Episode 107: Tim Byrd
Tim Byrd is a music producer, composer & sound designer from Newport News, VA. He’s worked with several major & independent artists & labels. His music has appeared on network channels such as MTV, VH1, ID Channel, Lifetime, TLC, FX, E! and many others. He has also scored a few independent films along with having his music included in movies like, “Exit Wounds” 2001 (Steven Seagal and DMX) and “Living Will” 2010 (Ryan Dunn).
Transcription
Kenny: Alright. Hey, welcome to KP's BlackBox. This is actually take two because Zach, who's one of our guests today, who’s usually behind the camera over there, is our audio guy. He's forcing me to get out of my comfort zone and do different things and start over. So, you're seeing this in round two. So thanks a lot Zach.
Zach: You're welcome.
Kenny: It’s a love-hate relationship I have with this guest today. But, the guest that I really love that we go back—Tim we go back to ninetee—maybe? I wrote a note. 1995, 1996 maybe?
Tim: I would say ’98.
Kenny: 98?
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Yeah. I'm making us much older than.
Tim: Yeah.
Zach: That's when I was born.
Kenny: Yeah. When you were?—Okay. Shut up. We'll get to you.
Tim: Looks like he was just born yesterday.
Kenny: Yeah, like he’s—he’s so new he’s, I use the word with Zach, translucent.
Tim: Yeah.
Zach: So what was—what was World War I like?
Tim: Uhm actually you got it confused, I was there with the Civil War.
Kenny: Yeah, Zach. So we're going to take it right there already buddy. But no, my guest today Tim Byrd. Tim is a music producer extraordinaire. We’ve been doing some stuff together for a number of years through mutual relationships and friends. And I ran across Tim—he’s a buddy of mine on my facebook page too, that I so often contribute to, not really. But I look at pictures—I stalk people’s pictures on there.
Tim: Hey, that's what it's there for.
Kenny: Right? But man, yeah, you had a nice little win a, maybe a double, we'll call it in the world of baseball. Where you had a-an opportunity where some of your music was just picked up. So congrats on that. but
Tim: Thank you
Kenny: I wanted to have Tim here today, because, one of the things I told him that I really appreciate about Tim is that he has been one of these guys that have just stayed true to the music business. Regardless of where the success—and you know people try to relate success sometimes to, to money. As you and I were talking off-camera KP's BlackBox is about oxygen to money. And it's nice to see that you're still upright breathing some oxygen today.
Tim: Yeah still working on the money part though.
Kenny: Still working on the money, and—but you know what, the struggle is real and you're here to say that you just don’t quit.
Tim: Nah.
Kenny: Yeah. The ‘q’ word’s not in your vocabulary.
Tim: Not in my vocabulary, at all.
Kenny: That’s what I love man. It's what I love about you. Hey, so thanks for being here today.
Tim: Thanks for having me.
Kenny: One of the things I like to do though, before we ever kick off a podcast, is since I’m a prior jarhead or once a marine always a marine. But I always like to throw out a little tribute to our men and women in uniform. And you-you know, you and I will talk later in this podcast about you know, this relationship and things that are going on in society today.
Tim: Right.
Kenny: From the men in blue, who are really struggling right now with finding how to be, you know, good stewards in our community.
Tim: Mmhmm
Kenny: To the ones who are really holding it down in our community on a world level,
Tim: Right
Kenny: securing our-our freedoms and our way of life is our military. And so I always want to give a shout out. But there's a special one today, my-my son's in some training down in Fort Benning. And Fort Benning, I think on Thursday of this week or Wednesday of this this week when we're shooting this podcast, we lost one of my brothers in the fraternity of the United States Marine Corps. A young sergeant. I want to make sure I get this right and pay tribute to this young man, Sergeant Wolfgang. that's a cool name, right?
Tim: Yeah it is.
Kenny: Wolf K. Weninger lost his life in a parachute accident.
Tim: Wow. That’s sad. Rest in peace.
Kenny: Yes. So, he was just a couple days away from graduating and there was an accident. I'm sure there's an investigation that will be going on, but, I wanted to give a shout out to this guy and his family. Thank you for your service and we would just want to throw a little toast back.
Tim: So, I don't drink, but, I'm gonna do it with these guys.
Kenny: Yeah. Cheers. Semper fi. There we go. Yeah come on.
Tim: Alright.
Kenny: Alright, that was awkward for radio but great for video. There you go. Cheers guys.
Tim: Cheers.
Kenny: Johnny Walker Blue Label. Yeah.
Zach: Sponsor us.
Kenny: Good. Zach says, “sponsor us.” Johnny, I love Johnny Walker Blue Label and as you can see, I don't know if we can get that in the shot. Is that in the shot, Ian?
Ian: Uhm, no. But Zach—
Kenny: Tim.
Tim: Yes?
Kenny: Hold that hold that bottle up in that camera right there.
Tim: Which camera?
Kenny: Uh this one, this one right here.
Tim: Oh, right here?
Kenny: Yes sir. Show Johnny Walker what's wrong with that bottle.
Zach: No, that's a camera shot.
Kenny: There's a defective.
Ian: It’s empty!
Kenny: It’s empty. Mr Walker—
Tim: I didn't do it.
Kenny: Yeah, guilty and prior guests.
Tim: That’s it.
Ian: That’s good.
Kenny: You know, we do a little shot before the show. So.
Zach: Oh, you guys took the whole shot.
Kenny: Dude, what were you doing?
Zach: I thought we were just taking a sip.
Kenny: Come on Zach.
Tim: I had to get mine over with.
Kenny: Yeah, there we go.
Tim: Hang on, oh I just saw it grow some hair on my chest.
[Laughter]
Zach: I just burned all the hair off my chest. All four of them.
Tim: Wow. All four of them.
Kenny: So, yeah. Hey, shout out to our-our folks out there in uniform. And dude, man thanks for being here today. It’s been way too long.
Tim: Thanks again for having me man.
Kenny: Dude, it’s-it's cool to just come in here and chill with you and have an opportunity to-to catch up. And
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: You know, when I, when I decided to do this podcast. One of the things I wanted to do is just have a conversation with people from all walks of life and from all measures of success. And you know, being in the financial business, what I do in my day job, so often I think people confuse success with what they have in their bank account.
Tim: Right.
Kenny: And it's not really that way. That’s why I wanted Zach to be on the show with us today, and pull him out from behind—
Zach: Because I'm broke.
Tim: Yeah, I was about to ask. Is it ‘cause he's broke?
Kenny: But you know what, this guy's one of the brokest, happiest people on the planet. And you know, makes a lot of people happy with his music. You've been able to do that over the years with music. So I wanted to take you know, old school, young heart
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: still passionate about the business and talk about what still drives you. And then bring a young guy in, who's up and coming. And you know we were talking off camera, you heard one of his songs.
Tim: Oh yeah.
Kenny: Zach’s got some skills, right?
Tim: Zach is dope.
Kenny: yeah
Zach: Thank you.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. He's dope. Great writer, I mean, I heard the song great writing, arrangement, music, everything. That's why I was surprised that-that’s why I asked, “who produced that?” He said, “well, I did.”
Kenny: Yeah. He did it himself, yeah.
Tim: He said, “I did. Idiot.”
Zach: I didn’t say that. I said, “old geezer”
Kenny: Old geezer. We will beat his ass after the show.
Tim: Well I got to get enough oxygen.
Kenny: Enough oxygen, and I've got—hey you know what? You got some oxygen.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: I got a little bit of money I think I can throw at this. To—you and I can just sit back and pay a couple guys to—
Tim: Yeah, definitely.
Zach: You could throw the money at me. Two birds with one stone.
Kenny: There you go.
Zach: Probably hurt a little bit.
Kenny: You know I will do that, because, I have a-a 99% royalty agreement with you Zach. So I’ve known Zach, Tim, since he was probably 14 or 15 years old. I met him at my house. I’ll-I'll save how I met Zach for the firsttimefor when he's actually on stage. Because there is an agreement that I have with Zach, that he has you know signed in blood.
Tim: Okay.
Kenny: That I-I get to go do something on stage in his first big show, at maybe Barclays at the big theater or maybe
Zach: I was incapacitated
Kenny: Madison Square gardens, I don't know.
Zach: when I signed this.
Tim: So you said what?
Zach: I was incapacitated.
Tim: Oh so you had some Johnny Walker.
