Welcome to Nerdpreneur, where we have fun conversations with people making money with their nerdy passion. I'm joined, as always, with my co host, Frank. Hello. And today we have a very special guest named Weston from Arcane Anthems. Welcome to Nerdpreneur. Thank you so much for having me. I am absolutely stoked to chat with you both today. I love talking with the rest of the community. It's so much fun. That's awesome. Well,
we're excited to have you on here. So, Weston, what is your nerdy passion? Okay. My nerdy passion is a mix of music and storytelling. I always use storytelling as a device to I always use my music as a device for storytelling, even before I found dungeons and dragons and TTRPGs and all that stuff. So telling stories is really what I love to do. I got into making music to kind of be understood. I had trouble communicating as a kid the type of person that I was when I wasn't in front of people.
So music kind of allowed me a vehicle to be vulnerable in a way that was socially appropriate, if that makes sense. So my passion now is being able to use ttrpgs for storytelling, being able to use music for storytelling, and to enhance other people's games with music, because I believe that there's a reason that every movie soundtrack exists and that it causes these beautiful and enhances beautiful moments in the game.
Yeah. The emotion that it invokes. I mean, back from the acting world, I remember using like, Hans Zimmer star from his Star Trek soundtrack. Oh, my God, that got me so many times. It was so good, so good. And we see that over and over and over again, right? Just when people can start playing a song and all of a sudden you're feeling emotional and you're like, what is going on? And for me, it's a very visceral experience listening to music.
I often find myself holding back tears just listening to a song that ties back to my childhood, even listening to songs from John Williams, Star wars, some of those da da da. All of a sudden I'm feeling all these emotions, and that's what I want to do. That's what I want to bring to people's worlds. Well, I heard from Quentin Tarantino one time in an interview he did with, not us, but with someone else, where he was talking to, talked to them about what it really
is to put music in a film. And he said, when you can create a moment in a film that is permanently associated with that music, then you have succeeded. And I think about that with what you just said in terms of, you know, Star wars or any Hans Zimmer, especially things like Dune, where you can really get that amazing feeling coming from the music. And Dune is so good.
So I did just wanted to say something, though, because I don't even think we've really introduced what you do because you make music for dungeons and dragons campaigns or other basic. Is it kind of for anything that people want to create? How does that work? So I do a lot of stuff with music. I write music for people's podcasts, for their podcast intros, for their Twitch intros, as kind of like my commission based business.
I've worked with Beetle and Grimm and done a couple different songs with them. The thing that takes up all my time is that I write free rpg music for the community to use wherever they want. And it is free. It is on my Patreon, but it is free. You can go and just download it and use it. That's a part of what I do. I've written over 70 free songs, and I've written hundreds of TTRPG songs.
If you combine my, you know, all my Patreon songs with my commissions, like literally several hundred songs, which to me is a big deal. I was in a rock band for ten years and I struggled to write one song every three months, so. And then on top of that, I do d and d parodies on my social platforms and do all these different types of parody songs. So it's music across the board. And that's what I've done to kind of distinguish myself in the community.
My true love is storytelling, and connecting with people, being able to connect with people is so key, and it's what led me to fall in love with tabletop rpg's is that ability to quickly become friends with people and quickly kind of understand one another and to tell a story together. There's nothing that binds you to somebody else quite like that when you're building something so, like, personal together.
And I find that just absolutely amazing to me that we can, as adults, we can find that power of play again. So in addition to my music, I absolutely love playing the games on streams, being able to act and roleplay and build a world. Which of those passions really came first in your life? Was it the d and d or the music? Absolutely music. I've been making music since I was very, very young. Music was a big thing in my home.
I remember Christmas caroling with my family every single Christmas through high school. And high school is when I really started doing the songwriting stuff. I remember getting a guitar at 16 and really wanting to play an instrument so that I could then sing and play wherever I wanted. You know, I could write that music, and that's something that meant a lot to me at the time. I started recording when I was 16 as well, and that experience led me to, you know, developing those skills.
Like, oh, man, I started on a $20 radio shack mic. So, like, I always tell people, wherever you are, if you love it, you're just gonna do it with whatever you have. And the more you do it, the more opportunities you're going to have, and the more money that you're going, you know, you're going to prioritize building that skill set, right? It's going to happen. You're going to find people in the community who might have extra gear or things to beg, borrow, and hopefully not steal,
but it happens. But, yeah, I feel like I got off track there for a second. No, it's wisdom. I love it when we stumble down a path into wisdom. It's beautiful. I was asking, though, where the passion for which came first, music or D and D? But I'm curious, when did the D and D come into the picture for you? 2015 is when D and D came into the picture for me. I actually had just gotten out of making music in a band situation and was feeling a little bit like, what am I doing with my life?
