Guest: Prezence - Authenticy & Activism: Using The Power of Music to Inspire Real Change

Music. An idea whose time has come cannot be destroyed by armies or governments.

It's too pervasive, and we still have tools to spread the message. Music.

Welcome to the Free Thought Project Podcast, a hub for free-thinking conversations about the promotion of liberty and the daunting task of government accountability. Here are your hosts, Jason Bassler and Matt Agarist. Hello again, Freethinkers. Welcome back to the Freethought Project podcast. My name is Jason Bassler and joining me is the Freethought Project editor-in-chief, Matt Agarist. How's everybody doing out there? Thank you once again for joining us today on

the Freethought Project podcast. We have another amazing podcast interview lined up for you all today. and I'm certainly eager to jump into it. Now, I should probably start by saying that we have a bit of a departure from the doom and gloom that, you know, at times we here at the Free Thought Project do focus on. So yeah, today we have some excellent news to discuss and honestly, like I couldn't be more happy about it.

And to be fair, you know, the last couple of days have actually been really great for myself, the Free Thought Project, and the world. It appears we have some really exciting news to share, and it actually has me feeling a bit hopeful. And I'm sure we'll get into more of that. But one of those topics right off the bat is absolutely huge. Ross Ulrich, the one-time political prisoner sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years, was given a full pardon by President Donald Trump just two days ago.

And, you know, I don't want to speak for Matt, but I think we're both grateful that Trump did keep his word and that Ross is now free and back with his family, including his mother, Lynn, who worked so tirelessly over a decade to get him freed. I mentioned the other day on a podcast I was joining that, you know, we too have been longtime advocates for freeing Ross.

And boy, I don't know how many articles and memes that we've made over the years that, you know, went viral to help create awareness for Ross. But, you know, honestly, it was all worth it to see his smile in that picture outside of the prison when he was just released. And yeah, I'm sure we'll get into this more. But Matt, how you doing today? And holy shit, man, can you believe that Ross is finally free? I really didn't think it was ever going to happen.

Neither did I, dude. To see that happen was amazing. I almost started crying. I was at a party over at my friend's house because we had a snow day down here. We had a blizzard in Louisiana, which is the first blizzard I've ever been a part of. But it was very much warmed up when we got the news that Ross was pardoned. And it was crazy. And I mean, not to pat ourselves on the back, but we were big advocates for that for years when we were reaching millions of people.

And I really hope that we had some effect to that. And even tyrants can create good in the world, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. And yeah, I think we were both skeptical. But as you just mentioned, you know, it was a decade, a decade ago, I think I made my first meme kind of trading, trying to create some awareness for Ross. And yeah, whatever, you know, small part we played, I'm certainly grateful.

And again, it was just all worth it. You know, I actually just before we got on the podcast, I'll have a few pictures of him hugging his sister and hugging his mom in the parking lot. And man, it was just so heartwarming.

But uh you know as you know we usually do before we get started introducing our guests i did want to just remind you guys to please like share and comment on this podcast with whatever social media platform you found it on i also wanted to remind you guys to please take a second to rate review and subscribe to this podcast on whatever podcast player that you're using it just takes a quick moment uh so go ahead and just pause the podcast

right now go back to the podcast platform you're using and hit that subscribe button. It really does help us reach more listeners. And hopefully someday we'll be big enough that we don't have to keep asking you guys this every podcast. But for now, we do need your help. So thank you guys for doing that free thinkers. Also, I just want to get on your guys radar here. Make sure you check out our first two podcasts of 2025.

Two weeks ago, we spoke to health economist and entrepreneur, James Maskell about new ways to envision health care and how to end big pharma and the medical industrial complex. And also check out the podcast we released last week with author, historian and podcaster, the great Dave Benner, where we discussed the Trump inauguration and the many promises that Trump made on the campaign trail. It was definitely a powerful episode.

All right guys well today we have a guest on that i think you guys are going to love you know here at the free thought project podcast you know we try to always bring you interesting and important guests doing big things for their community and for the world we've had on fellow activists we've talked to fellow podcasters journalists authors doctors including the great ron paul tech innovators, gun gurus, and also conscious musical artists.

And we try not to only give our listeners some variety, but also to shine a light on individuals who we believe should be on our audience's radar. So today we have the pleasure of speaking to a musical artist that I've been admiring over the past few months.

Our conversation today is with multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer grant presence elman now his music focuses on spreading the truth and freedom and love and often combines elements of funk jazz rock and reggae he's known for his live performances where he loops multiple instruments while performing live and sings soulful vocals i'm looking forward to highlighting some of his music during the podcast today,

But Grant, dude, how you doing, man? And welcome to the Freethought Project podcast. Hey, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. And yeah, just grateful to be here. I've been following both of your work for a long time since all of the censorship and shadow banning began when you guys had millions of followers on Facebook. And then I remember your account getting taken down. And it's really a pleasure to be here.

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. what you're talking about is basically the golden age of social media back when we actually had organic reach and the algorithms weren't dictating everything that we're seeing online and on our news feeds. And yeah, it was definitely a different world. But I do appreciate your support and I do appreciate you joining us as well. I know we had you scheduled twice before having to bump this interview for various reasons.

