Episode 89: Maturity in Motion with DeVon Blue Whitaker

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

Maturity in Motion

[00:00:00] Andrew: welcome to they get upset podcast. My name is Andrew. And

Emily: I’m Emily

Andrew: and joining us today is

Emily: DeVon blue Whitaker. Andrew you’re clipping so hard.

Andrew: Oh, am I, did I get too excited? I’m going to dial back the gain a little bit here and maybe sit back from the mic and maybe put down the cold brew for a minute

Emily: and maybe just put down the cold brew for half a second.

DeVon: Yeah,

Emily: the, the, the cold brew Ivy, that’s going straight into your veins. It is Seattle after all happy coldbrew season.

Andrew: Right. See, I thought my eyes are just twitching. Cause I’m a sociopath, but Nope, it’s a cold brew.

Emily: I call that a call back to the pre-show, which we didn’t record. Everybody missed everything.

DeVon: Funny, everything.

Andrew: Yeah. That was all the funniest I had to the day. Sorry.

Emily: So, Devon, where am I people know you from?

DeVon: well, from this channel, probably like, you know, YouTube or Instagram. So I do those, pedal demo and camera views and things like that. I’m the guy with the, blue gloves. So, yeah.

That’s where they know me from. But, you know, before all of that fun stuff where people knew me from was, how was it a session guitar player? I got to play guitar for primarily a lot of like, Like R and B and hip hop style. So like, you know, like, I got to play a guitar on a Nikki Minaj track.

I’ve got to be in studios with Kendrick Lamar. I’ve gone on tour with, indie bands. but, so I got to, I got a chance to really do that for a while. And, Yeah. And then started the hitting the Instagram thing hard because, you know, I really wanted to start getting my own music out there. You know, it’s not, for those people who make a profession out of.

Playing guitar for other artists. You know, I envy their, their, their dedication for that. It’s just, after a while, I just got kind of burnt out for it. It’s like, you know, you, you get paid a small amount of money and you get this even smaller credit and you’ve helped facilitate this, great song and for someone else, and you never really get to reap the benefits.

So. Took the Instagram and started making videos. And back then, you know, before the whole blue gloves, you know, you could see me in my entirety. and, but yeah, that’s, that’s where people may know me from.

Emily: Yeah. I mean, you have the blue gloves and usually I’ve seen like the red long sleeve shirt, but not your face.

And, but also your voice in the demos.

DeVon: You know, it’s interesting. I, I, the first one or two demos that I did, I didn’t, I didn’t speak in them, you know? and I think it wasn’t until like the doctor scientist atmosphere demo that I did that I, that I actually talked in it and it was just because. It was just out of necessity.

Like it was a pretty complicated pedal. And I couldn’t imagine, like doing the entire thing and text, you know, like, you know, I watch a lot of demo videos and reviews and things of that nature, and I’ve always liked it when. People actually tell me something, you know, so I did that thinking that it was a one off, you know, I was only ever going to do it for that thing.

It was this big, long demo and a complicated pedal for the most part. And then I got a bunch of people telling me that they wanted to hear me speak more. And, the next pedal company who sent me a pedal specifically asked that I, that I talk and then it kind of became a thing. Yeah. So it’s just, I try not to do it too much, you know, but, there there’s considerable amount in there.

Yeah.

Andrew: And then the gloves is that just like a premonition of like, we’re going to have a pandemic Sunni of better get used to it,

DeVon: you know? it was, it was a funny, it was an interesting thing. I was just as a one off, I had just got the, I got the  and I thought, Oh, I want to make it fun video for this. This is back when, you know, I was still showing the entirety of who I am. And I thought, Oh, it’d be really cool if I just got some blue gloves and did this video and ended up doing extremely well for my channel, on, on Instagram.

And, [00:05:00] and I liked the idea of being able to put music out and not have to talk about who I was. you know, I’ve got. I guess I have an interesting, an interesting, like look to me and I was always more, if anything, field fielding questions more about like, hi, look then who I was and why, you know, and it was, it was always a kind of thing like that.

So the blue gloves kind of, allowed me the opportunity to like, Just talk about the music. Like nobody asks me any personal questions. Like if they have any questions, it’s, it’s relegated exclusively to like what the song is, what this piece of gear is. And just, I, I really liked that. It felt, it felt nice to be able to kind of connect with people.

Regarding like the arts in and of itself, not me, you know, like I’ve always had, I, I’ve never done well with lots of, with, with too much, attention, even after shows, when we go and play live and shows and things like that. I usually. Leave out the back door when it’s all over. I just don’t do well in a lot of social situations.

It’s just, that was a little too much for me, but

Emily: yeah, no. After, after shows has always kind of such a weird, weird vibe.

DeVon: Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s weird because like, When you’re up there and you’re really giving it your all, you know, you’re sweating and it’s just this, you know, and you’re, you’re a mess and you come off of stage and people are like patting you on the back.

They want hugs. They want handshakes and things like that. And rightly so, but it’s just like, When you’re on a stage and you’re really getting into it, like you’re really in the zone, you know, like there is nothing else, you know, that’s just the zone, that’s the song. And then coming off of that and, you know, coming, dropping back down into reality is a, it’s a, it’s, it’s a, it’s a weird transition, you know?

And I think that, only musicians really kind of like. Get that you don’t really have the opportunity to kind of escape the confines of the body, you know, and travel somewhere else. You know? So it’s.

Emily: And I know that you said you’re, you’re an introvert. And I feel that it’s so weird being on stage and being extroverted.

And I just, there are so many people, I know who the person they are on stage is so animated and connecting with strangers and then, you know, on, on their own or afterwards, it’s, they’re just exhausted because they’re introverted primarily. It’s just a different, it’s a different space for them to exist in.

All this, be somebody else completely, if not being in a different place, like you just said.

DeVon: Yeah. And you know, to a certain degree, we all kind of have, you know, those, those facades, you know, and it’s, I don’t want to say it’s like, you know, theater. Playing a role as much as it is that those opportunities afford us the opportunity to be this other part of ourselves.

You know? And it’s when that moment is over, then, it’s like, you, you, you have to take a break because it takes a considerable amount of energy to do that, to be that person, you know, and yeah. You know, Jesse, you get to recharge your batteries when it’s over. Yeah.

Emily: And Americans in their hugs. I think one of my favorite after show moments ever was some guy came up to my singer after the show and he just like held his arms out and just like, kind of looked at her, like obviously expecting her to.

Give him a hug and she just stares at him for maybe five, 10, 15 seconds. And then just kind of shakes her head a little bit, just like there’s a very long, very long moment. And he just was very drunk. So he just like kept him up there and she’s

DeVon: like,

Andrew: Oh

Emily: my gosh. Yeah. This was like, I think it was late February in Texas and this COVID thing was starting to kind of unfurl a little bit. And also like, it was a venue where I’m like, I know there’s no soap in those bathrooms. Like, I hope that you get anybody. No nasty. Oh, sorry, Texas. You’re not nasty. Just that bathroom at the hotel.

Vegas was pretty nasty.

DeVon: Texas is an interesting place. I had a gig up there, before all of this. And, Texas is a really weird place. Cause like when you’re driving into Texas, you know, it’s like 500 [00:10:00] miles, 600 miles of nothing. Just, just desert. And, you know, the first gas station, cause we were driving into Austin.

The first gas station is like 300 miles in and you started. Making that drive. And you’re like, man, if I didn’t fill up my casting before this, this would really not be great.

Emily: 300 miles. That’s why, think about the range of my best car for gas mileage.

DeVon: Okay. Well I’m, I’m, I’m probably, I’m probably exaggerating.

I am exaggerating. I don’t, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but like it’s. Yeah, it sure felt like it. And then, you know, and then you get to Austin and it’s like, it’s this, it’s this beautiful place. And the art scene as a blossoming it’s it’s a great, great, great town for the arts and. I love it. There it’s

Andrew: like an Oasis, the middle of nowhere.

DeVon: All right. I think it would be the worst place to live though during the zombie apocalypse, you know, like, cause they’re just like, they’re just there, you know, and it’s, around them is, is, is nothing. So. I always worry about things like that. I base where I want to live off of what it would be like if there were on be apocalypse.

Andrew: So, so where do you live right now? In what? What’s the, what’s the zombie apocalypse scenario here.

DeVon: I live in Sacramento, Sacramento, California. And if the zombies worth his strike, They would just, it would, it would really, really suck. I I’m, I’m trying to move to the mountains is what my goal is. So

like

Andrew: over, closer to a Tahoe or,

DeVon: you know, wherever I can. Wherever I can go to where if guests want to visit me, they have to be helicoptered in kind of thing. So that’s part of the, yeah. So that’s part of the problem is finding, is finding, that type of place.

Emily: Ah, she might have to pick up some more, more gigs with Nikki Menasha and

DeVon: now, in fact that was a one off, that was a crazy situation, you know, like, I didn’t and it’s, and it sounds cooler than it actually was like, I get hired by, I’ll get hired by like a producer for a day, you know?

And, I will just lay guitar on everything and anything that they have and even vocals sing and, and, Sometime after doing the song, you know, like I never know what’s going to happen with those songs. And even the producers themselves never know. Cause you know, they send it out to this artist, they send it out through that at school or whatever.

And I think it was like six months later, you know, they ended up contact me. He was like, Hey, we kinda got to track with Nicki Minaj and, and things like that. And and I was like, wow. Okay, cool, cool, cool. And, And it was, I don’t even know the name of the song. I don’t know the name of the song. I just, I know I got paid for it.

And I know in terms of like, it’s, it’s real value lied in being able to put it on a resume and then yeah. I’ve had several songs like that or are opportunities like that. And, That’s an interesting thing.

Emily: Yeah. Session work is its own is its own thing. And it is weird. How, like you record you go in, you record, you spend the day doing it, you get paid, you offered a to sense, any changes.

I mean, I recently did something for a woman and I did two sessions with her. One in a studio, one kind of like emailed it in and I said, Hey, if there’s any changes you want, if you’re not happy with it, just let me know. She’s like, this is great. She paid me. She releases the track. I’m not on it. Oh God. I worked so hard on that solo.