And my friend started doing. I started a board game group. He started really getting into board gaming. And even till today, we are in a board gaming renaissance. We have some of the most amazing board games being created right now, and so many an unplayable amount of incredible games coming out right now. And that's just kind of a privilege. I'm so glad that we live in this. We don't have to play Monopoly anymore. So true. What a terrible game. There's literally
a board game for almost anything. Right. I was just talking to a guy on the disc golf course who has created a disc golf board game, and I was like, that's fun. It is fun. I had no idea that that could potentially be a market or a thing or even how it could work. But he was describing how you could change different types of layouts, almost like, I guess like a tan or something like that, or some of those. Like a different map. Yeah, different maps each time and be able to work with strategy.
I know you're right. Board gaming has never been at such a height as it is right now, and new things are happening all over the industry. So D and D is kind of lIke, I feel, leading this sort of renaissance in that, too, right? Yeah, we're getting there. And at least, at least in my, in my personal journey, right? So they started this BoArd Gaming Group with a Bunch of his friends. He was A, he played keys and bass in my band, and this is how we Kind of had that connection.
And so I started coming over and playing board games with them right around that same time. I was kind of exploring different social media platforms for music and just to kind of become inspired again. And I ended up on ImGUR, of all places, which is a pretty, like, random one because it's, like, not Reddit at the time. It was like, side Reddit. Cause I found Reddit to be, like, really weird. And now I use Reddit all the time. I love it. But I was scrolling
THrough Imgur, right? Weston, tell the story. I was strolling THrough Imager, and I happened UPon this Little BlUrb that said that a bunch of Voice actors were playing dungeons and dragons, and they were saying how good it was. And I was like, oh, that's pretty nerdy. Not ever going to play D and d. Nope. And I scrolled past it and I kept looking at different things that popped up. And then it kind of, something clicked in my head. And I said, actually, Weston,
you like voice acting? Like, this might be kind of interesting for you. You like acting. You were in drama in high school. That was fun for you. You enjoy that kind of connection. And so I flipped back two pages, and I saw and I clicked the link or whatever and led me to geek and sundry in critical role. And so I always feel like, had I not gone back, like, how different would my life have been? It is absolutely wild, the impact that those two swipes had on my life.
And I convinced my board gaming group to play dungeons and dragons through another game called mice and mystics. I tricked them because they were not interested in it, and I dmed mice and mystics for them, which is a cute little game. What is it? I don't know it. My simistics is an rpg in a box, so it's by plaid hat games, and it's a story where you're in a castle and you are these heroes who got shrunk down into mice, and you have to save the castle, essentially. Oh, nice.
Really, really fantastic game. Absolutely love it. To this day, they have expansion and different things for it, but that got me into mini painting, that got me into dice rolling, and I really went in on my semistics until all my players were like, okay, we see what you're doing. We want to try dungeons and dragons. And then that campaign lasted six years. Wow, nice. So pretty wild. The impact that such a small choice had on my life.
Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. And I don't know, I guess I. We just have to keep giving credit, critical role that, credit to building this huge, huge, huge thing and being the leaders that push that out to the world. And, I mean, as much as I love being a part of a cliche, we got you in a dungeon. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you too. Yeah. You know, for me, it went beyond that because I had to convince my friends to play, and I started playing as a dungeon master.
I didn't have the community around me to, like, learn how to play the game as a player. I just jumped in and said, hey, we're gonna have fun. And I kind of had to just learn as I went. And, yeah, they did something with dungeons and dragons that was so unique, and all of them had audiences already from their voice acting, and it just became this critical mass of interest. And, I mean, Matthew Mercer is a fantastic dungeon master. Yeah, he is. He's a fantastic dungeon master.
But it's not just because he's good at world building, it's because he really cares about it. He cares about the stuff that he creates, and it was that passion. And every person at that table cared about what they were doing. You could tell that they were all so invested, most of them at the time, they're all so invested in what they were creating together,
and it was that piece that was addicting. Like, I would have dreams at night of being a part of their table, not necessarily because they were just telling a great story, but because they all cared. And that is the dream, is to sit around a table with people who care about the story that you're creating. Yeah, that care as much as you do. Exactly. I wanted to actually dive back a bit. You had mentioned when you were younger that music kind of became this way to communicate. I resonate with that.
On the performer side, I didn't have good communication skills. I couldn't read social situations very well, and it took a long time for me to get on par with the rest of my classmates. So I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind going into that a bit, because I think that's something that a lot of our listeners would resonate with. There is that struggle to communicate in some way and then finding that thing that allows them to communicate well.
I'm not going to pretend that, like, I was a bad communicator. I was very good at speeches, I was very good at being in front of people. I was very practiced at that. But I always felt like there was something inside of me that I didn't know how to say. And really what it came down to was it wasn't just my fault, but it was a fault of being. Being a child. Like, the people who I was trying to connect with sucked at communication, too. We all did.
So we had to find these other ways to figure out how to say what we were trying to say to each other. And I have ADHd. I'm mildly dyslexic. So I struggled with a lot of things mentally that I didn't get diagnosed until I was 31, so I struggled a lot. And so for me helping other people to understand where I was coming from and like that, like, these things weren't easy for me. Like, going to school wasn't easy for me. Any success I had there wasn't easy for me. I was struggling every single day.
