Transcript for my conversation with Lee & Scott of Off-staged.com 4/17/2024

(0:22 - 0:35)

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Knocked Conscious. Today I spoke with Lee and Scott of Off-Stage.com Apparel Company. They're a music apparel company.

It was a great conversation. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

(0:37 - 0:51)

Welcome to Knocked Conscious, gentlemen. Hello. We have Off-Stage.

Off-Stage podcast. Tell me about this. Welcome, Scott, Lee.

Lee, Scott. No alphabetical order, whatever. No particular order.

(0:52 - 0:58)

How have you guys been? We've been good. We've been busy since the last time. Yeah, tell me about it.

(0:59 - 1:12)

Biggest thing is we've kind of split the podcast and our brand in half. Off-Stage is the music apparel brand. That's our whole shindig now.

(1:13 - 3:51)

The podcast is just fun because we get to talk to people like you and a lot of musical artists and people in the industry and just talk about music. Our primary focus is definitely making music apparel more accessible. That's awesome.

I saw a little bit of the change in the website. I'll put all your stuff up. Tell me about this transition.

How did you guys initially start with a concept and then how did it change from where it started to where it's kind of morphed into? It's funny because we were sitting down a couple of weeks ago and we needed to come up with a mission statement. We thought, oh, that'd be easy. Obviously, we're just doing, what do we do? That's when we started thinking, maybe we should really, what do we do? What is Off-Stage? We had been selling merch on the side, but it just seemed smarter to make that our main focus and then have the podcast and all the social media stuff be sort of like a vessel, if you will.

That's sort of what happened. Then we got inventory for the first time and Lee came down to Bloomington and we sold a bunch of stuff for the Eclipse. Tell me about that.

Basically, Off-Stage, I know you've got a mascot and then you've got some other apparel as well. Tell me about what you sold down in Bloomington and what you made and what inventory you got. Our main logo is a guy named Spin.

You can see him on the website. Spin, he's a walking vinyl record, which is really cool. We have a lot of other characters that kind of play into our brand as well that are inspired by music or just fun things.

Another one's Scratch. He's a chicken with a hat and his belly's a vinyl record. The main thing was music apparel.

We found a problem. There's either t-shirts and hoodies with album covers or solo singles on them or whatever. Then on the opposite end, there's band mom shirts.

(3:51 - 4:39)

My son plays violin shirts on Etsy. There's nothing in between. It's just cool, everyday, nice stuff to wear.

That's what we were trying to fill the gap with. It's a way for a person in music to share that they're into music without it being like it has to be the Stones. It doesn't have to be specific.

It's just the music in general. Think about, I've got a Grateful Dead shirt on today. I could just tell the bear, I was like, you son of a bitch.

Yeah, it's my favorite band. I saw a ton of people wearing Grateful Dead shirts at the Eclipse. Every time I asked, what's your favorite song? They're like, who's Grateful Dead? If you're into music, you shouldn't have to.

(4:40 - 5:31)

I mean, it's everybody's thing, whether you like the style that comes with music or the actual sound or the lyrics, singing, whatever. You should be able to enjoy music without being criticized on what you're wearing. I can't tell you how many times I've seen videos of people walking around and it's like, if you don't know one song by the band, you're a fake fan, you're a poser.

It's like, whatever. They're enjoying it. I like that because you guys come from different music tastes, right? It helps as an icebreaker.

It's like, oh, I see a record on a shirt or I see a logo that looks familiar to something musical. It's like, oh, who are you into? It's more of a conversational starter versus almost in a way a conversation ender. Like, oh, you're into Zeppelin or people have different genres and different tastes.

(5:31 - 7:21)

Right. That's cool. I like that.

So how did you guys come into that actually kind of morphing into that from because it was a totally different thing just a couple of months ago. It's kind of cool watching that change. Well, Scott can definitely talk more about this, but I think the biggest thing is, you know, when you're starting a business or brand or anything, change things early.

Do what works early. You get a year, three years, five years down the line. It's way harder to rebrand, way harder to change things up.

But I think we noticed that when we were selling in Bloomington and Scott definitely noticed it more than me at first when we were trying to explain what we were doing. So I'll let him talk about that. Are you talking about like when we were trying to get people to come to our table? Yes.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. That was a train wreck.

I wish we had video of that because there was a good like two or three hours of like when you're selling on the street, you got to you know, you got to you got to sell. You got to get people to come over like I need that calling out and be like, hey, come on over to the booth. I'm not going to come out.

We had a Darth Vader with our shirt on him, like a three foot tall Darth Vader. Yeah, that's not enough to get people. Right.

So you really got to like speak out. And then we got a lot of, you know, a lot of people putting their head down or trying to avoid us, which I get that. But yeah, we'd we'd like we'd get their attention sometimes.

And then I think Lee wants he's like we finally got someone's attention and we're like, yeah, we're off stage. And they're like, oh, what's that? And Lee's like, well, we we do music. And the people were like, we as they were walking away, like it was just a train wreck.

(7:21 - 7:42)

Some people thought we were a band. Some people thought we were. Most people thought we were a band.

Which is cool, I guess. And I mean, the name the name sounds cool for a band name like off stage. All right, cool.

But yeah, it was just basically multiple hours of us trying to figure out like I think how to talk. Yeah. At one point, it kind of sounded like we were a label.

(7:45 - 7:53)

There's so many different identities that day just trying to try to figure it out and figure it out. That's really cool, though. And we got our name out there.

(7:54 - 7:58)

Yeah, people are definitely going to remember it. Yes. Use guys with the Darth Vader.

(7:59 - 8:13)

And we got cool. We got was it just offstage.com. Is that what the what's the website address? Just to say it's off dash stage dot com. OK, off that hyphen stage dot com.

Cool. Yeah. And I'll put I'll put it up again for you.

(8:13 - 8:32)

Yeah, we're working on Google. That's hard. Have you ever dealt with SEO's search engines? I wish I did because I have the content.

I don't have the searches. Yeah. So like if I figured that out in any way, I'm sure something would be better with this thing.

(8:33 - 9:16)

That's what we're trying to figure out. It is. Yeah.

I know people who do it and they charge a lot of they charge a premium and I know why they charge a premium for it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

So I've never gotten in that. What what have you learned about it so far? And when can I hire you guys to do mine? I think we like you're going to be a T-shirt apparel. We have music apparel slash I.T. consulting company.

Actually, you know what? At this point, Eclipse at the Eclipse, we had a couple of people that came up to us on the side and they were like, hey, I run my own brand. I run my own company doing this or that or whatever. You guys seem to have the content down or like the technical skills at least.

(9:16 - 10:37)

Can I hire you to run my social media or my website? And we were like, oh, geez, we really screwed up at this point because that is not what we do. No, I know what we've learned. We've learned that everything you do is 10 times harder than you assume it is.

And. The technical skills take a lot of work. I think that's a big thing, too.

We use Squarespace. Do you have a website? I do, but it's not it's it's just a redirect to my pod being I don't actually have a website, but I do have a landing page, you know, like not conscious.com. Yes. Tell me about Squarespace and tell me about it.

Yeah, it's. Very intuitive, very user friendly, easy to find what you need, the basics and stuff, but. It's definitely like.

I mean, building a website, you're going to have code, you have to know how to use that a little bit, and that's we got through the surface level of things like homepage buttons and shopping carts and payments and all that shipping, mailing lists, all that. But yeah, then you dig into the code and it's like, I don't know, you have to connect. Overwhelming.