She just cut the solo completely.

DeVon: That happens a lot too. And in instances like that, you know, as a, as a hired gun, you know, you’re, you’re thankful that you got paid because you know, the reality is, is the back pay on those things. Isn’t, isn’t always as, as great as, You know, people imagine it to be, you know, so it’s, you know, because nowadays, you know, as, as artists we get paid so little, you know, you, you look, you think about Spotify and things of that nature, and it’s like less than 1 cent, you know, less than less than that.

And

[00:15:00] Emily: on Spotify, on average. Yeah,

DeVon: exactly. And it’s getting, it’s getting a little bit better. Things are, things are. May make a turnaround for that, because now that everybody’s home, more, the streams have kind of gone up, a little bit I’ve I’ve released for the first time. For the first time in my life.

I’ve released some of my own music on Spotify and it’s actually doing, it’s actually doing pretty good. Pretty pretty well. And it’s not anything that I advertise on my channel. I don’t want to be one of those guys who just like shamelessly promoting themselves. I just, I liked the idea of kind of putting it out there and seeing what it, what it does.

And, I think it’s and we just put out, I think our first song in January, we’ve got like two instrumentals and an actual actual song. And, they’re generating somewhere around like, you know, 17,000 monthly listeners. And I’m considering, we’ve got like, I don’t know, we’ve got like 15 songs and we plan on dropping them every, you know, four to six weeks, you know, the.

There exists. The possibility that those numbers will kind of just keep increasing or, or, or whatever. But, yeah, so it’s, Spotify 0.3, 0.3 cents. Wow. It’s crazy.

Emily: Title pay is twice that

DeVon: that’s true. It’s not a lot of people’s

Emily: names.

I always use tile because they had print stuff first.

DeVon: It’s like,

no, no. And then they had, they had Jay Z on there and they had a bunch of other people in there.

Emily: they were pretty good with the, the, getting the. The music there first for obviously JZ owns it. So getting JC and beyond say stuff is easy and anyone and their kind of circle of artists and all the other artists who are part owners of it.

So, yeah, I liked, I mean, I liked title. I liked that I liked their playlists a little bit better. Like there ones that like the things that they think that you might like. I really dig those a lot. It’s great for it’s streaming. It’s great for discovery. I still like to buy my music.

DeVon: Oh yeah. I still do as well.

In fact, I don’t for myself. I don’t, I’m not a big patron of other people’s playlist. because I want to listen to what I want to listen to in the moment that I want to listen to it. And, I might want to listen to it twice. So, I just rather buy my own music, plus like, you know, being an artist, you know, especially when we have to survive off of what we make from this, you know, some of us are fortunate or unfortunate enough to, to make a living from this thing.

So it’s like, I don’t know. Now when you know that you yourself. your livelihood is based off of selling this thing then like, you know, you have to pay it for you. Can’t shortchange another artist, kind of thing. So if I, if I really liked them, I buy them their album and then I will give them a, a follow on Spotify, even though like, I may never go on to Spotify and really, you know, listen to things.

I’ll still give them a follow there.

Emily: Yeah. I think especially people like bookers and promoters still look at those numbers on Spotify. I forget. I think you can drill down like analytics for where your listeners are. So I think that’s helpful for tour routing, but I mean that’s money is more helpful generally

DeVon: speaking.

Yeah. I mean, We still make more money for, for live, for live shows. But I mean, you know, Spotify still is a great tool for like, you know, generating that kind of passive income. And if you’re trying to take your music from like, you know, From kind of like the whole kind cut the indie field, and maybe you’re looking for label representation or anything, you know, a lot of those professional types, they look at things like that.

They want to see, they want to, they’re looking at numbers, they pull up chart metric and see what your socials look like, what your streams look like, your overall stream equity looks like. So it’s, you know, it’s. It’s kind of the unfortunate reality, for, for artists, you know, like you have to know a little bit about the business in order to make it, as an artist.

And it seems like more and more it’s, it’s harder. And a lot of ways it’s [00:20:00] easier to be an artist, but it’s also, it’s, it’s really, it’s harder to, you know, just because, you know, there, there used to be a time where, you know, When you told people you are an artist, you know, that there was a viable way to make a living off of that thing.

And far more nowadays artists. Are they ride the line. That’s an indelible line between, you know, being an artist and you know, it being a hobby, you know, it being a profession versus it being like a pastime. So it’s, it’s, it’s a weird thing. Not many of us can kind of break through the other side and actually make a living off of it or rather a meaningful living off of it.

So

Emily: enough that it’s like what you put on your taxes.

DeVon: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: Yeah. It’s like, I’ve always been a musician, but I’ve always been, it’s always been weird to call myself that when it’s not, you know, how I make the bulk of my income. it’s, which is weird because being a musician does not necessarily mean like I’m doing this to make money.

It just means to have a person who makes music or is it, or is it. Or is there a line between a musician and just someone who plays music as

DeVon: a hobby? Well, I think that there is, I think the most important connection between like, and I think ultimately you’re a musician, regardless of your level of dedication, you know, like, you know, I I’ve said it before, you know, like, you can sit.

Three people in the room, men, women, and our own, who’ve never had any experience playing music in their life and you give them a music instrument and eventually one of them will figure it out. One of them will figure it out. And the other two, well, you know, and it’s like, why does, why is this person so different when the circumstances.

What are the same and it’s not always, because they were interested in it, you know, because when I stumbled into a music class some years ago, I did. So because like I needed a class to transfer. I dropped the other class and the only class that would take me two weeks into the semester was a guitar class, mr.

Phillips. And he told me, he said, if you can have a guitar and be here tomorrow, you’re in the class, it was the. Only class that would take me. I was going to school for my degree in psychology. And, and I was doing it because everyone told me like, yeah, you go, you have a way with people and talking with people and I understand know I’m you should be a psychologist.

In fact, my family was pushing for it. And, you know, I got in there with zero interest and that’s the most important thing, like zero interest, zero ability. It’s not, it didn’t run in my family. I don’t, I can’t trace back my lineage to people who are musicians, but I got in that class thinking like, God, I just need to just, I just need to do whatever this guy tells me to do so I can get out of this.

I can transfer. I can just. Get this decree make some money. And the teacher said he walked around the classroom, right? Toned everyone’s guitar. And he put everyone’s hands into position. He says, every we’re going to show him our first core today. And he’s like, when I count down from three everyone strap and a kind of down from three to one and everyone.

Drum the core. And there was a resonance that kind of bounced off of the, the walls, 24 kids strumming and E minor at one time. And it opened, it opened something in me like for the first time in my entire life, in the entirety of my life, I knew that I wanted it. To be good at this. I wanted this, I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted it.

So back to what you were saying, like, you know, it’s an interesting fraternity, you know, being a musician. So regardless of like, you know, the degree in which you kind of put yourself into a, whether it’s the hobby or the professional level, like you are. You were created, you know, you’re made or circumstances made you or the universe, whatever, whatever you believe in, you were made with the ability to do this thing, that others cannot.

So it’s, it’s like we’re all musicians. And I think the only real. Deviance like, you know, that the only hierarchy that exists is, you know, [00:25:00] based off of dedication. So, yes, you’re always a musician, you know, even though the bulk of your income comes from from some other job, you know, like you’re always, you’re always an artist, you know, that never stops.

just because you need to keep the lights on.

Emily: That’s really beautiful.

Andrew: I was just going to say the same thing. That was some really beautiful words you just laid down.

Emily: He’s not a little choked up. Andrew

Andrew: it’s it’s, it’s been a weird week for my own career personally, and I don’t want to get too much into that, but just kind of thinking through like, to what level that my career versus my passions and how that all defines me, has definitely been on my mind. I think that was. A really good for me to hear, I think,

DeVon: to,

Andrew: to chime in, I, I, not that I could possibly follow that up with any sort of meaningful thought, but

In an attempt to do so thinking in terms of like the passion versus the business side of things. I think, especially with where we’re at right now, economically in this region of the world, it’s, it’s a level of necessity. I mean, you’re, you’re talking about how it used to be the sort of profession where you could make a meaningful living off of, and extensively that would be without.

Needing to do all the business, half of things, yourself, and keeping that business mind and being able to focus really in depth on the artistic side of things and, you know, being a muse of sorts.

Emily: Usually gets to be a craft as much, in some ways as a painting, a house was versus painting a portrait. I mean, there are plenty of people who would just like you had your, your, your nightly or weekly gig and you just wouldn’t, you played at a dance hall and there was, I was a way to, you know,

DeVon: my whirlwind,

Andrew: my, well, my complaint is, Kind of just a generic, like capitalism in a way almost makes it by elevating the necessity of the business side of the endeavor.

It doesn’t guarantee that the most, the, the quality art, the most, the highest quality art comes through the other end. It’s the, it’s the most

DeVon: monitored,

Andrew: most monetization. There’s a word for this

Emily: monetize

DeVon: monetize.

Andrew: Monetizeable Art that does get throughout to the, to the greater audience. And then the finer art tends to I, in my experience tends to fall into the smaller circles and doesn’t get quite the same attention because of the.

If you got an artist focused on that art

Emily: music can’t be popular if it doesn’t connect with people in some way. I mean, that’s, I think that the sort of demonization of, or the food fooling popular music is just kind of another way to. I mean, you look at who primarily consumes popular music, like who makes music popular young, young girls typically.

And I just think that. Crapping on pop music. Not that I’m saying that you’re doing that, but say, I guess not art to such a high degree. I don’t know. It connects with people still and

Andrew: right. And I’m not saying that it does. I’m just observing that there’s a change in dynamic that muddies the water a little bit in a way that I’m not sure is desirable from the perspective of loving art for the sake of art itself.

Well,

Emily: I mean the Jonas brothers, aren’t John Prine or Townes van Zandt, for sure. But I mean, they connect with people and that’s what matters in a lot of ways. John Prine makes me feel, feel ways. And I still cry every time I hear the song poncho and lefty. Like I, can’t not cry when I hear that song, but, I mean, there, there are some, like I

DeVon: just,

Andrew: my capitalistic frustrations to rest.

