don't know how you tracked me there, but I was literally going to sit in that storage unit in the dark and just let the time of our set list go until it was they closed, and just not show up. I think part of me was. Part of it was getting you for the show. Part of it was I think I

said something that I probably regretted. Yeah, I don't know about nobody being there and blaming whatever. So's fast forward a bit. Was fast forward from there like three years to like twenty and twelve thirteen, and all of a sudden it switched. You went from an outgoing email, outgoing phone. We're talking about bad things but those times were fun.

Great Bandah, we're all road buddies. Yeah. So we went from you went from outgoing email outgoing phone call guy to incoming email incoming phone call guy over the course of from twenty twelve to two two thousand and sixteen. You know that I wouldn't say incoming. I would just say they would respond something fifty percent of time instead of zero. So then we left Texas and then you started over, started from scratch when we left Texas, and then you were booking places that we had never even

been to. States we hadn't even traveled to, like Portland, Oregon. You know, you're calling Portland, Oregon and you're saying, hey, John, my name's Tyler Smith. I'm trying to book my band there Tractor Tavern in Seattle. Man that he wouldn't do it, and I was doing the same thing, and after that show we sold it out. Heat send me an email, I said, dude, I'm sorry, i I'll eat my words or eat crow or whatever. He said. I've never in my entire career, I've never been wrong this wrong. Yeah

about a band. I've always had an idea. But so you were calling them, and we're calling these rock clubs, because that's the only thing that that's only an average size venue we can get into. We'd call a rock club in Seattle, Washington, Dante's in Portland, Oregon, and they would be like, never heard of you, Like, well, we're from Texas and we've never been there, We've never played there.

They're like, what are your numbers? Well, we've never had numbers there, but we sell a lot of T shirts there, you know, like we we send T shirts there and we feel like if we just if you give us a shot, I think people would come. And he's like, well didn't They just end up saying, I'll give you like a Monday and you can just take the five dollars. We'll catch five dollars at the door. You could just keep all that, Yeah, to give us their worst night.

And so it was no risk on their end, and it was you know, we were ready to go do whatever we could to get people in there. Yeah. So the there's like five year clumps that we've gone through where every five years your role changes evolves, but you're learning something from the previous clump of years that you apply to the new year. New clump of years that has it new challenges. Yeah, never never gotten easier or better or worse. It's pick your problems. It's pick your

problems to not use bigger problems. Like the bigger problems the better because because ultimately you know the amount of effort that you spend on them in brain power and all that stuff is the same. It's just the risk and reward is a lot better. Yeah, let's go play this arena with this artist or do you want to go?

You know what we're talking about right now. Yeah, So from then on, most of these people watching or listening, if you're through your fan or if you follow this podcast, most of you know the story from twenty fifteen on and the years before that were vague because not many people were following us. And so we'll talk a lot about that, and I think that'll be a good podcast on our transition to major record label world and how your role went from basically tour manager, book an agent,

merch seller to manager, which is very different. You know, manager now you don't overlook road merch as much. You don't book shows, you just approve them when they come through. You don't deal with tour management at all, Like you don't care when lunch is for the band, and a lot of that has to do with having amazing team members and trusting Chris, our tour manager, who I believe is the best in the business. And I don't need to because he's the best. Braiden, our booking agent. I

trust everything he brings our way. And so half the time I say, dude, he'll ask me, what do you want to do? I said, I trust you whatever you think. So if there was ever a great team, if there was such a true blessing and everything besides fans, it would be having a loyal team. Do this doesn't happen without a team. You know that our label team, our you know, publicity team, our road team, everybody, it's top to bottom and it's even a whole new level now

with this virus. That those guys are all the guys you just named, Braden, Chris, the band, that everyone is still loyal through these uncertain times. And so that's and that's where my first my first job when this hit and we stopped touring, was take care of the guys that have taken care of us. But all that being said, and I want this probably to be another podcast, and I want to kind of dive into that. But right now, I started this by saying, you're one of the most

interesting guys that I know. And so let's talk about you and outside of music, outside of manager, outside of Yegee Apparel, outside of Earl Dibbles, Let's talk about you as a person, starting with your desire to strive for greatness as a person, which then filters into business. But it starts with you as a person. So let's start with like your morning routine, where that came from. How long you've been doing it, Why you do it? Why why it bled into me and Amber and Parker and

Mom and many other people that have followed your lead. Well, I have a very obsessive personality. I think it's all or nothing with me. You know, for instance, I'm not going to drink one beer. If I'm gonna drink, I'm probably just gonna get really drunk. But I don't know. But at the same time, I'm going through a thing right now or haven't drank in you know, ninety days. But it started with it started It sounded like that sounded like you're an alcoholic of some sort, but you're not.