I think once was like the day before Thanksgiving last year and it just didn't work out. And then again, last month, but here you are, man. And you know, we're happy to finally get to speak with you.

So brother, as we often do on this podcast, I'm interested in hearing your origin story. I know you kind of started to touch on a little bit there, but I think it's a great way for our audience to connect with you and learn more about your journey into this world of truth and freedom, and obviously your musical background. So do you mind taking a few minutes to explain who you are, what you do, and how you got into all this? Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much.

So I've been a musician my entire life. I was a classically trained pianist and started playing piano about the age of four. My parents actually made it kind of part of my schooling requirement that I was to take classical piano, and that went all the way through high school. And I wasn't allowed to just say, you know, I'm done and quit like most kids.

And you know, you can make the argument that that's not peaceful parenting or nonviolent parenting, forcing a child to do something, but many parents forced them. Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much. So I've been a musician my entire life. I was a classically trained pianist and started playing piano about the age of four. My parents actually made it kind of part of my schooling requirement that I was to take classical piano, and that went all the way through high school.

And I wasn't allowed to just say, you know, I'm done and quit like most kids. And you can make the argument that that's not peaceful parenting or non-violent parenting, forcing a child to do something. But many parents force their kids to go through the compulsory education system. And I just had a little extra compulsory education in music, which today I'm actually so grateful for that because it's been the foundation of everything that I do.

When I got a little bit older, I kind of wanted to rebel against the classical music. So I started playing punk rock at about the age of nine. I taught myself guitar and drums and started playing in bands. And then after that, got kind of sucked back into the mainstream academic world and went through college and got a little bit disconnected from my musical purpose. And then in about 2017, when I graduated college, throughout. Really starting to experiment with expanding my mind.

And, you know, I started doing meditation like an hour a day. And I was also experimenting with cannabis and other psychedelics. And over time, I started to actually get to know myself on a much deeper level and go into healing some of the traumas that were holding me back and understanding that this world is far, this reality is far more magnificent and far more, you know, there's just so much more to this reality. And around that time when I got out of school, I became extremely depressed.

I didn't know what my life path was. I'd been disconnected from my music. And I started really just diving into, you know, your guys' work, Derek Brose, and a lot of other people such as Mark Passio, and people talking about natural law and freedom and voluntarism. And all of a sudden, all of the feelings that I'd been having in my healing journey started to make sense. And I understood why this world felt so upside down.

And when the lockdowns happened, there was a few years where I sat kind of on the sidelines, taking in a lot of this information as so many of us do when we first wake up. And I found that I started to go through a bit of a dark night of the soul because I was taking in so much conspiratorial information. And I understood that this reality was being controlled by this priest class and all that kind of stuff, but I didn't know what to do about it.

And as I continued on my healing journey, it just became inevitably clear that I needed to use my gift of music to spread the truth and to spread a message of freedom. And so during, I think it was in May or April of 2020, I was living in Colorado at the time, and I was sitting on my couch listening to Mark Passio. And I know you guys have had Mark Passio on this podcast before, and he was one of the people who really pushed me to get active and actually do something.

He was saying something to the effect of to know the truth and not to act is not to know or care, which is now a lyric that I've integrated into my song Realign. I realized that if I wasn't acting on the knowledge that I had taken in, then I was part of the problem. And so I began to look for ways that I could use my musical gifts to actually, empower people and bring a message of truth and freedom. And that turned into this project today, which is called Presence.

It started off with actually my next door neighbor. When I was living in Colorado, both of us were completely out of work during the lockdowns.

And he happened to also be a reggae artist and it just became you know obvious that we needed to collaborate so we started making music together and we started playing a bunch of shows getting invited to bigger reggae festivals and conscious music festivals and things of that nature and then yeah today i'm just continuing on that path of trusting that following my heart will lead exactly where I need to go and that being committed to being

of service to uplifting the consciousness of humanity is the highest goal that I can achieve in this lifetime and that I must use my gifts to do that. And I just want to encourage and empower and inspire other people to use their gifts to be in service of the truth, in service of freedom, in service of raising the vibration of humanity so that we can get out of this situation that we're in because. In my opinion, nobody's coming to save us.

We have to do the work ourselves. We have to get to the root of our inner traumas and heal ourselves and then really work on ourselves and figure out how we can use our gifts to be of service.

So that's a little bit of my background on how I'm here today. For sure, man. I love it. Yeah, man. That's a great origin story, dude.

And I know some of your music, it's philosophically based and generalized for the voluntarist movement but I when I was looking through some of your past works you've done some songs for Ross Ulbrich right to to expose what's going on with him and now he's free and so I was I was wondering man like what what made you have this connection to Ross Ulbrich I know Jason and I you seem much younger than Jason and I I'm not sure

how old you are but I know that you know him and I have been pushing for Ross to be freed since the beginning of the free thought project and likely before that. But so what, what pulled you in to support Ross and, and, and how do you feel about this most recent move by Trump to free him? Well, first of all, I'm so stoked that he's out. I cannot express how much gratitude I have that he's out.