DeVon: Well, I mean, both of you, it’s interesting though, like it’s like within the confines of what both of you said, you know, there, there exists, you know, the, the, the nuances that, that, that all artists are, all musicians are, are, are. What we have, like, that’s what our main source of controversy is, is like, you know, the fact that there is an oversaturation of, of, of people who can be artists now, you know, like the, the N the internet has kind of created this level playing field to where anyone, and everyone can put something up and say that it, that it’s art, but, you know, it’s important to remember that, like, We all love McDonald’s fries, but at the same time, we didn’t want to sit down.

You know, it’s like drawing those parallels [00:30:00] and well, some artists like the Jonas brothers and things like that, like they have a, a much larger audience. It’s important to realize that like, there is, there exists an audience for all of us, you know, and it can be that the, the size of that may vary depending on, you know, your, your reach and, and.

And things like that. And the music, you know, if it’s very niche, then like obviously the pool in which you can draw from is going to be a little bit more shallower then than say the Jonas brothers. but there exists the capacity for every musician to really, really make a living out of that. And I mean, if you think about it, like if you only find.

A hundred people really love your music, you know, a hundred people, you sell an album, you know, for 10 bucks, you know, you’ve just, you’ve just doubled, you know, you make a significant amount of money from that. And like, it’s not, it’s not a lot, but like it’s, it’s definitely something and, and hundred people, you know, and if you never put it out, If you never did anything with it, then no one would like it.

And that’s the guarantee like that’s the greatest guarantee that exists is that if you do nothing. Then you get nothing. So it’s, I don’t know, man. I think it’s, it’s, it’s an interesting time. It is a lot harder for artists to make a living and to find their audience because of the over-saturation that, that exists on our, on the art field with regard to all mediums, really, but like.

It’s it’s there. And I think the only thing that really separates like successful musicians or artists from the ones who just find satiation with just playing on the weekend is pressive arrogance. I wholeheartedly believe that. Success exists on the opposite. The side of hard work for all of us. It’s just, we just got to do it.

And I mean, I’m living proof of that. Like I never, never wanted to be a musician. I had no idea out of 20. I was 20 when I picked up a guitar, had every intention of getting a degree in psychology. Yeah. I never, I never wanted it as a child. My parents. Well, he lived in Los Angeles. My parents did by, my, my, my siblings and I, and there’s four of us bought us all a music instrument.

I got a Casio keyboard. My, brother underneath me got a Casio key tar. My sister got her har and then my next brother, he got a set of drums and they just gave them to us. They said, Merry Christmas. And we were, we were really young. They didn’t get us any toys. We never, we, we had kind of, you know, I wouldn’t say poor upbringings, but like, it was one of those kind of upbringings where we got one gift each for Christmas, and this was what we got.

So in lieu of an action figure, you know, I, we, I got, I got a Casio keyboard and I, and I did not take to it. so. Eventually though, you know, coming back to it, bring the circle story full circle. Like, when I, when I did find it, you know, I knew that, yeah, it’s so it, from someone who had no interest or desire into it, and no real meaningful way of making a living off of it, like it’s, it’s, it’s happened for me in a meaningful way to where like doing music and doing videos.

Is my nine to five job. Like I’ve been, I haven’t had a day job for almost three years and I’ve been surviving exclusive way off of the arts. And I’ve been doing that in California of all places and rent and everything here. It’s just, it’s just kind of ridiculous, but like, you know, I can still do it. So yeah.

Yeah. So I’m the proof I’m proof that like it can happen regardless of when you start in your life, you know,

Andrew: super inspirational. And I can, I can hear the passion just exuding from the words as they leave your lips.

DeVon: Thanks man.

Emily: Yeah. And I think that our culture just really likes to focus on the people who like get started when they’re young and find success when they’re young.

Like, not that that’s not the sort of, but like Fiona Apple releasing her album when she was 18 or Prince releasing his first record when he was 19. And these kinds of like young subhan types, But you don’t have to be, you really don’t like, there are people who do well, who didn’t see success until later in their lives.

[00:35:00] Like I’m listened to Williams as an example, Aerosmith. Yeah. Like they’re not third eye. I mean, not that third eye blind is like the epitome of like the highest art. I enjoy it a lot, but like, they were not, I think Stephen Jenkins was in his thirties when they hit it big and 98 or something like that.

Like he was older. And I think that the tr Patterson hood from the drive by truckers and start that band till he was 30 or 31. So like looking at examples like that, me at 31 having just really started to try music again. Cause I, I kind of fell away from it. I listened to some, I think I don’t want to say I got bad advice, but I just let it get into my head too much.

I had some, some kind of troubled relationships with people who were, you know, in the music and local. I dated a guy who said he would. You know, record some of my songs and just kept putting them off over other projects. And that makes you feel really bad when someone who’s supposed to care about you and love you and support, you keeps putting you to the wayside because you’ll understand or whatever.

that kind of killed it for me for a long time. So just for me now, seeing how just getting back into it, kind of. Saying, screw all the insecurities and kind of fear and sensitivities that I had and just doing the thing and seeing how that’s paid off in my personal professional life, just in the past couple of years.

Yeah. I think that a lot of it is just about, you know, Hitting the pavement, developing meaningful relationships, putting some pride into your work, being someone that people want to, you know, listen to and talk to and spend time with. you know, I think that matters. That matters a lot.

DeVon: It does. It really does.

And I mean, it’s. Everyone thinks, and there’s a misconception about it and there’s just missed. And I’ve made this misconception my entire life, the, the instant, I picked up a guitar and start, you know, devoting myself entirely to it. I made the misconception and believing that like one, I had to 100% believe in myself and.

Then put it out or it has to be perfect. And then put it, put this out. it has to be like this and then put it out. I Le I allowed society for so many years, too. Be the reason why I never put anything out without realizing that, you know, maturation requires a motion. Like, and once you get to a certain point with, with your, with your music, the only way for it to fully.

Blossom and bloom every you as an artist to develop it by putting it out there, like you have to cut your teeth at putting it out there, regardless of where you think it is. You know, the reality is like far different. You know, you put this song out there that you hate, and I hate all my songs. I do. Yeah,

Emily: but

DeVon: I’m so I am so glad you do, but like in that, and that therein lies the proof, but like we, as artists tend to live in our head and we allow society’s wounds and mandates to kind of infect our perspective without realizing that an artist’s perspective is different. Like if we were, if we were to talk.

About like the current social affairs and social and cultural inequities that exist in the world today. Our perspective perspective of it is similar to like, to the average person, but like, We can communicate in a way that they, that, that they can’t like just our view of the world is so different. And that’s why you were talking about, we were talking about before all of this, we were talking about people say that they’re empathic, you know, And that

Emily: was everyone listening.

I said, anyone who puts like I have an impasse in their Twitter, bio is associate path.

Andrew: And I said, I’ve been accused of worse.

DeVon: You know, there’s a psychology behind, behind the things that people say. But yeah, no. And, and, and I think, and I said, and I said, I, I think that musicians. And the degree varies our Impathics, you know, the ability to create something from nothing, nothing, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been said that, you know, What is it a painter paints, a picture on canvas, but a musician, paints a picture in silence, like nothing.

Right. You know, really think about it. You’re you’re in this room and you’ve got this weird shape, the box with vibrating strings or this big bulky thing with white and black keys. And what is that? Right. And you [00:40:00] make. Music and some will argue that it’s music, but I promise you, it is always music and that does not come from nowhere.

Well, I mean, it does. I mean, maybe it’s the void, I don’t know, but bright. And like the fact that you have the capacity to do that when others can’t no, man, like it’s just, you have to. You have to put it out there. So going back to what we were saying, it’s like, you know, for some of us artists who allows society to dictate, like how we present ourselves in our music, like for those who do that, You know, who allows society to put those standards on us.

This is the reason why you feel unsettled and unsatiated with like, with your own music, with your own art is because you don’t realize that like, again, the way we as artists perceive the world is different. So. We can’t allow like the standards that exists with, with people who aren’t musicians too. We can’t allow those standards to infect the way we, we think, you know, like you have to put out music, you have to do it and you have to do it now.

I’ve waited too long. I waited too long. They do I’m in my thirties now. And if I had started like, I don’t know, five years ago, I’d be so much farther ahead than I am now. And I wish I wish that I would have done it earlier. I wish I would not have listened to those voices that, you know, society kind of like infected into and to, into my binging.

And I would’ve just put it out there, you know, because the audience. loves maturation emotion. They love to be able to see, you know, an artist who started from here and then eventually got here. They want to be part of that ride, you know, and society like the people who are just music, patients, people who love music, like they love being a part of those.

They love being a part of those stories where like I remember him when he was playing for 15 people and now he’s playing for sold out marinas. Like this is there. This year, affording them the opportunity to grow with you, to be a part of this thing. And they, and they love you for it, you know, in most instances.

So it’s like we, as artists are only doing a disservice to ourselves and even to the, to the arts in general, By holding back by like, retweaking this song a thousand times, you know, like, I mean, we all do it too. I’ve done it so many times. I hate so much of the music that I have, and I’m so eager, but at the same time, I’m really, I really want to start working on the music.

But like, what I’ve told myself now is like, you know, like, You don’t get to really work on the music until you start getting all of this other stuff out there. Like, no, like we’re artists, we love creativity. Right,

Andrew: right.

Emily: We were, we don’t like polishing something until it’s just super, super shiny yet. Like that’s not.

Yeah. I agree with all of that. I mean, perfection and pursuit of perfection has just sidelines. So many people, myself included. Like I didn’t want to start the demo channel until I was, I wanted to be like, I want to make sure everything’s perfect. I want to do like a bunch of tests runs. I want to do this.

I want to do that. And finally, I’m just like, I just, I need to do it. I just need to do it because. Otherwise, I’m just talking about it and planning is good, but like, I need to get it to 80% and I need to ship it. I like like trying to get that next 10% get to 90%, 95 to 97.2 to 98 to 99. I will never get to that 100%.

