Guys, welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind, cofounder and your cohost me, Jason Stallworth and also cofounder of Metal Mastermind and Cohost The Great. Ken Candelas, good morning. How are you, man? I'm great. We appreciate you guys.
I know we say that all the time. I hope you don't get tired of hearing but we we dearly appreciate all of you listening and being a part of metal mastermind you you were so important to us. Thank you for being a part of this awesome metal musician community that you have built. We didn't build this. You guys built it right.
We're all part of this together. But Ken and I, we always have discussions just him and I sometimes Ken because they they get a little you know we we share what we're going through with with the business and and some personal challenges which all these revolve around. Like Ken, our our home lives are good. We have zero issues in that
department. But our a lot of our frustrations which is what we're going to be talking about today, frustrations and how to handle it and a lot of stuff that you just feel like your back's against the wall and things just aren't moving in the direction that you want. But Ken and I, you know, building a business and working on albums and everything that goes with that, you know, making a living in the arts, you had this pretty lengthy discussion, dude, probably at least 30 minutes, man.
And we, we should have filmed that for like an insight exclusive or something. But I just really, really good heartfelt conversation, man. But frustrations can. I'll, you know, I'll let you kick it off with just kind of how you handle it in. When when we work on on our music, I think one of the biggest things about working on your music to get it to the other side of it being released. Especially if you care deeply about it. Is is is how long you realize the process takes.
You know you, you come through and if you're if you've never released an album before, it's just to put it in in in. Especially as an indie musician, it takes it takes a lot of effort, especially if you want it to be of a high production. These sorts of things take time and if you're doing them on your own, you just have to be aware and prepared that you will, you know, spend a significant amount of time.
One of the things that I guess, you know, if we were to go back in history a little bit when we we had you know, record labels just constantly funding artists, literally living out of a studio for months on end. Where they were able to just create and capture those moments, we don't really have that kind of style of recording anymore, or at least it's not a common thing. Now it's a much more rare thing.
You you have to have your own funding or if you if you're still with a label, they don't even, you know, give as much of of an advance to artists anymore. So you have to be more creative with your time. And when you are sitting there and you're creating your song, creating the song is one thing Jason and I, you know, we're involved in, in my own music and you know, Jason played guitars for back in like 2019 and it's 2023 now, you know. And it's it's gone through a lot of its own hurdles.
You know my own personal issues with my my record. You know, that's just life, you know, making you take detours. But we just had this small discussion on, you know, am I holding myself back from, from releasing this? And quite honest, I think it's not necessarily that I'm holding myself back, but that what I'm building with my own music is more than just an album. It's it's a story.
And there's. 27 pieces of artwork that goes along with it and you know, it's just this big conglomerate of you know, creativity. So struggled and been frustrated very much so with my own journey because this thing takes a long time to create. Frustration. Yes, very, very true. How do I deal with it? I remember why I do what I do. You know, I I am, I'm an educator, I'm a teacher. And you know, I whenever I show my students my work, it's still in progress.
But you know, them knowing me personally gets them a little bit of access to it. They're very inspired by it and they can't wait to hear it. So that certainly helps having having the feedback from. My students, my peers, and people who have been on board and they're totally gung ho about it, that that all helps. I think having a support that you can rely on is is imperative. If you if you are truly alone, it becomes very hard to move past some of that mental blockage.
I think you know, if you if you have somebody that you can lean on, whether that's a significant other, it's a business partner or it's a or, it's a really, really good friend because we we're human. We need to deflate, you know, as much as we need to also inflate our inspiration, you know, we also need to deflate certain things in life and decompressed and, you know, recenter ourselves and come back to it and be stronger than we were before.
It's not always easy getting back on that horse because when you fall, you know you hurt your back, OK? You know, because when you do, you're you're you're more determined about it. It takes more to get back on that horse the second time that it was the first time. So you getting back on that is a telltale sign that you'll be fine. You know, you just got to keep going. And I I truly believe in that. You know, we've shared kind of the same struggle.