I always felt like I was the dumbest smart person in the room, and I never understood why. And it was those types of complex emotions that I would try and get out through my music that I didn't know how to say. I didn't have a vocabulary for them, but I knew what they felt like. And music has this really beautiful way of portraying what things feel like, and you can find understanding in that. I hope that makes sense. Yeah. Finding the right chord progression and finding
the right combination of notes. Definitely, if someone is well versed enough in that language, those sounds can, like we were saying earlier, can evoke such strong emotions that allows that kind of. It creates this assistance and communication in a way, even not just communicating with another person, but with yourself and finding that space of, okay, this
is really what I'm struggling with. And then, like you said, song writing in high school, eventually you get to that point where you're like, okay, I'm gonna take that leap and add some words. You know? I mean, for me, it was a really scary moment. When I started to add words to songs I was writing, I had a similar kind of journey. Not same. I don't. I don't know your story well enough to say that I was super similar, but in high school, I started to write music as well.
And for me, it was terrifying. It was. It was really, you know, vulnerable to put words to music and then sing that in front of. Front of people. Was it as terrifying, as terrifying for you? For me, it was intoxicating, is what it was. I was already a singer, so standing in front of people and singing was. And dancing and doing all, like. Being on stage was already what I loved. Yes, but I never felt like I was. I never felt like
I was living up to my potential. Like, I swear I went to, like, 100 open mic nights, and every single time, I just felt like I failed. Like, every single time, I would see these people being able to play guitar better than me, singing better than me, and I wouldn't understand why. Like, I didn't get, like, how that could be the case where I would practice every single day and everybody else would be better than me at this thing.
And it could have come down to the type of training that they received. It could have been to whatever. I was very much a lone island growing up in this industry. I had no connections. Everything I did was makeshift and kind of crossing my fingers and praying that things worked. That was how I learned and how I continued to learn my entire life. I'm not classically trained. I didn't go to school for this. I don't have a degree in composition.
I tried to go to college for a little while, and it was horrible. And now I know why. Adhd and dyslexia and things like, cause it to be extremely difficult to go into a traditional learning environment and find success there without breaking your mental health in half, which I eventually did anyway by myself. For me, being on stage is the best drug. That's how it's always been for me. And it doesn't mean that I was always, like, really, really good at it, but I also just love it. I just love it.
What you mentioned about seeing other people and wanting to, that disbelief of, how are they that much better? That is something Chris and I talk about occasionally, about how the two of us find a ways. It's, oh, man, why am I not there? Why am I not at that level? And that is such a reoccurring theme that we hear from nerdpreneurs. I'm curious. If you were to look back at that person, you were there.
Was there a point where, as you were going through this, that it didn't become, say, oh, I don't know if I can be good like those people to the point where you were now the person that was the person others were looking up to, because you have now created quite a big following. Like, 141,000 people on TikTok, 40,000 people on Instagram. Like, you now have a lot of people watching you. Was there a turning point in your life where that happened? Social media is a really.
A really interesting beast, isn't it, in that week, to show people exactly what we want them to see. And I think what a lot of people don't see is that those things still exist in me. Like, I still see performers who actually, like, I have all these instruments behind me. I'm equally bad on all of them. You know, like, even as a singer, like, I love singing. I love being in front of people. I have a good voice. I'm not, you know, I'm not John Mayer. You know, I'm not, like, that's the.
So, with social media, I get to show people exactly what I want them to see. And even to this day, being on tour probably wouldn't have worked for me very well. I probably would have gone through the whole super anxious, anxiety ridden, panic attacked person that I was. But I would be in Minneapolis, and that would be happening, and I would have no support system.
I feel pretty privileged that I get to be home with my family and do this, and then occasionally, I get to go to conventions, and I get to see people, and I get to be on stage there, and I get to collaborate and make music with other artists, and I get to live this in the way that is best for me.
And, yes, I am still, to this day, disappointed that I did not become better at the guitar and that I didn't live up to be the kind of musician that I always wanted to be, kind of live musician that I always wanted to be. But in that failure, I found other things that I really excelled at. Well, I think this is, this is actually, and I think one of the things you probably excel at is social media. Some of these things we want to get into. But I wanted to.
I wanted to say that I love what you were just saying around breaking down some of these conventional modes of success that you are able to build now. I mean, and this is unprecedented in time, really, where we can build lifestyles and create a business where we can say, do the thing we love doing. And it doesn't have to be like, oh, I want to be a musician. Well, I'm going to have to tour around the world. I'm going to have to grind
it out and find fans that way. Like, we are in a new time, where you're breaking a different convention of success, and we're finding a way for you to be able to be successful on your terms, the way you want to be able to do it. And I think that's really part of what Nerdpreneur is trying to highlight and one of the reasons why I've been excited to talk to you about this, because that's. You're a great example.
