He Didn't Like the Soup

What's your biggest swing and miss? Join Skrizz and Adam as they talk about the biggest swing and miss for Skrizz, and how he went from making 5 songs in a year to making 5 songs in a week.

Transcript

Adam   0:02
Talking music, building businesses, and their crit in the journey. We're Skrizz and Adam and welcome to The Rise.

Skrizz   0:19
And we are live. Adam, how are you doing?

Adam   0:21
I am doing good, but I do have a question for you.

Skrizz   0:23
Hit me up, let's go.

Adam   0:24
Are you a baseball guy? This is not my question. Are you a baseball guy?

Skrizz   0:27
Not a baseball guy at all. I actually never play the game, I play kickball which is not baseball. I'm bad at kickball so if I played baseball I imagine I'd be terrible, like no contact.

Adam   0:40
So if you were a baseball fan this would be a baseball reference, but since you're a huge kickball fan this would be more of a kickball reference to you.

Skrizz   0:45
Okay, sure. I'm not a kickball fan. I'm saying bad at kickball which means but transitive or whatever property, I'm terrible at baseball.

Adam   0:54
That sounds good to me. Honestly, I can not imagine you being good at baseball but anyway, so in baseball, obviously when you swing the bat you want to will hit the ball obviously.

Skrizz   01:01
That's cool. Well, I swing the bat.

Adam   01:03
But what I want to ask you though, when you swing and you miss, it's not a good feeling. Tell me about a big swing and miss that you've had.

Skrizz   01:11
Got you. Biggest swing and miss. Well, I'm sure if it was playing baseball that would be a big swing and miss. Wait, so in music.

Adam   01:17
If you fall down. If you would. For baseball fans, if you swing and you miss and you fall down, that's as embarrassing as it comes. What's your version of that.

Skrizz   01:23
Okay, so the what's my, what's my swing miss fall.

Adam   01:24
Like what is your version of that.

Skrizz   01:25
My swing, miss, and fall down. I have one obvious one but give me a sec. I feel like there might be a couple here. I feel like there are too late, like kind of lying in the. It's actually both flops for the same reasons the more I think about it actually. For me, the big one was my debut Skrizzly project: Stains. Stains took 5 years to make. Took my life savings to make.

Adam   01:58
Five years?

Skrizz   01:59
Took five years to make, five songs, now I make 5 songs in a week.

Adam   02:05
Would that because you were trying to be such a perfectionist on it or?

Skrizz   02:07
It was a perfectionist, but also the fact that that's how I learned how to make records. I didn't have a fucking idea what I was doing. It's so different man, I look back and it's like when I'm guiding a mixer, I'm guiding additional production like, I'm razor-sharp now. I know exactly what to tell the person I'm working with to get what I want and back then I just didn't. I'm just like this is wrong, I don't know to communicate how to get it right. You know what I mean? I was so fucking difficult and that was also with me with myself, it's like I'm making records and I'm like this is wrong, how do I make it right? Also, I wasn't a good singer, I didn't even fucking sing at that time. So I was like we're recording it over and over again to get it sound right. It sounds great now.

Adam   02:51
Alright. Time out, time out. When you say you didn't know how to sing.

Skrizz   02:55
I really didn't start singing until when I was in my twenties.

Adam   02:58
When you were like 16, were you really good at singing happy birthday? And you're like, I actually have a pretty good voice. Or like, have you ever seen people were like, you know.

Skrizz   03:03
Saying like bands and like I'd sing, but like, it wasn't the thing like, like the guitar solo was six times longer than me saying, Hey or some shit, you know what I mean? So like singing, wasn't really the thing. And at that point in my life, I really wanted to pursue production, but I just kind of stumbled in the fact that my voice sounded good over my production and whatever, but in short there's just so much effort put into it. And then I brought so many people on to help me. And it created like, I mean, essentially, even after it was released, they created such a huge industry buzz, you know, where I got like a massive record deal and all this stuff happened. But the truth of the matter is when it came, I'd get more streams probably in two minutes than I got the first two years. It's like insane. You know what I mean?

Adam   03:57
In a stream, so that everyone's clear and so I'm clear. That's literally someone just clicking and playing your song. So when I'm driving over and I put on foolish. Shout out to foolish. Great song.