You know, I've been working on an album as well, and I mentioned this on my channel on several podcasts. But Long story short, about 2 1/2 years ago, the album was pretty pretty close to being done. I even had the drums recorded for it. You know, Cameron Fleury out of Canada. He recorded the drum tracks for it and I had the rhythms down,
had some of the leads down. But then I put everything on hold because Ken, you and I wanted to really pursue metal Mastermind and this was a a brand new adventure. So I'm like, well, chasing two large rabbits you you probably won't catch either one. So I'm like let me put that to the side because right now metal Mastermind is more important
that we get this off the ground. You know, you and I had a vision for it. So we we've got to take this opportunity and run with it, which we did, which I'm, I'm proud of that decision. I would never take that back for anything. I love what we're doing. Had we not started it, we wouldn't be sitting here right now talking to you guys. But revisiting that album 2 years later, it's like, oh, I don't like certain things. So I I have changed many, many things on the album.
There are times where I want to scratch it. I'm like, you know, maybe I'll just work on something another album and just scratch this whole thing, which I don't think that would be a good decision either. So anyway, I'm, I'm at the tail end of it here sometimes can and you, you and I both talked about this earlier and to everyone. A lot of times our frustration can come in our ability and this is something we talked quite a bit about, you know, metal
mastermind. And it's like we, you know, you're an accomplished musician. Ken, you're an accomplished composer. I've been playing guitar and write music since 1989. I've been playing live, you know, for just about that long. So but even with all that you can, you can have those moments where you just lack off and it's in yourself and your abilities. It's like okay was this, is this really good enough? You know, and out there nowadays
everybody's a critic. I mean, I guess everybody's always been a critic, but you can base decisions off what you think others will think. And we've talked about this before as well. And I guess what I encourage you guys not to do is, well, it's just that don't worry about what others think, but don't worry about what you think others may think. A lot of that is just kind of conjured up in our own heads, right? There's a lot of negativity around.
There is a lot of opinions floating around. But even the most confident people, you know, actors alike, they can lack confidence at times. And that's something I think we all can struggle with from time to time. Totally. Confidence is a huge factor in all of that. You know, the most successful people are usually the most confident too. Yeah, they are. So building up confidence is a huge part of it and you know, is. You kind of have to grind through a bit. You know, you can't.
You don't start off with just, you know, all this confidence, you know, sometimes, you know, even myself or you can feel like this imposter syndrome that, you know, are we, are we doing the right thing? Are we are we giving the value that we're supposed to give to people? You know, yeah, walk away thinking, oh, I can follow this
guy. I mean as an educator, I I struggle with that for, for a while because you know just a little back story here at like 2019 was also when I started working as a as a professor, you know, a year before you know the pandemic and all of this was it kind of fell out of my lap. I didn't intend to go to my job that I have now as wanting to be
a professor. I was actually going for an interview to be a technician to to just you know run the studios and things when they went down and all that kind of stuff. But the my boss then had looked at my resume and said, hey, this guy looks like he could be actually a decent teacher and. You know, they asked me whether I'd be interested. I said, I guess and you know, it went really well.
Well, and then I got the job. But even when I got the job, I didn't, I didn't start off with like, hey, here's a handbook, here's how you start teaching. You know, it's like, cuz I wasn't, I wasn't involved in teaching at all. This straight like I actually told sometimes my teachers before I would say no, I I don't want to teach. Like I want to just be the engineer. I want to do that. And then coming here, I was just like, OK about and I was plopped into the middle of a semester.
I wasn't even plopped in the beginning of 1. And they're like, OK you're just going to pick up where this guy left off. I was like, what? Talk about being. So, but it was a sink or swim moment, you know. And I swam and it just kind of naturally evolved over time as that I took on and became one with being a teacher. I I say teaching chose me. It wasn't me that chose teaching and that confidence over time.