You're one of the people I was thinking, this guy is such a great example of what a nerdpreneur is. The thing is that in our spaces, I think that those social media numbers don't paint a full picture ever of what it feels like to actually be an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is a very lonely experience. It's wild to think that I have almost 200,000 followers across platforms. Platforms.
And it's even wilder that, like, with that platform, I'm still in the red every month, you know, like, that's what being an entrepreneur is. That's what starting your own business is, is. It's not just about getting the attention. The attention is part of it. And it's tricky to split your time between, like, doing things that may actually make you money and then doing things that need to be done because, you know, life, and then also doing things that get you attention.
And you have to be, like, juggling these three things all the time in order to. In order to make life work. But you're just a person, you know, like, I don't have unlimited amounts of energy or time, you know, and things happen just like, just like everything else. I don't have a safety net that I can fall back in. I've been very privileged to have a partner who is absolutely incredible and who is so good at real life things. Thank goodness.
I would be lost without her. And just, I mean, I say that and I look at her and I think in the same way that I would look at those musicians on stage and be like, wow, you just do all this taxes and shopping and planning easy. It just seems like she's just on stage performing. I have that same amount of envy toward her that I do toward those musicians that I was watching this open mic nighthead, and that's just it. So many people look at the musicians and say, you make that look so easy.
Why can't I do what. What is happening? We all have those. Those areas where, like, even just in our podcast, Frank does things that I'm like, I cannot. I can't handle doing that, Frank. Like, I'm just like, we have different strengths. There are things that will grind me and will stop me from doing other things or will halt the podcast. Cause that's just not where my skill sets or where my passion or whatever it is happens to go.
And Frank has actually got a lot of those things that work really well. And I think finding someone when you work with them or whether you're finding a partner that you're going to be with and live with forever, finding those similarities is important, but also it's important to find someone that's complementary with your strengths, whether you're building a business or a marriage or a life together or anything like that. That's a great segue.
One of the things earlier that you had mentioned was about you have your strengths that you've recognized, and I was hoping that you would take a moment to dive into it. Not, not. It doesn't have to be music or performing side of things, because you've mentioned that you love being on the stage. It's intoxicating. You love performing. I totally get that. We, we, Chris and I totally get that. But what is it? What are some of the other strengths that you've discovered?
Another favorite drug of mine, and I had mentioned it previously, but it's connecting with people and it's getting to know people. I'm really bad at small talk. I mean, I don't. I'm sure the two of you can see, like, oh, we're just, we're just diving in. Okay. Like, I love. I love understanding people and getting a complete picture quickly. I don't love talking about the weather and about, you know, whatever normal people talk about when they first meet other people. I'm like, oh, so
what things are you passionate about? Like, what happened that you ended up here at this place, you know, like, I want to know who people are. And for me, play is a fantastic way to actually get to know people. You discover so much about people when you allow yourself to play with them. And we say on stage, musicians play music. We're not just talking about the act of touching their instruments, we're talking about them playing together on stage.
You understand people on a level, whether it's music or dungeons and dragons or whatever TTRPG you're into, or sitting around a table and playing board games. You get to know people in a way that is so intimate that you wouldn't otherwise get to. At least that's how I form my own games. That's how I run my games as a DM is. I push my players to open up and to be vulnerable. What was the question? Your strengths? My strengths? Connecting with people and connecting with their deepest self
and finding connections between people. To me, being able to get three words from somebody about how they want a song to sound. And then, like some of their influences, I can be like, oh, yeah, this will take me. I usually nail it on the first try. I usually nail the song on the first try because I truly. I deeply think about who this person is, what they are asking for. And again, with three adjectives and some influences, I can be like, oh, yeah, I know what you need. It's this.
And we can talk about feedback later, the importance of taking feedback and collaboration and all that stuff later. But usually I can get pretty close with that first attempt because I'm taking time to first understand where they are coming from. It's not just about putting chords together. I suck at that. I'm terrible at that. What I'm good at is hopefully understanding people and being willing to take the time before I even touch a keyboard to understand where they're coming from. Empathy.
Empathy. And empathy is almost like a map for you, right? I mean, you could really explore any number of musical instruments or ways to go with this, but by having these words that the people are telling you, or the connection that you have with them, understanding them, that gives you a map in which to kind of guide you towards a palpable and solid finished product that will resonate with them. I'm curious how long it took you to get to that place where you really have that skill set.
Because it's a skill set. I think I've always felt very comfortable when it came to standing in front of people to explain a principle. One of the other things that I really admired in people when I was younger was their ability to tell stories in a way that made complex subject matter very attainable. So I spent a long time. I used to work at. I used to work at Apple, and I was one of
their technology trainers there. Essentially, I would stand in front of a bunch of people who had just gotten brand new products and who were really trepidatious. And I would say, you've done harder things in your life than this. I'm gonna walk you through this process, and by the end of this class, you're gonna feel so much better. And I was able to say that, and I did that every single day. And I would come up with new ways, new analogies, but not new ways to just understand technology.