And I’m so glad I just did the thing and kind of worked out the bugs as I went. And I’m still working out a lot of bugs. But I, I can’t believe where I am right now. Just having started the channel back in September. It’s been fun

Andrew: if I may, if I may change gears a little bit, I’ve got a question for my own personal curiosity.

And then a question that’s a little bit more on topic question for my own curiosity is where in LA did you grow up?

DeVon: South central.

Andrew: Alrighty.

DeVon: It was not, it was not a, it was not a great place. It was, it was, it was great in the sense that, it prepared me for, for like a lot of the harshness that we’re dealing with now, like the social and cultural inequities and things like that, you know, I wasn’t lost, I lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots.

You know, so it’s like, you, you [00:45:00] live through that and you come full circle here and now, and it’s like, you know, you’ve kind of seen that and done that, seen it, you know, been there, done that kind of thing. So it’s so yeah, yeah. South central Los Angeles.

Andrew: All right. Yeah, I know that area a little bit. I went to school in the greater LA area out past

DeVon: Pasadena know.

Okay. So it was

Andrew: down there for a few years, and then I grew up central coast, California. So anytime I hear anybody who’s from the, from the California area, I’m like, Oh, tell me

DeVon: more.

Emily: Because California voice wishes always, always so highly

DeVon: regarded. Right?

Emily: Thinking about it. If you would like to support this.

Podcasts, but don’t want to spend money because times are weird. Please leave us a five star review and, stuff on the, the iTunes that really helps us.

DeVon: Thanks,

Andrew: man. Just like, say something, say something rad on the iTunes. You know, the thing that kids are doing these days.

Emily: And actually, I think, I think I got, we must be like somewhere on some sort of like niche chart by now, Andrew, because I’ve been going to emails like you’re charting 233 in the music interviews category on iTunes.

Do you want to bump that up farther? I’m like, I’m not paying money for that, but kind of, so you can have support though. This week’s episode of get offset is brought to you. By surfy industries, surfy is famous for making real spring reverb tanks, including the surfy bear compact, which fits on your pedalboard.

It’s not even the largest guitar pedal I own I’ll be at it. It’s pretty big. It has, I mean, but it has three Springs to mixed controls. So you can go between that. Really what surfy, drippy sound and just having something nice, kind of. More well, rounded, less, maybe distracting depending on the song. and yes, if you kick it while you’re playing, it will crash.

It’s pretty neat. The surfy bear compact. I want to thank surfy industries for their paid sponsor spot. we donated the money from their sponsorship spot to a few local bail funds. So, thank you again, SURPI industries for helping us make that donation.

Andrew: And, the entirety of my half of the pitch for surfy bear is going to be simply spring,

but that’s all I have to contribute.

Emily: I don’t want to have a boiling sound up here. I have

DeVon: a charge

Emily: on this baseball.

Andrew: I think I’ve got enough Slack on my microphone. I could walk it over to the, the spring doorstopper to this room. But that sounds like a lot of effort and be a lot of, a lot of, a lot of noise.

Emily: I’ll add it in post.

Andrew: so that was, that was my kind of off topic. Personal question. thank you for indulging me. Emily always gets to do that with any guests from Ohio or that general part of the world,

Emily: which

Andrew: we’ve had a lot of non-California guests lately. So it’s refreshing to have,

Emily: well, we had.

We had Lance from dog man devices. He’s in, in Oxford, Ohio from Dayton, I think he said, and then we talked to Julia from rat boys and she was in Louisville, but Louisville, but she had family in Dayton. So that’s why, so that’s two, that’s two Andrew it’s two, we’ve had a lot more Californians.

Andrew: So the more on topic question is we’re kind of getting to the back stretch of the episode is, what’s is going to be a two parter is one what’s new.

Cause I feel like we managed it. We just kinda jumped in this week, which is actually felt really cool.

Emily: I really liked that. I don’t, what’s new with you first, Andrew.

Andrew: I want to know. I mean, I don’t have anything terribly. I guess the only thing I could contribute there is I’m getting ready to ship out a, a Fox Cairo pedal topper for a full tone pedal.

Emily: Oh, front of a full pedal.

DeVon: Yep. So that’ll

Andrew: be fun. A shout out to Jim burns for working with me on this and being willing to be my Guinea pig on this project. And I’m very excited the artwork for it looks awesome. one of the artists that we’ve partnered with, named Aaron Schmidt, he mocked up the artwork for it and it looks incredible.

So that’s my kind of what’s new. outside of that, nothing too terribly exciting. I’ve just been doing nothing productive and just noodling on my pedal board and through my new

DeVon: app. What

Emily: if you did a, sorry, what if you did a pedal topper for, if someone just took their all OCD and then, wiped off the art and then just wrote like the worst parts of that email that Mike Fuller sent to that woman.

Andrew: I mean I could,

Emily: but I think that would be kind of [00:50:00] funny. I will break into your house.

Andrew: I mean, that’s already going to go down in infamy and I’m not feeling particularly strong about, you know, reproducing messages of hate,

Emily: never by my titles. You don’t deserve that.

Andrew: That was straight degree possible.

Emily: you remember when, what was that?

Chris, was it, Oh gosh, what was that really fine champagne that like people like Diddy. Yeah. And then the guy who owns crystal was like trashing on all these rappers for making his brand exceptionally famous.

DeVon: Like, wow. That’s. Like cheesy

Emily: must hate money. Wasn’t capitalism supposed to cure racism, I guess it doesn’t do that.

DeVon: So

Andrew: hold move, cut. And let’s see how it plays out.

DeVon: I

Andrew: mean, I don’t have a whole lot to contribute to, to what’s new, but I want to hear what’s new specifically from Devon. and the followup question that is. so what’s new is what’s going to be new what’s upcoming. Cause this entire episode, you’ve just exuded this I’m on a roll with creativity and making some incredible things to share with the world.

And I just, I want to hear what’s new and what’s going to be new.

DeVon: Wow. Okay. Well, I mean,

you know, so still doing it the whole, the whole demo thing, And, you know, I’m, I’m putting out my own music, you know, this is the first time this year that that’s happening and I’m shooting my own music videos and, and everything like that. So it’s, it’s extremely interesting, you know, like, Taking taking a lot of the things that I learned from doing pedal demos, the videos, the, you know, and applying that to, to other things, you know, and I’ve even picked up a job shooting freelance video for Fox 40, like, because of like, yeah.

So, so, so that’s kind of, that’s an interesting, it’s an interesting thing. So it’s, What’s new is. I mean, it’s not really anything, I guess it’s all new for me because you know, I’ve never put on any music. I’ve been a guitarist for so many other bands before and, I guess all of that is really what’s, what’s new.

It doesn’t seem like it’s an interesting thing. I mean, you can, I can say it broadly, but you know, there’s a lot of small things that are kind of, you know, included into the process of, of doing that for the, for the first time. and, you know, like for, for the music video that, I’ll probably be putting out this winter.

It’s done. I had to learn how to make, you know, fake walls. I had to learn how to make, breakable plates. And I had the, and I had to learn like how to light people that look the appropriate way to, to light people. And, it’s, it’s an interesting thing. Like the whole, the entire arc of starting things on Instagram.

Putting a cell phone in front of me and strumming some chords to, to like the abilities in which I like I’ve gained from that, you know, and it’s not necessarily something that’s really easy to articulate, you know, it’s like, but quite easily I can like reach back to the, to the moment, you know, easily that this whole thing kind of like, started snowballing for me.

And it was because, Tom from Cooper effects reached out to me. he reached out to me and he said, I really love your videos. You know, the blue gloves, everything that’s so cool. He was like, would you be interested in doing 30 seconds of content for Instagram, for Jen loss? And I was like, someone wants to give me a paddle for these videos.

And I was like, yes, absolutely. But I wanted it to be good. So it’s a, I looked up, I had all of these ideas, you know, and that’s the cool thing about being a musician? Is that like, When you’re a musician, like there is, there’s a, there’s a rhythm of in, in, in life. And in things that you, you understand, it’s like, you always know where the one count is.

It’s, it’s a weird thing to articulate, but like, and that manifests itself in your life and weird ways and you, and your cooking, the way you dress, the way you mow the lawn, you know, like you, you do things to a certain. A beat. And I understood that. So I knew that to do a video for, for this guy. I, it had to be something good, you know, and I have no meaningful experience doing video, but I researched it and looked into it and got some stop motion stuff and figured out lighting.

And that video ended up doing so well on Instagram. [00:55:00] From there. I got a bunch of other pedal companies who were like, Hey, we’ll send you a pedal. If you start, if you would, you know, give us some content, if you would do this, if you do that. And it got to a point to where, like I got so much interest that I had to start charging and it was only, I was charging as a deterrent because like I never wanted to say no to anybody, you know?

So then it, that became a thing. And then the more I started doing these videos with my little iPhone, I started realizing like, okay, this is, this is good. I mean, it looks good. It looks cool. But like, I mean, it could look better. And then I started researching, you know, cinematography, just learning about lighting and learning about all of these things and got, and got a really good camera.

And then that started becoming fascinating and color and. And, and everything. So it, it took me from doing this Instagram thing to, to, to then doing stuff on YouTube, then shooting videos for Fox and then shooting freelance videos. And then, you know, learning that make fake walls and breakable plates and, creating meaningful story arcs and, and all of that.

And, you know, it’s just. You know, that’s why I said earlier, it’s like, you know, I’m, I am the proof that it’s like, you can go, you can, you can really have this. If you want it, you can have it. I mean, I am,

Emily: I’m very like just the quality of every single one of your demo videos I’ve seen. I think I wrote about this.

And the reverb article, they’re saying variant movie asking dramatic about them. I’m really surprised to hear that he doesn’t work on, on movies. That you’re completely self-trained in that it’s astounding. Oh yeah.

DeVon: And it’s, and it’s only by virtue of being, like being a musician. Like I think like a lot of musicians don’t really, again, like we, we failed to really, because we live in the real world, we forget to realize that like, There is something kind of other worldly about who we are as artists.