It became something that I embodied through the in some ways, the validation of my students. You know, when students had told me this was this was something that they benefited from, that certainly helped, or my employers, they told me that it benefited the school that certainly helped. And then, of course, there was my own nation. You know, to say that, yeah, you know, even though I don't know necessarily what this topic is about today, I'm going to figure it out.
I'm going to do a little bit of homework and I'm going to make a presentation about it to make. When I do talk about it, I can convey at least something that can get across to the student, and that was huge. You just nailed something very important, Ken, and something you and I learned from from Leah McHenry. In our time, the savvy musician Academy is we'll figure it out. You know, you're always going to
figure it out. If if you want to figure it out, you'll find a way, man, you will find a way to do it. So valuable lesson we learned is as simple as that is, you know,
very powerful. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, when when I left my corporate job and I didn't have the income that that that income was not replaced when I left my corporate job three and half years ago, I took a voluntary layoff and I've got it. I got a small severance, a little bit of funds that they had in an investment account and I'm like, all right, well this, this will hold us over till a
year, for about a year. And I'm like, well just I'll have to figure out how this is going to work, you know and and I eventually did and not to see it hasn't been a there are always uncertainties when you work for yourself or when you jump out there and do something that that is seemingly outside of the norm. But, but again, you just figure it out. Sometimes I believe that when you're back against the wall and certain things, man, because it's like, okay, I have to figure out a way.
I don't want to go back to what I was doing. There's nothing wrong with what I was doing. I mean, I met some great people there, actually. I saw a dude that that I worked with, hadn't seen him and you worked there in the gym this morning. So, you know, I I met a lot of great people. I learned a lot of great things. So I certainly don't want to the same thing negative about my corporate gig.
It was great. I if I didn't have this drive to do what I do now I'd probably still be no, it was it was it was a great position they had and I've worked with a lot of great people but I is I knew that there was something else that I wanted to do with my life and this was it. I just didn't know how I would I would make it as a fulltime musician. I'm like you know can we.
We figured out this platform here metal mastermind and and some other things and you know here we are dude, we're we're in some people's eyes. We're living the dream and I'm very grateful for that. Even with the struggles, you know, and we probably won't get into that part on the podcast here, but you and I talked about some of the struggles. There's some financial struggles that come with with running your
own platform. You know, there are some uncertainties that come, there are good times there, a lot of peaks and valleys, but you just have to know that no matter what, you're going to figure it out. Yeah, you have made a great point there.
I I also really. Firmly believe that growth is equivalent to recognizing resistance and so when you when you come to a point where there's a there's your your movement forward, it's all about deliberating and deciphering what is the resistance that's in the way and how to you know. Get around. I actually received the compliment from a good friend of mine who said, you know, the thing about you is you always seem to, you know, be like a cat landing on its two feet. Yeah.
And I said, you know, I appreciate that. I, you know, I don't always know how things are going to work out. But you know that that does warm my heart. You have to be able to. Adapt and you know still land on your two feet and you don't know what you know and you take a risk here, you know that could mean cascading effect way or that way. And you know sometimes it's just it's okay you. Sometimes you just have to take a calculated risk and say you know this is what I'm going to do.
And I will say this, ever since starting Metal Mastermind, things have been. Much easier for me to work around. That is an absolute fact. The challenges that come across with making a platform like this, having to build the website, having to build the intricate payment system, having to build. The marketing, the blogging, the YouTube video, Facebook ads, all this stuff that you don't really think about when you start getting into business. We've done so much, man.
Yeah, there's so much that goes into doing an online business. And you realize you're like, Oh my God, this is like a behemoth. We built an entire course platform on top of that. So we didn't outsource any of this either. Ken and I built this whole thing ourselves. So yeah, not to say you shouldn't outsource things.