Skrizz   04:11
Exactly. So it's like, it's, it's like, for me, it's like, you know, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and there are other things like Deezer and whatever you accumulate all those together. Like, what I get in two minutes is way bigger than what I was getting in a year. And it was just such a heartbreaking thing to see. I think we've talked about in another episode where we will talk about another episode is that like just wasn't support and there wasn't a vehicle for it. And obviously, streaming is different now because streaming is just now so much bigger, but there was just like, there was just no consumption. Um, there was just no consumption. It just wasn't, it wasn't selling there. Wasn't selling millions of records. I sure as hell wanted it to go platinum, but it didn't

Adam   04:51
Was that disappointment more of like, you put all this time into it, all this money in it, you got people involved into it. I'm sure like your family, friends.

Skrizz   04:59
The buzz was so big. The industry, I've never seen an industry buzz like that ever since. It was such a big buzz around this revolutionary sound. And then what it commercially, what did it amount to, was really nothing

Adam   05:07
And, and was it the fact that like, was it getting picked up by radio stations or.

Skrizz   05:14
It wasn't even, I wasn't doing anything. Nothing. Like nothing, like remember like my ANR at Atlantic saying like, you know what this was about to release. Like, so you're just looking at who's posting it and then make relationships with those people. I'm talking like him. And I'm like, I'm like, bro, you don't get it. Nobody's posting it. Like you're missing the point.

Adam   05:32
Did anyone give you negative feedback like it's not working because of this?

Skrizz   05:36
No, That was the main fucking issue.

Adam   05:39
So nobody was even like, Hey, sorry man. But like, we don't like that. You sound like this or.

Skrizz   05:46
No, I remember one of the heads and I don't even know why we played it to the head of urban because we thought like someone played the tipping point for the head of urban at Spotify. And he's like, I tasted the soup. I don't like the soup. First of all, it's the wrong person to be playing it for. Second of all, what don't you like about the soup? He's like, just don't like the soup. He had to like the soup analogy. And I was like, it's kind of fire analogy. It's of like, I don't need to eat the whole soup to no, I don't like the soup. I'm like, okay. More power to you. I mean, since then the record's gone on the dude's thing. Um, but yeah, I think that was an interesting one. And then fast forward a couple of years I released another EP. It just goes to show, I shouldn't be making EPs.

Adam   06:28
What is an EP?

Skrizz   06:29
It's like four or five songs.

Adam   06:30
So basically, a small album?

Skrizz   06:32
A smaller album, you drop it all at once. And uh, I made a concept album, the Atlantic city beat, which like my fans love and I love, I think it's awesome. I play the whole thing live all the time, all the way through. We did it in Boston all the time, all the time. I think we did it in Boston regularly before it was out.

Adam   06:45
We had that EP CD in my Boston apartment. It was just sitting right in our main area in the living room.

Skrizz   06:52
But uh, I may blame myself for this, but like I dropped all four songs at once. And at that point, it was just suicide. But since then, like the motel room has really blown up. Like a lot of this stuff has really like, it was just suicide. I should've been dropped in one song at a time and I didn't do that. So that was a huge swing and a miss. But I was just trying to emphasize the fact that it was a concept project, but I think 99.999999, nine, 9% of people miss that.

Adam   07:20
Isn't that how the majority of people in the industry do it though, or at least they used to do it was, you just dropped all 15 songs.

Skrizz   07:25
Oh for sure. But not anymore. As of like people in early 2017 realized that's not the move, I got the memo a couple of months too late.

Adam   07:32
Well, why is that? Is that just because people don't want to lose? Think of it this way

Skrizz   07:35
Think of it this way, I mean, I think, um, artist Russ explained it really, really well. He was dropping like an album every six months and he's like track one has the most streams, track two as the second most streams, three as the third most stream, track four, et cetera, et cetera. So why don't we just make everything track one? It was literally just like the album can have 5 million streams or the album can have 20 million streams. It's a simple thing

Adam   07:56
You can say just as you know, people know if they've listened to previous episodes, I'm a fan of yours and that's how it should be even started. But like anytime a new song comes out for you. I'm like, Oh nice. I have this new song for a few weeks or, or whatever. However long until you put your new one out. As for where an album of 15. I might not like it.

Skrizz   08:14
You might, you're probably not gonna listen to it. You're going to gravitate to one. It's just a no-brainer. I mean, I feel like this isn't rocket science. If you're Drake, you can drop an album. If you're Taylor Swift, you can drop it out.

Adam   08:26
But even I look at like, Kanye is one of my favorites of all time, loved Kanye. And like, I, I look at college dropout and like my original, like when that, when that album first came out, there was one or two songs.

Skrizz   08:37
Yesterday was the 17 year anniversary of that college dropout

Adam  08:41
Shoutout Kanye, what do you say? We should get Kanye on the podcast.

Skrizz   08:42
Take Kanye on the podcast.