It was new ways to help people to understand that they were the only one standing in their way, that it wasn't the technology's problem standing in their way. It was them. It was their mindsets that were the issue. And once I could tell them, like, hey, what did you do for 40 years? It's like, oh, I was a sonar tech. Okay, you can send an email. You've done so many things that are so much harder than this. Believe that if you could do that, you can do this.
You said the magic word. You said mindset. It is so important for people to wrap their heads around the fact that their mindset. It determines their future, it determines their present, it determines how they see their past. Sometimes people really need to be reminded that they're capable.
I used to train people to sell knives, which is not as fun, not always as easy to do, training people on sales, but just explaining how their job was really what you were talking about, connecting with people, and that they've had a chance to do that their whole life. And this is something they will continue to get better at every single time, and that they can do it.
And just reminding people in that state that influences their mindset in such a positive way to get somewhere with their progress, with the things they're struggling with. Was there a time or was there a mental shift you had to make in order to turn your passion for music and d and t into something that could actually be a business? You have to do things that are scary. I mean, you have to be willing to do things that are deemed unconventional and that are scary.
And for me, writing instrumental music was not my strength. At least I didn't think it was, because, again, I'm not classically trained. I've never played in an orchestra. I've never done any. I didn't even know what all the different instruments were called, but I knew that I knew how to write melodies with my voice. I knew I knew how to sing. I've had orchestras in my head since I was, like, six where, like, I could create songs up here, but I didn't know what to do with them.
I couldn't do anything with them. So for me, like, being willing to be like, okay, I'm just gonna pluck out this melody on this piano that I can't play, and then I'm gonna add something else, and then I'm gonna add something else, and then maybe I'm gonna look up some tutorials online about composition and, like, what.
What instrument should be playing what, and I'm gonna make a ton of mistakes, and I'm going to be lucky enough or privileged enough to have been working at Apple and be able to get this great music software for free on my crappy laptop and make it work and try. And now I've done this a couple times. I wonder if somebody else would pay me to make music for them. I wonder if they would.
And I started on Instagram with a thing called make my anthem, where I was kind of, like, saying, like, hey, if you need a song for a thing, let me know. I'm really good at this. I've never done this before. I'm so good at this. And people. I made a lot of deep connections with people. I did not become very popular. I worked for four years as make my anthem, 2016 to three years, 2016 to 2019 as make my anthem, and I got 600 followers on Instagram with all that effort.
So it's been a very long road. Nothing in my life has been quick. It always seems like I always have to do all the hard stuff. I have to do every. Every hard thing in order to. I have to climb every stair and then run across every plateau and then climb more stairs. Like, that's always been what my progress has felt like. And now, as, like, a 36 year old, I'm, like, starting to find good things that are happening. Like, what a concept.
It only took me, you know, I see my fellow 23 year old creators who just seemingly have figured out the formulas to everything that I never knew about, and I just feel like this old man just getting into this business, but I love it. I'm doing this because this is good for my mental health. This is good for me. We're working retail. Surprise, surprise. Was not. So you feel. Because a lot of people say the opposite, like, you know, social media is not great for my mental health. So you feel that
social media has. I mean, there's, of course, the bad side, but on. On the whole, you know, at the end, the total tally, you feel like it's better for your health. Being able to work in an industry and with things that make me feel fulfilled and happy and valued absolutely is better for my mental health. Additionally, it allows me to be more inconsistent in my personal life. I tend to, again, I suffer from depression and anxiety and panic attacks, and those things
just kind of happen sometimes. Like, it's not a trigger. It's just, I wake up some days and I'm like, oh, dang it, it's one of those days. And, like, I can't go into work. So this allows me the time to, like, sprint when I. When I'm feeling good and stop and walk when I'm not. And that flexibility, for me, has given me a lot of peace of mind that for me, it's okay to not. Like, there's that saying, it's okay to not be okay, right. But really, in our society, it's not.
It's not okay to not be okay in a capitalist society that we live in. Because if you're not okay, then you might lose your house. You might not contribute to society. There's this. We can say those things, but the reality is, is that we've built the society around us, or we've allowed a society to be built around us that is not pro human, it's pro productivity. And that's, I guess, where this has been very helpful to me is I'm not making nearly
as much money as I made at Apple. But, man, if I'm not a lot happier and being able to spend time with my partner and with my kids and doing that is really, like, where that happiness lies. I think what you're getting at is really important. We don't talk about it enough as a society, but finding that balance of how can you make an income? How can you have a lifestyle that is good for you as a person? And, you know, so many people are different from the other, and finding that that is.
That is a good balance because, you know, balance is the key. We, you know, it's like that holy Grail, finding that balance. And one of those things you mentioned earlier, you know, having the time for all these different avenues, these different things that make money, these different things that are creative, you know, the different things that I got to do to, like, do taxes and whatnot, and then we're all supposed to. We're also supposed to find time to have fun. And I think that.