(10:38 - 11:31)

Yes, we Scott and I just started this like what, a week and a half ago. He found a really good free page. What was it called, Scott? He's frozen.

He is frozen. That's kind of scary. That's kind of funny.

All right. So anyway, we'll get back to Scott when he when he jumps back in here, yeah. So so Scott found a free SEO page that teaches you how to optimize your website for people to find it.

And it's it's literally like it goes all the way down to how you name your files on your website. So like say you wanted to take your not conscious logo. Welcome.

There he is. Sorry about that. No, no worries, man.

(11:32 - 16:20)

We just explained a little bit about the SEO and how how how challenging it is. Oh, that'll take a while. Yeah.

So I was talking about how if you want to take your not conscious logo, for instance, and it's a file, right? If you just throw it on your website, it's not going to do anything. It's not going to optimize your website at all to get clicks or get seen. So what you have to do is you take that and you rename the file with optimized keywords based around what you do.

So and that's another thing. You can't be too broad because then you'll be in the big pack on Google and you're never going to get seen. But you can't be too specific because then nobody's searching for it.

So. Not conscious podcast, these are like keywords that you could use, right? Podcast is going to be way too broad, but not conscious might be too specific. So you have to go in and find something that.

Determines who you are and what you are, and then you need to narrow it down to about three words and then you name every single file on your website like that, and it might boost your. Click possibility by like, right? Yeah, the click through rate and all that stuff. Yeah, I'm familiar with all the terms.

I'm just not good at actually doing. I don't have the skills to optimize so well. Hopefully I'll have to bend you guys here then sometime to do that.

So we're learning. We're going to have an IT company before you know it. You just I don't know yet.

It's like a month from now. Who knows? So did you guys have a an eclipse party? Did you guys have the full eclipse or something near you or? Yeah, the total eclipse came through. You had the total.

Alright, so did you guys? Were you guys out for that or? Oh yeah, yes, we got to see it and everyone in the world was there seemingly. It was pretty like. It was like a movie I had to.

I had to move my car because. I'm not sure you went to get sunscreen because we didn't expect to be hot. Yeah, I I burnt super easy so I had to go get sunscreen and this was like T minus 10 minutes to the eclipse.

So we're I'm thinking like I'll probably be fine and then I quickly drove home, grabbed some sunscreen, drove back and the spot I had, which I thought was perfect. I guess everyone else thought it was perfect as well, because it was some guy was pulling into it just like got back. So I'm like shit, I go to the parking garage.

The guy in front is like look man, I don't. I don't think I'm allowed to let you in here and like the sky is getting darker and darker and I'm like you please like please let me in. I'll be in and out.

I just got to park real quick and go see my friend. He's like alright, come in. So I parked really quick, ran outside, took my sunglasses off.

I couldn't see anything. I mean, it's almost pitch black at that point and just walking down the street that's usually like filled with people like running back or like walking back and forth. Everyone just stopped staring up at the sky and it was it was surreal.

I mean, it really was. It sounds dumb because it's just it's just going dark for a little bit, but it's I don't know. It was weird.

It was like comfortably eerie, if that makes sense. Have you ever listened to Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd's album? Yeah, for sure. That is how it felt, at least in my opinion.

I was also a little biased because I was listening to. Yeah. OK.

It's by Pink Floyd. I'll do it. I don't know.

So it's a good time though. Good crowd, good people. And it was awesome.

Well, hello. Yes. Have you ever seen I can imagine did animals come out, did any nocturnal animals come out for a little bit or anything change for they said some weird stuff might happen with some like night night creatures and stuff.

They might come out. You know what? I had a ton of bugs that like fell out of the tree on me. Did you have that happen, Scott? I think that was just you or maybe they hit you first because you're like a foot taller than me.

There you go. The umbrella. That was about it.

We were we were in a city setting, so. OK, not too bad. I've heard I heard some really cool things.

I didn't I didn't get to see this one, but it is a pretty surreal experience when you just absolutely everything getting just dimmer and dimmer and then pitch black. Yes. Yeah.

Pretty cool. Have you ever seen Asteroid City, the movie? I did watch that. Yeah.

So, you know, when the alien comes down from like the ladder and everybody's sitting around watching the asteroid and it comes down, picks it up and leaves. Oh, yeah. They were in Indianapolis and Bloomington.

(16:20 - 18:02)

They were selling tickets to all of the stadiums that were outside for people to watch the eclipse. And I was just like, this is and if you remember Asteroid City, it's a very strange. It's peculiar.

Yeah, it's one of those movies just like was a Moonrise Kingdom, right? Moon. Same guy. Yeah.

Royal Tidemounts, too, right? Isn't the same? Yeah, I think so. Wes Anderson. I think it's Wes Anderson.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think so. But the Twitter world would correct us.

There you go. But I thought it was just like a mirror image almost. We were all just sitting in stadiums or like pausing exactly what we're doing during the day and watch this moon go in front of a star, just like this alien comes down and grabs an asteroid in Asteroid City.

So, yeah, exactly. It's crazy, right? Cool. Yeah.

Yeah, it is really neat. So it's funny you talked about pivoting earlier, right? You talked about doing it early. So it's a funny story.

I'm actually my girlfriend. I are going to see Smokey Robinson next week. OK, so, you know, you get that one of those bucket list type things like I saw Wayne Newton in Vegas, but I saw him like real late.

I didn't get to see him when he was like super spry. You know, he's older. Yeah.

It was like it wasn't the best experience compared to what he used to be. Right. Right.

It's like I can't say no. Right. So Smokey is Smokey is going to be at the Venetian, I think.

So I kind of beg my girlfriend like we got to go see Smokey. And there's this documentary called Hitsville, USA, and Smokey Robinson wrote the song Shop Around. And to your point, Shop Around had been on the charts for like five weeks.

(18:03 - 19:10)

And all of a sudden, the middle of night, Barry Gordy calls up Smokey like two a.m., three in the morning. He's like, hey, Smoke, it's Barry. You got to come.

We I got we got to change shop around. It's not working. I got I got in my head.

I got in my head. He's like, all right, cool. I'll see you in the morning.

Goes, no, we got to come back now. They end up going down the studio right away. They call up everybody.

They end up rerecording it. And the new one is the one that makes it. It's just that extra, you know.

So it's like it's funny how even though the song is already out and gaining traction, they still change the song, which is such a rarity. Usually don't change a song. Right.

Once you once you've released it. But yeah, that's kind of like you do it early. Right.

So sometimes what kind of successes have you had with that, like what kind of other conversations have you had with it or what what has this led to for you guys? Oh, what do we have, Scott? We got we got interviews coming out every single week now. Nice. So like the end of May.

And they've already been recorded, all of them. And edited. So we're just pushing them out when the artist is pushing out their music.

(19:11 - 20:12)

Most of the time. Oh, very cool. It worked well like that.

Yeah. So is it like when they release a new thing, you just have that that podcast to go along with it, kind of couple along with it or. Yeah, they that's kind of I don't know.

I don't know how it worked out, but it worked out just like that. It wasn't planned much. We have a couple other podcasts talking about Daft Punk and Beyonce is going to be this week as a team.

But. Yeah. And you know what, Daft Punk actually did really well, which we were kind of surprised about.

I think it's just because they're, you know, split and they might come back together with Patron and all that kind of stuff. That was fun to talk about. Yeah.

What else we got, Scott? Daft Punk is pretty cool because like, yeah, they talk about splitting, right? And then coming back together. But like they've got this weird following that it's like no one follows them, but everybody follows them or listens to them or something. Yeah, it's a very weird.