It's complete wrongful imprisonment. And I don't advocate for anybody to be locked up for victimless crimes. And I don't really advocate for anybody to be locked up in the first place, except for maybe the politicians who are locking everyone up. Maybe we should lock them up. But anyways, so as far as Ross, I'm really, really stoked on how this whole project materialized. The two of you may be familiar with my friend, Kenny Palarantano. I think that's how you say his last name.

Kenny. And Kenny put together this compilation album. And he's really been pushing the Free Ross Now token on Solana, which all of the proceeds of that go directly to Ross and Lynn. And he's talked about really this idea that we can turn up the volume on this issue. And if we get active enough in the grassroots, as I think one of you mentioned in one of the recent posts that you put out, if we can actually demand somebody be freed, we can actually create the change that we want to see.

We just have to actually realize that we hold the power and it's not the politicians who hold the power. It's about remembering our own power. And so anyways, Kenny asked me if I would do a song for this compilation album, and I was honored to do so. And we actually got high res as a feature on the song that I produced. And we have other tunes from the likes of Illuminati Congo. We have Free Knots. We have Jordan Page.

We have, yeah, just a whole host of different freedom and liberty minded artists on this compilation album, which actually came out on the 18th, just a few days before Ross was freed. So it just felt like that energy was in the field.

We put out this big creative project and I don't want to say that we necessarily tipped it over the edge, but I think everybody who's been involved with making their voices heard and turning up the volume, as Kenny says, about this issue has been involved in some way and the energy in the field was there for him to get out. And so to see that happen just a few days after we released the compilation album was really heartwarming and it actually just made me cry tears of joy.

So yeah, so you can go listen to that. There's a Bandcamp page where you can download all of the music in high quality format and it's also up on my website. It's on Spotify. It's on all the platforms. So definitely go and check it out. And we all put a lot of hard work into it. And I'm just stoked because now Ross and his family will actually be able to hear it and appreciate it in a whole new light.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna have to check that out. I knew that Jordan Page was working on something. I heard his song, but I didn't realize there's a whole compilation going out. So yeah, that's huge. And shout out to Kenny the cook as well. Yeah, I don't know exactly how you say his last name either. But he's been an awesome supporter of the Free Thought Project.

And he was doing big things. In fact, I think he had like, I think he said $10,000 worth of signs or something crazy like that, that he was in the inauguration, like trying to hand out to everybody like the free Ross signs. I might have got that number wrong, but some astronomical amount of money he spent just to make sure that Ross was represented at the inauguration. So yeah, big shout out to him. But I certainly love that origin story,

dude. And yeah, you mentioned Passio being on the podcast before. Absolutely, guys, go check that out. I believe that was 2023 when we had him on the podcast. I still get people message message me once in a while saying that that podcast like helped change their views on things. And yeah, you know, I'm kind of in the same boat with you. Passio really did inspire me to get involved as well.

And yeah, I think he really places emphasis on the idea of, you know, if you understand these concepts, like you do have a responsibility to share them with the world at large and God, like, you know, he might be a little fiery and I know he gets some crap from people because he is so like, you know, I don't know. Fiery is maybe not quite the right word for it.

I think it's exactly what we need. I think we need more people kind of, you know, on the, in the background, trying to motivate us and inspire us to, to get involved and kind of keeping that fire alive. So yeah. But yeah, you know, there, you also said something else that, you know, we have to use our abilities to share this work and share the good word. And I'm right there with you, man.

It doesn't matter if you're an artist or a poet or a filmmaker or an activist or a speaker of some sort, like we all need to be stepping up to the plate. And I really do think of it as kind of a collective effort. And honestly, I feel like that's been part of the shift that we've seen even over the past couple of years to, yeah, not only free Ross, but to make some of these monumental shifts that seem to be happening and not just politically either.

You know, I know Trump gets some credit for this and so does the LP for, you know, getting Ross released. But I would say it's more than that. I think we shifted the Overton window, all of us and all of our efforts, and we created enough awareness and made enough noise to make Ross a national, you know, mainstream issue. And, you know, so I think there's enough appreciation and respect to go all the way around.

I've already seen people kind of arguing about, you know, who is directly responsible for getting Ross free. But honestly, like, I think there's enough to go around for everybody. I think we all, you know, put some effort into this. And as you said, you know, we are the many, they are the few. So if we can continue to place our emphasis on some of these things, at least in the political realm that we want to see fixed and, you know, made.

I guess, a little bit more just in the future, like, you know, freeing Ross or even freeing Roger Veer and freeing Ian Freeman and freeing, you know, Snowden, I really think that needs to be how we transition from this momentum. You know, like we can't just celebrate now and sit on our hands and think we've saved the world. As you said, you know, nobody's coming to save us and nobody's coming to save these political prisoners either. So we need to continue to to make noise.

But yeah, I wanted to maybe shift gears here again now that we did have a chance to talk about Ross a little bit, because.