You know, we allow like S society’s standards and norms to kind of like put us in this, in this box, compartmentalize us without realizing that like, I mean, we’re so much more who is so much more and it’s. And when you realized, but when you do realize that, like you’re capable of creating things at a much grander level, you’re just, no, you’re, you’re you have the capacity to create seemingly from nowhere when you have that, like you can create anything.

I didn’t know that I would be good at doing videos. I had no idea. I didn’t know how to be a good. Guitarist, but because I was a good musician or because I understood where the one count was when it came time to doing videos, I knew that there was assertive pacing to, to, to, to making the videos. Like, you know, you want the, you want this type of shot.

You really only want it to be there for that kind of long. Like, how do you know that? It’s just like, it’s just like, you know that the bridge section and the song, you only want it there or how we know like. A real dissonant chord. It’s like, ah, you really, probably only want to hear that for just one second.

It’s like, how do you know that? How do you as a musician get in a room as a guitarist, specifically, get in a room with a drummer, a piano bass player, a singer, everyone know where the one count is, you know, like, you know, it’s established initially with the drummer of course, but like right after that for account.

Everyone knows where the one count is, how does that happen? You know? And it’s like, we all arrive to that echelon together. And it’s when you, when you realize that there is something different about you and that you have access to things that others don’t, you can utilize that in interesting ways, like in, in your life.

So for me, it was, you know, it was video. I was able to. Bring that in there. And, by virtue of that experience, you know, I’m learning more things with regard to cinematography. And I want to go into making short films. I want to, I want to do things like that. I want to make the soundtracks for, I mean, it’s just, you know, if there’s something.

There’s something out there in the universe that kind of calls to all of us. And I think that’s why some of us kind of feel like restless are just. UNSW fulfilled and unsatiated is because we are not willing to surrender to it, you know, surrender, like, you know, it’s just, again, society’s norms to dictate what we should be doing, you know, you know, [01:00:00] Swim up current.

Yeah. You have to work really hard for this and you have to have to have this house. You have to have these, this car, you have to have this, you have to do this life has to be this way, you know, but that’s for them, that’s for them. That was not, that’s not for us, you know, like, and especially in times, like, Right now with the social level of social unrest, it’s like as an artist, you have the responsibility to, to create when we think about like, and slightly getting off topic, but still on topic.

When you think back to like the civil rights movements, right at that from a historical standpoint, That just happened, you know, like that just happened for our generation. That’s something we can easily reach back to, even though we didn’t experience it ourselves. We weren’t,

Emily: those people are all still alive.

Those young girls who were the first people to go to the integrated into white schools. You just turn like 65 years old.

DeVon: That just happened. But like the textbooks that, the textbooks that kind of recount those actions have changed. It. Thousand times over in our lifetime, just in our lifetime. Right.

But the one thing that has not changed since then is the arts that came from, from that time. And that’s the truest depiction of what happened then in fact, like we listened to the, to the music from those times and we still hummed them today. We look at the artists and the painters and things like that.

And those. Paintings are still hanging on walls and fact, like we do everything in our power to make sure that those paintings survive. So as an artist, it’s like, there is no greater imperative. There’s no greater responsibility. It’s like, if you want to be as social, if a freedom fighter, if you want to be out there, cool, you can do that.

You have to, but like, There exists another opportunity as well, you know, and, and that is to create, put things out there. Even if you put it out there and like only 15 people listened to it. Like it, you know, like who knows what will happen in 20 years from now? Like, I mean, I, I think about, I think about my, I think about what is his name.

I’m always terrible when it comes to names of things. Edgar Allen Poe, Right. Who never really knew great fame. I mean, he had some small marginals fame and his lifetime, but he, he died believing that he was a failure. He died believing he was a failure and it wasn’t for years and years later that he’s was regarded as like one of the greatest writers, you know, of all time.

I mean, he seems exactly, you know, like it’s. There exists are, are immortality, you know, but also too, like beyond that, like the greatest historians are, are, are the arts or are artists, you know? So yeah, I was going with all of that. I’m sorry, but

Emily: that was a great journey.

DeVon: Yeah. So yeah.

Emily: Yeah. I feel like that. That, yeah. Do your music release it now? Stop waiting.

DeVon: Stop waiting. Yeah. No wait.

Emily: There’s like, gosh, there’s some things. Yeah. Like, like from very personal perspectives. It feels you’re if you’re always waiting for a better time to do things, I don’t think you’re ever going to find it.

It’s like people saying, and I’ve said it like, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think right now is a great time to have a kid, but is there ever a good time to have a kid? Like there may be a better times, but is there ever a good time to start really a bad time or it’s a little different than art, but like my, my, my band just

DeVon: keeps.

Emily: Delay like we it’s production delays. We’re ready. We’ve been ready to release this music since February and it’s going to happen. But yeah, I, I get tired of waiting.

DeVon: Yeah. You know, it’s like they say, you know, sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being, you know, the biggest step of your, your life.

So it’s like, you know, you. You want to, you know, tip toe if, if you must, but you know, take, take the step, you know, so, and situations will never be perfect. You know, we allow those, those social norms to kind of infect the way we think about things. Like what perfection is. What normal is, you know, but like those rules don’t necessarily apply to us.

I mean, they do, I can mean [01:05:00] we’re real life people living in the real world, but like, you know, there’s, there’s something else that exists within us that really, that we have the honor and surrender to as well, you know, so. There’s never going to be a good time for anything, you know, there’s, it’s, it’s, the music will never be perfect.

Your art will never be perfect. Your financial situation will never be perfect. knowing that though, knowing that it’ll never be perfect, you still have to risk it all because if you love this thing, if you really love it, if you love it, if you love the arts and. Like you love it. Like you love a child.

Like you love a family member. Like you love someone who you would sacrifice everything for that. You would sacrifice everything for this, for cultivating this thing. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s imperative that artists of all mediums now know that like, you know, the greatest sacrifice that we can make is.

Putting something out there that we’re unsatiated with that’s part that’s, that’s one of the biggest steps that any of us can make for, for the artists, because in our minds we’re like, it’s gotta be perfect. It’s gotta be like, this has gotta be, I have to find satiation in this song before I release it.

But then you have to ask yourself, who are you? Who are you doing this for? You know, like if you’re making music for yourself, then just hang out in your garage and storm your guitar. And that should be fine. You should find CCH satiation in that. But if you can’t find satiation it’s because you’re making music for people, you’re making music to what share.

Right. So share it. Yeah.

Emily: I gotta say, I feel extremely, extremely energized listening to you talk. I’m like, yeah, I’m going to make

DeVon: you that that’s and that’s, that’s the point of all of this is. Sharon. Yeah.

Emily: I forgot to tell you that we believe swear words with cat mouse.

DeVon: That’s good.

Emily: That’ll be fun.

Wow. Yeah, damn.

DeVon: Yeah.

Andrew: I’m just basking in everything you just said, and I don’t have anything. I could possibly add to that.

Emily: I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to follow that.

DeVon: There’s a real funny, you guys are funny though. Like it’s it’s you guys have like an interesting, like a kind of chemistry, very radio. I would say

Emily: not a, not shock jock radio. I hope.

It’s always funny. Every, every guitar podcast has a different vibe and there are a few that kind of just remind me a little bit of like, Not car talk, but like shock jock stuff. Like with the sound effects, you know, like, like this one or this one,

DeVon: how

Andrew: would

DeVon: you have felt if I had just started

Emily: playing that? Is that really? It’s like, okay. It’s time to the playing. Somebody off music

is funny.

DeVon: A man

Andrew: show to tell embarrassing stories and you’re getting no personal. We’re just going to play you off now. Come

Emily: on. Embarrassing stories. You’re the only one with MBA. I don’t get, I get embarrassed so much. I, yeah, I’ve like refilled entire demos because I didn’t like the way my hair looked or my pants were.

Andrew: I’ve got, I mean, I guess you could say I have embarrassing stories. I typically just call them stories.

DeVon: What’s this

Emily: pull up, pull up, pull up. There you go. It seems like that’s what she wanted.

DeVon: That’s

Andrew: not exactly what I was going for,

DeVon: but I mean, I’ll take it.

Emily: Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, yeah, it’s just, I feel like. The sign of a good conversation.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m still ruminating on everything you just said, but. Like, I really liked the points about how the history books change, but the art really remains the same. And just how, like we remember things differently or incorrectly, like little, like things like Martin Luther King jr. Was not universally loved in his lifetime.

I mean, he had a very low approval rate. The CIA called the most dangerous man in America. And now we, I think probably rightfully look back at, you know, all, [01:10:00] all the good he did, but it’s not how it was in history. And this is how we look back on it. And I think we can still look back on, like you said, the music of that time, it’s still widely regarded well-regarded today.

People still sing those songs. People still sample those songs. And with some, with few exceptions, like it’s, nobody looks back on that and cringes, especially like some of, I don’t know, I really could do with never having to hear the song, the ballot of the green Baret again,

DeVon: but,

Emily: you know,

DeVon: that song I haven’t heard.

Yeah. It’s. So

Emily: how was that a hit song or? I think I’ve talked about this song before on the podcast, there was a hit country song in 1960, like a top 10 hit country song called sun. Don’t go near the Indians. It’s somehow worse than the title implies. How would it, how could it be worse? It is it’s so bad.

I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t how,

Andrew: I mean,

Emily: country music was weird in the sixties. It was often good. Like Marty Robbins, love, blah, blah, blah,

Andrew: blah. In the sixties.

DeVon: A,

Andrew: so I thinking about, I was going to say I’m marinating on what you just said, but that’s probably just because I’m hungry. I’m pondering, in a less food-related way.

DeVon: And

Andrew: it’s reminded me. So I, I’m a religious guy and it’s reminding me of, of this concept in, of we’re created as human beings, one in the image of God.

and too is one of our deepest desires is to know, and to be known. And as I’m listening to you kind of talk about like that, that inner driving purpose and what you’re doing things for. And. The self revelation that comes with music and how beautiful all of that is. I’m just finding myself called back to that, to that concept and religious or not for anyone listening.

I mean, I think that

Emily: only the desire to be known as explicit said religion.

