Conversation with Chaz Umamoto: Music in Hawaii

In this episode of The Rise, join Skrizz and Adam together with their 2nd guest, the owner of TheBrewz, Chaz Umamoto. On this podcast, they talked about the music culture in Hawaii and how it affects musicians and songwriters. Chaz also shared about the struggles of the locals when it comes to music and streaming and how he plans to localize music in Hawaii.

If you want to know more about Chaz and TheBrewz, you can check their social media accounts below:

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/thebrewz808/

Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/0UIylA5Po61BYdn7z2HH5W?si=meXIMYSZSA2BZZaAD3HqnQ

Vinyl pre-order
http://store.icrecords.com/products/725474-thebrewz-good-catch

Youtube page
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE7cgX5qZx_oiZHD6HrVSmg/videos

Chapters

• 0:00 Who is Chaz Umamoto?
• 4:34 The Music Culture in Hawaii
• 10:28 Streaming in Hawaiian Music
• 22:18 Difference between mainland and Hawaii when it comes to music
• 39:04 What's the first thing you will do?
• 45:25 Chaz's vision and struggles
• 1:02:29 Final Thoughts

Transcript

Adam   0:03
Talking music, building businesses, and the grit in the journey. We're Skrizz and Adam and welcome to The Rise.

Skrizz   0:16
What's going on, guys. This is with Skrizzly with The Rise. We are here with Adam Rosen and our second guest ever for episode 14, the big one four. I'm currently in East Hanover, New Jersey. Adam, where are you at?
 
Adam   0:32
Right now, I am in Cyprus.
 
Skrizz   0:34
Cyprus. Very nice. Okay.
 
Adam   0:36
Yeah. And how many people probably know where Cyprus is? Honestly, I didn't really know where Cyprus was until a couple months ago, which probably says a lot about my geography skills, but beautiful country. Anyone who hasn't been here? I gotta say Cyprus and Hawaii. Probably two of my, or are without a doubt, two of the most beautiful place I've ever been to.

And that is a good segue into our second guest. Chaz, we are psyched to have you on here joining us for the rise. This is so it always a big deal. Anytime we can get a guest and you're following a real legend in Ken Lewis. So we're, we're excited to have another legend. So Chaz, welcome to The Rise.
 
Skrizz   1:14
Chaz you're in, you're in Hawaii right now?
 
Chaz   1:16
I'm in Hawaii right now.
 
Skrizz   1:17
Where in Hawaii? I know there are multiple islands.
 
Chaz   1:20
I'm on Oahu. So like, you know, the city.

Skrizz   1:23
I don't even what that means. I like it. Great. So Adam, take it away.
 
Adam   1:29
So Chaz I we got connected to actually one of the guys that that's on your album, and I know you guys do some work together, Thomas, so shout out to Thomas.

So yeah, I'm really excited to have you on, so why don't you tell us a little bit about about who you are and what you're working on?
 
Chaz 1:45
So my name is Chaz. I'm from here on Oahu in the islands. I grew up here, grew up in a, not the best neighborhood, but have a lot of pride in my ghetto Kalihi.

Yeah. You wouldn't believe, man. You know, when fast and furious came out, there was like drifting and drugs everywhere, you know, just like anywhere else in the country, in the eighties and nineties. But no, I grew up here, you know, pursued the music. I was gonna be like a, I wanted to be a medical researcher 
 when I was going to college and ended up not doing that.

Skrizz   2:20
What shows the researcher? You wanna elaborate on that?

Chaz   2:33
I just wanted to study like diseases and like how to cure them. I wanted to do work on like cancer research and stuff, like my cousin. And then yeah, I just got into the music life. Been doing it ever since. Did a sting in LA.
 
Skrizz   2:48
Can we back a little bit? So you made the transition into wanting to pursue music as like your profession and passion in life, around the college time or after college time. What is your like, relationship with music prior to that? And just before you get into it's like, very often you're often like the country's sphere. There are people that were like baseball players in college and they pick up a guitar for the first time at 20 years old.

And the next thing, you know, they're Luke Combs. And then there are right people that have literally been playing music since they were three years old, which is me not saying anyone's better than the other, but like sure. We think the same story, but it's actually a more dynamic than that.
 