Being an artist yourself, you know, we've had a few artists on the show over the past couple of years, one of them being a gentleman by the name of an artist by the name of Blooded the Brave, who last year around this time we had on the show. And we discussed quite a few things regarding the music industry, including getting into a book, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, which discussed the CIA's influence on musical artists in the 60s. It was definitely a great episode, guys.

If you haven't listened to it, definitely check it out. I think it's in our archives back in the March of 2024. But it's no secret to those of us who grew up in the 80s and the 90s that music seems to have gone downhill for decades now. And I think a lot of that is the commercialism side of things. But I'm curious what your perspective is on the current state of music and the music industry.

And beyond that, how do you navigate staying authentic and conscious in a space that often kind of prioritizes the commercialism and that type of stuff over substance. Yeah, that's a great question. And that's definitely something I love speaking on. One thing that I also forgot to mention, just backing up for a quick second is we also have 33, aka Derek Brose on the Ross album as well, and some other artists. But I wanted to thank Derek in particular for connecting me with you guys.

And also, he is one of the main activists who kind of brought Ross to my attention in the early days. So anyways, just wanted to mention that before we move on here. As for the music industry, man, so I actually went to University of Southern California's music industry program because I thought that I wanted to go directly into the music industry.

You know, I knew that I wanted to do music and I told you guys that I got a little bit sidetracked kind of in my journey through the education system. And honestly, I'm grateful for that experience because it was an opportunity to sort of see the music industry from the inside without having to actually get involved with it firsthand. Most of my professors, most of my teachers had directly worked in the music industry and also sometimes the porn industry, which are very closely related.

And I think that the music industry just like Hollywood is extremely controlled and it's, Everything that they put out is designed for mind control.

This is my personal belief, you know, do your own research. But I think that the mind controllers and the social engineers of the world, they understand the power of cinema and art and music specifically and frequencies to actually open up our subconscious so that deeper level occult knowledge and programming can be put directly into the subconscious without the filter of the conscious mind being like, oh, I don't know about that.

And I think that's why we see so much, especially of the young generation. I'm 29, but people who are a little bit younger than me, like the Gen Zers, the 18-year-olds, the 16-year-olds who are going around bumping this trap music and this high-energy hip-hop and all the pop music that's coming out and Taylor Swift and stuff like that.

I'm not trying to call anybody out here, but I think it is very true that you have to sell your soul to the devil in order to really make a name for yourself in the music industry. And I think that they're specifically using frequency magic and frequency to essentially open people's subconscious up through beats that feel really good. You know, it's energizing and it feels good. And then they can just slide right in there and put that dark programming and

the mind control right into the message of the music. And so to counteract that, my purpose behind making my music is sort of to do the opposite. I'm realizing that music is frequency magic. And I think that ancient or maybe not so ancient civilizations used frequency and sound as a way of building free energy technology and electrogravitic technology and healing technologies that could heal the body.

If you look at some of the organs that are in some of these old world temples and stuff like that, I think that the old civilization had much more of an understanding of how music and frequency can be used to actually heal the body and to uplift.

So my goal is to sort of counteract all of the dark programming of Hollyweird and the music industry by putting conscious, high vibrational, truth-filled messages into music that also feels good, also makes you want to dance, so that you can open up your subconscious and program yourself with positive affirmations, program yourself with the truth. And so hopefully that makes sense.

Oh, it definitely makes sense. And, you know, I've listening to you there and realizing that we have some similar parallels, man. I also went to school in Southern California. It was called the Los Angeles Recording School and actually graduated. I have my certificate here on the wall. This was probably quite a few years before you, but I too got a little bit of a taste of the music industry. I did some internships and I just realized, man, as you were saying, like something felt off about it.

Not only was it the competitive nature and being saturated, like, you know, literally to the neck with different people my age trying to get into the music industry, trying to get in with different what like recording agencies, recording studios, stuff like that. But it just, yeah, it didn't align with what I felt like I was here to do. And as much as I love music, and God, I don't even think I've really talked about this much on the podcast. But I was and bands for years growing up in

my teens and my twenties toured. I did record albums. I did all of it, you know, and I thought music production and recording was going to be my path. And I'm so glad that I steered away from it. I'm so glad that I listened to my intuition, which it sounds like you did as well. And, you know, shortly after is when I found Ron Paul and the Occupy Wall Street movement and got into all that.

But I'm right there with you, dude. It does feel like more so than ever, the masses have been kind of, I don't know, conditioned into conformity through some of this various music and including trap, as you mentioned, dance music, the IDM, the house, a lot of that stuff, which, you know, I don't get me wrong. I still appreciate it. And I enjoy it, but there are some dark elements to it. And it does seem like I was just thinking about this other day.

It does seem like there are certain frequencies that just make people go wild. And there has been maybe even more so than, you know, from 80s, 90s, when I was kind of growing up in the early 2000s, like it seems like artists have tapped into that more and they really know how to weaponize it against us to a certain degree. Maybe weaponized isn't quite the right word, but it does enter our psyche in various ways, our subconscious, and especially things like the gangster rap, which I grew up on.