Andrew: I don’t think it’s exclusive to religion. I think that’s a fairly universal concept. That’s just that, that’s my, my jumping point for where I get that from and how w. My at least my starting point for how that informs my world view my perspective on that kind of look

DeVon: we’ll go

Emily: ahead and have the fear of being misunderstood at the same time,

DeVon: but yeah. You know, and it’s far, far too often, we, we like. You know, when you, when you get to a point. And I think the biggest problem that we make as, as, as human being is constantly like labeling. Labeling things and making certain things exclusive, you know, to, to a certain group or a certain practice without realizing that like we should all have those things, you know, like a lot of, moral stances that you find in the, in the, in, in the Bibles and a, and even in the Koran.

you, you, you realized that like, these are things that we, we do do already, you know, regardless of, of what you, what you believe, you know, like, you know, these things, they embody us as well. you know, so, and I. Yeah, we do. We only do a disservice to ourselves and creating these barriers that separate us, creating things that like, are exclusively for, for them ex you know, it’s just division is the greatest evil that exists within humanity.

And even amongst artists, of course, but like far too often, these paradoxical situations are, you know, In injected into our social norms, ano and these situations by their very nature. Have facts on either side of perspectives, you know, and no clear solution. So instead of us, as a society, trying to arrive at an echelon to where we talk about solutions, where we compromise, we argue over perspectives, you know?

And, and that’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine. I mean, but. That’s how they, that’s kind of more or less how they get us. And I don’t want to sound like a, you know, but they, you know, I say they in lieu of saying like either the government, the one percenters or by virtue of this machine that we ourselves have created, they, this is what they do and how they keep us, you know, under their dump film is by creating, you know, division, you know, so I think it, and I kind of.

As a music as a musician, as artists, as we are, you know, it’s like we have to, we have to [01:15:00] realize that like, in very much, in so many ways, yes we are. We are there and living in the real world, but I, in a lot of ways, we’re kind of a part from that, you know? Cause when you look back on like the, even the civil rights movements and things like that, and you see how like.

You know, white bands had black artists with them, black musicians with them for the time, you know, and even before that, you know, but they were able to kind of like, There existed that fraternity of commonality of creating, regardless of what, like their social standings were in, regardless of what their perspective was regarding other races, you know, like I’ve been in rooms with people who like, should not like each other, but because we’re musicians, because we have this thing in common, you know, like, We have this and that makes that unite.

So in a way that like a lot of the social darkness and practices would never allow for, so, you know, it’s, I don’t know, division is one thing. it exists, it will always exist. but you know, artists have to still kind of. Kind of just still create, you know, like right now.

Andrew: Well, I think it’s, I, I would agree in going as far as to say it’s a moral imperative.

DeVon: Oh yeah. Oh yes. I think it, I really, I think it is, you know, like I see you on social media and I don’t ever, I never, I never put my political or religious values out there on social media. I mean, I’m all for having a chat with close friends or anyone in my DMS who want it, who asked my viewpoint on certain things.

I’m okay with doing that, but I won’t put it out there, but like you, you get to see though has how many artists, you know, are like voicing. Yeah know their perspectives with things and that’s important, like, yes, sure. Voice your, your opinions on these, these truths or these needs, but like still create. And like, we got a responsibility.

We got to pull double duty. Yeah. We have to make sure that we’re. Standing up for social inequities and things like that, but like, yeah, you still have to create like, especially in times like this man, it’s so important to create it. Like if you have it in you to create something that appropriately reflects these times, do it and put it up because like in 20 years, like who knows what.

Society will do to, to this, you know, like to what we’re, what what’s happening in the world right now, they may change at all. Like, you know, and, and it’s yeah.

Emily: Yeah. I, I do worry about what his history books are gonna are going to say about different things. I mean, they tend to oversimplify things for sure, but.

Yeah. You can see the complexities in the art.

DeVon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s I think that’s where it’s true. And because a song, it has a, has a catchy chorus, you know, regardless of what people believe, you know, they’re, they’re still gonna sing that song. You know, I just learned that, the popular ice cream, the, the song that the ice cream trucks play was a racist song,

Emily: for

DeVon: no a watermelon it’s a watermelon song.

It was a watermelon song and it was, yeah. So the ice cream companies. Yeah. Like a, yeah, like one of those popular songs, I forget exactly which, which one it is, but it’s the most popular one. The most basic one you hear, it was a song. It was a song that they may, It was a, it was some sort of water, watermelon song and it was made specific.

My God. Yes.

Emily: Sorry. I just looked up the lyrics. Wow. That is very racist.

DeVon: Yes.

Emily: Yeah. It’s not even, that’s not just a little bit racist. That’s extremely racist. Oh my God.

DeVon: Right. So

Andrew: just pulled up an NPR article from 2014 on this and

Emily: that same article.

Andrew: This article is about a viral, gently racist song. Read no further,

DeVon: if you wish to avoid

Andrew: racist imagery and slurs.

And it just, it, it good. God.

DeVon: Right. So it’s, it’s funny how, like that came out so long ago. And it’s an, I mean, but you know, that is there in lies, like, you know, the opposite, the opposite. you know what, while that is the proof that music will last and because it’s catchy, we kind of give it a pass. That is that.

[01:20:00] While that is the proof of that. You know, that also too is like, you know, shows that like it can be used for, for, for evil as well. so it’s, you know, it’s, but it hasn’t changed. You still hear it on ice cream trucks and they don’t even know a lot of times, like nine times out of 10. They’re like, yeah, this is catchy.

This is catchy song. I’m gonna put this on. We’re going to blast this. And, without knowing what it really means. Yeah.

Emily: Oh man. See, I just thought it was Turkey in the straw, which is probably also not good.

It seems to literally be about turkeys. So.

I mean, just to be clear, like the written lyrics in it are kind of written in that dialogue. That’s like whoever wrote this was certainly racist.

DeVon: The implication is there.

Emily: I mean, anytime you have D E instead of T H E in an old song, I think that that was probably a minstrel song. And that’s minstrel is like that’s racist stuff

Andrew: too.

DeVon: Oh, wait.

Andrew: Wow. What a history we have. That’s barely even history at this point.

DeVon: I

Emily: like how it has racist versions as if the original version doesn’t seem pretty damn racist.

DeVon: Wow.

Andrew: Imagine what that I, with a meeting with the eye. The record exact sort of been like for that, you know, the equivalent was like, Hey, so we like the song, but you gotta make some changes.

Sign it. Say it’s not racist enough, not wrong.

Emily: I was just watching the documentary 13th last night and just, Oh my God,

DeVon: just

Emily: so blatant the racism. And then it just like getting sneakier and sneakier and sneakier it hasn’t gone away. It’s just gotten sneaky.

DeVon: Well, you know, will Smith said something very interesting in profound really?

And he said that racism hasn’t changed. It hasn’t gotten worse. It hasn’t gotten better. It’s just being filmed now. And, but, I don’t know. Yeah.

Emily: Police brutality, especially.

DeVon: You mean amongst other?

Andrew: I think that the wild thing to me is thinking about how significant, the idea that it needed to have been filmed for people to start really taking it seriously and start believing.

It just

DeVon: kind of

Andrew: rattles my brain in ways that make me painfully aware of the sort of privilege that I’ve got. And I just that’s. That hurts the empath in me. If I, if I can call back to that,

DeVon: just thinking that like,

Andrew: if something, any, any number of these things that happened to me, like, I wouldn’t have even needed a video to get someone to believe me.

And we’ve got this entire society. That’s finally just now coming around and it just chunks of our society. It’s going like, wait a minute, this has been happening. That’s not

DeVon: okay.

Andrew: And then there’s on the other side of that. There’s still people going, Oh, well we don’t have all the facts. I’m like, it’s on video.

Are you kidding me?

Emily: At a point, people just don’t want to, they don’t want to think about things. They don’t want to believe them, and they don’t want to change their own behaviors or have their own thought processes challenged. And I think that I read someone said the other day that, you know, someone’s telling you that something that you’re doing is racist, sexist, homophobic.

it’s an act of love when they’re calling you out, because it means they think that you have the capacity to change and that you want to.

DeVon: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s really a hard, it’s a hard thing. And I think the reason why, like, people tend to not believe certain accusations is because if you, if you agree with those accusations, then you’re basically saying that like, yeah, my people are like this.

My, my people are. Mean and hateful and do this. It’s, it’s a weird thing because like, especially for our generation, you know, in particular where we weren’t, we, none of us were brought up racist, for the most part. And I mean, it’s being, being racist, you know, for, for our generation was wildly unpopular to, to, to the point to where, like, you’ve got a lot of great, you know, closet racists and things like that, but even so.

Like, our generation weren’t brought up to be that way. And when, when a, when a white person hears that, like, That one of their own is doing this. Then like they take it personally, you know, like they, they kind of internalize it. They make it it’s, it’s, it’s more like it’s an assault on, [01:25:00] on, on, on them, you know, without realizing that you yourself are responsible for yourself, you are an individual.

And, you know, like, You know, the fraternity that you, that, that you, that you should dwell in, it’s not necessarily the one that’s dictated by your, by your skin color. You know, it has nothing to do with you personally, that there are people out there who tend to marginalize other people and treat people unfairly.

But it is you, it is yours as a, as a, as a, as a, as a moral. Human being to stand up for any atrocities that exist in the same sense that like, if we’re sitting at a dinner table and a big man stands up and punches a woman in a face, like we’re all going to be like, Hey man, what are you doing? We are going to fight for this woman.

We’re going to do what we have to do. Like, I mean, that’s part of the way that we were raised and we have to. Have the capacity to do that for small micro racism things, you know, like you’re at a dinner table and a friend or a family member says something provocative, you know, with regard to race, you know, like in the same sense, it, since you would stand up for that woman, you should stand up for, for, for, for whomever.

So it’s just, we’re just trying to get to society, I guess, to the point to where realizing that like, you know, Racism from a more moral stances is, is wrong. And we, we should kind of stand up for everybody equally, you know, it’s all rights matter all lives matter. Black lives matter. It’s, it’s important to realize though, too, for the people who, who, who push forward all lives matter.