Chaz   3:14
Yeah. Well I grew up in a musical family, but no one really did music for a living. Music was always something that we did for fun. We jammed, you know, as a family, but they would always say like, music is something we love. We don't do this for work. And the reality of that is because in Hawaii, like our most celebrated internationally known artists who play Hawaiian or reggae music, we call it Hawaiian music, our version of that.

They don't do it for their, their careers. Like it's not a full-time living career for them really. They might work. Yeah. So they'll work like construction or like, wow. I have million S several last. That's really good. Yeah. And so the music entertainment economy is all kinds of messed up.

I would equate it to like Jamaica where tourism, you know, is like the primary economic mono in Jamaica. Right. But yeah, sometimes at the detriment of like the local economy and the local people. Totally. And so I, I would say that for us, like when you know that your family, friends and friends of friends are, you know, these well known musicians, you see them, you hang out with them, but then they're working like day jobs. Then the community consciousness is kind of like, don't do music. Right. That's of course my parents would say that. And so yeah.
 
Skrizz   4:34
Sorry. Right there. I have like so many questions you're saying like something incredibly insightful. So. I like I said, a ton of questions, but initially, my question is how much, how much of this is, an economic thing where it's like the reason, what, what was the term for the genre again?

Chaz   4:57
What genre? Oh, Hawaiian, Hawaiian music.
 
Skrizz   4:59
Hawaiian. Mm-hmm is that I'm saying right? okay. I don't. Is like the reason they aren't, is well. Okay. Is the reason wanna word this correctly is the reason these Hawaiian peop artists that are, you know, incredible and well known, known, known around, you know, Hawaii.

Just simply because the music's market only exists in Hawaii. And because of that, the market's so small or is it a cultural thing? Is it more like who are expected? I, it work something else.
 
Chaz   5:34
Yeah. I think it's cultural because okay. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah, because the music is extremely well known and viable, right? Like reggae or a Jowaiian Artists in Hawaii can go on tour all summer long. Up and down the west coast in the Midwest. And a lot of the Pacific islands like Guam, even Philippines, Australia, New Zealand. So when they're on tour, you know, and they're taking a break from their day drops, like they're on tour.

They could be on tour a lot of the year. But even then it's still very difficult. And most of my peers in music just started working trades, you know, right after high school or went to community college or regular college and then went into their trade. Interesting. Yeah. But I think it's cultural.

I don't, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's purely an economic model. I think there's, it's definitely like a combination of like, there's like what your family says, so cultural, right. There's the economic lack of diversity and competitive market you could say. And then also like the lack of education, right?

Like Hawaii Does not rank very high in terms of like public education in the United States. And as we know when public education is suffers, the thing that gets depleted the fir you know, first is the arts. So, you know, we don't grow up believing that music is something that we how do you say, like cherish and like, do for work because of that?

Right? Because like, it's not like out of a college career counselor, who's saying like, oh, you wanna be a musician. You wanna like play for like a big artist, go to MI in LA for two years, and then you can, you know, audition to go be in the next, you know, pop stars back band, you know, or this is how you make money in music publishing.

Like, there's, there's no sense of that whatsoever. Like we have Some institutions now that have that sort of education, like Mele at Honolulu Community College, and it's a two years associates program. But that wasn't available when I was in college. I think it started right as I was graduating from college. 

Adam   7:42
 That's why I love what, when we got connected, Chaz what I loved about what you're doing is you're trying to make it local based. Mm-hmm where you were telling me a lot of the, the songs, the music, the TV shows that are maybe based in Hawaii, they use artists from outside of Hawaii. And I know that's a big thing that you're doing is you want to use local artists and show off those local artists.

Chaz   8:03
Mm-hmm . Yeah, absolutely. I think the one area that thrives even when you know, the economy and like the world shuts down, right. Because of COVID still marketing, still advertising it's still television and film. And to me it exposed this issue that. My friends that are musicians. They lost all their gigs.

They lost all of their side hustles. And even like for some of them that do play professionally, they're playing in restaurants, you know, maybe five days a week playing for tourists and I guess local people eating, you know, dinner or lunch, but they lost their jobs for two years. They're not necessarily maybe geared towards like being like famous artists with records.