That's where nerdpreneur is really awesome, because if you are enjoying or having some fun with those other things that you needed to do, then that's. That's. That's kind of the secret. I mean, it's always going to feel like work every now and then, but if you can still have fun. And. And whenever I listen to your music, whenever I see your videos, it is so fucking clear you are having a blast.
And I think that that's infectious as a viewer and as someone that wants to play more dungeons and dragons or more tabletop role playing games, they see someone like you when they're like, oh, man, he's having fun making this music. It inspires me to have fun playing those games. And the fact that you get to then engage and connect through that with people helps them gravitate towards you. And that's. That's kind of this secret equation.
And I wish I could put it in variables in a very linear equation right now, but it is very much an equation. I just haven't gotten the numbers down. I haven't cracked it yet. I love that when I am doing homebrew, creating a new homebrew world for my friends to come over and play, this is me connecting back to my community. Cause for a long time, gosh, I was making way more d and d music than I was playing d and d, you know, like. Like, so. And, I mean, that was
just kind of how the pandemic was. And, like, me needing to, like, play with people in person, like, it's not this. It's not quite the same for me online. Again, that that connection element is not as deep when I'm behind a camera, and I do my very best when I'm performing on a stream to get that connection regardless. You know, like, I put a lot of energy into it. But having home games again now has really reinvigorated that original love that I had for it. And for me,
it's like. It's like, fun research. Like, that's where all my content is gonna come from, is from those games. Like, that's where all my new music is gonna come from. Those are where my lyrics are gonna come from. Having those experiences playing, like, you can only do something for so long while not doing it, and you definitely won't love it anymore if you stop doing the thing, because it will start to become very disingenuous.
Right. If you are making all this content about a thing that you don't really care about anymore or that you don't have a connection with anymore. And if there's anything I want to be, it's genuine and it's honest. There is so much to do with authenticity in what you're talking about and remaining authentic. I was curious, though, when you said that there's an obsession
around productivity in the world today. There's definitely this kind of loss economy, right, where people are afraid of losing if they don't keep posting or they're afraid of losing something. I think that that generates a lot of productivity. You're a pretty productive guy from what I've seen on your posts and everything like that.
I would love to dissect or dive in a little bit on how some of your daily habits, or if there aren't daily habits, how it is that you manage staying productive enough to keep this thing growing and successful. I do want to correct one thing that I may have said. There's an obsession with appearing productive. Interesting. I don't think we need eight hour workdays to be productive. I think that's absolute b's. And I don't think people can be productive for 8 hours a day. That's not a thing.
On my best days, when I'm super hyper focused on a task, yeah, but that's what, once every couple of weeks where I really dive in for 12 hours and do something. And that's not good for you. That's not good for you. But there's this obsession with appearing productive that is really what destroys people's mental state. Right. Anyway, I just wanted to make that distinction. Yeah. Glad you said that. And I also want to say that when I'm working from home, I don't have to worry about that.
I can do things. And most of what my habits are. Habits are is me trying to manage my mental state. That is what I spend the most time doing in my life. Because how my mental state is will determine how much stuff I'm able to accomplish and how creative I'm able to be. So I have full faith in myself that if I feel good that I am going to create.
The only times that I can't do it are when my brain isn't right, when I. When I sink into depression, when I sink into panic attacks and anxiety, when I'm not getting enough sleep, when I don't go outside, when I'm not going on, you know, exercise and going on walks or playing beat saber, or, you know, getting my heart rate up or whatever it might be like. If I'm not doing those things, then I'm going to have mental health problems more often, and therefore I will not be able to create. For me,
it's not a lack of creativity. I feel like, and this is, this is a mindset thing, I have to believe that any blank page I can fill with creativity. And I think that's what a lot of people confuse, being a creator. It's like, oh, man, you have so many ideas. Yes. So would you, if you could get past all the other things that are stopping your ideas from flowing. For me, it's not the creativity part that's the problem. And I spend most of my time making sure that I'm okay so that I can then create.
Could you elaborate on some of those techniques or say, it sounds to me like you have routines or things in place that you know you should be doing regularly or should be in your schedule to manage your mental state. Could you elaborate on what some of those things are? So sleep, exercise, sunshine, being outside, being outside of your creative space. And then there's another one, and it has completely fled my brain. Healthy food. Yeah, I was going to say nourishing. Like,
nourishing your. Your body, making sure that you're getting plenty of water, making sure that you're getting the right kinds of food. And if I'm doing all of those things, I will still have bad days, but I won't have nearly as many. Sometimes you're going to get sick and it's going to screw up those things. I got Covid after Gen con this year, and it messed me up. It messed me up bad. All of a sudden, I was out for like, two weeks. I wasn't able to exercise, I wasn't able to go outside.