You're just proving a point that when you do something you do it to the fullest. Whatever that is. It's all mental thing with me. It's all mindset to see how I can push myself. But it started, honestly with It's always been like inside me, but Parker is the one that brought it out of me. When I was living with him and I would wake up at eight thirty, nine, nine thirty whatever it was, look out the window and his car would be gone, like damn it, like he's

already gone, Like he's he won. He like very competitive, right, he's winning the day already ahead of me. He's he's out there doing something productive and I've been sleeping. And so somehow we eventually started talking and he showed me a book called The Miracle Morning that started it all for me. And so he showed me, like I said, let me see your notes, like he was writing his notes, like he was having his little time in the morning by himself, and then he would leave and I was

sleeping during that time. And so luckily, man, I just I just fell in love with it. And it's it's a huge passion of mine and basically, long story short, it's it's about waking up in the morning early, not hitting your alarm. It's about so many things. I don't even know where to start. But it's about controlling your day. It's about not reacting. One of the biggest things I

could tell anybody watching right now, that's super simple. There's so many layers of this, but the easiest and one of the first things I started doing, was don't sleep at your phone by your nightstand. Put it in a different room if you can. I put mine. Now I put it on just on the other side of the room. But so many years I would wake up, even in the middle of night. You know, if you kind of

wake up, you just check your phone. But so many of us, probably all of us, wake up and check our phone, and immediately we got emails, we got text we got miscalls. So you're reacting to the day. You're immediately reacting to other people's problems. So the whole premise is you have to control your day, and you start off by protecting yourself, protecting the asset which I like to call it, which is yourself, and put your phone away and don't look at it for at least thirty

minutes after waking up. I don't look at mine typically until an hour and a half or two hours after I wake up, And what time do you wake up? Five seven days a week. Last night, I know because we were shooting until midnight. But I get eight hours, man, And everybody, everybody says, you know, there's kind of this weird stigma in this pride of like I can go on four and five hours. But man, I just I read and I study and research a lot on this stuff. But no means an expert, but I just I know me,

and I'm like, I get my eight out. It's like so important to get your sleep. If you don't get your sleep, then you know what times you go to bed. If I get up at five, I go to I'm in bed at eight and I read and then it's lights out by nine. But sometimes right there, does anyone know anybody that goes spend at eight? That's not a little kid? Right there, You're one of the most interesting schedule keepers. It's a blessing and a curse. I'm very minute. And so that's why I asked you, is like what

are we talking about? Like I need to know a schedule, Like my my day is planned every hour like five o'clock till I go to bed. There I have a schedule. And I've been struggling honestly lately with if I get out of that routine, I struggle in my mind kind of starts doing its thing, and so I'm trying to get better than that. But anyway, meditation, I do that first thing, And how long since you've been getting up? How long have you been getting up at five am?

Going on almost two years? Almost two years? Well, it started at like with Parker thing, it started at like, if I was getting up at eight thirty, I recommend everybody start like fifteen minutes earlier, thirty minutes earlier. So it started eight o'clock, seven thirty, and it ended up at five. And lately I've been like, man, I'm going to try to do four thirty. And you're and it's important for everyone to know that you're not like an early riser by Nachel, I know you're a sleeper man.

You're like my whole life, sleep till noon kind of guy. So that's what's so different about it. That's that's what shows the mental discipline and power is because you're not naturally just an early riser. W Yeah, I wanna A phrase that I really like is do hard things. Have an easy life or do easy things and have a hard life. So good. I love doing hard things. So like waking up is hard for me. Waking up everybody's guilty. You hit the snooze, how many times you hit it?

And immediately when you're hitting the snooze, you're lying to yourself. If you made a promise to yourself, why'd you set an alarm if you didn't intend in getting up at that time. So when you set an alarm for five, like if you snooze, you're starting your day off by lying to yourself. And I'm big on keeping the promises you make to yourself. And so it's so man, it's

like Christmas morning. It's so weird the feeling I get when my alarm goes off boom, I'm up, Like there's no there's nothing in my mind that wants to sleep because I've calloused in my mind in a way. And immediately start by being grateful and you know, saying thank you guy for this day. Like and I have like all these affirmations in my shower, So I go meditate. I do cold showers every day that I'm obsessed with.

And it's hard things that like you you psych yourself up for but you you have so much info and we're running out of time. I'm crazy, We're running out of time. So I want to do this again. I want to continue this. But yeah, more from Tyler on the next podcast. I love you, guys, and you'll hear. You'll hear about this interesting dude a lot more. See you, guys, See ya,