(20:12 - 21:33)

It's a weird thing. They know about them in some way or some capacity. I think the Pharrell Get Funky really put them on the map.

I mean, it's just like such a just rhythmic song that everybody's got. Uh-huh. Get Lucky, is it? Get Lucky.

Get Lucky. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Get Lucky. Yeah. And their helmets, you know, makes them so elusive.

Yeah, it's really cool. And like they're still aren't they still not do we know who they are that they take them off or something at some point? Yes, I think we do know their identities. We should probably know this with how we covered them.

We talked more about their pretty strictly about the music they've been in rather than who they are as a band. And like I I don't know if you've seen Tron Legacy, but that's one of my favorite movies. And I love Tron is my favorite movie of all times, my friend.

Which which one? Tron Legacy? Well, I know I have both of them on Blu-ray, so I watched them. I mean, the first one would be just as good if the technology was the same. True.

But Legacy is just absolutely gorgeous. It looks so stunning. Are you ready for the next one? I hope so.

What's it called? You already know the name Ultimatum or something? Ultimum. I think it is Ultimatum. So something like that.

(21:33 - 22:03)

And yeah, so supposedly I'm supposed to come back for it. Oh, very cool. OK.

Yeah, that's what I was in the bar, right? Yes, there were a big fight, whatever the fight scene and they're just yeah, they're just sitting up there while they're fighting. Yeah, they got blown up. And that's such a beautiful, such a pretty.

I can't explain how beautiful that movie is. It really is. And the lead woman in that, she was also in that Timberlake movie, right in time.

(22:04 - 22:58)

I think she was like the lead, the lead woman in that. I don't think I've seen that, but that was a pretty good movie. She is a prominent actor or actress.

OK. Yeah. And obviously Jeff Bridges and it's always good.

So are you guys into like Big Lebowski and stuff or obviously you're younger? So I grew up with that, but I didn't get into it as much as a lot of people that I knew got into it. I am not a big Lebowski fan. I've never really tried it out.

OK, but but but Jeff Bridges kind of is a weird way. Bridges gap like of generations. Sure.

You know from legacy. What what other things would you say like Bridges is like big in your your generation? I think he did play the giver in The Giver. Have you seen The Giver, the movie? I've not seen that.

No, no, I've not seen that. That was a book. I never saw it.

(22:59 - 23:42)

Yeah, it was a book we all had to read. I don't know if it's across the country, but Indiana, for sure, that everybody reads is like an eighth grader or something. And oh, man, that's another the movie kind of like Asteroid City or a book where it's just peculiar.

It's a but it's more of a dystopian slash utopian world where everything's confined and one person in the community has to hold all the pain from humans past history. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that sounds intense.

When did that come out? I'm going to look into that. I'm going to look into that. The book came out a while ago, probably like before 2000.

(23:43 - 27:08)

And the movie came out like 2015. OK, I love the book. Yeah, it was a very good book.

Yes. I just got into the three body problem. What's the one on Netflix? It's the one where it's a sci fi book.

It's I think it was written in China and somebody in Asia wrote it. And it's been translated now in English. And now it's about like it's like a sci fi thriller where there's another world, but they're coming here because we send a signal out and it talks about their world.

And they the three body problem is they have three sons and they can't predict like their revolution, how they revolve around each other because you can't do that. So really, this civilization would either be destroyed or frozen or get burned up or it would be just all different kinds of cataclysmic events, depending on if they had three suns in the sky or none or one kind of thing. So it's kind of it's kind of interesting.

It's on it's on Netflix, but it is a little bit more about them coming here. So it's kind of an interesting like invasion, you know, invasion kind of movie. So.

So how are you guys like in school? How's everything going with you with that? Well, I mean, you're in Arizona, right? So, yeah. March Madness was just there. Did you visit the city? Did you visit Phoenix at all? Check out the.

Yes, we had we had date night that Friday. And we had everything planned. And I talked to you about my psychic stuff, right? Yes.

Yes. Crazy story. So Friday night, Friday night, like we do like early date night so we can get like happy hour drinks and then and then go out or something.

So we've got the whole night planned. We know that the suns are in town. We know that it's March Madness, but there actually was a music festival, too.

So there was even more stuff there than crazy. So, wow. You leave the house at like four fifteen, four thirty, something like that.

So we're planning to get to our place by like five thirty. So, you know, after parking and walking or whatever. So we get there like quarter to five, five o'clock.

We're looking and there is not a spot. And I'm like, we didn't know it was going to be this crazy because it's hardly ever this crazy. Sometimes it's busy, but it's hardly ever this great.

So we start driving around. So we are like in central Phoenix and we're driving around for about a half hour. I'm like, you know what? Let's just go uptown.

Uptown is like a section that's just north of us and like a little bit over. So, you know, you don't have to know exactly where it's at, but it's like, let's get out of this area and go to this other area. So we go to another area.

We get there. Happy hour till seven. We're like, sweet.

It's only five thirty. So we start happy hour. We get a drink.

We're like, hey, let's go book a reservation right down the street for six thirty. So my girlfriend puts it in like, OK, we walk. We stay parked at the bar.

We walk down. They're like, we don't have a reservation for you. Like, no, we put it in and my girlfriend's looking at it.

She's like, I didn't hit enter. I'm like, oh, OK, that sucks. So now it's like so we start.

It's like four thirty. Right. So now it's like six thirty and like we haven't done anything and we've planned everything.

So we we go, let's just go back to the bar. We'll get hit another drink before seven o'clock. Happy hour ends.

Right. So we go back to the bar. So I think about the places we've gone, the time we've taken now.

(27:08 - 27:28)

So we get there, we get another drink and we look at each other. She's like, let's just go home. Let's go home.

It's like call it a night. This just obviously didn't work out. I'm like, all right, we'll just pick up something on the way home or whatever.

So we go to head home and I'm going to make a left and something pops into my head to make a right. Of course it does. Right.

(27:29 - 27:38)

So I turn right. So we're on a street where on the way home, there's a restaurant that my girlfriend really likes, but I don't say anything to her. It pops into my head to go to this place.

(27:38 - 29:08)

I have to go to this exact place. There's like 15 restaurants in that area. We go to all these different ones, but something tells me go to this one.

Right. So I'm like, cool. I go up, I turn left.

She's like, what do you do? I'm like, I didn't mention it to you, but we're going to go to this bar. We go in and my buddy is Stan is sitting with his wife. And this is a guy who I met through a psychic connection, through an empath meeting.

So I drove all through the city of Phoenix, went to like 10 different places and the timing and all this stuff. And I still end up exactly meeting up with this dude that I hadn't seen in like three years. And it was all like pops into my head to go there.

Can't explain it. Interesting. Interesting.

So, so it was a fun ending to the story. Was that you guys end up staying and having a good dinner? We did, but they didn't know I was there because like I haven't talked to him in a while. So that makes sense.

Down on the down low. Yeah. It was like weird because I walked in.

I'm like, crap. That's why I was told to come here. It's like one of those weird ones.

So I was like, oh, is it sure? But he's a good dude. It's just like we hadn't talked in a while. You know, it's kind of like that'd be hard to explain.

It's kind of fall. Yeah. They kind of fall away over time, you know, but it was kind of funny.

It was kind of like, oh, I guess I had to just see to make sure everything was good, you know, kind of thing. But once again, it was one of those weird things, how it just kind of organically unfolded and still ended up with people that, you know, that we knew. Yeah.

Anyway. Yeah. But to that end, yeah, it was pretty fun.

(29:08 - 33:20)

Do you guys follow the March Madness stuff? Yeah. Purdue made it to final two championship. It was a hard game.