I didn't think twice about it, but you really have to think about the consequences that putting that type of music and making it mainstream, it does align with something that potentially could be deeper. I think I just mentioned that podcast we had with Blood of the Brave. I think we went into this where. We were speculating, was that a psyop? Was gangster rap back in the 80s and 90s?

Was that all a psyop to spiral out of control some of the inner city violence and to really be the soundtrack to the way people were living in some of these places? So I love that you're counterbalancing that with your own music, man, and trying to interject some more of the positive and some of the truthful stuff. And I don't think there's enough of that. In fact, there's some conscious artists out there, but I don't feel like they're the mainstream yet.

Whereas, especially in the alternative media world, we're starting to see that page turn where the mainstream media, the mainstream news sources are shifting away and people don't really care about them. But it doesn't really feel like that's happened with the music industry as of yet. So just a quick follow-up question to that. Like, do you think that, you know, mainstream music still has any power to inspire meaningful change or has it lost its soul completely? That's a good one.

Because, I mean, we had like songs in the civil rights movement, like we shall overcome. We had like a piece of chance by John Lennon, the anti-war movements and stuff like that again. Sure. Yeah, exactly. Fortunate. Yeah, it's a good question.

And I think that there's definitely space for maybe uplifting positive music without maybe any of the deeper conspiratorial messages to get out there, that there's maybe still some room for that in the mainstream music industry. And so I don't want to just make a blanket statement that the entire mainstream music industry is all dark and it's all evil. But I think it really kind of comes back to the issue of follow the money,

like with most things. you can see that there's actually only a big three, which is, I believe, Sony, BMG, and Warner. Those are the three big record companies in the music industry. And they basically own artists. That's how it works. So what they do now is mostly these 360 deals where essentially the label, they cut a revenue share of every single stream of the artist's income. And they mold and they shape the artists into exactly what they think is going to be most profitable for the label.

So if somebody has a really, maybe a message of being a little bit outspoken or saying some things that might not align with the mainstream, such as great example, IMA, you've probably seen that song, Carmageddon that she just put out. She's an Australian artist and she lost her record contract.

She lost her entire artist contract, management contract everything because she wanted to speak out against the violence in gaza and so, and then the song ended up going super viral which is epic and i think that that kind of i think that again. Touching on what you were saying about how the power balance is shifting where the mainstream media no longer has the power anymore.

And the alternative media is so much more powerful, but they're trying to, you know, shadow ban and suppress it through the mainstream platforms. I think we're witnessing this giant, you know, shift in the balance of power from the occult small organizations and mind controllers over to us. And so right now, you know, my music, I don't have a lot of followers.

I don't have a big platform. So that's one of the reasons I appreciate OGs like yourselves putting me on a platform and giving me the opportunity to share my music with a larger audience. And I think that that's really what it comes down to is anybody who is on the cause of freedom, the more we can just build each other up and uplift, the more we give this positive message a chance of getting out there because I really don't think there's much hope left in the mainstream industry.

And to give a little bit of an example of that. Many of the people who I went to music school with, they're all absolutely crushing it in the music industry. They're all touring stadiums, they have record labels, they're all doing big things. And I'm not trying to speak negatively about anyone, but what I see is that most of them are promoting basically a message that the mainstream music industry wants them to promote. Many of them are promoting things like the queer transgender agenda.

They're all coming out as being gay. They're all coming out. And, you know, it's like, it's no judgment for me. I can just see how the 360 deals, which basically, you know, is where the entire. Every single thing that the artist does is basically owned by the label. And then that financial interest in them, it just is so easy to steer someone who maybe doesn't have strong fundamental principles or strong fundamental integrity about who they are and what their message is.

And so for me, I don't really care about the money. I don't care about fame, notoriety, any of that. For me, it's just about staying in integrity with my message, which is spreading the truth no matter what, spreading freedom no matter what. And if the music ends up, my dream is to play Red Rocks someday. If I end up having the opportunity to do that and play for 10,000 people at Red Rocks or whatever, I would be so stoked and so grateful.

But I think that when I die, when I transition to another dimension, my soul will rest and transition peacefully because I'll know that I stayed in integrity with my soul rather than selling out to perpetrate a message of whatever the mainstream music industry is perpetrating. Sodomy, debauchery.

If you've looked at Ice Spice, I don't know if you guys are familiar with her music, but it's just some of the most ratchet, perverted stuff of just ass-shaking, and she's just getting hundreds of millions of views, just blew up out of nowhere. It's just about money and materialism and sex and perversion, basically, and there's really no deeper message to the music.

So yeah, I hope that answers your question. I think the most important thing at this time is just like staying in integrity with what you know is right. And that kind of comes back to Mark Passio's work, which is, you know, he teaches about natural law and a right is an action that does not cause harm to another sentient being. Understanding what rights actually are, understanding what principles actually are.

I know you've had Larkin Rose recently on the podcast too, and he's been a huge influence of mine as well on just like how we can understand, and understand basic fundamental principles of nonviolence, do no harm, take no shit, non-aggression principle, self-defense principle. If everybody lived by these principles and we taught them and spread them, even a young child can understand do no harm, take no shit.