Kenny: Let's just say this I-I saw Zach for the first time, in my house, a few years ago in his tighty whities.
Tim: oh wow. I didn’t want to picture that.
Kenny: Yeah. When you wake up in the morning and you got five or six young dudes in your room over the garage
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: and one of them's in his translucent, is that a right word? Translucent skin.
Zach: I am going to say it's inaccurate.
Kenny: Inaccurate? Yeah. In his little tiny whities, what do you call it, tea bagging?
Zach: Yeah. That’s the word.
Kenny: Yeah. We’ll just go ahead and put it out there.
Tim: Oh okay.
Kenny: Another dude.
Tim: Yeah, gotcha
Zach: Yeah, you know how it is.
Kenny: Yeah, I know how it is. So what I effectively, yeah, there you go.
Zach: Cheers.
Kenny: Cheers, Zach. Embarrassed on camera today, in the interview with Tim Byrd.
Zach: There’s no embarrassment just radical transparency.
Kenny: That’s right. Radical truth, radical transparency.
Tim: That's actually dope.
Zach: Radical translucency.
Kenny: Yeah, we practice that in our office here. We don't go as far as this guy, Ray Dalio, who runs Bridgewater Associates, which is one of the largest hedge funds in the world. In this guy's office, up in Connecticut, they video everything in their office. He has I think 11–1200 employees. Everything's videoed, everything's audio and it-it’s pretty interesting. If you want to go out there and look, online, and look up this interview with Ray Dalio and reporter from CNBC, you know, he talks about this radical transparency, radical truth. That if we could be in this world where people just are in agreement, that when they're not happy with each other, we're gonna say it,
Tim: Right
Kenny: but it's going to be done in the confines of going, okay you're going to tell somebody you’re pissed at them or you going to you know cuss your buddy out. It’s recorded, it's taped, and now you got to go back later and review that and you got to look inwardly at, is there something that I did in this that created this environment?
Tim: Right
Kenny: Will I learn more about myself?
Tim: By watching it
Kenny: Yeah, yeah. So it's a-it’s a pretty interesting dynamic that it’s-it's created. And we've tried to adopt that in our office in a way where we go “hey when we make a mistake, say you made a mistake. Don't cover up your mistake.” And I think that's what happens a lot oftimein life and now you and I were talking off camera we got video everywhere today.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: Bad things have happened since the beginning of man.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: People have been crazy, since the beginning of man. People have committed crimes both in uniform and out of uniform. What's different today, that you and I were talking about, and the era that Zach lives in. Everything is recorded.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: We're recording this now. This is documented forever.
Tim: Yep.
Kenny: And it hasn't really changed that people have gotten worse in our society it's just we see it more often instantaneously.
Tim: That’s exactly true and that's what Will Smith said. He said, “things aren't getting worse it's just being filmed.”
Kenny: Yeah, yeah, which you know, one day we’ll hopefully now learn from that. Where we can go back and go, man I can't believe we humans—we primates
Tim: Right
Kenny: live that way. That we behave that way.
Tim: Yeah.
Zach: You know an interesting thought I had a few days ago. You know the the statement “history is written by the winners” and so there's always a twist or a bias when it pertains to what's being written about the losers in history.
Kenny: Yeah
Zach: Uhm I think a lot, I started thinking this because Kenny brought in a—like an old photo album of just photos of him growing up and his family and his friends. And it's such, like, a novelty looking at photos of people from your generation because photos just weren't so commonplace. Like you couldn't pull out your phone and take a photo whenever. You had to take a film photo and get it developed. And I was thinking, I wonder how this age of recording, instant photos, immediate gratification is going to change history books? Because it's going to be a lot harder to write a slant when there’s terabytes and,
Tim: Document. Yeah
Zach: whatever, the gigaflops or of data images videos of how things actually work.
Tim: Yeah that's true. Thats a good question.
Zach: You know how many—we have a handful of videos of the civil rights movement. How many videos and photos do we have of the state of the nation today? Where, you know, my kids are going to be able to look back at history and see how it actually was not see, not hear, somebody's words or somebody's take on it but see the actual thing.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: So let me ask you guys something as musicians, both at different aspects of your career and your life, do you believe that music has power?
Tim: Yes.
Zach: Absolutely.
Tim: 100 percent.
Kenny: And what you do in the film industry now, and or, even writing something as simple as like a-a bumper, you're writing music to emit an emotion.
Tim: Yes
Kenny: True?
Tim: Yes
Kenny: So do you think music can have a way of of healing, maybe, some of the stuff we're going through now?
Tim: I think it always has.
Kenny: Yeah?
Zach: Yes
Tim: Even before today, yeah. Love songs. if you think about it. If you really think about love songs, it helps a lot of relationships. And the words that they listen to in a song probably helps out with their relationship, “oh I never thought about that.” “That's love.” Then you got politics yeah like, “What's Going on” with Marvin Gaye.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: That song that he had. And then I think music is one of the few things that can bring people together, even though, they’re separate genres but music is that one single thing
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: that people can learn their, um, from the emotions.
Kenny: In-in the environment that we live in today, the world we're in today, I think what’s beautiful about music is that like Zach, here. You know, we we talk a lot, even though he works in my financial firm, we talk a lot about music. And you know I think this is one of the first, maybe, generations that—me and my son actually like the same music.
Tim: Thats actually true.
Kenny: Where, you know, my son Isaiah is in the army. He likes some hip-hop stuff. Hes liking now, he's liking some country stuff. I don’t know what's happened to him. He's got a disease down in Georgia now, I don't know. I'm getting there with country.
Tim: Right
Kenny: Actually this morning I’m on the drive into the office and I’m re-listening to Keith Urban's Graffiti U album.
Zach: Great album
Kenny: Which was, you know, recorded by our friend Serban Ghenea, who Serban going to be mad—or mixed by our friend Serban Ghenea and he'll be mad that I said his name, but he'll get over it.
Zach: His ears just started tingling.
Kenny: Yeah, he's like, “ Tim: He doesn't like that?
Kenny: No man he is like,
Tim: Well that's cool though
Kenny: keep me below the radar.
Tim: That's cool. That’s cool.
Kenny: He, um, he calls himself a mushroom. He's kept in the dark and always getting shit on.
[Laughter]
Tim: I’ve never thought of it that way. Thats true.
Kenny: Yeah, isn't that funny the perspective that some people have? I mean, Serban’s, like at the top of his game and
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: he thinks of himself as a mushroom.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Serb, we're praying for you man.
Tim: Well, at least he doesn't take himself serious, put it that way.
Kenny: Yeah.
Tim: You know, what I mean?
Kenny: Or maybe so serious that he really does believe he's a mushroom. I don't know. We could get pretty deep here. We sound like we're on some shrooms right now. Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: So we’ll—we'll define that in a few minutes.
Zach: Whoa.
Kenny: That’s deep. That's shrooms, right there, right?
Tim: That's true.
Kenny: But you said there was a teacher, years ago, that had a massive impact on your life and what you’re doing now.
Tim: Yes.
Kenny: Would you talk about that a little bit?
Tim: Yes. Mrs Morelli, my teacher in Germany, Sembach base. Woot woot. But we were stationed out in Sembach, Germany back in ’81, so I was 11 years old.
Kenny: And this was your-your parents?
Tim: Yeah my parents. My parents were, my parents were in the mili- well my dad was in the military.
Kenny: Air force I think you told me?
Tim: Air force. Yeah.
Kenny: Awesome.
Tim: So, we were out there in Germany and, you know, I used to take chorus classes. And at that time 11 to 12, I wasn't really worried about doing music. I always wanted to be Michael Jackson. I’ll let people know that, but other than that, it was one day I was chorus—
Kenny: Now, wait a minute, you wanted to be Michael Jackson, so like the dancer? the musician?
Tim: The whole thing. I even wanted my pa—I got mad at my parents when I was a kid because they didn't name me Michael and that their last name isn’t Jackson.
Kenny: Did you have, did you have the glove, the socks?
Tim: Yeah. I didn’t have the socks.
Kenny: You didn't have the socks.
Tim: I didn't have the socks or the hair, no, but I did win a lot of contests.
Kenny: So being a-a young black man like yourself, unlike Zach. Translucent is—his race is called translucent but how did Michael get his hair to do that? Was that what—was that back then it was, jerry curl?
Tim: Yeah, I don't know if he had one. I don't know what that was.