But meanwhile like my friends that work in TV and film, like, they're fine. Right? Mm-hmm and I think it exposed this thing though. Like these people and musicians that we love in Hawaii there's no real support for them while these other systems thrive. Understood. And I, I think it's like really important that like we support local music wherever you live. Right?

It doesn't, I'm not saying like, oh, just care about Hawaiian music. I think it's like wherever you live. If you are going to put music in your advertisement on say radio or play the music in your local mall, why not support the local music? If you're already paying money to some network or subscription for a company you might as well spend that money locally, because what happens is say, like there's a well known bank here, right?

They work with a advertising agency, I believe in LA. And they hire all local actors. It's shot in Hawaii. The video crew is in Hawaii. But the music was probably written by some guy in Denver, Colorado. Right. So they spent all this money putting into all these other economies and then you hire local actors, but the backend revenue That's not sag is going to some random guy who lives in like Nashville or Denver. Right?

The music is not representative of where we come from. It's not helping someone who lives like down the street, you know? Sure. Yeah, so that's just kind of my take on it.
 
Skrizz   10:28
How is the, the, like the streaming at this moment in time of Hawaiian music, I feel like that could be the bridge where it's like, yeah. If all these local Hawaiian artists can be streaming well and generating millions of dollars and then suddenly getting the music everywhere, you can create this local infrastructure where they're not working in like hotels and restaurants thriving.
 
Chaz   10:49
So it's kind of interesting, like There are some that know how to stream really well. And there are others that are really great, but maybe because they don't have a support team that understands like digital music marketing, especially for streaming they're not streaming at the level that they should be. Sure. Also like Spotify has less incentives for Reggae music in general.

Very small infrastructure. Yeah. Very, very small. Right's not proportionate. There's a billion editorials for lofi. Right. But like the wine is not the case. Yeah. And another Reggae. Yeah. Yeah. Lot of that regional stuff. So to me, it's like one the, the local artists have to release enough music and record it at a good quality that streaming can be viable because a lot of them don't release music every single month.

I would say that there are very few groups that release records regularly, like on a year and a half. Cycle at minimum. And there are even less that can just re you know, release a single at least like once every two months. My recommendation for artists is always releasing a song every month, if you can, you know has to be well written, has to be well recorded and professionally finished.

Well, that'd be good. But same thing, right? It's like who, you know, and like your, like, if you don't have a team that's like influencing that marketing and also the creation of that music. I think that there's no processes in place. It's kind of like my producer friends in LA, when you work with them, like you work with those people because you want a great song. Right?
 
 Like you're gonna work with like a Ken Lewis, right. Because, you know, if I work with this guy, we're gonna get a great song out of it. Sure. Here, it's kind of like, I have a song I'm gonna go in a studio. I'm gonna pay this guy, like all my money, and then he's gonna like, finish everything, give it back to me.

I'm gonna put on the radio. And so I it's like. There's such a unique environment for music in Hawaii because we, the predominant airplay on radio. Adam, you might know this from living here. That is the independent music, right? It's Hawaiian. It's these unsigned artists. That's awesome. And Hawaiian music, the predominant markets are like indie music. It's Hawaiian and Jowaiian.
 
Adam   13:10
 Do you guess the ratio of like the Ed Sheerans to the locals? Like, do you have idea?
 
Chaz   13:15
I would say that and as far as like newer artists, like say like 20 years old at most, like you could probably assume it's like, assume it's like they're for every, like one signed mm-hmm local artist. You might have like five independent. Wow. But because they are not releasing music regularly. I think program directors are more apt to receive music from the west coast. So like, of course, like the west coast, reggae artists, right. Or Jowaiian artists, they have teams, right. They're assigned to capital, you know, they are being put in rooms to write songs like EV you know, during record cycles.

And so and they also know how to run a radio promotion campaign. Right. It's for sure, you know, they know to spend the $2,000 a month and all that stuff. Right. And so like the radio stations and program directors are going to receive that music. They're getting it regularly, and they're gonna play that if the independent artists don't rise to the occasion of getting music done and submitting it, but I've seen it so many times where program directors here will take like a, not even a finished version of the song. Right?