A young child can understand the non-aggression principle and the self-defense principle. It's just that these things are systematically programmed out of us as we get older, and then we find ourselves living in a very immoral and very unfree society. But if we can focus on, it's the old adage of garbage in, garbage out. If we put healthy food into our bodies, we put good programming in, then our society will end up being much more moral and much more peaceful as a result.

Certainly dude it's you mentioned all these different undertones in music like the pushing these trans agendas and everything then you mentioned mark passio right in the occult and there's one thing that i've been seeing a lot of recently and in this mainstream music industry and it's like this growing trend of artists like sam elliott and like at super bowl shows like we had just two years ago where they they channel like satanic memes and undertones right they like wear devil's horns and

wear upside down crosses and they're just covered in like this satanic imagery and symbolism right and i mean to like i guess at one point you could think oh they're doing it because they think it's like it's it's it challenges the status quo or it's kind of edgy or something but like you got to also realize like i mean that okay that's to a certain extent but like when you keep doing it do you think this is like just for shock value you think there's something deeper going on.

And before you answer that question, I have a, like on the other hand, right, your music carries a very different vibe. And I know like centered around truth and love and freedom, right? And we are getting close to the end of the podcast. So you can answer that question.

Then I would like you to contemplate on if you wouldn't mind sharing one of your songs with us now, after you answer that question to show people and our listeners what an actual real message sounds like yeah i'd love to thanks matt and yeah i mean i i don't think that this is just for shock value i think that this is being done deliberately and i think that if you look at the biggest name artists out there like taylor swift for example i think you

were mentioning i think that's sam smith i'm sorry yeah it's like okay why is it that every single one of these artists. And if you look back historically, there's been so much of this as well with the Olympic opening ceremonies. And I mean, it goes back a long time of these people promoting satanic messages and even Rolling Stones. What was the song? What was the Rolling Stones song with the devil? Oh, gosh. Rolling Stones has a famous song about the devil.

It'll come to me. But I feel like this is something that it is a deeper agenda. And I think that in a lot of cases, it might actually be some form of trauma-based mind control. There's a lot of evidence of artists like Britney Spears who come on these interviews and then they completely break down and it almost looks like there's a system malfunction or something like that. These insane triggering things that happen where they almost can't even function anymore.

And so, yeah, I think there's definitely just a lot of darkness there, but I don't want to focus too much on that. I think the key is just, Getting back to what I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast, every single person on this earth, I think, has a gift. The two of you obviously have gifts for exposing the truth, and I'm grateful for all the work that you have both done to bring this message of truth and freedom and liberty to so many people.

I think we just have to remember that the power is in us. Larkin Rose has a really epic visualization that you've probably seen, the tiny dot, where it shows a visual representation. It's such a simple little cartoon, but I share it with so many people who are kind of like on the fence of getting the message because it's like, it shows just this little tiny dot, which is representative of all of the government employees and in their enforcers.

And then you have this huge throng of dots, which represents graphically. Proportionally the number of United States population.

And it's like, there's so many more of us than there are of them to a level that, to a level that we almost have difficulty fathoming it. And the only thing that's really holding us back is our belief in authority. We have to dissolve our belief in authority and realize that our authority comes from within. So yeah, with that, I'd love to share a song. This is one that I co-wrote with Derek Brose, aka 33. And this one is about taxationist theft. This is the title of the song,

Taxationist. Oh, appropriate. The underlying thing is if we want to see change in the world, if we want to stop funding genocide in Gaza, if we want to stop sending all of this money over to foreign governments so that people here in the United States can continue to devolve into a lower, lower standard of living, we have to stop directly supporting the criminals who are carrying this out, right? And I think that comes down to us just having the courage to say, no, I will not fund evil.

I will not fund immorality through the product of my labor. So that's what this song is about. And also an adage to Ross as well in here too, because this is very tied into that message. So yeah, if you guys are ready, I'll jam taxation is theft. This is all going to be live looped. I'm going to play all the instruments on the spot. And then people who are tuning in on Spotify or podcast app, you could check the actual video recording out on my website.

Yeah, for our listeners, Grant has a whole studio set up right here, and it's going to be pretty badass. Fuck yeah, let's do it. All right, so this one's taxationist theft. You should hear the reverb on my voice now.

I'm going to leave out Derek's verses because he's not here to sing them for me. So if you want to check the extended mix featuring 33, that is also available on my website. Music. Don't be used for funding war and genocide and heavy weaponry. Taxation. Music. I won't be paying no money to fake authority. I won't fund no war, no genocide. I'm going to keep my money in the community. Taxation. For prosperity. We know that taxation, theft, and the government is slavery.

And now we're paying no money to false authority. Because we own the product of our neighbor and our divine creativity. Music. We won't be used for funding war and genocide and heavy weaponry. Heavy weaponry, not mine. And we already know that it is, oh yeah, taxation. Taxation theft. Taxation is theft. Taxation theft. I won't be used for funding wars. Taxation and not go pay it anymore from the day you were born. This system treats you like commodity.