Kenny: But he had, like man
Tim: Yeah, but he had stylists and people like that do, you know Jerry Curl was normally a lot of people who could buy it from the store. So Micheal—
Kenny: I have a stylist and a razor blade to do what I do today.
Tim: I don’t know what that is.
Kenny: And you told me today, you wore a hat, because I've been used to seeing you for years shiny like me.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, it was called this um, like I said it's called being lazy, I didn't want to shave it.
Kenny: Ah, let’s call it covid, man. Let's blame it on covid.
Tim: Yeah I definitely did. Yeah shout out to—no I don't want to shout out covid, because we lost too many people.
Kenny: That’s right.
Tim: I don’t want to make fun of that.
Kenny: Too soon, man.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Too soon.
Tim: But I was in chorus, in Germany, and my teacher took a liking to me and I never understood why she would always say ‘good job’ to me all the time. I was like, “she can't be hitting on me. I'm 11-12 years old. She's like
Kenny: Maybe she was
Tim: 80.” You know what I’m saying. But, she wasn't 80, I’m just playing. But she one time she called my mom and told us like, “I think Tim has this talent, I don't think he knows about it knows it and he can't read music and I want to teach him how to read music” and my mom, you know, my mom's really skebtical about a—skeptical about anything.
Kenny: Yeah.
Tim: So she's like, “ah, I don't know, what does she—what is this lady trying to do to my child?” That's the way she was looking at it and then she explained further, it's just—that’s how my mom think and she explained it further what would happen and she would teach me how to read music, teach me how to play drums, play the guitar for free, after school.
Kenny: Wow.
Tim: Yeah and um, went to one session, and learned very much of nothing because I didn't pay attention, because I wanted to go find girls, and did not go to the rest of the sessions. My mother found out when Mrs Morelli had called my mom. She said
Kenny: You were skipping your sessions
Tim: Yeah, said, “I've been waiting here for Tim for like the past five days and he hasn't showed up after school” and mind you like I was saying earlier, mind you, this is my music teacher in school. So I have to see her the next day and I’m gonna explain why I wasn't there at the, um, you know, her teaching me.
Kenny: Yeah.
Tim: My mother got onto me, oh my god, she got onto me. Yeah she almost beat the religion out of me.
Kenny: So you were telling me earlier that—beat the religion Tim: Yes.
Kenny: I haven't heard that one in a while.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: You still have some religion in you though, right?
Tim: I'm spiritual.
Kenny: Spiritual, there you go, I like that.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Religion, I've heard is man's attempt to reach God.
Tim: Yeah that's what I believe.
Kenny: Where, we really should be spiritual in the sense that we have a relationship.
Tim: Right
Kenny: We’ll—we'll do Sunday school, we’ll do church service, we'll try to work on Zach here.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: So-so you're bringing up this-this teacher, this influence in your life early on.
Tim: Very much so
Kenny: I heard an interview with Zach last night, he played at The Z, here in Virginia Beach. Zeider's Great American Theater and he was doing a little online
Zach: Open mic
Kenny: Open mic night, thank you, the words just weren't there. But—
Tim: Yeah. It’s the shrooms
Kenny: That's right and the Johnny but you were talking about early on in your influence Zach, that much like what I just heard Tim say, is that your father, for you, was a massive influence in the early start of you just sticking with
Zach: Yeah
Kenny: music or having this passion. So bring that in to this correlation with Tim here.
Zach: Yeah. I-I think it’s, especially at a young age, I think it's funny how little encouragement goes a long way, because you know, how many friends can you really have when you’re young? You know, seven or eight. So, it’s not like I had a bunch of people surrounding me encouraging me with music, but you know my dad for lack of a better word, was my my biggest cheerleader. You know so that was—and you know you my dad's my hero. So when somebody you admire is encouraging you to do something that you love it's just this, I don't know it
Tim: Makes it better
Zach: it’s a perfect mixture of like—
Kenny: Mr. Stein, did you catch that? We actually have Zach on tape calling you his hero and he can't take it back now.
Zach: I wouldn’t. I wouldn't
Kenny: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Tim: That's dope.
Kenny: Mr. Stein's pretty cool dude. I have, I met him a couple times so shout out to Mr. Stein. Mrs Stein, you're not bad yourself.
Zach: My other hero.
Kenny: Yeah, her baklava.
Zach: Delicious
Kenny: Off the chain, as we would say
Tim: Oh man, I haven’t had that in a while.
Kenny: I love it.
Zach: You’ve gotta try the carrot cake.
Kenny: I'm not a carrot cake fan
Zach: You will be
Tim: Me neither. He say you will be?
Zach: Yeah.
Kenny: Yeah okay challenge accepted Mrs Stein, carrot cake.
Zach: I'm gonna make her listen to this, because she hasn't made it in a couple years so.
Kenny: Oh let's see. We'll eat it on the show. We will actually have you in, but there needs to be some baklava to balance it out.
Zach: Oh my gosh, that episode would be six hours long, she’d talk the whole time.
Kenny: That that’s it. Love it. Wonderful lady. So what I picked up on that is that you guys have these early influences in your life to kind of be your cheerleaders and to be your-your raving fan. That one of the things you said to me, Tim, in the green room so to speak, in our kitchen, was that you you got a chance to talk to Mrs Morally. Am I saying her name right? I want to —
Tim: Morelli
Kenny: Morelli
Tim: Italian. Mrs Morelli yeah yeah.
Kenny: That you were actually brought to tears.
Tim: Yeah actually um, and this is before cell phones and text messaging, so we had always had to write letters. And when I wrote my last letter to her, got in touch with her, I left my number where I was staying and she called and um
Kenny: Oh wow
Tim: Yeah and we talked on the phone and I said, “I just wanted to apologize for not showing up for those years, I hope you don’t feel any kind of way.” She said, “oh I forgot all about that. Just—I just knew you were talented.” And I just started bawling.
Kenny: Oh Wow
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Kenny: That’s awesome.
Tim: ‘Cause at that time, I was working with Boyz II Men
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: the R & B group Boyz II Men, at the time because she was proud because she heard about it through one of our mutual friend, that used to live in Germany, and they used to write each other and that's how we got connected back together.
Kenny: Wow. So from Mrs Morally—Morelli to Boyz II Men, how did that happen?
Tim: Through the group that I was working with called Sudden Impact, at the time.
Kenny: Sudden Impact, man, those names back in the in the 90s.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: Sudden Impact and you were with Outsiders for Life.
Tim: Which is the same group, but with two different members, but we had to change the name. Sudden Impact, the story is, that Sudden Impact was—they were supposed to be the next New Kids on the Block, before backstreet boys, before NSYNC. And um
Kenny: Sorry Justin
Tim: Yeah, my bad. So BBD, member of BBD, uh, Michael Bivins from BBD
Kenny: Yeah, Bell Biv Devo
Tim: Right right. He discovered them and actually put them in Boyz II Men’s video. And they're in Boyz II Men's first video, Motown Philly.
Kenny: Wow.
Tim: Sudden Impact. And so, that's how we got the connection with Boyz II Men
Kenny: Okay
Tim: and just kept it throughout the years and started working with them, me as a producer and them as artists.
Kenny: Wow and you went after that time of, you know let's face it, in the music business there’s there's a lot of artists, it's kind of like going pro in football or basketball. There's this really thin funnel at the bottom and you and, I think going back in the day, Jimmy Marble, Aaron Kane, Todd White, at some point you guys all split up and Outsiders for Life was kind of no more. And guys went their own way, which is absolutely their god-given right, but you decided to stay kind of in the music world, not kind of, you did. And that’s that's why I have you here today, is because it's about the grind you've just stayed in it and stayed true to something that you’re passionate about.
Tim: I had no choice.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: It was in me. Oh and let me make a correction Aaron Kane was in sudden impact
Kenny: Okay
Tim: And him and his brother left the group and we formed Outsiders.
Kenny: Outsiders
Tim: Yeah. Outsiders for Life, so Jimmy was in Outsiders.
Kenny: Jimmy was. Okay.
Tim: Yeah. But yeah, I had to keep with it. That it was like losing my arm, I couldn’t, I wasn't happy doing anything else. Even if I had to get me, or when I got me a regular job it was just—I would even lose sleep after that job and work all night until like six in the morning have to be at work at nine.