I believe been getting getting proper help, but you know from from the ground up when you're just starting, it's like you you kind of take when when you we didn't have any funding or anything like that. We just like, hey, let's do this. So we just kind of did it, you know, and boom. Yeah, I mean there's there's a there's a good and bad to that. You know when it's time to hire somebody? The bad news is that it takes a long time because in the beginning you're like, why do I
need to hire this guy? I can do it myself. So you get a lot more time just doing things yourself and that can be very overwhelming. And my gosh, the amount of emails is like, how many emails do we have to? It's kind of insane, man. So it's a process, though, that's what we're saying. And when you decide that you're gonna build. Something that you want to create as your legacy, you know, whether that's your music or it's building a flower shop, who knows?
It's it's all about, you know, making sure that you're staying true to what it is that you, you you stand for. You know, if you, if you don't really have your heart in it, it's infinitely more, more, more challenging. And you have to always remain true to that. You have to always say even though, despite the fact that you might be frustrated. Is this still your life's
mission? And if you still say yes, then yeah, okay, then you, you know, this is just a hump in the road and you'll get through it. But yeah, if if you don't, if you don't feel that way, then you you need to really think about the resistance that you have in your life and why that's the case. I I love that resistance, man. You know, I I think I sent you a little video on the way home from the gym this morning. Being underweight. You guys know, I I love weight training.
That's something that's been a staple in my life from an early age, something I'll do for the rest of my life, just as much as I'll play music and know I'm competing and all that stuff or whatever. It's just something I love to do. But I was telling Ken, I'm like, think about you've got this weight on your chest. Let's say it's a bench press for example.
And yeah, we want to be, you know, all in like we just push through it. But sometimes the weight is actually too heavy and it is not moving and it is crushing you. So you have to know when to make the appropriate move and pivot and like you said, can earlier adapt, adapt to the changes, pivot accordingly. I'm like you might sometimes need to slide out from under that weight. Okay. And then go to something else
that's going to build that. Sometimes it's not about just pushing through, because sometimes we can push towards something and it's just not budging. And then we'll spend a lot of time and energy trying to push something that maybe it wasn't meant to be pushed at all. Now that thing you're pushing is not your your overall vision, your passion, your dream is above all that. Your vision for your life is above all that. It's above the weight that you're trying to push in your
life right now, right? Some of you may be struggling with a certain thing, and you're just trying to push and push and push. Not in every situation, but maybe the answer isn't necessarily pushing through that particular weight, but pivoting and finding a way around that. This going to kind of make you flow. Like I love what Bruce Lee said, he's like, you know, flow like
water. So maybe there's another crevice in there that you need to be exploring to get through or get around so that you can pursue that vision that you have. Hopefully that makes sense. Absolutely no. Yeah. Not forcing things to to work, you know, it's it's it's like. You know, it's another good analogy is you ever try, like, unscrewing something and you realize, oh man, this is really tough. So let me just, like, let me just wrench it and, like, really
try forcing it out. And then all of a sudden it breaks the thing that you were actually working with and you're like, God Dang it, well, that's exactly the idea, you know. And if you keep forcing things, you're eventually just going to strip the screw. So we talked about this earlier. We know. We even talked about there. There's a fine balance because I I can be a workaholic coming
from the corporate background. It's like always someone creating more work to do and there's always stuff right. But it it it's not necessarily things that are moving the needle forward. It's this is just kind of like busy work. It's not really not really doing
anything, you know. And I can, I have been, I've been the king of just staying busy of of doing more and doing more and doing more can run on the treadmill really, really fast and just put all the effort into that and not go anywhere. So it goes back to that balance of do put in the work. Yes, you need to put in the work. You need to work hard work. I mean that that would get you
so far, right. You need to work diligently and work smart and work on doing the appropriate thing to get you to that next level. Sometimes that might be a little difficult, sometimes it might not. There's a balance between putting in the time and putting in the the work and the energy of balance between that. And also can you and I talked about being the type of person having the type of mindset that attracts great things. If you marry those two concepts together, I believe you're
unstoppable. Yeah, and if you can remove as much distraction as possible, that would be ideal. I have been turning off notifications from all of my apps, all of the social media apps, all of this, all of that, even when you don't necessarily respond to any of that. Your eyes wander. You know, they look at the phone, they looked at, there's a notification, your screen turns on, and just a second of time that is away from what you should be doing. And it could very much, like,
lose your train of thought. When I started doing that, I started noticing that I was a lot less stressed about certain things and that I got just a little bit more done. Sometimes what you can do is set a timer for yourself. You know, let's say once every 30 minutes. And at 30 minutes, a 2 minute break, a 5 minute break, whatever, so that you can just alleviate yourself from just constantly getting too swallowed in your work and just giving
yourself that mental break. These are all just tips and tricks. You know, you find what works for you, but eliminating distractions is super, super helpful. And when you, you know, you do something like turning off your notifications. I mean, it's it's an amazing thing. How much you actually realize, Oh my God, like, I just spent time just like focusing on stuff that didn't matter.