It’s important to, for them in particular, to realize that like, Their point is valid and it’s, but it’s like, All lives matter is the book, you know, is the title of the book, but black lives matter is the chapter we’re on right now. You know, next week, next week, next month it’ll be Spanic lives matter.

Sure. It can be Caucasian lives matter. Asian lives matter. Native lives matter, especially them. Like, I mean, the things that are happening to them in this country right now is just. Ridiculous, but like, you know, do do the right thing because like something within you, cause for you to do it, not necessarily because social media or anything like that, or the media at large says that you need to do it, do it because it’s within you have the capacity to be a good person, and do it for that reason alone, because the reality is, is.

The media and politics, you know, they’ll, they will use our anger as a vehicle to fuel their own agendas. But if you’re doing it for the right reason, then like it. It’ll have a lasting effect on your lineage. And that’s the most important thing. Like if you’re, if you’re of the age where you’ve got children or you want to have children, really the best thing that you can do for society is to instill a better sense of value in and to them and, you know, and just do things for the right reason.

I’ll just do it for the sake of doing it. Just do it for yourself, I guess. Yeah,

Emily: collectivism over individualism in some ways too,

DeVon: and

Emily: say, I’m sorry, all the, that demo that you did, where you read that poem. And it was, it talked about old, old men planting trees, the shade of which they’ll never enjoy.

DeVon: Yeah, that’s that one?

I think, the, the original, so I think in, in, in, in my poem and my, my version of that poem, I said that, I said, it’s a great thing, indeed. When old man, when old men plant seeds for trees who shade, they will never need. I think the original version of it said something a little bit different and it’s, it’s a, it’s a Greek proverb or philosophy or quote it’s it’s originalism Greek one, and the wording is slightly different, but the meaning is the same that like, you know, You know how, you know, old men planting seeds and things like that.

It’s, it’s like, We have to kind of realize, and I mean, even still, this goes back to the whole musician thing, being an artist thing that like, you know, like our responsibility is, is to create, you know, like in the same sense, like old men plant seeds for trees, you know, like they’re never going to enjoy the shade [01:30:00] from that tree, nor will they actually be able to enjoy the fruit that will.

Bloom from, from century. They’ll never enjoy that, but they do it because it needs to be done. They do it because others will be able to reap the benefit of it. And like, as artists there exists, no greater responsibility they then to create. Yeah. Do all of the other stuff that we’re required to do, pay your bills.

ILS and, you know, stand up for whatever your political or ideological values are, but at the same time, man, create, cause not everyone can do it, you know, like. What is it in you that, that, that, that, you know, was it by virtue of causality or, you know, some great angelic architect who, who invested this in you, whatever it was, whatever it was there.

If it’s just some sort of biological imperative that’s pulled from like great you’re great lineage. And then all of a sudden you have it, regardless of whatever it is, wherever it comes from. You have to create in the same sense, the old men plant seeds for, for trees who seeds who’s, you know, who’s true.

They’ll never enjoy the fruit or the shade from those things, but they do it. So it’s just, we have to do that, you know, so yeah, man, just. I don’t know it. And that’s been something that’s kind of been sticking in my craw, like it just in me, but it’s just been in my, in, in my spirit, since everything has, is, has, has been happening and unfolding and just the terrible things happening.

And like for a long time, there are like, Creatively. I felt stifled. I didn’t want to talk about pedals. You know, when, when these terrible horrific things were happening in the world, like it seems silly. It seems silly. Talk about guitar, pedals, making videos and blue gloves and things like that and covering my hands.

And I don’t know, it seems silly, but at the same time though, it took me a minute to realize that like, There exists, no greater responsibility than to deny than to deny your purpose, regardless of circumstances, regardless to what’s happening in the world. Like, again, I’m not saying that you should not be standing up for, for whatever your values are, do it still do it, but you’ve got the responsibility as, as someone who was, this was created in like two.

To surrender to that as well. You have to create, you know, and, it took me a long time to kinda like figure that out to like, you know, move past that within my myself, you know, cause I didn’t want to do anything. And then, and then I did, and then I started filling, filling, filling better about, you know, the world at large and realizing that like, you know, you.

You may never, you may not have the effect, on society now with your art. It might just be something that like much like Edgar Allen Poe, it might be something that will spark something in someone else. Like, I mean, even if, even if in your art, you save one person, you know what I mean? I say, save in a broad term.

Like it can mean anything, you know? Sometimes it may be like, you’re just, when you put something out there, like you’re giving people just a break from like the harshness of reality. And that’s the greatest gift that like artists have, you know, is to give the world a break from itself because it insists upon itself.

But. When you create things and you create this thing from the unknown, you put a certain amount of that energy into it. And the rest of the world who sees it, who are patrons of the arts, they’re afforded that, you know, and no, they they’re a void. They get a sense of what that is. And I believe wholeheartedly that there exists an energy and everything, and somehow.

Or another artist we, we are in tune with, you know, set energy like this, this thing that we can do, you know, so right. Don’t deny it. Yeah. Just do it. I mean,

Andrew: I, I definitely resonate. I mean, I, I’m a parent and I resonate with that a lot as I’m kind of wrestling my brain, like, well, what is, how do I handle this?

Well, how do I look at this? And the thought that I’ve had kind of in the last week is. Hearing all of these people,

cut. Bring up this word heritage, and I’m sitting here, like it’s a relatively agnostic [01:35:00] word in of itself, but the way it’s been used as charged with it with some sort of a pride in the actions of people that have come before us and running with

Emily: that, I grew up around southerners who would claim that as heritage, heritage.

And trash.

Andrew: It’s a twofold. Well, it’s a twofold thing cause I’m sitting here and he’s like, okay, if that’s of all the heritage in this country, I mean, it’s that going to be? The one that you’re proud of for one, even for two, thinking for myself, looking forward down the line is like in terms of planting seeds reminded me of this is when people, a generation or two down from me are claiming the word heritage, what is, what, how are they going to define it?

And I kind of left with that kind of thought resonating in my head of how do I not necessarily retake the word for the sake of the word itself, but in terms of redefining what we want our ancestors to be proud of us for. And I think right now, our country, the people who are pulling the heritage Carter really like really that’s, this is how you’re going to play that card.

All right. I mean, bold move cotton. Yeah. But it’s not going to play out and

DeVon: Dodge ball.

It seems

Andrew: so silly for them to be pulling this card right now. And I’m so confused as to what

DeVon: part of that

Andrew: they’re, they’re prideful in and not confused and in as much as I’m not sure they’re being honest and what parts they’re prideful. And I think the rest of us are seeing right through the nonsense going on.

Sure. That’s the part we all know that you’re just prideful about the racism and. I don’t want that to be the way that heritage is used years down the road. I think artists have a unique ability to help redefine what that legacy is moving forward for our generation. I think that’s the potential behind that brings chills and goosebumps.

the idea that we, we as artists have that capability to hijack that entirely for the greater

DeVon: good. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, and, and, you know, and I mean, I I’m, I too, I’m a parent and I’ve got a little, a little guy and, and a stepdaughter and it’s a, it’s like, the S sometimes the best thing that we can do, you know, One, of course, obviously, you know, create, put stuff out there, but at the same time, like you have to fully like educate and that’s the one thing is unbiasedly educate.

And I think that’s one of the things that like, our parent or parents of this generation didn’t necessarily do for us because they themselves were like, We’re not racist people. We’re just trying to live our lives. But in one hand, that’s our greatest strength because a lot of us don’t really necessarily like see color.

It’s just, there’s just people out there we’re just living. but at the same time though, Especially, for, for, for whites, because you weren’t brought up racist or brought up in a racist home, you don’t really know what, like those small micro racism things are. You don’t know what, what it means. What, when someone has a, when someone, when you’re at a dinner table and someone says something, you know, that’s racist and whatever, you kind of give it, you give it a pass.

You’re like, yeah, my uncle he’s just. Whatever, but like the best thing we can do for our children is to completely inform them of the state of things and let them know in the same sense. Again, going back to what I said earlier, in the same sense we teach our children to stand up for like, Certain injustices or certain like, you know, like moral imperatives, like we have to make, you know, races, racist things.

We have to let them know that like, this is not okay. You know, and for a lot of, and that’s, and I think that that’s where a lot of white people kind of are having a problem with nowadays is because their parents didn’t tell them like, Hey, that’s not okay. They just didn’t tell him anything. And they think that like, I don’t, I’m not a hateful person.

I love everybody. Like, you know it and it’s just. We were done. We were kind of done a wrong and a right at the same time.

Emily: I think that the intentions were probably good, but it didn’t get there.

DeVon: No, they had no way of knowing that no way of knowing. And the situations here in America, I’ve kind of created a perfect storm.

You know, there’s the, there was the fact that like, we ourselves weren’t really appropriately taught about racism. we weren’t, we weren’t taught it. So we don’t know what it looks like. And we didn’t understand that certain, the landscape of things were changing. We didn’t know that from an education standpoint, they were changing the books and we, you know, they were kind of like [01:40:00] watering down a lot of things that had happened.

We didn’t know, our parents didn’t know that it would change like this. We didn’t know that the police would operate in the way that they are operating. We didn’t know that that would happen. And. So it was hard for them to kind of like have that kind of foresight when parenting, they just thought teach our children to love and that’s, and that’s enough.

And it’s a beautiful sentiment. And in a way, it, it did help. It has helped because you’ve got now a lot of, you know, white people who are open to the idea that like, Yeah, this was wrong. We need to stand up for this and it, and so to our parents’ credit. they did give us the tools to, to, to, to realize that like we should all equally be on the same playing field.

And, you know, we have to, we kind of have to address these situations. So, I mean, there is a lot of good that’s kind of came from what that generation has left us, but at the same time now we’re realizing that for our generation, the greatest gift we can live for the. The greatest thing we can do is to prepare the next generation and that comes by educating them on biasly you know, so, and again, creating if you’re an artist, you know, like do that.