I think we were a little scared going in. And UConn was destined to win like they were. They definitely were.

I mean, it's kind of like Scott will get this reference, but like Carmel winning every single state for swimming. We used to both swim in Carmel. If you're familiar with Carmel, Indiana, they have won for like, what, 38 years now, Scott? Oh, in a row.

Yeah, it's in a row. Yeah. There's something about and maybe we could talk about this.

There's something about the winning mindset where you do it enough where it just it goes and it keeps going and it does not stop. And you got to get comfortable in that mindset. And I think you get like Purdue, for instance, we haven't been to the final four even in since the 50s or 60s.

So you're not, you know, if a team goes in like that, they're not comfortable. They need to do it a few times before they actually it's either you get lucky or you get good at being in that mindset. I don't know, I I fully believe that you get into winning minds that you can keep on that track.

I'd be really curious to see. When, like, for instance, Carmel swimming, Scott, if they lost one year, how would how would they come back from that? You know, because they're in that winning mindset and then something throws them off. Do they come back? I think they'd fire the coach immediately.

I mean, just the expectation is so high at this point that, yeah, they just might kill the coach, even honestly. It's an interesting look. Well, it's funny because you look at like a Ronda Rousey, right? Like you have seen she was dominant until somebody beat her.

Right. Second, somebody beat her. It wasn't necessarily that she didn't feel like she could win, but other people started believing they could beat her.

OK, so it was like almost like it's like a double cultural thing to your point. Those to your point, like you can ride the momentum of success, right? You can win and win and win. And that does become a cultural thing.

And you can lose here and there, you know, bits as long as the momentum swing is still that winning. Right. But sometimes when you lose that, it's like a hiccup and and that momentum goes away.

Gaining that back is really hard. It's kind of like, oh, my gosh, I just blanked on his name. You know, a guy that conquered like most of the Middle East and.

Colin or Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great. Yes.

You know, he went so long and so hard and then eventually he came to it one stop and he was not able to overcome it or set it on the other. And maybe that's just human demise. But then you look at like Napoleon.

He got exiled twice and still managed to take it over his own country twice. Well, look at Chamberlain. And it was a Chamberlain.

It's World War two, right? Yes, not Chamberlain. The guy after Chamberlain, the the dark. Yeah, Churchill.

Thank you, Jesus. Churchill. So I don't know if you guys know this, but he was like a general or he was like some command of some army thing.

Some he was the prime minister of Europe or of England, of England. Yeah. But in World War one, though, he was in charge of an army thing.

And it was about going through that straight where Italy meets. If you look, it's like a bottleneck. And they had to commit like 70000 troops.

And it was like you're either going to all die or you might get through. And if you get through, it's like all risk, all reward kind of thing. Yeah.

And he he made that decision. And like tens of thousands of British soldiers died and he got fired and he ended up becoming the prime minister again. I have no idea how he recaptured his after that one, because like in a democracy, when you lose something like that, usually you don't gain that kind of back.

(33:20 - 39:13)

Usually kind of get put ostracized. But somehow he was able to stay in it. You know, this is something I just watched on Rogan.

Have you guys seen Hitler's speeches in English yet? Scott, have you seen those? No, I don't typically watch them. I know. Well, I I never would choose to normally, but Rogan was covering it.

And I was like, oh, that's that's really weird to see that because. He was talking about how, you know, Germany had been. In economic collapse and you he had sacrificed a lot to help the German people, so elect him to help him out, right? It's like.

It's something that. Somebody is doing right now in our country that seems very, very real. It's weird how that repeats.

And when you watch it in your own native language, it's even, I don't know, just kind of weird to see. I have. OK, so my grandfather was a Nazi soldier.

OK, so my grandfather fought in World War II on the German side. Then that his family, my grandfather, my mother's side became East Germany, so they served under Hitler. And then they served under Stalin.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they escaped East Germany in 1953 before the wall went up and then they got to America.

So like literally my parents served under Hitler, Stalin and like Eisenhower. Maybe maybe after Eisenhower might have been right out right before Kennedy. So between Eisenhower and Kennedy, unless Eisenhower did did go up to Kennedy, I'd have to look at the timeline.

But but yeah, so like maybe. Yeah, I get. Yeah, exactly.

So I get what you're saying. Right. So it's interesting.

And to your point, right, you're equating this to a Trump kind of thing, right? Trump doesn't scare me. The guy there's a guy behind Trump right now that's in the shadows that we don't know yet. They haven't made themselves aware, but they are riding the Trump wave.

They're right under him, right behind him. And they're quiet. I don't know who it is yet, but it's that person because Trump's only got four more years.

There's nothing you could do constitutionally. Like the thing about January 6th, this thing, it's all I can I can go over this because I like I actually do like political breakdowns and stuff. And I'd love to talk about this.

Maybe we can make this a podcast someday. But like about this is this guy is being persecuted ridiculously. They're going to capitalize on it.

But it's the guy behind him that's going to really gin up the people, the army. That's like the MAGA people. They're just as blind and, you know, ferocious and like rabid as the pinko lefty commies.

Right. I mean, it's it's it's the same. It's the same energy just pointed in a different direction.

Right. With a different. You're right.

You're right. Trump's not dangerous. Trump is going to be pissed off, but he's not dangerous.

The guy behind him is. Yeah, I think it's the machine behind it. Maybe it's not one guy either.

It could be. Right. And Hitler.

I mean, Hitler. Trump isn't like doesn't have the ideology of the way he's not going to. He can't use the government the way that Hitler used the government because Hitler got a coal coalition and there's a whole other way the way they set up their government.

But remember, they had a one in three unemployment. I mean, it's bad and it does parallel a lot of those things. But I'm much more concerned about whoever Trump like deems as his successor or whoever fills that role.

And my concern is that it's like the vague where I like the vague, but he's smart. But I feel like he could get power could get to his head, I think. And I think he can get to anybody's.

And when you're smart, when you're smart and then you get some power behind you, you're dangerous. And I like the guy. I just don't I just think it I think the possibility of a corruption is there, you know, the mental power part.

Yeah. What are your guys thoughts on it? Because you brought it up. I think it's just.

I think the machine is broken or not, maybe not broken, but. People work in the machine. Yeah, it's just in people.

It's there's so many things. People are so fed up of it that they don't want to take accountability. And then on top of that, when that happens, people become complacent.

I mean, we talk about the government, right? It's not the government. It's our government. It's ours.

We created it. We control it. We put the people we want in power.

And people don't like to hear that sometimes. And my opinion is that. Inevitably.

We have to. We have to be responsible and. I don't know, but that's about the extent that I think of it.

And I mean, people, people see that people are becoming complacent and then that's where the power comes in. They utilize the complacency to get where they want to go. Yeah, narcissists and psychopaths find a real simple way they wedge in there because like politics is just allowed a certain type of mentality to really take over because we're busy working.

So we're busy making the bills, paying the bills. And there's a type of mindset that goes, I can take advantage of this. I'll take advantage of your distraction to benefit myself and my family or whatever.

(39:14 - 39:47)

Yeah, I see that. It's unfortunately kind of come to that point where it seems like the corporations have kind of owned everything and. The system.

Isn't working the way it should be, but I don't think the people are working the system the way it should be either. It's almost like how do you blame the farm, the field for the crops not growing right? You know what I mean? Like somebody has to tell the thing somebody has to seed it and water it and and tend to it right and get rid of all the vermin, vermin and all that stuff. So to your point, it is on us to do a better job on that.