Like you were talking about the busy work, you know, and it's like okay I had I have to like recall my time and put this where where I really care about. Yeah. And that's that's so. That's so pivotal and it changed quite a bit of my focus. I've been really busy lately with just my job. But honestly, when I do get to work, I do get to work, man, it does.
It does do a a a good deed. And you know, again, it it it is, you know, my project is something that takes so long to do because of all the detail that's required in it.
But if I wasn't so you know determined and focused do it it it it would be it wouldn't see the light of day and I know it will it it you know I can be frustrated all I want that it's not out in the world now you just got to take the time that it's going to take it will happen when it was meant to happen like you said to you know not forcing it. Sometimes these things they they will come to fruition. When they come to fruition, it's not like.
Oh, I got to get and catch the bus, you know, in 10 minutes, and that's my deadline. It's not like that. It's it's a longterm thing. If you're creating something from scratch and this is the first time anybody will hear it, give it the love that it needs the TLC. Don't stress about that too much. It's okay to feel a certain type of way of where you are in the project, but you just need to let it breathe. And let it do its thing. Do it right first, you know, you
know. Then when you get the Netflix deal was like I mentioned, it's like the question I asked earlier and and and can correct me if you feel differently about this man. But I mean would you say there there's a balance between, you know what you're talking about, but at the same time don't allow that to be an excuse to not move
forward and not work on things. You know, sometimes you say, well, it's just the, and I've done this before, This is why I'm sharing it. You know, it's like I won't work as much as I need to on that project. And I'll just say, oh, it's just taking time. It's a big project. So I think maybe there's a fine balance between maybe do give yourself some deadlines without
destroying the creative process. Because I understand that just because I schedule time to write music today doesn't mean that great music's going to come out, you know, So we all, we all get that there, dude. It will take me days to write lyrics for a song where other times I can crank it out like in
30 minutes. It just an I I don't know how much control that we have over that may maybe more than we think go, you know, go with a steady pace but also allow the creative process to do its thing as well and understand it doesn't have to be done right now. I think it is a good idea to give ourselves certain deadlines and schedule things out to where, OK, this is what I'm focused. On 100% and and I I hope that my message was not to to say that you can just relax about
everything. I think that not beat yourself up if something's taking a long time. Sometimes things just need to take a little bit longer than other things. Yes, if if you want to continue to do you know music or anything that's in the arts, time in time is relative. If you are in the in the middle of, you know, creating your first album, then you should just take the necessary time in order to make the right album for yourself. Because you know, what if it's
your first album? You don't have an audience that's begging you for this content. So just make it right, you know, take a little bit more time to make it right. Don't, don't put yourself in a predicament where you, you, you, you just want it out there and not necessarily the thing that you wanted to put, you know? And there there's a thing, there's a truth to it too of, you know, just do it and just move forward.
But. Your intention is to create something, and if you don't know what it is and you need to just experiment to do that, but just do it in a way that you could live with yourself. Look, when I when I made my first Homeric album, I had no idea that it was cinematic metal. I had no idea. You know, I just experimented. I created a lot of music and I called it in the beginning, symphonic progressive death metal. That's what I called it. Yeah. Which is cool, man.