Taking their cut, every transaction, every quantity. Tax what you earn and what you buy, what you sell and what you own and what you inherit.

This shit is an atrocity. That don't even include a hidden tax That of inflation when they print money And take a lux vacation Then they counterfeit a couple stacks of more Spend it on war and correspondent media Campaign it Most people know that it's a wrong to rob their neighbors But they think it's a right if it could be Wrote it down on people programmed to believe Slavery or racial issue Whites versus blacks Either way the master get their revenue Either way the subject is you Until

you choose to own yourself and everything you do You stop being subdued by the coercion of the few And break the bondage and acknowledge your inherent worth to this Know that taxation, theft, and the governing is slavery, We're paying no mind to money to false authority Because we own the product of our labor and our divine creativity. Music. And I'll go pay it anymore. The banks of the river guide the flow of the currency.

Now I love a sudden for the first time in history. You can get your currency out at the banks. Grow your own. Take ownership of your life force energy. Even back in the days of Rome, they used silver and gold to protect against parasitic entities. So now I use ancient and modern technology stacking precious metals. Crypto, crypto is my philosophy. To thrive and prosper straight to the coming apocalyptic collapse.

Monero being used to the counter-economic attack Living life like a certain Samuel Edward Cronk in the third Inspired by the Agora, the free market's absurd Ross or Rex, they left up for just creating what? Countless other men and women, lives ruined or done For heaven's sake, let us engage in voluntary transactions No criminal in the middle taking fractions, yes Taxation, theft, and the government is slavery, eh You're on the Freethought Project.

Music. You know Paying no mind or money to false authority, eh, eh, Because we own the product of our labor in our divine creativity, We won't be used for funding war and genocide and heavy weaponry Heavy weaponry, my man I won't be paying for no genocide in Gaza, I won't be paying for no proxy war in the Ukraine, Authority comes from ourselves, from your kids, taxation, yeah, damn dude man well done very well done i mean you probably could have just hit play and like

our audience would have known the difference and here you are like i just watched you make loops for each of those you remembered every single word bro like i got the chills definitely very inspiring very talented so yeah dude thank you for sharing that with us and of course yeah we did miss Derek's 33 I should say I know that's his musical artist name we we missed out on his lyrics in there which you know as Grant was just saying guys like check out the the release

to Virgin I believe it's on YouTube I'm sure it's on Spotify as well.

And very powerful. And, you know, Bros has been a longtime friend of the Free Thought Project. He's even written for us. I mean, he's been on numerous podcasts. We can't say enough about Derek's work. And I love that he's, you know, really transitioned into his creative side with the 33 project that he's been doing. I mean, I can remember back, I think it was like 10 years ago now, Matt, we were in Houston going to for the community festival and he was doing Screamo.

And it was probably a little bit heavier back then, but nonetheless, man, I so much appreciate that you guys have collaborated. And yeah, that track is straight fire, dude. So thank you for sharing that with us. And we actually had that one lined up just in case you weren't going to play it live because I wanted to share that with our audience. So well done, my friend. Now we do have time for one more question here, which I think is an important one.

And it's something that I've kind of struggled with over the years, both within our work with the Free Thought Project and when I was making music, because, yeah, I kind of failed to mention there. You know, even after I was done with recording school and everything, I was still trying to do my own computer music, my own electronic music. And what I would find was that just my music, my sound didn't align enough with the mainstream.

And so I never really was able to get much traction or have any success because I just didn't have that that formula or that template that the mainstream seems to, you know, champion and really go with.

But as I was saying, you know, we've had to balance that with the Free Thought Project and discussing popular subjects, sometimes trending topics and the current narrative, you know, without reinforcing the mainstream agenda and doing it in a way that feels authentic and true to our values and beliefs. And it's certainly easy to build an audience of followers really fast telling people what they want to hear or you know telling them you know kind of repeating some of the the current mainstream.

Opinions but it's much harder to read between the lines embrace the nuance and you know a lot of people are just based in the black and white thinking but once you get outside of that especially if you're creative it's not easy to build an audience and get the well-deserved recognition that you probably should be getting. So as someone who's been doing this for as long as yourself, how do you balance that staying true to your message while also trying to reach a wider audience?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that for me, one thing that's been huge is when I started this journey, I actually set up kind of a side hustle business where I'm actually managing about seven different vacation rentals up in a very wealthy ski town in Colorado called Aspen. And I just started from scratch.

I found a course online. I started looking into different passive income business models because I knew there was a way that I could not have to trade my time for money and free up my time so that I could focus on doing what I wanted to do and not have to compromise my message. And so I found this guy and he had this product called B&B Formula.

And he basically just taught me how to do everything from finding clients with properties that I don't own and how to set up listings, how to take professional photos, how to get the units stocked up with everything that they need, how to hire professional cleaning people and maintenance people to take care of the units so that the properties are taken care of even better than long-term rental properties. And I do this in an area that's already so saturated and so expensive.