(39:48 - 42:15)

What are your thoughts, Scott? Any thoughts, Scott? I'm trying to stay out of it. No, I've got thoughts. I just it just it sucks.

I think everyone's got their own motivations. And it's as far as politicians go, for example, I feel like once a politician is getting started, for the most part, they usually have pretty good, maybe not good motives, but like what they believe is what they're fighting for. And then the only way that they're able to stay in power, to stay in their position, is if they start listening to the people that are willing to pay them a little bit more and sponsor them a little bit more.

And then it's just it spirals out of control and it just it it stinks. It really does. And there's not much you can do about either.

Like you're going to put like a cap on how much money different people can sponsor different politicians. It's right. That's what I've always thought.

It's like I've always thought of just taking the money out of it, like no commercial allowed, nothing, no commercials, no political commercials. Person wants to have a podcast or do something and promote themselves. That's fine.

But nothing, no funded commercials on any. Yeah, something. I mean, people definitely need to see and hear what's going on.

But you got it. Like right now, if one of us were to run against any candidate, we would need millions of endorsements and dollars in endorsements. And that's just something that.

You know, you go back 150, 200 years ago. And people did have the ability to truly be at the lowest class of society and manage to more influential run. Yeah, it was it was even if it wasn't as equitable in terms of race and gender, it was equitable in a social and or not social and economical manner.

And I think nowadays it's what to anybody can be in power. But the economics are at the center of that. And then you I mean, you can dive in anything like how does the economy hold down different social groups? But I don't know.

(42:17 - 42:49)

Scott, good points. Yeah, it is kind of the point. It's funny because like it's politics has become very national, like the House of Representatives is really your local representative, but it's because it's become such a federally nationalized, like the eyes of the nation are on you because the television and the way it's broadcast.

So Marjorie Taylor Greene matters to me. Why help me understand that? Like she shouldn't have that influence, nor should Nancy Pelosi. She should only be influential in her district and represent her district.

(42:50 - 43:25)

But it's gotten so national that they glom, you know, they glom them all together. And it's like little corporations working against each other. Yeah.

And truly. Yeah, it's an interesting. I've thought about it before.

And truly, we don't feel the effects too much of federal changes. I mean, so I worked in the in our local state government, Indiana state government, a handful of times throughout high school and college and, you know, different lobbying and calling agencies, stuff like that. And that's where it.

(43:26 - 45:08)

That's where it really changes and you see matters get taken into the people's hands, which I think is really, really cool. We had a lot of people underestimate the power, like school boards and the local local. Scott and I were just talking about this in Brownsburg, our hometown.

How the school board actually you've probably have you heard of Brownsburg in the news? I can't. It sounds familiar, but I don't want to I don't want to act like I know something I don't. So please educate me.

We had one of the biggest nationals. I don't know what to call it. Maybe a scandal with special education classrooms.

Oh, yeah. And how how aides and teachers were treating special education students versus students in a normal classroom. And yeah, I mean, it was really bad and it spread beyond just one person and many people were fired.

Some went to prison. Oh, wow. Like abuse and all that kind of stuff.

Essentially, one of the kids was at lunch, actually, my old elementary school, and he was choking and threw up. And one of the aides forced the kid to eat his own vomit. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And then on top of that, we have teachers around the cafeteria that are videotaping. Because, you know, that's what everybody does now, you go to every big problem in the world, like look at no matter your opinion on George Floyd case.

(45:10 - 45:51)

People whipped out their phones before they went to help somebody, you know, and that's a woman. There was a woman in Philadelphia on a on a on a train getting raped. And people and they were just recording it.

No one stepped in and end up getting like a train like two trains down. It was like a security guy, you know, one of the conductor type people or whatever to come up and get. It's like, are you kidding me? It doesn't make it doesn't even compute.

It doesn't. It makes no sense. And so essentially, you know, you have that, say, 10 employees that videotape this one, one that's actually acting on the student and then that gets spread and spread and spread.

(45:51 - 47:04)

So now you have like 70 employees that are considered. Maybe not, I don't even know what the charges were technically, but an accomplice or a bystander and. It was bad, it was bad to see now the whole school board, school board has changed.

The superintendent had to step down. Our old high school, the. Administrators have changed.

It makes you wonder if like is that was that an effect of some overall kind of you're saying, like the dissolution of things, right? Everything devolving over time, just people not staying accountable and everything. Or was this like a an incident thing? It seems like obviously it's a chronic thing. It got to this level where it got exposed.

But, you know, it could have been a one off too, but it's like, wow, I don't know. It's weird to think that the aid that committed the crime. Used to aid in one of my classrooms.

So just. Really, just weird to think about. And then like I used to be best buddies with a lot of the kids, at least in my year, and would be in those classrooms.

It's just. Weird to think I wonder what was happening when I was a kid. And how I was being treated compared to them, and that it's very sad.

(47:06 - 47:33)

Yeah, it kind of makes you feel a weird guilt and then you had nothing to do with it, right? So how did I get so lucky, right? More so. Yeah, yeah. Like that kind of guilt and also just and maybe I don't know how you feel about this guy, but we went to Brownsburg and it makes the good people in Brownsburg tarnished.

Does that make sense? Forever. Just because of a few. Oh, so it's like the bad apple ruins the bunch, right? Yes, yes.

(47:34 - 47:41)

Yeah. You know, that tarnished reputation or whatever. Yeah, that Brownsburg for you now.

(47:42 - 47:50)

Yeah, the qualities, but that. Well, my girlfriend works in communication delay, so she works with special needs children. Oh, gotcha.

(47:51 - 48:49)

Yeah, so I'll definitely have to look that up. Brownsburg, you said, right? Well, we got some more time. Time is all yours, gentlemen.

Would anything you guys want to share, talk about or? Uh, I'm kind of curious. So I've been learning guitar and Scott has his reasons for not learning it, and I want to know more about that. Yeah, OK, hold on.

Last time we spoke, Scott was the one a little bit more on the guitar. Yeah, I recall correctly. OK, all right.

So now it's flip the script. And, you know, Scott, Scott and I work together and all that. And we're also good best friends, but he's at IU and I'm at Purdue.

So it's hard to hear like. Why? Why aren't you playing anymore? What? What happened there? OK, so the guitar has strings on it and one of the strings. I'm not good at guitar.

Don't know what it's called. The little one, the really small one. Yes, if you will.

(48:50 - 49:55)

I needed to tune it because actually, no, it snapped entirely. That's right. It didn't snap.

Sorry, it was too tight and I kept tightening it and then it was my fault. I broke the string. So I my dad in the face or anything.

No, but I did end up cutting it so I could take it off entirely. And I've stepped on the little pieces which are painful. But yeah, my dad heard about it because I was brought it up.

And like the next second, we got a knock at the door and we got a package for just a bunch of replacement strings because my dad plays guitar and he's always he's got really stubby fingers and he's always pissed off at me because he's like you got these long ass fingers and all you do is play on your damn computer. So yeah, I got keyboard fingers. Exactly.

It's a useful skill or useful trait. But yeah, he got me the strings and then I was like, yeah, I'll get around to it. And then that that weekend, he's like, I'm just going to come down to Bloomington and fix it for you.

(49:55 - 51:14)

So before I could say no, there's a knock at the door. My dad was here and he was he's like, it'll be real quick. I don't need a YouTube video or anything as much.

Most dads are. They take pride in their ability to screw things up without a video. So, yeah, it took him about five minutes and he's like, oh, yeah, that's on too tight.