I wasn't able to do all these things that I needed to do for my mental health. My mental health declined. And then when I got back, when I was feeling not sick anymore, all of a sudden, I couldn't quite work out the way that I used to. All of a sudden, I was back at square one again. You know, there's all these things. Life is going to happen to you, but if you're able to at least have an idea of, like, oh, I need to do these things. Another, another big one.
Another big one for me is seeing people. I have to interact with people. If I don't interact with people, then my creativity just takes a nosedive. And again, that goes back to connection. Like, I need connection with people. I need those good conversations with people. Luckily, I don't have the same kind of loneliness that somebody else might have. I have three kids and a wife. And they're fantastic and wonderful. And I still need other friendships. I still do.
I'm not the kind of person who only does things with their family. Everybody needs a D and D group. Everybody needs a D group. All right. If we could just have everybody get one, I think they would all be a little bit better off, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. Having that kind of community, I think it was. It was. There was years ago, I read Aziz Ansari's book, modern romance. It was about, like, dating in the modern world and great book.
A total tangent to talk about the book itself, but there was the point that he made. You can't expect this person that you're trying to meet and find to be everything that you're looking for in life, in a partner. And I actually read that and it didn't sink in. It wasn't until a year later that a friend and I were talking about this book, and she told me this, and she's like, frank, like, this person that you're, you know, you're holding up pretty high. Rule stick here to this person.
And I was like, oh, my God. And she echoed that back to me. And it's so true that so often we get caught up in thinking that they, that this or whoever our partner is, has to be everything. But we forget that we actually need a community. We need. We need a bunch of people around us for varying depths of friendships to feel fulfilled and healthy, connected. Tarina, my wife, is not a nerd. Not a nerd. And that surprises the heck out of people for nerds out there. How did you get that?
Well, I used to be a cool musician. I used to be a rock star. Learn guitar. I used to be a rock star. So one acid trip later and we were married. It was great. You tricked them just like you got your friends in the D and D. Yes. I can trace back a lot of my successes to just pure charisma, persuasion, checks that I passed and shouldn't have. We're all bards here, so it makes sense. You got a couple nat twenties in your life. All right. You're supposed to. She is. She is definitely
one of my natural twenties, for sure. Yeah. We're going to go ahead now. Switch things over to the random rolls. Little less serious, probably start rolling dice. That'd be a bit more fun. So we're going to do this probably about four times here. So go ahead and take a roll. All right, I'm rolling here. That's 82. 82. Frank needs to put his glasses on. No, he's got this what is something that is really, really popular now? But in five years, everyone will look back on and be embarrassed by what.
Is something that is really popular now? Let's look back on in five years. Wow. I wish I was more into pop culture. Um, you're all on tick tock, man. I know, but, like, I'm still, like, nostalgic for really cringey stuff. Goodness sakes. That are going to be embarrassing. I don't think I even have an answer for that. I think the way that I'll answer it is that I very much live in the now, and I'm not trying to figure out what's going to happen tomorrow.
I am most healthy when I am right here in this space, in this second. That is the thing that is most important to me. So questions like that just stump me because I don't live there anymore. And that's how I'm going to answer that question. I don't live in the future. I thought it was funny you created a option d that was not on the quiz. Very nice. Again, I do my own thing. I did. What came to mind for me was what you had said earlier about, you know, that idea where we lip sync on. On TikTok.
I was like, oh, my God, I forgot that that was not a thing before. And how weird that was to see God. But anyway. Yeah. All right, one more and then we'll finish. All right, one more here. Oh, yeah, go ahead. We got 49. You get to hunt one X Men with Predator. Who do you hunt? So I get to hunt an X Men. I don't know if that's ever been on my bucket list. That's why these questions are random, called random roll. I mean, maybe I go after somebody like Deadpool.
Cause then the fun would never end. Like, we could just keep hunting down Deadpool over and over and over again. Plus the quips alone. And I think that Deadpool would, like, see that as kind of a game, you know? Like, I feel like Deadpool would be kind of into that. It'd be very much a. Just an ongoing, like, hey, we're back. Yeah, very entertaining. Yeah, for sure. At the very least, Deadpool would have some good jokes for us. Right? Well, let's go ahead. Thank you for indulging us with that.
Now we're going to ask you to indulge us with some more. But this time, we get to ask from a list, and we get to choose them. These are rapid fire questions. These are even sillier most of the time. And you will tell us the truth if you want, and we'll tell you whether you're right or wrong. First one, I have to get this out of the way. Star Trek or Star wars? Oh, don't go breaking my heart. Star wars, space fantasy. That seemed to be a tough choice for you.
So, yes, I grew up on both. I grew up watching next Generation and Voyager and Deep Space Nine. Me too. And I grew up watching all of the Star wars movies and, like, rewatching all of the Star wars vhs cassettes over and over and over again. So they were both my entire childhood. And I love one for being dystopian and the other for being utopian. And, like, I've done all the comparisons. Like, one is Sci-Fi one is fantasy. Like, there, you can't really compare the two. Like,
they're different. They're not. They're not the same thing. Like, they're. For me, it's like comparing Dune and Powerpuff girls. They're not. Just because they both take place in spaceships doesn't mean they're the same genre. Anyway, go ahead. But one is better. Adequate answer. Thank you very much. Who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman? Oh, Superman. Really? But Batman has a plan for everything. Doesn't matter. Superman. This has been fought and lost. Superman is stupid strong.