Kenny: Yeah, so the the passion for you, and I’m gonna have this question for you too Zach. Now when you write music you're not necessarily writing for an artist, you're not writing for a band anymore, now you're doing it more for on the commercial side so
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: Take-take me through that process. And what, you know, someone who's listening today who may want to get in the music business but they may not—they may not feel like they have a writing skill or they may not have a great voice
Tim: Right
Kenny: like mr Zach here.
Tim: He's dope.
Kenny: Yeah.
Tim: You can't get on him about that. I know you ain't gonna make a joke about that.
Kenny: I was gonna try.
Tim: He’s dope.
Kenny: I’ll back off on him, he gets enough of it.
Zach: Thank you.
Kenny: But what's kind of the the process for you, when you’re—you're writing in your clientele. who—who’s your focus now in business?
Tim: Um, um. It depends. Are you saying process as far as creating? Don't know. It just whatever happens, happens. As far as the clientele, it depends on—if I watch a show, let's say like a Keeping up with the Kardashians or Catfish or anything like that, I'll pay attention to the music.
Kenny: And you got a song that's going to be on Keeping up with the Kardashians, right?
Tim: Yeah, in the background.
Kenny: In the background
Tim: Yeah just a background piece, this that and the other. It's not like pick it out and be like, “hey that’s Tim Byrd.”
Zach: That's a nice sink though.
Tim: Yeah.
Zach: Big show.
Tim: That and Catfish, I have a couple on Catfish.
Zach: Nice.
Kenny: I think Zach's gonna be on Catfish.
Tim: He probably is now.
Zach: I love that show.
Tim: Me too. Yeah me too, but yeah then, I watch those shows and I'll listen to the music see how it works, and then I'll look at the credits. And nowadays, you can pause the tv. Remember back to day in the credits run Kenny: Rewind it like thirty seven times to get it.
Tim: Yeah. Now I can pause it when it says either ‘post production’ or ‘music supervisor’ and I'll jot the name down, send them an email, but I'll still create because you never know what they want.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: And the process is sort of the same for getting with film, music behind film, because I've done like probably two independent films that really didn't go anywhere, but, it was great for exercise for the work. Now that’s different because you would have to pitch to either the director or um if they have a music supervisor, usually the editor is really good—the one who's doing the um the editing part, it’s usually good to get in touch with through film.
Kenny: I go—I got a beat I've been making. You want to hear it?
Tim: Go ahead, beat box it.
[air horn]
Tim: Thats dope.
Kenny: You think, you think there’s an opportunity for that?
Zach: So much emotion.
Tim: Yeah, you need to put some lyrics on there.
Kenny: I’m still working on it.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, you got to put some lyrics behind it.
Kenny: Go ahead Zach.
Zach: Tim: He said gates of hell.
[crickets]
Zach: Or “twinkle twinkle” Zach: You know those two songs have the same melody?
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: The gates of hell?
Zach: No. Yeah it sounds like a metal song. Yeah, this is my new uh my new band crying blood.
Tim: That was a nice beat.
Zach: The abcd—the ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are the same song.
Tim: They are.
Kenny: Really?
Tim: I think they are in the same key.
Tim & Zach: Kenny: You guys should be a duo. Salt and Peppa!
Tim: Ebony and Ivory.
Kenny: Sorry Salt and Pepper.
Zach: Oh I just got that.
Kenny: Or a translucent and
Zach: Yeah, let's not.
Kenny: Translucent and peppa. I don't know, oh god this is terrible.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Kenny: It’s a fun terrible
Zach: Cut.
Tim: I could be the salt and pepper right there.
Kenny: Right. Me to. So Zach so, you know, Tim's got this you know process. What I think I heard you say, Tim, was sometimes just see what happens.
Tim: Yeah. That pretty much, it is.
Kenny: So just being creative is about just getting the canvas out, right? So to speak.
Tim: Sometimes I have to force myself to build something, yeah, because um yeah, because you're not inspired. Sometimes you're not all the time. Not everything inspires you to write a song or make music but you have to keep—I call it, exercise.
Kenny: Okay
Tim: You just gotta go through it and just try to see if you can come up with something, if nothing
happens in the next hour or so, I'd leave it alone. Then I’ll come back later and listen to it.
Kenny: Take a little Johnny Walker.
Tim: Nah, Nah. It’s more like, um, some rock. Nah, I'm just joking. But, um, yeah so that’s, that was my prop—that is still my process. I'll get away from it, watch tv, you know, or watch a movie you know.
Kenny: Get some inspiration from it. What yo—
Tim: Sometimes, sometimes I force myself not to get inspiration, because I want happen natural. Now there are times where I watch for work sake.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: But that but whenever I'm taking a break from it, I actually just watch a movie for what it is, don’t think about the music or the scenes or the whatever,
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: I just watch it for what it is.
Kenny: So Zach, your-your thoughts on that? You, you write pretty much every night, right? You'll go home pick up your guitar, go to the keyboard.
Zach: Yeah I try and do it every day.
Kenny: So this new song Cupid, that you just did, that is released on, we'll throw a little shout out on Spotify,
Zach: mm-hmm
Kenny: on apple.
Zach: Yeah, you can look up uh Zachary Stein. Zachary with a ‘h’
Kenny: Zachary. Zach—Zachariac your ass.
Zach: Yeah
Kenny: Zachary Stein. I'm a terrible comedian. Joe Rogan is going to have me on his show one day as the worst comedian ever. Anyway awkward.
[crickets]
Zach: You’re getting good with that thing.
Kenny: I am.
Zach: Start producing.
Kenny: There you go, I had a guy write this for me.
Tim: That’s funny.
Kenny: My favorite still of all times is when uh [Mike Tyson audio] Mike's like one of my dream interviews, if you don't know that—that would, so Zach if you could help me out.
Zach: He's going to start fighting again.
Tim: Yeah
Zach: You guys could probably just fight on camera.
Kenny: Me and Mike? Million bucks Mike. Right here.
Zach: Like a 10 second episode, yeah, it would be cool.
Kenny: It wouldn't even be that. Mike would go down.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: I’m calling you out Mike. Not really, not really.
Zach: I don’t know though, he might think you’re serious.
Kenny: I’m just playing. But Tim isn’t — here Tim.
Tim: Yeah, come get at me Mike.
Kenny: Yeah.
Tim: You know what I'll do? Make beats with you. I won't beat you up, but I'll make beats with you.
Kenny: So Zach, Cupid.
Zach: Yeah yeah
Kenny: We were right in that, sorry Mr Tyson.
Zach: Yeah. How did we get on Mike Tyson?
Kenny: Yeah. I don’t know.
Zach: The song's about Mike Tyson.
Kenny: My little drum board, over here, thing. Shouldn't have it. You're gonna take that away from me aren’t you?
Zach: Yeah pretty soon here, or just turn it down.
Kenny: Yeah. So when you—when you were writing cupid
Zach: Uh-huh
Kenny: where where did that inspiration come from?
Zach: Yeah it was, uh, I was talking to a girl who was obsessed with this British artist, Harry Styles. Um
Kenny: One Direction Harry Styles
Zach: Yeah, you know. I was feeling the girl, she wasn’t feeling me. Um, but so, like I got home—
Kenny: You were feeling this girl?
Zach: Not literally.
Kenny: Oh yeah, that’s—that’s young people talk.
Zach: Thats a hypothetical. I liked this girl, she didn't like me back.
Kenny: I got you.
Zach: Didn't feel the same way. So and that's kind of the theme of the song, but I got home, feeling a little discouraged, you know perfect time to pick up the guitar. Actually that one started with a drum loop, with a kind of, that latin beat.
Tim: Mmhmm
Zach: But the lyrics that came out—I wrote a song about becoming a British guy, because maybe that would be the thing that would impress the girl.
Tim: Was that the working title?
Zach: Uh, no. The title is Cupid, because one of the lines in the song is “I think I got shot by cupid”, I thought it was cool. But like the chorus says, “I could put a British accent on, smile with the rock star charm” you know like, maybe I should just become Harry Styles.
Kenny: That’s cool.
Tim: Yeah
Zach: Yeah so, that was one of those songs that, I don’t—you could probably relate, some songs it feels like you're discovering the song as you write it and some songs you have to wrestle with them a little bit. And like he was saying, discipline yourself, sit down make yourself exercise and do it, you have to—and then some songs, you know, you put out a, you put a little four bar loop in and it feels like you’re discovering a song. Like you're coming on to it.