Adam   08:45
Yeah, as time goes on, now you start to learn about new songs on the album that you never really gave the time of day to then where if they did come out one at a time, you have an opportunity really like get to know.

Skrizz   08:56
The vetting process. Yeah. Um, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. So I think I learned a lot about not, not dropping EPs. I think that was what I learned, but I think it was also like, I mean, the issue is stains. Well, it's so funny how it works and I feel like, so this is The Rise. So I think this is actually a Testament to The Rise. At this point, I would say I was at there's 0% or hundred percent, a hundred percent means you're the biggest artists on earth or whatever selling a million records. Like at 0%, the issue was stains, didn't, wasn't a rock album. It wasn't a pop album. It wasn't hip-hop album and it wasn't a country album. It wasn't any of those things. So because of that, it got zero love. Fast forward a couple of years later, the same thing kind of went for, I think we remembered the guy Interscope. He was just like, this is really, really good, but what is it? You know what I mean, the same thing with the Atlantic city. He was like, it wasn't a, and let's say, I'm, let's say I'm 10% right now, or maybe 5%. Let's be a little more humble. I'm 5% right now. And, um, Spotify, Spotify, and Amazon Apple shout out to all the curators. They've decided I am an alternative rock artist. You know what I mean? I'm an alternative rock artist. So I get all those things. Spotify, if you look up my songs and go underneath it, it'll start to hint that I am suggested for playlists like new in Nashville or wild country or wild pop. So the computers began to pick up that I could exist in pop and I could exist in country. Um, so it's like, it's almost like you don't fit into boxes cause you're unsuccessful and you fit into every box because you are successful. So it's like, it really, it goes back to the, you gotta force your hand, you know?

Adam   10:41
Yeah. I mean, you have to, you have to, but it's also like momentum breeds everything. Like if you're doing well and like, people love you and you have a, you have a name, then it doesn't matter if you have a brand or not. If you don't have, if you don't fall into a certain bucket, then people like that's what makes him or her so great is that they don't fall into a bucket. So it really is all about perception and about the momentum that you have. But what about like, you know, one of the things about being an artist is you fully put yourself out there. Like when you go to a show, you know, you might have a thousand people show up, you might have five people show up, you know?

Skrizz   11:12
Well, the thing with this ZZ Top documentary, they had, like, they were on just on the come up and they had this show and I'm like, just one guy. It was just one dude. And they're like, we played the whole fucking show. And we know that guy to this day, he still comes to the shows because ZZ top has a play, to show for one person like a venue, like a venue, it was like one guy came up and were like, we're going to rock it. Like, fuck it.

Adam   11:34
Yeah. Well, there's like, I don't know if it's a meme. I don't even know what the hell you call it. I'm not, not meme savvy, but I think there was like a meme of Ed Sheeran performing at a mall back in the day, and there's a video of it and there's like 15 fans there, and then everyone else just walking right by don't even give any attention. It's like, that's Ed Sheeran, the same Ed Sheeran.

Skrizz   11:54
Number one selling artist on Earth.

Adam   11:57
Right. Not too long ago where knowing gave him time of the day. Now it's like, you can't even get a ticket to one of his shows. So I'm sure that, you know, when you're an artist, like you don't know and that's gotta be tough then, you know, you have to be locked into just giving your best performance, but it's a lot easier to give your best performance.

Skrizz   12:12
Well, I think I just, like, I think it's great that you ask what's the biggest swing and miss, but I think like to anyone that cares what I have to say much more important than your biggest swing and miss is that 85% of the time you're going to swing and miss. So it's like, just keep swinging. I think like I was on the phone with someone I do business with and I was just kind of giving him like, what was it? A catch-up kind of cool. And I was just like, Hey, like quality is the most important thing, but right now it's quantity. You know what I mean? I'm not, not saying against quality. We're still doing quality. But like I plan on dropping 15 songs of the DSPs and hopefully, this podcast included, um, 40 pieces of content on my YouTube channel. Like we're just, we're just hitting them and I don't know what's going to stick and I don't know what's not, and I don't know what's going to blow up in Spain and I don't know what's not, I don't, I just don't know. You don't know what's there. Just get ready to just swing and miss a lot.

Adam   13:03
I think that's a great way to wrap up. Wrap up this episode is, it's not about trying to hit a home run every time or even getting a single every time. Like, like you gotta, you gotta shoot the ball to have a chance to make it.

Skrizz   13:19
Try to get on the plate as much as possible.

Adam   13:22
Right. Just keep swinging. In life, whatever the hell it is you want, you gotta just keep on fucking swinging.