I don't really feel bad about taking away affordable housing from people in an area that's already completely saturated with vacation rentals. And so that's been a really good way that I've been able to shift my focus off of having to meet my root chakra survival needs and be able to focus on doing my passion without any fear of not having enough resources to do it.

And I still have a long way to go in terms of like getting the message fully out there on the level that I want to, but at least I don't have to compromise my integrity for the fear of not being paid. Right. Yeah. That's been how I've done it. I'm sure there's other ways to do it as well. One thing that's been really inspiring, going back to Bros, he's putting on another People's Reset just a week from now in Morelia, Mexico.

I'm super stoked to be back there performing again. This will be my third one. And at the last one that we did in the UK, he actually got DubFX to come out and perform.

And if you're not familiar with DubFX, I'm sure you guys are, but if your audience, you know he's basically a rebel music artist who started off making street music and he would just go out onto the streets and live loop kind of like what i do and he quickly gained a massive following from these viral videos and he's been able to remain completely independent throughout his career and has completely forged his own path and i actually have an interview with him up on my youtube

channel that you can check out from the last people's reset in bath uk. But anyways, he's really inspired me to think about creative, entrepreneurial ways that I can take this music and continue doing what I love and just forge my own path. I think that's the key. The two of you have forged your own path with your journalism and have found ways to reach people despite all of the attempts to censor you.

And I think that it's always possible if we're aligned with God, aligned with Creator, and we're in service to the truth, in service to freedom, I think that our messages will eventually be heard. And so that's what I'm on right now. And DubFX has inspired me to get out and do some street music performing. And I think after these next couple shows, I'm doing People's Reset and Anarchipulco after that in February. And then after that, planning on just hitting the road and just playing out

on the streets and seeing where that leads me. So, yeah. Yeah. That's a fucking great plan, dude. I love that you've set yourself up with, with passive income prior to doing this. So you're not like struggling and you can actually concentrate on it. It's a brilliant plan. It's hard to, you sound so much older than 29. It's like, I'm like, really, we're talking to a kid right here.

And you like, I mean, the, the way that you know, the, the way that you're planning your life and what you're doing right now, it's, it's, it's pretty amazing, dude i mean i i just want to you know i this is why bros must have been so not attracted but like called towards you and wanted you to wanted you to come on our podcast man i could tell why this is this is why you know you're you're a pretty badass dude man i just want to express that, hey free thinkers this is matt agorist and i'm going

to take a quick pause to remind you of something really important first off apologies for the interruption but if you're still here that means you're resonating with what we're doing and we need your help to keep it alive independent platforms like ours don't survive on corporate sponsorships or mainstream media funding we survive because of you if you're finding value in these unfiltered conversations and real solutions the

best way to support us is by liking subscribing and sharing this podcast with your friends and fellow free thinkers it's a small act but it's a powerful one it helps us break through the censorship and algorithms designed to silence voices like ours. This isn't just about supporting a podcast. It's about standing for freedom, exposing corruption, and building a movement that inspires real change.

And if you want to go beyond liking and sharing, we'd love for you to become a member of the Freethought Project. Just head over to thefreethoughtproject.com and click on the TFTP membership link at the top of the page. As a member, you'll be directly supporting our mission and helping us to stay independent. Your support is what keeps this platform alive and fighting. So thank you for being part of this journey, for sharing these ideas and for standing with us.

I want to express how much we've kind of appreciated your articulate and heartfelt way of sharing your peaceful philosophy today, dude. It's rare to find someone who can blend such a powerful message with genuine artistry. Like Jason said earlier, These artists like you are few and far between, right?

Fucking 29 you've already carved out a pretty incredible path dude and i mean i have no doubt that there are amazing things ahead for you you know your passion for truth and freedom and and love it just shines through and i also have to say i really did enjoy just watching you play that that song right there and and it your music kind of reminds me of one of my all-time favorite artists sublime who i you know i love man but you have like a far deeper and more meaningful lyrics to it.

And that's just, it's just incredible, dude. But anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and share your perspectives and talents, man. And before we completely wrap, is there anything else you'd like to plug or let our audience know about? And for everyone listening, we're already going to have the link to Grant's Free Ross Now album in the podcast description. So thanks again, Grant. It's been a real pleasure, man.

Yeah. Thank you guys so much, both of you. It's really an honor to speak with you and I I appreciate your kind words. And yeah, I think just to plug my website, that's all I'd want to say. Presencemusic.com. I'm sure you guys can drop a link to that, but it's spelled P-R-E-Z-E-N-C-E, like the Zen in presence. Presencemusic.com. All my music is available there completely for free. I just ask that people, if you dig it, share it with somebody else and that's how we can reach more people.

And for shows, as I mentioned, People's Reset is coming up in just under a week or just over a week in Morelia. And there's going to be so many amazing artists, freedom lovers, speakers there. That's Derek and Miriam's event. And then after that, the third week of February, I'll be back for my second Anarchapulco that I'm performing at.

And that's also a really good time every single time. So if you feel like making a last minute vacation down to Mexico, maybe escaping some colder weather, definitely check out both of those events. And otherwise, thanks so much for having me on today, guys. It's been an absolute pleasure and honor. Music.