Kenny: Well I've heard you say before that you— is it like the Taylor Swift effect?
Zach: Yeah, yeah. We always joke, Taylor Swift and this other dude, uh, Paul Klein from LANY, they're just like—all their songs are romantic. But the joke is, they'll date somebody just to break up with them to experience
Tim: For inspiration
Zach: Yeah, just to get the heartbreak so they can write a song. So we always say like, “did you Taylor Swift that girl?”
Tim: Yeah that's funny. Because I write lyrics too.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah, I started out writing lyrics and sometimes people ask, “which one comes first—the chicken or the egg?” “No. No.” “But which one comes first, the lyrics or the music?” “It depends.”
Zach: Different every time.
Tim: Yeah, it's different every time,
Kenny: Interesting. So for you, that's got to be tough though. If you have a client on the commercial side, who's let's say has a movie or commercial, and you got to get inspiration for what story they're trying to tell their audience or trying to tell their clientele
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: and you've got to put emotion, aka music, to that visual. So you've got an auditory emotion to that.
Tim: And nine times out of ten they have a temp track, meaning the temporary track, that they already have in mind, that’s already famous or something like that.
Kenny: I didn’t know that. Alright.
Tim: Yeah, and they'll have that. But they know they can't pay the licenses, because it's the famous song, you know they can’t use it, so they reach out to people like me, and see if I can recreate that same emotion of that song.
Kenny: Wow
Tim: Yeah so sometimes it's like that, sometimes they just listen to a bunch of tracks and be like, “hey, I think this will work.” Because some scenes or some commercials the music really doesn't match the commercial
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: half the time. Whereas back in the day they used to write like herpes commercial, or something like that, the song would be about herpes you know what I mean? But they don't do that anymore.
Zach: Oh, like, yeah.
Tim: Yeah. They don't do that anymore, it's a little open—a little more open than it used to be back in where it's not directly writing about that product.
Kenny: Yeah. That’s kind of cool. So you know, bringing this back to the music time and when you and I hooked up, we were um working with a friend of ours, Dave Hummel.
Tim: mm-hmm
Kenny: And you know, I—in my financial expertise, ha ha, took a shot at making an investment in a band back in the early 2000's called, Graffiti Gray.
Tim: mm-hmm and I love them cats.
Kenny: Yeah, they are amazing musicians, and this is a family 11 kids, and they were all talented—the Bollman’s. They were all talented kids, and still are to this day.
Zach: Stacie put a new song out.
Kenny: Stacy did?
Zach: Yeah on Friday.
Kenny: There you go, shout out Stacie.
Zach: —eerr not Stacie. Uh, their new band OK Mayday.
Kenny: Oh, that's uh David and Kelly and a couple buddies. So shout out to those guys. I don't talk too much anymore, you know, you you have those relationships in life where you’re really tight and then kind of break apart. And that happened to their band. And that's the big risk in the music business, is that you-you have all this talent, you have all this personality, and they're all together and it's this cohesive, beautiful, great thing. You’re making music together and then one person wants to go a little off to the right, the other one wants to go a little left, they have a different vision for what the sound's going to be. The next thing you know they're like, “um, we're not a band anymore.”
Tim: And it was harder for Graffiti Gray to stay together because, they were also family, right. That means, they were always around each other and thinking about being around each other, through music, then at home, and then doing shows. So, yeah, uh I could see that happening—
Kenny: EJ Bollman’s still out there getting it, on the scene.
Tim: Yeah I following him on facebook.
Kenny: Yeah he’s—so he's playing in the local community. Go if you ever see EJ—
Tim: Follow Stacey too
Kenny: Yeah uh—
Tim: I follow stacey.
Kenny: Yeah. And they are—they're still kicking it. But you know, again, what I appreciate about that, is the grind.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Is that you don't always have to knock it out of the park and be, you know, this massive star. I know a number of people in the music business who are making honest living, doing what they’re passionate about.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: And that's the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur, if you can just stick it out, stay with it and, you know—one of the things you were telling me earlier was you know, having that residual income and having that check come in every so often, that while you're in the grind while you're working,
Tim: Right
Kenny: that residual income coming in, is always nice to say, “I'm getting paid for my past efforts of where I've sowed a seed
Tim: Right
Kenny: and sowing that seed now gives you the opportunity to cultivate, to work the garden of the seeds that you're currently planting.
Tim: Yeah. Love it.
Kenny: And in the future, there'll be another harvest. So is it—are there days in doing that, and this is for both of you, are there days when you're writing when you just go, “screw it, I don’t want do it, I quit.”
Tim: Uh every day.
Kenny: Yeah.
Zach: Pretty often.
Kenny: I think if we're all being honest.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: I’ve said to my team, here in my financial business, “I fire myself about seven times a week.”
Zach: That being said though, because—I you know, I agree it’s, if it's not every day, it’s-it’s a lot of times in a week but for every decision to quit there’s another decision to start again.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the key factor. Any person that I've seen in life, who have had, who has had any measure of success, both monetarily and you know measuring it by, you know, moving from where they were to where they wanted to be in order to get from A to B, you can’t quit.
Tim: You can’t. You are gonna have to—you really have to have a thick skin because you gotta think about what we do. You know what I’m saying. Especially with his music, he's gotta pitch to somebody and if somebody says they don't like it, they think it's whack or something like that, that hurts your feelings. That's just like, that's just like somebody telling your kid—that your kid is ugly.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: You know what I mean? So you take that personally—
Kenny: You know what my mom told me?
Tim: That you are ugly?
Kenny: Yeah. And what's interesting about being told that you're ugly, is that there's a way to say that. We were talking about this earlier too, um my mom used to say, “you have to be able to tell a woman that her baby's ugly, without getting slapped.”
Tim: And how do you do that?
Kenny: Yeah that’s the recipe for success. It’s—
Tim: Telling that somebody's baby is ugly?
Kenny: Yeah and not get slapped. So you said a person says, about the music business, they come to you and they go, “Tim, hey, that music you have is trash”
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: and you're like, “oh dude, that hurt”
Tim: Yeah, that hurt
Kenny: but if they came to you and said, “Tim that's not exactly what we're looking for”
Tim: Yeah, yeah, I see what you are saying
Kenny: Yeah, you know, “I didn't like this beat” if they could define for you what’s ugly.
Tim: Half of them don’t. That's the reason why. That's why it's so hard. Yeah they’re just straightforward, because they don’t know why they don't like it, some people do because they're former musicians
Zach: Yeah
Tim: former songwriters. so they get it they say, “maybe if you can add a bridge here, this, that and the other,” where as half of the people its like, “I don’t, I don't like it” and this
Kenny: “Next” is what they're usually saying
Tim: Exactly
Kenny: “Here’s the driveway”
Tim: Yeah and that hurts your feelings, you know what I’m saying?
Zach: It does. And I’ve even, like, I think the creative mind—maybe this is just me, if there's ambiguity there, like somebody doesn't tell me what they don't like, my imagination's gonna come up with something a lot worse than what the actual reason probably is.
Tim: Yeah, thats true.
Zach: You know which can get you down, for sure.
Kenny: So I think what we're talking about in communication is, don't be ambiguous, don't be aloof or vague. If—we were, we were talking, again we had a big conversation today off camera about a lot of things, but, the the key part to communication and communicating your art to communicating what it is you you do for a living whatever it is. In communicating it's best to be understood not misunderstood.
Tim: Right
Kenny: Right? So if you can approach things from an understanding and making sure that the other party you're communicating to has that understanding—there's a really cool guy, you can go look him up. Man I’m giving shout outs to everybody today, Chris Voss.
Tim: Yeah, Yeah Yeah, Chris Voss
Zach: Love that guy.
Kenny: FBI negotiator. There's a master class that he puts on about the master of negotiation and he talks about that understanding, and you know, part of that understandings he uses these techniques of mirroring and labeling. So when some—
Zach: Mirroring and labeling
Kenny: Mirroring and lab—yeah, there you go. So you just mirrored.
Zach: It sounds like you watched his videos.
Kenny: And then he labeled what he mirrored. So thank you Zach. You played into that well.
Zach: Played into that well.
Kenny: Yes you did. So you know, that's getting a better understanding from the point in where we're at
Tim: Right
Kenny: to the point that we're trying to get to, to where we want it to go. And you know with your clients in the music business, or your listeners in the music business. What, like when you wrote Cupid, what are you trying to relate to that audience? Was it a pain you were trying to share with them? Was it something you're just trying to get off your-your chest?