Why don't you figure it out on your own time? And so, yes, long story short, my there is another like all strings are on there and to an untrained ear, I guess it probably sounds all right, but it's I don't have a trained ear and it's it's pretty it's pretty bad. That's my excuse. Tuning is a problem.

Oh, yes. And is there a chance you can tune it back or no? Well, he cut it too short. So the string is just too short.

Yeah. And I have another I do have another replacement string. I guess I guess I always cut it after you put it after you string it, don't you? Don't you string it and then cut the excess off? He's he's strong.

It cut the excess off. And he's like, I can I can make it a little a little tighter. And I didn't even question it.

And here we are. I'll do it. I'll do it.

So now. So now, Lee, you're back. You're now on into the guitar.

(51:15 - 51:42)

Yeah, well, I've always had a guitar and my dad has always had an acoustic guitar. I was like, usually I didn't want to play my guitar up at school because I have a roommate and to get the amp out and play it, it's just kind of disrespectful of his space as well, unless he's, you know, a class or something. So is it actually on the Eclipse weekend on my way home, I grabbed my acoustic, my dad's acoustic guitar, brought it up and I started playing around with it.

(51:42 - 52:09)

And then my fiance has a ukulele, so that's even quieter and like easier to fiddle with. Yeah, I started messing around with like finger dexterity. And working on chords without even playing or strumming or anything.

And then. Then I decided, all right, I'm just going to whip out my amp and. Sorry, sorry, roommate.

(52:11 - 52:53)

Which I think he's he's totally fine with it. And it is so much easier to learn on electric guitar. Oh, yeah.

Why? But that's like my the strings are like still like half the thickness. Yeah. So because the sound that you have to get the richness on an acoustic, it has to be a thicker, heavier gauge.

Yeah. My fingers always hurt worse on acoustic. Oh.

Yeah, it's always it's it's the thickness of it. You can like if you just look at them, just look at the thickest one in the thickest electric and you're like, it's a pretty big difference between us. Yeah, it's like the nylon strings on like a on a, you know, Spanish guitar or something like a classical.

Yes. You're just different. It's a different pushing.

(52:54 - 52:58)

Yeah. So if you can play an acoustic, you can play an electric. No problem.

(52:58 - 53:29)

Usually people do struggle going from electric to acoustic because of that, not not struggle, but, you know, I mean, like the fingering, just keeping the finger strength pain. Yeah. Yeah.

So I've I've developed really good calluses. And what I do now is I practice on the acoustic and then I'll play on the electric when I want. And then, I mean, there's so many other things like I love a lot of the 70s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

(53:32 - 53:49)

Rock, alternative rock, I don't know, you know, whatever genre it falls into, but I'm learning a lot of George Harrison songs and OK, got to learn how to use a capo and like all the Beatles stuff. They decide to tune down the guitars like two steps. You have to break your guitar and then.

(53:50 - 54:29)

Yeah. And then a lot of songs have a tuned down D, just the D's, a drop down D. Yeah. Yeah.

So like Rage Against the Machine has a drop down D. I think Tonic does a lot of drop down D stuff and they're good like acoustic stuff. So it's it's been really fun, though. I very cool.

I used to play piano all the time. Oh, wow. I used to play out to sex as well.

And it's really hard to out to sex, probably get a brought up to Purdue pretty easily. But I'm not just going to bring a piano up here. The guitar is awesome just to have and screw around and play music with.

(54:29 - 54:38)

So I want to get lessons. All right, that's the next step then. Yeah, you're going to you're going to sell some more T-shirts and get some pay for those lessons.

(54:40 - 54:56)

Yeah, that's the goal. All right. So what kind of what kind of apparel do you guys have currently? What do you have? T-shirts, hoodies? What do you have out there? Am I able to share my screen? I might be able to.

(54:56 - 55:07)

Let me give that a shot. I can show you the web. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd love to see it. It looks pretty good.

It's in the top right corner under view, I think. Oh, there's share screen bottom right corner. There's there it is.

(55:07 - 55:38)

There we go. All right. Awesome.

So this is yeah, this is a website offstage. Uh. So one of the coolest things.

We started to use AI generated art. Which is a touchy subject for a lot of people right now, but this background right here, I typed up the whole prompt, wrote basically wrote of like a little narrative. 500 words and threw it in here and it created this for us.

(55:39 - 56:28)

That is really cool. Yeah. I mean, it's can you believe that a computer just makes that? No, it looks like a real image.

Yeah, it really does. It looks like just like a filtered, you know, Instagram shot picture. Yeah.

Yeah. That's amazing. So we got that.

And then this is our mission statement here. Pretty like it. Yeah, totally.

I think I love the concept, because like you said, to your point is like you're wearing this. I don't want to say generic, but it's more of a broader musical interest, which really opens the door for the conversation. Yes, I like that.

We're going to have to use that. Welcome to. I'll do all your promo stuff after.

There we go. Perfect. So here's our shop.

(56:29 - 56:55)

So we've filtered a lot of shirts in and out now. These are what we have currently. So we did this for a little five hundred.

So it's a bike race at IU. It's got school. So that's our that's our character right there.

Spin. Yeah, that's spin, right? Yep. Pretty.

I don't know. Just feel like nobody else has something like that. No, it's it's it's a totally cool thing, because like people people can relate to it for sure.

(56:58 - 57:02)

Yeah. And then that's the front. We kind of went for the streetwear music.

(57:04 - 57:43)

Idea street popular right now. Yeah, I can see the writing on it has that kind of like vibe to it. Yeah, definitely.

Like I don't want a tagging kind of almost like tagging. Yes. Yes.

That was if you look at our logo up there on top offstage, that's a graffiti tag. So, OK, that's where that inspiration came from. Very cool.

And then we just made one for Grand Prix, which is a car race at Purdue that all I got was a knockoff little five hundred, I believe. Except we use real machines. Did you ever see like the 24 hour of lemons instead of Lamont? Yes.

(57:43 - 59:10)

Yes. It's such an awesome thing. Whereas I think he came.

Your car has to be below either like two thousand dollars or five hundred dollars, some ridiculously low number. I think it's five hundred. I think it's five hundred, too.

And then you can add all the pieces to it. But the car itself has to be like five hundred. Yeah.

Yes. I love that. One of my favorite YouTubers, Chris Fix, do you watch car? OK.

He he built a like five hundred dollar lemon BMW into a 24 hour car. Very cool. I love that.

I saw one where they did a Corvair. There was one that did like a front with I think they did like an was in a V8 Corvair that they put in the back. It's some crazy thing.

Wow. We just did something different. It's crazy.

Anyway, I love that's really cool. And that's sure it's nice to. Yeah, that's that's the Grand Prix one.

And then this is the music box to. This one, I like that, I like this one, yeah. Yeah, I like that.

That's that logo. Like that could be a secondary logo, the phonograph. Oh, yeah, totally.

We are awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, of course.

And we got our about us. So I definitely check it out. This is from this picture is from a party picture.

Yeah. It's from what party? A disco party that Scott had. So he took advantage of that for.

He had to definitely. Yeah, I like it. There you go.

(59:10 - 1:00:15)

That's awesome. And there we go. Yeah, that's really cool, though, because it's definitely a lot of work.

That we can't like Scott, not just this morning, Scott and I were working on Kittle to do some T-shirts and figure that out. Constant learning. We need to be proud of your work, man.

You come so far as like I I wish I had the wherewithal to like you guys are able to put your head down and I'm going to learn HTML or some whatever you guys are learning. I'm like, I just want to talk to people, record it, put it out there and hit play the SEO thing. I really should take advantage of.