Accept it and play it on the radio. right. Or the song is like, maybe not even on Spotify, they're like, oh, this is your new song. Great. I'm gonna play it tomorrow. You know? Mm-hmm that is, that happens so regularly. And the access to those program directors here is I think like, unlike any, like, right.

It's crazy. Right. It sounds like we're living in the nineties again, right? Like yeah, well like the seventies where it's like EJ, here's the song. And then they're like five times overnight. Yeah. Yeah. I've never heard anything like that ever. Yeah. So it's like, there's a lot of opportunity, but that's, you know, you don't, no one does anything, right?

Skrizz   15:04
That's like, it's the, if I'm zooming out right now, when this conversation you're hitting me with a lot of information I've never known before is like, there's an amazing opportunity here. It's almost like this lack, this like deep lack of understanding within the scene of the infrastructure of how to almost work together and like, yeah, formulacally beat the system like we are doing in Nashville. Like we are doing enough, right. We are doing in Atlanta. If you can just do that in Hawaii, it could be a straight line up.
 
And you seem to have all the answers like, so hopefully everyone hears this podcast and starts, I mean, you're preaching all the things that I've been I've I rappers have been saying, like my mentors have been saying, I think one, your model kinda wanna give to you real quick is like, you're talking about like, like, like music's so rich in culture in Hawaii.

And like the fact that the infrastructures of radio are supporting it at that level is like,it's a godsend, but you're saying like the superstars are also construction workers. And I think for someone like me when I was 19, my, my, one of my best friends was, is a rapper named Chris We. And like, we, I produced a project for him and when he put it out, it had like, it was like the first time I ever made a beat, it was like the second beat I ever made, or it was like, it wasn't sick, but it, it BA it got like 35,000 downloads the first day.

And I was like, I can do this for a living. You know what I mean? Right. It's like, it very much is like, when you grow as you're it's like, oh, like my friend, Chris does it so I can do it. You know what I mean? I still think that to this day I was just at his house. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm and it's like, there is so much opportunity in Hawaii. I mean, clearly, like the culture is very deeply rooted in this music you're talking about.
 
Adam   16:39
And it's when out tourists go too. Yeah. When tourists go, the difference between Hawaii and a lot of other places that you might vacation that are beautiful and on the water and have great beaches is you go to Hawaii, partly for the culture.

Mm-hmm, where that is a big thing that you want to take in. When you go to Hawaii, is the culture and a big part of culture. Any culture is around the music. Mm-hmm, when I'm driving around, I'm not listening to top 40 music. I'm not listening to country. I might be listening to you Skrizz, but that's just about it for mainland type music.

I, but no, I'm listening to Hawaii. Hawaii based music, Hawaiian music. And that's what I want to be doing when I'm driving to the north shore, driving around the coast, I want to be listening to Hawaii, Hawaiian music, feeling like I'm part of the culture. And that's what I really love about your album right now is it's not only, it doesn't just feel like you're listening to Hawaiian artists, but it also feels like this is something that top 40, you know, around the cut around the mainland would appreciate.

Like it's an easy listen to, it's an enjoyable, listen, it's an uplifting listen. But it's also something that, you know, you're cruising around in Wisconsin or New York or California or wherever you also vibe to your music. That's what I, I got from it. It's great for Hawaii, but it's also great in the mainland too.

Chaz   17:49
Man. Thanks. Appreciate that. Yeah, we wanted to make something that we could prove to our peers. And then also like the general industry populace that it is possible to make commercial music in Hawaii. I know a lot of my friends, even my elders have been very hesitant to do that type of music, even though they love it, they listen to it on their own.

But once again, if the money comes from starting your career in this one area, then you kind of have to, right. Like if you wanna do music for a living, what was told to me was you have to do Hawaiian music, you have to do reggae and jawaiian music. And I, I did do that. You know, when I first started, I was, you know, I was playing with every single group that would take me every artist. Right?

And then one thing I just realized that, well, I could move to the main line. I've met people that are doing music for a living. Why don't I just go and figure out what they know instead of what I know, you know, I needed to humble myself and say like, I don't have all the answers. It's like, oh, what is that guy?

I don't, you don't have all the answers sway. You know, it was like, I don't, I was like, you don't have all the answers, you know? And if, I don't know, like what, at least my college education help me with is like, if you don't know, you go and find out, right. You go do the research you put in the work, you know?