Which is really cool, I mean. It's cool. Also didn't really understand at that time what I was really what I was really creating. So, you know, sometimes you do need to go through the process then find out this is where it takes you. That's another truth to it too. You know, there's a lot of truth to all of this. What what's important is whether or not you feel best represents you now. Because in the future, whatever it is that you decide to put out, it's always going to be
using that as a reference. And you have to also be aware that your followers are going to expect a certain thing. So when you decide that you're going to get, you know, onto your second, your third, your 4th, there is going to be already some frame of reference for somebody. You're going to have to either step it up, you're going to have to either you know, make more. You're going to have to develop it somehow. It's a tough thing to to to
really crack. It's it's not something that there's like a cheat code for it, just it's just you working at it. It's a tough thing to to to really crack. It's it's not something that there's like a cheat code for. It just it's just you working at it and enjoying the process as it goes along. Don't let the short term frustrations demotivate you to stop. You just gotta muscle through it
man, and it's okay. Sometimes it can be a little hard but don't worry about it it'll the pain will pass. It will pass. I I think we did figure out a cheat code for that on down a B left right something like that oh the days of old school Nintendo man the spot of the times of that. There there's this real cool game by the way not to get off track but it was called Ultima 4. It was a role-playing game.
But yeah you know you mentioned the journey guys and I I you you must okay this is this is a command from Ken and I the like part of the whatever commandments however commands we have for metal mastermind well this is a command. You must enjoy the journey guys embrace the journey even even the hiccups man you know if you if you learn to even embrace the hiccups. I've learned so much about
myself especially this year. One of the things like I don't get I don't get frustrated in traffic anymore you know I just I chose not to. It's a decision you make, right? You can choose. Because when we get frustrated, we're living in that past moment, right? Rather, I I choose to enjoy the journey along the way. So if I'm stuck in traffic, maybe I look off to the side and I see something unique. Maybe there's a Bunny rabbit over there. We saw some bunnies the other
day. You know, it's just weird stuff, guys. Even the painful parts. Sometimes you can laugh at yourself. You can joke about it. Sometimes you have to be a little bit more serious about things, you know, depending on what it is, But allow yourself to be frustrated, but maybe just for a few seconds and you just go back to you know what, This is part of the journey and and I love what I'm doing. I love what I'm pursuing and I'm gonna enjoy the ride.
Beautifully said, man. So Jason, what's your metal song of the week today? Dude, dude, it is. I'm looking up on my phone right now. I I sent this to you this morning when I was in the gym, a song by a band called Deceased and it's called The Kept KEPT the kept by Deceased and that was from their 2005 album. As the weird travel on the recording of this album was kind of, I don't want to say raw, not in a sense that they're not tight, they're tight, but it kind of reminded me of player
type stuff. But this is more, you know, more definitely. But just kind of you had that raw energy to it, if that makes sense, man. You know, it was overproduced. And I know we probably overuse that word these days. It's really kind of some classic death metal if there's such a thing. And I just, I don't know, man, there's a vibe to it that I really love. I'm like, you know what, This is the song of the week. This is it.
We're going to. So yeah, they kept by the band called Deceased. My choice was warming. Warmin is a is a is a band that I think was an offshoot from Children Of Bodom. I think it's the keyboardist players band and there's this whole song on the album called Accept the Fate, The Return of Salieri. I like that one a lot. It's got a little bit of a neoclassical type of vibe and I'm into all that baroque stuff. So Salieri was actually a classical composer, which is
pretty cool. So. Well, guys, that wraps it up for another episode of Metal Mastermind. Thank you so much for being a part of this awesome musician community that we've all created here. And we really hope you got something out of today's podcast. I mean, all of our podcast, but you know, we we kind of went in some heartfelt stuff. Hey, Speaking of Metal Mastermind and your skills and and, you know, really growing your confidence, do check out our courses.
We have the guitar courses. Ken has a theory course. We've got vocal courses. We've got a whole library online courses you can take at metalmastermindcom, so do check those out guys. And until next time, as always, create your own sound.