I just never did any of that other stuff, you know, because it's like, yeah, everybody has different drivers for what why they're doing it. And it's like, I wish I had a little bit more of a business or more of a gory and its savviness to it, because I'd like it to grow to talk to more people, you know? Yeah, totally. But yeah, it sounds like you guys are come a long way and it's cool to see the changes and that you're not afraid to make the changes, you know, even if it is a little later, you know, don't don't be afraid to pivot.

(1:00:16 - 1:01:07)

Well, wouldn't you agree, Scott? We were pretty we were definitely pretty scared to make changes. Oh, yeah. Every time we're scared.

But you're saying it's early, like. But it's because you care, too, though, like there's a reason you're scared, because like you get the butterflies, right? He's like, I don't want to screw it up. It's a different it's a different scare than like I'm going to fail.

Right. It's more of like I don't want to lose what I have, but it's exciting. Regardless, there still is excitement behind it, driving it.

Definitely. Awesome, man. You guys have anything else you guys want to share before we call it a day? Yeah, I mean, why why is it that why do you want to do offstage, Scott? I'm curious, like what what keeps what gives your mind of motivation like.

(1:01:08 - 1:03:28)

Mark, you were saying your motivation is you want to get your word out there and talk to as many people as possible, right? Well, I don't even want to get my word out. I want to I want to get I want to ask a question to a person that's talked to a million other people, but they didn't get that question ever. I that's my pursuit.

When I if if you watch some of the there's some of the podcasts where I'm able to get the person like you'll see an emotional response from the question I ask. Like there was a guy the last one I did was a gentleman named Pinder Singh and his last name's S.I.N.G.H. And he came across his faith, Sikhism. Right.

It's a it's a type of religious. Yeah. Well, turns out like he didn't know about it.

He finds it. And then as he researches and goes down the rabbit hole, like the fifth dog, like the fifth guru was like Singh S.I.N.G.H. And like it's his last name. So it just popped in my head like, how did that hit you when you found that your last name is connected to this faith that somehow you came across? And like he had a visceral, like emotional.

He paused because it like hit him, you know. And that's the that's what I'm that's what I want to do. I want to be so curious that someone goes, you know, no one ever asked me that question before.

Yeah. And that that's what I want. I just wish I could do something.

I would I would love to monetize it because I do have like 200 freaking podcasts out there. You know, it's just it's just I don't know how interesting other people are in listening to what I find interesting, you know. So they definitely find it interesting.

It's you got to break through. It's that's the hardest part. Yeah.

So why did you do it, Scott? What keeps you going, man? I mean, it's obviously not money because we are so deeply in the hole. You guys have a longer term plan. You guys know that.

Well, yeah. In fact, we're actually we're getting close to breaking even. Yeah.

He says it like we're deep in the hole, but it 300 bucks and then we're breaking even. I guess that's actually close. I don't know.

We're kind of in the mix with our inventory right now. Sorry. Keep going.

(1:03:31 - 1:05:34)

What keeps me going is the idea that we could fail at any moment. And I think a lot of people think we will. Specifically, my roommates, they're very supportive, but it's like it's almost like an out of pity support.

And I don't know. It's a bit of a grudge. I've got I'm a little competitive and I just I cannot let this fail.

Like it's fun. And to be able to have fun and succeed at something is like everyone's goal in life. So, yes.

Got to keep it going. That's, you know, until you said it right there, kind of what you were saying, Mark, just a second ago, I didn't think about that. And there is something where when I talk about offstage to people or like, yeah, I own a business and I'm in college and I run it with my best friend, you know, since I've known since I was little, they're always like, oh, that's that's cute.

It's cute. Yeah. Good for you guys.

You know, I hope it works. Pat on the head. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, good job, kid. Yeah.

And then then we go do stuff like like this and talk to people or we go sell on the street or. I get a text from somebody I haven't talked to in like five years and they're like, I just saw your ad and I bought a T-shirt. Out of nowhere or like people on the randomly on the street and all they're with their family and like the parents want to buy a T-shirt and all the kids are going crazy.

I don't know. That's just stuff where it's like, OK, yeah, people think this is cute and pat on the head, but no, there's definitely some real. There's something there.

Yeah, what is for you, though? See, that's the thing is like this is your passion. It's not anyone else. Right.

Right. Right. So like it's yours to define.

So that's ours to ask. Right. What what is the drive? Yeah.

Have you guys I just I just popped in my head. You guys should do. I was there and do like a spin clips, like do a total clips where spin is the moon.

(1:05:34 - 1:06:20)

And maybe moon's the sun or something like pulls down his pants or something. I don't know. Let me tell you, we actually we actually made a shirt like that.

Did you? Yeah. We took a sticker. There you go.

Very cool. You get the moon and then the sun. Oh, that is awesome.

Nice. Yeah. Reminds think alike, guys.

Reminds think alike. So so I wish we thought about that about two months before the eclipse, but we were too much in the mix of figuring out what we were getting set up. So.

But it was fun to make the design, and Scott and I have some we sold a few T-shirts, people liked them. That's really cool. I like I like that you actually did it.

I've got ideas that I never actually implemented. You know what I mean? So it's one of those regret things, right? Never regret. You only regret things you don't do.

(1:06:20 - 1:06:26)

You can make mistakes, but you can only regret exactly what is right. What is right. Regret.

(1:06:27 - 1:06:34)

That's where. So. Part part of running business is spending money, you spend money to make money.

(1:06:35 - 1:07:03)

And Scott, Scott and I have a hard time. Organizing that, I think is the best way to put that. So did all that kind of stuff is really hard.

Yes. Yes. And then on top of that, like we try to use what we have already.

I mean, that's that's one of the biggest things when you build a business, use what you already have and do what you can. Um, so I have a lot of softwares that I use for school projects and stuff that I have. Scott doesn't have or Scott has something and I don't have it.

(1:07:05 - 1:08:24)

So it's just that that has become we've had to like combine our brains to make a lot of ideas and imagery happen. And I mean, today was a big step. We made it made it a level playing field for us to both be able to design now.

And hopefully we can get a lot of maybe not like content out for apparel, if that makes sense. So a lot more product out. Because I mean, my my imagination is only going to go so far to communicate to Scott's and Scott's idea of what is going to be good is, you know, something's going to get lost in translation.

And that that has happened already. So I think today was actually a big step in separating that so that we can be individuals in a team. And we're going to I think that's going to help us grow a lot quicker.

I don't know if you think the same things, Scott, but yes, we need more. Our website's looking dry. And to be able to work on merch separately, it's just it's going to help a lot.

I talked to some guys last night at the bar. Oh, it's Grand Prix week at Purdue. So going out every night of the week is kind of a normal thing.

(1:08:25 - 1:08:42)

Yeah, I'm sure it's every night in Purdue. What else are you going to do? Exactly. It's Purdue.

It's Purdue. And we showed him my website. He was interested and he kept looking at the same three shirts that because we only have three shirts on the website.

(1:08:42 - 1:09:22)

I was like, damn, we definitely need to have. We need to triple that soon. Yeah, you need like 50 shirts.

Yeah, just all different ones. And the thing is, like at some point, I'm sure you're not going to have to worry about the demand piece because it'll be print on demand versus inventory kind of thing. And you'll have the logo.

You just send them do this one on a hunter green shirt. Boom, done, you know. So that's how we do it right now.

We do print on demand. Oh, OK, cool. So, yeah.

So you just need like kind of the ideas and logos and all those pieces out there. Yeah, it's it's I don't know. I would like to move to inventory when we have the opportunity.