And I would take any internship that I could or job just so I could be around the music more around people that knew something more than what I had learned in my public education. Right. But yeah, it's, we have an opportunity right now to not just tell companies in Hawaii that they should sync local music, but also like we know people that are doing it look like these are people we love and celebrate here's music of theirs that you could use instead of using, you know, the $10 track from, I don't know, Nashville said company, right. Nashville. Right?
 
 And we wanna encourage like our peers to say like, Hey, like there's other ways of making money in music. Not just performing or making the records that you've been making. Yeah. So the record is like, it's a statement piece. We're not trying to be artists. We're not trying to go out on tour. We're just like your local producer songwriting team. And we just like try to work with other artists here, you know, and we're thankful we have a publishing deal that helps us pay the rent. You know, that's great. That allows us to make other types of music.
 
Skrizz   20:33
That's great. Mm-hmm have there been any like, like major mainland artists that like collaborated with the Hawaiian artist and like made a record that like, like, like you are doing right now, but hit a kind of like maybe global sphere where it reflected Hawaii reflected the mainland. Yeah in Russia, you know what I mean? Like something that really made a splash in that kind of a sense, or is this all kind of a new, new concept?
 
Chaz   20:50
I would say there are definitely instances of collaborations that have happened in that way. Okay. But in more recent times we haven't seen it, like in terms of like a phenomena.

Okay. Right. Like where, like, you know, one point everyone wanted to work with like a dirty south producer. Right. Like everyone wanted their own Nelly or their own Manny fresh. Right. Okay. Or same thing with like Atlanta. I haven't seen that with Hawaii where collaborators on a national scale or say like on the continent in LA are like, oh, we should do a track with like one of those Hawaiian guys from Hawaii.

I think one instance I can think of is a J Boog. He's like a Hawaiian, but also like he does like the Raga rap style. He had a song that Rihanna, I think, like covered or like sampled. I wanna say it was called do it again. Mm-hmm it was a while ago. Yeah. Was, was do it again? Yeah, I think so. I'm trying to think who else.
 
Skrizz   21:58
But that would definitely splash at least on like the awareness of the sound and the culture and the feel. But there's been no Drake feature yet when there's Drake feature that'll take.
 
Chaz   22:09
I could be wrong. I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think, I mean, you know, I think our best export was Bruno Mars, Peter Hernandez, right? Like he, yeah. But he was gone for a long time, you know, it wasn't like, he was just like one day, it was like, I'm gonna leave Hawaii and go be famous.

It was like, he spent many, many years on the mainland, you know, and he had his first drop deal with Motown. And then, you know, when Harve from the Grammys, like picked him up, that was to me, like the chance that set him up, that was the team that set him up for success in LA.
 
Adam   22:45
You spend time in, in LA you spend time, obviously growing up and living most of your life in Hawaii. And it is such a unique place like that is something where yeah, if you go to Hawaii and you do not embrace the culture, it just isn't gonna work. You're not gonna fit in. But if do go to Hawaii, you do embrace the culture. You're gonna find in the most beautiful, amazing place in the world. Can you share a little bit, I know people that, that are listening and watching this from your audience, of course already know this, but for, from our audience that maybe has never been to Hawaii, can you share some of the difference, even just cultural differences from your time on the mainland versus Hawaii when it comes to music.

Chaz   23:22
When it comes to music, Hmm.

Adam   23:26
And even whatever you were just about to say first share then, and then, then I wanna dive into music too.
 
Chaz   23:31
Yeah. Okay. Well first I'll say that one of the biggest cultural differences we have, which does lead to how we work in music is that we're raised to think about others before ourselves. You know, we're like, we're like, if you don't think about what you're doing and how it affects other people, like there are repercussions, you know, from your family your uncles, my neighbor whooped my ass, you know, when I was a kid doing something wrong, you know, like so yeah, and so like, that's like ingrained to us, you know?

So like, it, it affects everything from like the way we drive the way we check out at the grocery store and even to like how we support things or like create things. And so I think that in LA it's the complete opposite, you know, my time there it's like, when you collaborate with people, it's, it's very different. Right?
 