Zach: Yeah, it was just a um, well lyricism is a funny thing. A rule that I have for myself when writing Pop, because that's kind of the niche I'm falling into
Kenny: For listeners who don’t know, “Pop” being “popular music”
Zach: Yeah, yeah
Kenny: And what culture thinks is popular.
Zach: Yeah so you turn on billboard radio and you hear pop music. I don't need to explain, but anyways uh
Kenny: Some people you do.
Zach: The rule for my lyricism, in that vein, is I want to be able to text my lyrics. Like would I text this to somebody in casual conversation?
Tim: and would it make sense in a text?
Zach: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Tim: Without any melody behind it? Is what you are saying. Okay, yeah I got you.
Zach: Yeah, because it's there’s just a simplicity to text messaging. So in pop music, I think that works well. Like I'm not trying to throw out some huge word or complex—some people get away with it. Like there's a group called the 1975 and he's notorious for, like, writing about philosophy and
Kenny: Yeah
Zach: You know pulling out the thesaurus when he writes. And people love it. You know, people will sing every word. But yeah, for me, I like to be simple, and uh I get—to answer your question
with Cupid, I don't really write with like trying to get a thought across
Tim: Yeah
Zach: what I really—lately the—what I've been on with lyricism is, there's some lines and some combinations or like recipes of words, that are just pleasing to the ear.
Kenny: Yeah
Zach: The way that they flow. And it’s just this x factor, but, what I do is I keep a note in my phone called cool lines and whenever I hear a song or a line where I'm like, “man, those words sound really cool together” not a rhyme scheme
Kenny: Like Kenny Porter?
Zach: Nothing—it can be as simple as, like I heard a song the other day where they opened a phrase and they said, “I'd love it if” and I was like,—there's nothing significant about those words. We say that every day you know, “I'd love it if this happened”, “I'd love it if that happened” but I just loved the way that those words were strung and they sounded together. So a lot of times what I'll do is, start with a hook, start with words that sound cool together, get a catchy melody and from there usually whatever I'm walking through as a person, as a character in life, will kind of flow out of me. If not the exact lyrics, it'll be the idea that I want to write about.
Kenny: Yeah
Zach: At which point, you know, if you can get the concept out on paper. Like our—we have a friend, Bill Mozingo, and he actually taught me this method. Write down the thought on the left side of a piece of paper, two columns, and then on the right side of the piece of paper, write down every combination of words to describe that thought, that you can think of. How many different ways can you articulate the same thing? And so, I like to do that. I'll start with a thought and then I’ll like—it’s like squeezing play-doh into a mold. You know, I'll try and mold that thought into the shape of lyrics that articulates what I'm trying to say.
Kenny: Is it-is it that clean for you with—on the commercial side, Tim?
Tim: Well I mean, I understand where he’s coming from, because I'm a lyric writer as well. But for me, no it's different. It’s more about putting sounds, get—getting the rhythm and the pace. Now with the songwriting he's talking about, people have their own approach to it. You know, there have been songs to where I came up with the melody and the lyrics without even writing it down. The song is done. You know and then I’ll sometimes go through what he's going through. You know, by making a list, find the best words. But I stopped doing that years ago because I didn't want to overthink. That's what I stopped doing.
Zach: Yeah
Tim: Because when you overthink, that’s when you get tired of it, and you get frustrated.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: So I just try to make it like every day—if I do write lyrics—every day lyrics that everybody can understand, everyday melodies oh—catchy melodies that people can understand and I do that with my music with instrumentals, catchy melodies that will stick in your head, you know, and that's what it's all about. Yeah.
Kenny: You were writing a number of years ago, and you started working with an artist who's passed us and was taken away too soon, was Aayliah.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: Man, it was really frustrating to know that you'd written a couple of songs with her, and then you know she went down in the plane crash, and we were talking about how the the week that that happened, my family and I were flying into the same airport with the same charter.
Tim: That's crazy
Kenny: And I was like, “nope. We're going to pick a different charter to fly over to the Bahamas on” and you know, have our vacation. But it was it was really crazy to see where it happened.
Tim: You were able to see that? That's crazy.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: Did it feel eerie?
Kenny: It felt very eerie. Yeah.
Tim: Thats crazy.
Kenny: So you know it was it was unfortunate that that took place. And I-I remember the, Graffiti Gray, who we're talking about had opened for her in a, an event that z104 had put on that summer out at Little Creek Amphib base and just a few weeks after that she had lost her life.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: But in song writing, when you're writing for an artist or you're writing with an artist, how does that work when you're trying to, you know, bring together ideas or thoughts. Is that far different than when you’re dealing with a commercial company?
Tim: Yeah. I never had the experience to write with the artists. We—me and my former songwriting partner, Todd White, we use all—we would already have the song together and then we will pitch it.
Kenny: You pitch it to the artist?
Tim: Right
Kenny: Okay
Tim: So we wouldn’t—we wouldn’t, like the stuff that Aayliah singing we already wrote, because she didn't write.
Kenny: Okay.
Tim: Yeah. She didn't write all, but, she trusted the writers if she liked the concept. So I’ve never got that opportunity to write, write with an artist per se, in the studio.
Kenny: Is that something you would still do today? If that—
Tim: If the opportunity was, yeah if it presented itself, I would. If the moneys right.
Kenny: Are you still writing? You writing stuff now?
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still write.
Kenny: Yeah that's cool.
Tim: Definitely.
Kenny: Zach needs some help so.
Tim: Yeah No, I don't think he does. No.
Zach: We should write together.
Tim: We should.
Zach: Yeah
Tim: I don't think he needs any help. See this is where I came from, I-I used to be a controlling music guide, to where “no it has to be like that.” “It has to be like this.” Because what you're doing is forcing yourself onto that person's ideas, which is to me, I had to change that. Because, just because you don't speak that way doesn’t mean that that’s—that that it's not going to work. Put it that way.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: Just because you feel that way. So, whenever I listen to a song, I take it for what it is. Now if there's anything like—it's like you were trying to explain back in the green room, maybe there’s a way you can rise or whatever, this that and the other.
Kenny: I love we have a green room now.
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: But yeah, go ahead
Tim: Yes. “Maybe you can do this”, make suggestions, but as far as like putting it on to where you're trying to change that person's idea into your own idea to, to me is asinine.
Kenny: For a songwriter, that's got to be tough. Because you're selling the song to a band or to an artist and this is something from your soul, most the time. Like Zach writing Cupid, is a personal experience a, you know, it's a real life thing that happened to him. And then me, the artist, I'm going to take the song and go, “okay I want to buy this from you, but, there are a couple things I want to tweak in this” and then you've got to be like, do you let them do it or do you collaborate with them?
Tim: It's just depends on the money, but it’s hard. He’s about to answer that question. He knows that, he knows, “I don't want you to change anything.” Because Quentin Tarantino, he does not like anybody doing improv from his script. At all. He said, “I paid you to say the words on my page.” Blah blah blah. He’s that type of person.
Kenny: Really?
Tim: But yeah, when you—he gets in a situation where, and I'm pretty sure he'll feel this way, if somebody wants to use it “but I want to change some of these words here.” I'm pretty sure his teeth will start clenching.
Kenny: Yeah, so what would that be for you, Zach?
Zach: It-it depends on the direction it's going. If it's my music, um, I know what I want and there are people in my life whose opinion and taste, I really respect.
Kenny: Like mine
Zach: Yeah. Yeah, you are one of those people. Actually, yeah.
Kenny: Really? Really? Let me give you a little uh [cheers] Yeah that's a little applause.
Zach: And so, I make a habit of sending my music to these people. You know, maybe it's ‘cause it's comforting ‘cause they tell me what I want to hear, but,
Tim: Yeah, thats true
Zach: every so often
Kenny: I don't think that’s me, I'm usually like
Zach: Yeah you’re—you're the brutally honest side of that spectrum.
Kenny: I'm sorry dude.
Zach: No, that's okay. I appreciate that, however when it's other people’s music, and—and this is actually what I want to do, is write for other people. So this is stuff I've been working through. I-I don't really emotionally tie myself to other people's music. Let me finish my pet—my previous thought first though. I do respect the words of other people, about my music, so long as it's invited. And to follow that up, when I'm making recommendations to other people's music, I don't do it, unless they ask.