Andrew: Oh yeah. I mean, I, I appreciate the positivity you see in what, our parents’ generation tried to instill in them. And in that sense. And I think my challenge to folks who resonate with that is when you, when you hear the, when you start hearing the examples of how the world that you thought existed, doesn’t really exist that way.

yes, the answer should be okay. Well, how do we fix this? And what I’m seeing a lot of people do is it’s a knee jerk reaction of nah, That’s not, that’s not the way the world is. I understand it.

DeVon: And it kind of kicks back

Andrew: into a, I don’t want to accept that, this kind of general sentiment, that everything that I’ve known as a lie.

And kind of just shell up and, and just kind of try to shut it all out. And I guess what I would want to see less of, I don’t want to see that. I want to see people respond in a okay, well, this is the world that I thought that existed. That sounds really cool. But now I’m seeing all of the ways in which that doesn’t really work that way.

My response is I want to deconstruct that and I want to, to rebuild the world that I thought existed.

DeVon: Well, and that’s and that’s, and that’s a, that’s a beautiful thing. I think the reason why most people don’t arrive at that echelon is because like the, the way that social media, the, the, just the, the way social media, like ensures that there’s always going to be something that supports your narrative.

Like, I mean, if you think about it, like the internet, every website, you go, go on. Charts, you know, you know, cookies and things like that. And they’ll advertise to you where you’ve been it for, for a lot of American, specifically white Americans, who, who have like a lot of conservatives and their family, you think like, think about it like this.

So for Facebook, for example, right, you, you friend, all of your family member, right. And. If all of your family members there, they’re conservatives there, you know, in there. Big Donald Trump fans. You’re going to see that in your feed a lot, you know, and the, the way the cookies, the cookies on the internet work and stuff like that.

It’s going to keep showing you more of that. every other sites you go on, you know, it’s going to show you things related to that everywhere you go. There is now something that supports your narrative the way you want to live. Your life advertisement is. Based off of where you’ve been on the internet.

So it keeps giving you this, right? So you continually have. Justification for your narrative. There exists nothing else. So that’s why we have so many people who have hard line stances, who, people who believe that, no, this is the world I live in, because guess what? It very much is the world that they live in.

It goes back to what I was saying earlier that like, whoever it is, if it’s the media or if it’s, if it’s the. Government, if it’s a 1% or so of the one percenters, or even by virtue of the machine that we’ve created these paradoxical situations or are, or interject injected into our, our, our main stream lives.

And on opposite on every side of this thing that’s been put in here, there’s facts to support every perspective, you know, So we argue over perspective, [01:45:00] you know, like we, we, without arriving at an echelon of like compromise, you know, none of us say that like, none of us want to say that, like, I understand why white nationalists have this perspective.

We think that in saying that we understand it, we give justification to it. Like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s important to, to understand that there are a certain amount of facts on either side of these arguments. There are. And we lean on them. You know, we lean on them heavily and the internet just kind of keeps continually giving us things that support this lifestyle.

And then you’ve got these people on opposing sides saying, I don’t understand why these people don’t see this point. I don’t understand why they don’t see this point. I just saw this, I read this thing and it popped up on, on YouTube. A video popped up on YouTube explaining this, and I don’t understand why they don’t understand these facts, but like.

The system is designed to, it’s designed to keep you like social media is designed to keep you there longer. So it gives you things based off of what you’ve seen or based off of the things that your people, people, your friends and family seen, like suggested things, you know? So it’s like it’s an echo chamber.

Exactly.

Emily: Exactly. It’s amazing. It’s amazing how quickly someone can become radicalized on social media. And just from other kinds of similar media, like I have a friend who her whole life has been liberal and feminist and all this stuff. And all of a sudden, like I’m seeing tweets that she likes and they’re like Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, and really like alarming kind of how quickly this happened.

This happened over the period of.

DeVon: All right. And it’s, you know, you think back to like, to, to Nazi Germany, you know, when Hitler, you know, indoctrinated a lot of the, just the Germans to his side, like when you really think about it, did everybody, he pulled into, they all have like an innate interest in like, you know, killing Jewish people and, and doing.

That the terrible things, boiling people, you know, the weird, like he had an entire army of men who were devoted to his cause to his narrative and they themselves didn’t all need. We have it, it was not built into them, but like, Because it was what they seen and continually saw. And it was because he spoke so, so beautifully and with, you know, like

Emily: fear and they were doing poorly economically, and it’s just like all of this, I, I, I can just watch 13th last night, just playing how playing off of people’s fears created this whole prison.

Industrial complex people were afraid and making them more afraid is. You know how the right has traditionally won elections. It’s been largely like, I just want to be safe. I don’t want my family to be safe. And then playing off of these kind of implicit biases that people have, especially of, you know, black and Brown people.

Andrew: Well, I would say the, the, the fear aspect definitely plays to both sides of the aisle. in terms of wanting to,

DeVon: to be safe,

Andrew: and fearing for the safety of your family.

DeVon: Exactly. And that’s that’s 100% like, you know, there’s there’s, there are great things that have happened from the right. There are great things that have happened from the left.

We. Where we go wrong is in believing that one is one exclusively is right. And one is, and that’s the same thing. It’s the same thing with religion. It’s the same thing with anything of value is putting is, is, is segregating. It is like saying that this thing entirely alone apart is good without realizing like when we make, when we, when we make those arguments, like the right does this and the left does this, like.

Therein lies again, arguing perspectives, instead of talking about what the solution is. And here’s an interesting thing though, too, like, Republican Republican and conservative values are inherently values that have always been instilled into African-Americans. It wasn’t until like the era of Nixon that things more or less kind of changed.

Malcolm X said something extremely interesting in an interview in the sixties, a reporter asked him. What do you think? Don’t you think it’s a great what the Democrats are doing for, for, for the, for the black man in America and Malcolm X said plainly, there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in America.

He says, The only difference between them is the Democrats have gotten better at lying to, to, to the black man, but make no mistake. We are [01:50:00] all, all of us pawns on a board to be shuffled about. And he said, he said that about Democrats and. I never knew why he said that or what the meeting was for, but when you actually go back and study the history, it was Democrats that actually, it was, it was the democratic movement that actually funded, you know, the, the, the Confederates during the civil war.

And it wasn’t until like the, the Nixon era that they became more popular. They became like, Liberal and, and things of that nature, but like to say that, and I’m neither, if anyone’s interested, I’d never try to tell people what I am or anything like that. I’m, I’m, I’m neither, I’m just some, some guy who plays with guitars and it’s, yeah.

And it’s just, we have to realize though, even as artists that we. Are somehow we are not, we’re not always altogether a part of all of that, you know, like it’s, I mean, we are in the sense that like we’re real life people living in the real life world, and we have to, you know, Be good to one another, but like, we have to make sure that we don’t allow like those type of opposing narratives to introject themselves too much.

And, and us in what we do. Like, I mean, it’s just, yeah, but like, but at the same time though, too, you have to kind of put a cap on it. You have to realize that like, You know, there is no one truth. People say that there is one truth, but in most of these situations that are interjected into society, they’re done.

So because like they, they want us to argue over these things and they’ve done it since the Roman empire, you know, during the Roman empire. People who were starving on the streets, impoverished and being overtaxed. You know, the Roman empire realized that the only that they realized that like that. That the people out numbered the politicians and even the army, it’s like, you know, two or three to one, they realized that if the people up Rose, then like, then they would be like, shit.

They would be crap out of luck. So what they, what they did was they gave them the gladiators. They gave them something to fixate on, you know, and while some people sided with the gladiators, you know, like the, you know, in, in some side of with them, and then they, you know, But that was what they did. And they were able, they were successful for a few hundred years, doing that, you know?

And, the only reason why, like, they were eventually overtook was because like, they kind of became complacent and not complacent. They just. They kind of came, became too full of themselves. Like, this is enough, what we’ve given them, this is enough. This will keep them. But now it’s like, as a society, like the reason why, like they still keep us, they still got us is because like, w they’re constantly interjecting new things.

Now we’re arguing over Kobe. And then, then now race relations, we’re arguing over that. And then before that it was, you know, like it was just. Well being hit with so many things so often that it’s just, you can’t be bored with any with it. I mean, you can not bored. I’m sorry. That’s that’s such the wrong.

That’s a wrong word. It’s just, we can’t. We’re never afforded a break to just unite. It’s just create more opposition has created and then another one and then another one and then another one, and then another one.

Andrew: And we appreciate and value your opinion and really appreciate you taking the time out of the morning, we are like an hour password.

Our normal format is, and I think

I’ve been happy to have the conversation.

Emily: It’s been nice to talk to people,

DeVon: for sure.

Andrew: I miss intelligent conversations with, with real human beings. For sure.

DeVon: You guys can edit this in post, right? Like you guys can probably chop off most of this. Like I think,

Emily: Oh, I signed it for crosstalk and swear words.

And then.

DeVon: And then

Andrew: removing me from the episode entirely. I’m sure.

Emily: Yeah,

DeVon: that one’s pretty easy,

Andrew: right? That’s just the wedding attrac fastest edit ever to improve an episode. Thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate it. in 30 seconds or less, where can people find you and your art?

DeVon: so you can find me at Devon blue Whitaker on, both Instagram, and YouTube for, for demos. If you’re interested in what my music is like, you can find me on Spotify and Apple music [01:55:00] iTunes as a. Boy, Indigo. So that’s why I’m at. Nice. All

Andrew: right. Thank you so much for, for joining us today. It’s been a lovely conversation.

left me a lot of words to marinate in now that we’re getting closer to lunchtime and thing than to go eat something and

DeVon: continue to sit on that. To all of our listeners,

Andrew: we’ve got a Pateron, please consider giving us even just a dollar a month would make a huge difference. We’d really appreciate it.

also

Emily: more helpful.

I think it’s $5 you get into the super secret patron trap.

Andrew: Right, right. And a right as a review in iTunes by some merch, follow us on Instagram, all the good stuff. You know what to do.

DeVon: Thanks for listening.

Andrew: Thanks for understanding. My name is Andrew.

Emily: I’m Emily.

DeVon: Bye.

Emily: Bye