(1:09:23 - 1:10:02)

I think Scott would. I'm speaking for you, Scott, but I think he'd like to as well because we can control the. Quality a little bit better, right? I agree.

Yeah, I think I think you have to get like I did the whole T-shirt thing. I know like the what is it, the Bella, the Bella shirt and yeah, I kept Bella canvas and the the other the Nuva, the Nuva one or whatever. Then there's another one out there.

And I went down that whole thing and it's like it's pretty cool. Yeah, I do. I do like that.

It's just there's a lot more to that when you do the inventory part, but it is an exciting challenge for sure. Yeah. I'm excited to see where we go.

(1:10:03 - 1:10:13)

Awesome. I think there's definitely something there that we don't know what's there yet either. But I think I think you'll bring some music people together is what it is, you know.

(1:10:13 - 1:10:31)

So you guys have any like plans to have to do like a concerts, just have a table at concerts outside or anything or walk like parking lots at concerts or. Greta in a month. Greta May 16 would be going to try to I don't know if we're going to have a table.

(1:10:32 - 1:11:54)

Maybe we should, you know, actually plan this instead of the Eclipse thing. But like we're at least going to interview people, do street interviews. Oh, yeah.

Did you guys end up doing any of the street interviews? You guys mentioned that we focused on primarily just getting the word out there. Yeah. Eclipse, which is, you know, we needed a first experience to do that.

So I think we can gauge that now. But the hardest thing is like we wanted to sell T-shirts at a concert. It's all inventory.

I mean, it costs to get like 30 T-shirts. You're spending. Seven hundred dollars, you know.

And it goes, you know, you buy 60 by 100. The cost per item goes down, but. It's owning a small business is going to be it's scary at the start.

And like I said, you got to spend money to make money. So we're just. We're taking baby steps and it's working, so.

Right. And the biggest thing is you're taking steps. I mean, how many people are sitting there playing video games right now, not not strategizing, you know, their next move on on taking over the world, right? Like that's where you got to look at it.

You're right. Yeah. Well, I'm grateful you guys jumped on for a call, man.

(1:11:54 - 1:13:04)

I mean, I was I was really happy to be on your show. You guys mentioned something weird about the recording. You guys said something about the recording I shared with you.

Freak some people out, I guess. Yes, I think. I don't know if it was just so I. What was I doing? I guess I was upstairs eating food.

I usually am. And I it was when you sent the email, like with all the links to the different recordings, I'm like, oh, check it out. And now my earbuds and I'm playing it.

And then everyone's like watching TV and just slowly turn their head like, what is going on over there? See, I listened to it on the car on the way to Florida and everybody in the car was kind of like, oh, yeah. And I had explained it to him. So we actually listened to our entire podcast on the way.

Oh, cool. And they loved it. Yeah.

Oh, I got some more viewers out of that, actually. Maybe I don't even know. It's funny.

No one reaches out to me. And I like to your point, man, I don't have the SEO stuff I. Internally to you, like the way you guys think is you guys know and are confident in what you can do. I'm confident in having a conversation with people.

(1:13:04 - 1:14:56)

I feel really comfortable pretty much talking to anybody about anything. If that could translate somehow into some eyes or some ears, I'd be really happy to have that happen, because I think people would be like, oh, that is an interesting thing to talk about expires, you know. So we'll get there.

But yeah, so like that when you're there and then that thing, the static comes in, man. The first when when she handed me that disk and she's like, I'm sorry. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, I couldn't fix it.

And I'm like, I have no idea what she's talking about. Right. So I'm like, what do you mean? She goes here.

She puts it in and it's a play. And that thing goes, you are there. And then all of a sudden start freaking out.

I'm like, hairs on my arms stood up. I'm like, what what's going on? She's like, I don't know. It's like two hours.

It's just super weird. Have you ever seen the movie Contact? Yeah. And with Jodie Foster, I need to rewatch it again.

But there's a part. Like when, you know, after they built the whole spaceship time travel thing and when you were having that experience, at least when I was visualizing, I was like, OK, that's what it did. It kind of it was like a portal right where it went to white noise for a bit.

And it's just absolute noise. And then you kind of came back while this other stuff was going on. Yeah, it's really interesting because I was lucid during the conversation.

I could tell you the things I said and it was weird what I saying. But I remember saying it, you know, I was just really relaxed. I just wish that it had gotten recorded so you could hear me say what I said to show how crazy I truly am now.

Now they just have to, you know, take it from all the time. Yeah, right. So.

But yeah, so I'm so glad you could join me, gentlemen. I know you guys have some work to do coming up here. So any final thoughts, anything else you want to share? And, you know, doors always open anytime you guys want to talk, you know, feel free to.

(1:14:57 - 1:15:31)

Oh, yeah. We'll schedule a wrong time again. Yes.

We can't get this time zone stuff right. I swear it's on. It's difficult.

I take full accountability, man. Our fault. All to.

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard.

It's hard to get the. Only we could be on one time zone, right? That is how it works. Yeah.

So any parting thoughts there, Scott or Lee? No, thanks for having us on. Check out offstage off dash staged dot com. We're going to have a lot more apparel on the site.

(1:15:33 - 1:15:47)

Let music unite you. Yeah. Yes.

Is that yours? Is that the slogan? Let music unite you. I don't know. That's not.

All right. Well, let's work it out. How about this? Music unites.

(1:15:48 - 1:15:55)

Music unites. Yeah, that'd be good. You can remember.

Right now we have shorter. You know, I mean, like versus like let music unite. You is like a passive thing.

(1:15:56 - 1:16:04)

This is like an active thing. Music unites. There you go.

OK. So we can put that on a T-shirt to work on these all day, guys. Yeah.

(1:16:06 - 1:16:50)

Scott, anything else you want to say before we call it a day, my friend? I think of some wisdom real quick. Confucius. Oh, OK.

If you're on the toilet and this is a real thing, by the way, some people might be on the toilet right now, watch the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.

You guys want to hear what do you want to hear what popped into my head right before you said that? Oh, geez. This is a psychic part. I was just going to say something like Confucius man who stand on toilet high on pot.

I swear to God I was going to say I'm not joking. That's like the toilet thing popped in my head. So please share, because obviously you had to share whatever it was.

(1:16:51 - 1:17:29)

It's not really the pot, but it is related to China, actually. If you so, you know what a ghost poop is, you know, it it is where you wipe and there's nothing on the toilet, on the toilet paper. Yeah.

So any time that happens, someone in China has to wipe twice as much. So just keep that in mind. Every time you're grateful for it, like there's there's always there's a balance, I guess I should say.

I have a whole ideology around the poo. Oh, I've got names for all different kinds. And there's the thing called the karma.

(1:17:30 - 1:18:57)

It's the one where the next one, like, say the first one's a ghost one. And you're like, Greg wants the karma one shit is the one that's just a mess. You're just going to be there with a wet mop, sticking it all up in there.

And anyway, I was really sad to move on. But all right, can we move on to that? All right. So we've got a once again, we've got Lee and Scott from hyphen stage dot com.

Is that right, gentlemen? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Music apparel.

Let music unite you or music unites one of those. You've got spin and you've got scratch with a chicken with a hat. Yes.

All right. Well, you got to get one of those up on the website because I want to check that out. So.

I mean, we should be able to now, so. Yeah. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining another not conscious.

I'm going to hit stop here. Just stay on. But thank you so much.

I'm really grateful that you could share your story with us and all your victories, man, sharing with me. I love to tell everybody how you're doing. Thank you.

Of course. Thank you again, guys. Have a great day.

Take care.