Tim: Yeah, I'm the same way.
Zach: Because, I found that unless they’re asking
Tim: Right
Zach: They're really not gonna care what you say, at all anyways.
Tim: Exactly
Zach: And even if I—if I feel really strongly, like for example, my friend Samantha, Samantha Howell check out her music, awesome artist. She sent me a song last week.
Kenny: She’s the gal from Chesapeake?
Zach: Uh, she grew up in VB but was just on The Voice. Up and coming artist out in Nashville.
Tim: H-O-W-E? Is that how you spell her last name?
Zach: Uh it's Samantha and then last name is H-O-W-E-L-L
Tim: E-L-L I think—because I knew that name sounded familiar.
Zach: Yeah. So phenomenal writer, phenomenal artist. She sent me a song and didn't ask me what I thought. So I didn't share with her what I thought, because, it wasn’t-wasn’t really my space, you know, I'm not like like Tim said. I'm not gonna force myself onto her song. Like if she doesn't care what I think then I'm not gonna
Tim: Right
Zach: spend my time doing it. But
Kenny: Isn’t this the girl you were telling me how to mad crush on?
Zach: Yeah, Samantha Howell, I love you. If you're watching.
Kenny: I’m just—I don't know, I've never heard him say that. I figured I'd embarrass him again.
Zach: Um, anyways. But I asked—
Kenny: I-I hear you're cute. So, he's got a phone, you’ve got his digits, give him a buzz.
Zach: So I asked her, “would you like to hear what I think?” To which she responded, “yes” which I think is um, it’s
Tim: That’s a fair question.
Zach: polite in conversation, whether you're talking about music or not. Like, “hey do you want to hear what I think before I force my opinions and thoughts on you?” Um, however you know, there's just so many factors that play in, like if-if a record company was looking at me for a record deal and they wanted to hear something from my music and they're putting up capital, I'm gonna be like, “yeah, tell me what you think.” You know, like, I’m-I'm gonna, I'm gonna weigh this and—
Kenny: You know what’d be really cool? Let's let's do an experiment. And we’ll-we'll have you guys back on the show, but, you guys collab on something. Would you do that?
Zach: Yeah
Kenny: Would you try?
Tim: Yeah
Zach: Yeah
Kenny: That'd be really fun just to have an experiment, and say, two guys that have never met each other in their entire life, a half century dude—
Tim: You know what? That's the fact. That-that’s a fact. Yeah my girl, my girl—
Kenny: Between the two of us, man we have a century of experience.
Tim: That's crazy, if you put it in that perspective. My girlfriend called me one time and said, “um, happy half a century” I was like, “oh snap.” Because before I, before, I wasn't worried about turning 50. It’s 50. “How do you feel about being 50?” “Ah, I feel the same.” When she said that, I even had to crack up, because that was good. She said, “um, happy half a century” I said, “oh snap, that is right.” I said, “you got me on that, I'm half a century.”
Kenny: So, did you turn 50 in 2020?
Tim: Yeah. Yeah, April.
Kenny: Really? April what?
Tim: This—24.
Kenny: Oh man. My son’s—I have April 1st
Tim: Okay
Kenny: Isaiah, the army dude there.
Tim: Okay
Kenny: And then Noah is April 5th. You know what, we're going to pick on Isaiah real quick. I'll tell you a funny story. So Isaiah was born April 1st, and when we first got his birth certificate in the mail,—
Tim: April fools got you.
Kenny: Yeah April fools, we got his birth certificate in the mail. It said Isaiah Grey Porter, April 1st, 1998. Female.
Zach: No way
Kenny: Yeah. So you know, back then we didn't have cell phones, we we couldn't like instagram it. And thank god for Isaiah because man it would have been
Zach: I never knew that
Kenny: a rough few years for him.
Zach: You guys changed it right?
Kenny: Oh no. No, he's still female.
Zach: I’m tell the US Army.
Kenny: Yeah, no. So we had to send it back. They don't care now.
Zach: Oh really?
Kenny: Yeah.
Zach: Oh actually, you did tell me. They're making a documentary about that or something.
Kenny: Yeah.
Zach: Yeah they could include ‘em.
Kenny: What’s?—right. He's inclusive. Yeah.
Tim: That’s hilarious you actually did that.
Kenny: We didn't do it, the-the state, the Commonwealth of Virginia did it to him. The health department sent his birth certificate to us, Isaiah Grey Porter, April 1st 1998, female.
Zach: They were trying to tell Kenny that his baby was ugly with out getting slapped.
Kenny: That’s right.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: We had to send that stuff back man and uh,
Tim: I thought you actually had that sent to the house just as a joke for April fools, but,
Kenny: the joke was on him
Tim: you had the real one.
Kenny: Yeah, Isaiah, it happened to him. But those April babies, man. Yeah, so, 2020 You're 50 now. So what we were—going back to, with that is, what would be a really cool experiment is taking two people who don't know each other but have a common love for music—and you've got some cool stuff you wrote back in the day that you were playing early and I was watching Zach going, “man, yeah, that's pretty cool.”
Zach: It’s killer
Tim: Thanks
Kenny: It would be cool just to see what happens, and if you guys come up with something, will you come back on the show and-and play it?
Tim: Definitely.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: I love that.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: That would be dope.
Kenny: That'd be—and maybe, just maybe, somebody goes in the universe, “oh Tim Byrd, oh Zack Stein, we want to buy that song from you.”
Zach: And it's Ariana Grande and we both become millionaires.
Tim: And now this is a question I want to ask you, as a songwriter, um, like we were talking about would you let somebody change your lyrics. Now if you were to pitch your song to Ariana for her to do and she makes suggestions. Would you be okay with that?
Zach: Yeah, not my song anymore.
Tim: Okay, gotcha.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: ‘Cause its different taking it from people—
Kenny: If she would take him out for coffee, Ariana.
Zach: Yeah, probably skip the coffee.
Tim: Isn’t she the one that likes to take a picture on one side of her face or something like that, only the left side, she's got to be filmed on?
Zach: I have no idea.
Tim: Yeah, something like that.
Kenny: I guess it’s where her hair needs to be.
Zach: I think it's funny, like
Kenny: big long hair thing she has.
Zach: I love Ariana Grande. I think she's phenomenal. But there's a pretty funny photo, I think I just kicked the head phones.
Kenny: Yeah, Zach just killed our audio.
Kenny & Zach: We're back. We’re back.
Zach: There’s a funny photo of her as a nickelodeon actress and then her now, and it's like ‘when you decide to change your ethnicity’ because, she's like-she’s like 10 skin tones darker. Like yeah, its—I'll show you the photo.
Kenny: Zach would have the hardest time in the world if he ever decided he wanted to be black.
Tim: Oh yeah he definitely will.
Zach: Yeah.
Kenny: You’ve got some tonality things you'd have to work on there.
Zach: And I'm just extremely white.
Kenny: Ye—yeah. This kid is not even Irish, but he looks Irish. You're like—we were talking about this yesterday, you're like 25 percent Jewish?
Zach: I am. I'm a quarter Jew.
Kenny: Yeah, we had a dude in the office yesterday, it was not politically correct in what he said to him. We won't throw him under the bus today.
Zach: I won’t, but, it’s pretty funny though.
Kenny: Yeah. Thats funny.
Zach: He walked out, I was like, “did that just happen?”
Kenny: Oh man, you know, he told him he was like 25 percent right. I'm like, “what? What did—what are you talking about dude?”
Zach: Well we're not saying his name. So I’m going to say what he says. He—I was—Kenny goes, “well you know, Zach's 25 percent Jewish.” He goes, “ah, that sounds terrible.”
Tim: Oh my goodness, no he didn’t
Zach: Then he goes further, He goes, “that’s like that Hitler guy. Man, that's so crazy.” I was like, “did you just compare me to Hitler?”
Kenny: Yeah.
Zach: Yeah. I'm not hitler. I'm not.
Kenny: You’ve had a hairstyle and a mustache like that a few times but—
Zach: I can't grow a mustache to save my life.
Kenny: We’re just busting your chops.
Zach: I had lunch left over on my lip.
Tim: You had who?
Zach: Some lunch on my lip.
Kenny: So, Tim, you had a couple of projects and we’ll-we'll get off the air today. And we'll have you guys come back and, do a-a little gig in here. It would be cool.