Superman is a. Is a plant. And as long as he is within a yellow sun, you cannot beat him like, he is. He's literally come back from the dead just by, like, being around the sun again. Like, you cannot kill super. Like, you can't beat him. You cannot beat Superman. The planet will explode before you beat. Superman unless you start a franchise movie about them. And then Batwoman. Batman wins every time. Next question. I like Batman more. Does that help? But Superman is so thinking when it.
Comes to Batman, for sure. All right. Yeah. This whole debate of Batman and Superman is. It's. Let's move on. All right. All right. Who is your Star Trek captain of choice? Oh, Mandy. I think the one that I have the most fond memories of is Janeway. Interesting. From Voyager. Janeway got a vote. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. She's great and under pressure. She was awesome. I think that Janeway had the hardest job. Yes. I think Janeway was absolutely alone, and she was the top. Like, she.
She stayed captain that entire. There was no mutiny of, like, are you kidding me? They were in the middle of nowhere. I think the job that Janeway had to keep, and they made it back. Janeway is an incredible captain. When you think about just accomplishments. She didn't save the universe like Picard did. Or I do think that what's his name from Deep Space nine? Cisco Sisko. I think Cisco is the coolest captain. Yeah, agreed. Cisco is so amazing. I love Cisco, and he'd probably be my number two.
But I think that, for the sake of argument and for the sake of being different, I would choose Janeway, because, wow. No mutiny. No mutiny aboard that ship. Really? Over how many? Five or six years? Being in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Fighting the borg by herself. Okay. I just wanted to let you know that you gave the correct answer. That was a very compelling argument in this case. Well, Weston, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Where can people find you your music and support you to keep doing what you're doing? I am on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube and Twitter. I have a Patreon where, again, you can get over 70 free TTRPG songs you can use in your podcasts and home games and streams. I'm on Spotify, and I'm on Apple Music, and I'm on YouTube music. Add me to your playlists. If you don't have money to help me on Patreon to make this music, add me to your D and D playlists. That helps me out a ton.
I could make a whole career of just being on Spotify playlists. I would, because it's so neat. It's so cool. I love seeing all different playlist names pop up. Shoot me messages. You can send me DM's. I actually respond to them. I'm on social media a lot, so, again, I like connecting with people. Please don't be offended if I stop responding after a little while, because I do have children and all sorts of responsibilities and things, but I'm not very difficult to get a hold of.
What is your handle? Oh, it's Arcane. Anthems everywhere. So I have nailed down that brand. It is mine. I'm glad I got it before Netflix did. Yes. Oh, kidding. Yeah, yeah, no joke. One thing I think we should just say, even though it might be at the end, is the music you create
for d and D campaigns is awesome. Like, I've gone through your playlist, by the way, and I was listening, and, I mean, the fact you came from, like, a rock music, say, background or we're in a band, you have, like, full classical kind of compositions here with all different instrumentations, not just a tavern guy with a guitar or something. So I want people to know that and go check it out, because, really, there's some amazing, amazing stuff there.
I've done everything from afro futurist to flamenco guitar. So lots of learning happening, and I hope to be able to write anything and everything eventually. That is my goal. And I saw on your Patreon you have tavern versions of things or something. Can you explain that? I'm just curious what that was. Yeah. So in addition to the free orchestral music that I put out of, I also, for my supporters, I put out Tavern music.
So I'll write a song, and then I'll turn it into a tavern version of that song. So it's that same epic battle, but it's on tavern instruments, or it's that same epic battle music, but now it's in a synth wave version, like you're playing Shadowrun or you're in cyberpunk, or it's a vaporwave version that would appear in, like, the Shadowfell, or it's a. What's the other one? I do Tavern. Da da da da da.
Yeah. Anyway, so I do different versions of the songs so that you can use them throughout your campaign and in different environments and in different styles of game as well. And I'll tell you, I used to do a actual play podcast, and it was one of my first forays into the D and D universe and finding good music that you can use without, like, all this licensing or challenge, all that sort of thing that not only sounds good, but doesn't sound like, just, like, cheap, crummy music.
I wish I'd had your library at that moment. Let's put it that way. I wish I had. And I encourage everyone to go check it out. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Weston. And for everyone else, keep it nerdy. You just finished the tall size version of this episode with Frank and Chris. If you want to hear the Venti sized version, become a member of
our awesome nerdpreneur board. Board members, get access to all extended versions of our episodes and access to our AMA advice show, where Chris and I answer your burning questions. Go to patreon.com nerdpreneur to become a. Member of the awesome Nerdpreneur board. Thanks for listening, and as always, keep it nerdy.