Tim: But I can't play an instrument.
Kenny: No man, we'll put the
Tim: Drum machine
Kenny: over here.
Zach: We can sing ABCs again.
Kenny: And we might even have Mr Tyson come in and you know he'll drop some hydrogen bombs [Mike Tyson audio]
Zach: “well what can I say hydrogen bombs”
Tim: Yeah, you know, what I was thinking—I was thinking about change—doing, you know, all the uh hip-hop songs back in the 90s like um Snoop Dogg and this, that, and the other.
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: I want to do like a Frank Sinatra version of those lyrics.
Zach: That’s pretty—that’s actually a great idea.
Kenny: You gotta give me, give me an example of that.
Tim: Okay, I gotta do one without curse words, which were a lot of them.
Kenny: That’s all right, go ahead. Drop-drop some on us.
Zach: Or like a Biggie song or something.
Kenny: We're like, we actually are—
Tim: [Laughter]
Tim: Zach: I feel like people would listen to that.
Kenny: That could be fun. That could be cool.
Tim: Yeah.
Kenny: Yeah.
Zach: Thats actually a really good idea.
Kenny: So Zach, you got that? You like that? Look how that works man. You put stuff in the universe and people go, “that baby’s ugly.”
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: “No, actually it's kind of cute. I like that.”
Zach: Tim: Yeah, exactly. That’s what I’m talking about.
[Laughter] [singing]
Kenny: Dude, alright. So let's get you back on. And we'll give you time some—we’ll give you some time. Get those words out. To put something together and collab, and let's do an experiment, see-see what happens. And, hey, dude it was awesome
Tim: It was great
Kenny: catching up with you today and
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: we're going to put your stuff on-on our podcast, on our website.
Tim: Okay.
Kenny: So if you are out there in the community and you need to have some music laid down for your production or for your film or commercial,
Tim: Podcast
Kenny: Yeah
Tim: Website, anything that you want.
Kenny: Will you do us a little song for our podcast dude?
Tim: [beat box]
Tim: Yes.
Kenny: We got it.
Zach: Record that.
Kenny: Tim Byrd music?
Tim: TimByrdmusic.com and thats B-Y-R-D.
Kenny: B-Y-R-D. The real Byrd.
Tim: Yeah, I'm the real Y Byrd.
Kenny: That’s it. I wish my voice would go.
Zach: Thats pretty cool.
Kenny: We’ll have Tim come in and do some voice overs for us too.
Zach: I’m just Zach.
Kenny: Translucent Zach.
Zach: Yeah.
Tim: Well yeah, definitely. That was great. I'm glad you guys asked me to come up and it was good to finally meet you, never got a chance to talk to ‘em, it was always through um email.
Zach: Yeah.
Kenny: If you see stickman Hummel.
Tim: I definitely will, I'll tell him
Kenny: Tell him I said
Tim: I'll tell ‘em you said, “y'all are not friends anymore.”
Zach: I’m going to see him in two days.
Kenny: I've never been—I’ve never really been friends with Dave. It’s been convenience.
Zach: I just used him for music lessons.
Tim: Say what? Yeah, I just used em for music lessons. But, he loves—he loves you too.
Zach: I love Dave.
Kenny: I told him, I told dave's mom that her baby was ugly.
Tim: Oh wow.
Kenny: And she didn't slap me, go figure.
Zach: She was like, “true.”
Tim: “Got me on that one”
Zach: I love you Dave.
Kenny: Hey cheers you guys, thanks for coming and having fun with me today. It was fun. We'll get you back and we'll put Cupid on the site too. And give people easy access.
Zach: Yeah.
Kenny: You know what I always ask, this question. I forget, gotta ask you this, what are you reading right now? You reading any books?
Tim: No, I'm sitting here talking to you.
Kenny: Come on, not like right this second man. Comedian.
Zach: You know why people rob banks?
Kenny: Why do people rob banks?
Zach: That’s where the money is.
Kenny: Do you know why there are fences around graveyards?
Zach: People are dying to get in.
Kenny: People are dying to get in. You heard those jokes earlier. You got any jokes before we leave?
Tim: No.
Kenny: No jokes. No books.
Tim: No. I mean books, 48 Laws of Power. I still read that.
Kenny: 48 what?
Tim: Laws of Power.
Kenny: 48 Laws of Power. Who wrote that?
Tim: Rob—Robert Greene.
Kenny: Robert Greene
Tim: Yeah
Kenny: So tell me about that book real quick, in 15 seconds.
Tim: This is a book that just teaches you how to maneuver with business and this, that and the other. Like don't say too much, you uh, say less than necessary or you'll sh—be banal. Because whatever you say, the more you say something, the more you're revealing yourself. So, say less is necessary, that's one of them. But it's like 48 chapters of different things and it sites stuff from in the past to make a point.
Kenny: And one more time, the 40—I'm gonna write this down.
Tim: The 48 Laws of Power
Kenny: 48 Laws of Power Robert Greene.
Tim: Yeah
Zach: Sounds great.
Tim: mm-hmm
Kenny: Um we'll put that out on uh, the site. I'm always trying to give people new stuff to learn. Man, new education.
Tim: yeah
Kenny: Zach, what are you reading besides your insurance book?
Kenny: Yeah, I actually—I just picked up the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I've yet to crack open the first book but it's sitting on my desk in my office over there.
Kenny: I have to admit, I have never read, the Lord of the Rings trilogy but I’ve watched the movies probably a hundred times.
Zach: Well I knew it was a, um, probably—I think everybody's familiar with it. But after I went to Bible college, and I love theology and christian philosophy, after learning who Tozer was. The author. And all of the typology and parallels and um imagery, symbolism in Lord of the Rings, I've really wanted to re-approach it. Same thing with Narnia. But, yeah, I'm excited to crack it open.
Kenny: We gotta come back to the next time we talk, is I know all of us, have an upbringing in church. My father was a pastor, your parents, we didn't get a chance to talk about this today but 53 years married.
Zach: So awesome.
Kenny: Man, you just don’t hear that anymore, and that that's awesome.
Tim: Shout out to Mom and Dad.
Kenny: So that's awesome. Salute to you, yeah Mom and Dad, that's very—
Zach: Great example
Kenny: But, you know, one of the things we'll talk about next time is this thing, church. That there are so many artists that have come out of church, I think like today's environment. Like Ryan Tedder, One Republic. He's an amazing writer.
Zach: I look up to him.
Kenny: I think he went to Oral Roberts University, just a massive influence in artists out there today.
Zach: Brilliant.
Kenny: Back in the day, like, the old Toby Mac and the influence that he's had on artists, both secular and christian.
Tim: Right. It was taboo back in the day.
Kenny: Whitney Houston,
Tim: Whitney Houston
Kenny: Grew up in church. I think Aayliah grew up in church, right?
Tim: A little bit.
Kenny: Yeah. Maybe we won’t through that out there, if she didn’t. But I-I thought I knew that about her.
Tim: That I don't know. Because, I mean she was out there in secular music at an early age. She was on Star Search or whatever that show was.
Kenny: Wow. With Ed McMahon?
Tim: Yeah, I think she was. Yeah.
Zach: That’d be great with me—if not for the vehicle of the church, music would not be where it is today.
Tim: No because it was taboo. To actually to sing. You weren’t—especially on the R & B and Blues side. You weren't supposed to sing anything except for Gospel music.
Kenny: No kidding.
Tim: Yeah and if you changed the Gospel, because really, some of the Blues is a mixture of Blues and Gospel music, and that's how we got the Motowns, that—those sounds because they're rip-offs of church music. And they thought it was, you know, sacrilegious. I-I think I said that wrong or something like that.
Zach: Yeah, no, thats the word.
Tim: Yeah. So that was taboo.
Kenny: Let's talk about that, on the next show we do and you guys bring a song back. That’s be really cool.
Zach: We can make some Gregorian chants.
Tim: Which I have a track that has that. That’s funny.
Zach: Really?
Kenny: Crazy. Hey man, so cool to catch up with you. We'll have you back soon we'll see what this experiment that we came up with today, with the help of a little Johnny Walker to loosen the spirit.
Tim: That'll be dope
Kenny: Awesome to see you dude.
Tim: Alright.
Kenny: Thanks, God Bless.
Tim: Peace. Thanks
Kenny: Thanks Zach.
Zach: Yeah. See ya.
Kenny: You're fired, Zach.