It's like me first, you know, like, it's like, it's, everyone's self soothing, right. Everyone's trying to like fulfill their needs if they're not at a place of like, you know, security and I would say that in Hawaii. I think we're more likely to be considerate of like the vibe in the room or like considering others.

Like if I, in, in LA, if I go to a session, right. Like, no, one's gonna think to bring anything for the people who are hosting or for, or just like buy lunch. Right. I have one collaborator in Malibu that always, always like, just provides coffee. We get there. There's a nice sign that says welcome. You know, she feeds us lunch and dinner.

She tries to like, her name is Nitany Paris. And she has a company called artist max with Ken clay who produced rumors. And, and she will like, just be the most gracious host and collaborator when we have sessions with her. And we'll be there like all day, all night, but in most cases in LA, right.

It's like lunchtime or two hours after lunch. It's like, Hey, we should order Uber, eat anyone else hungry. Okay. Okay. You know, like but in Hawaii, like you go to someone's house and like I'll have sessions with new artists and they're bringing us like cookies and like cupcakes, you know, or, or something, it might be lunch.

They'll bring like pizza, like at a session yesterday, they brought like Cal zones from whole foods. I was like, you really didn't have to do that. Like we're as the whole should do that, you know? But it's like, it like went, it processed in their mind that that was something they were supposed to do. I think it's just.

The co-writer or the, the making of the record. It's all about the vibe and the room. And even though co-writing collaborating, isn't built into our musical education I think it would work really, really well if we indoctrinated more people in Hawaii into collaborating musically. Yeah.
 
Skrizz   26:19
When you say co-writing, isn't part of your culture, what do you, what do you mean by that? There's like an, like a historic integrity to like being the sole writer or, or is it just don't collaborating? Just didn't happen?
 
Chaz   26:32
It just wasn't like, yeah, you'll write a song with your friend, but most, especially like when I was growing as like a music artist. You don't go to a session with like other creatives or a producer or other writers and say, we're gonna write a great song today.

It's kind of like, I have my Ukelelelike right here. Right. Nice. Like, this is like me in high school. Right. I have like my UK and like, I like figure out like how to play songs and then I write my own song and then I, and that's it. Right. Whatever I write, that's the song. I take it to the studio. I pay the person at studio and they record it and they might say, maybe we'll rearrange these little sections.

Right. Like that to me is like, might be the extent of like my understanding of like collaboration up until I was in like a co-writing session in LA. The mainland taught you go. Yeah. Mm-hmm yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Like being around like real writers that like, all they do is write, right. They're just songwriters. They're, they're just producers.
 
Skrizz   27:32
Play devil's advocate. Sorry, cut you off. It's like a lot of you're saying, like, to be on the mainland and to be with real songwriters in LA and then some people will literally say the total opposite where it's like, it's like, oh, you're only a real songwriter. If you don't co write, you know what I mean?

Where it's like, you're only a true Bob Dylan or a true Bruce Springsteen or a true Tom petty or whatever, if you, you know, like, you know, there's two, two different ways to look at it where it very much is like you shun upon for like, oh my publisher's gonna sit me with three rights every single day for 365 days a year in Nashville.

And I'm a slave to songwriting and I'm just, yeah. Writing the same, you know, I just find it really interesting that, that, I mean, what you described as your extent of co-writing is just an engineer chiming in which is mm-hmm, absolute bare minimum. You know what I mean? Interesting.
 
Chaz   28:15
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's, it was wild for me to like, experience that. And it was a, it was a hard transition when I first, you know, like was forced to do that, but I love it now. To me, like that is the way, you know, like for sure quo the Manda Lauren, right? Like, to me, it's like, I've the best music I've written. The music I'm most proud of ha has come out of those scenarios where it wasn't just my idea or my input.

It was that competitive atmosphere and like a bunch of people, like in a life raft, you know, trying to find the song that made the most beautiful work. It's kinda like movies, right? Movies, movies have thousands of people that work in all these different creative departments and you like after several years and a bunch of money, it's like you have the Lord of the rings. Right?

Whereas like music, it's like, there's two guys, you know, maybe. And like you throw 'em in that same life raft and say like, go make something great. You know, spot on. Yeah. I think it, I, my parents' generation, I will say, like they really appreciated songwriting. And I think because my generation and my peers, like we grew up listening to like Blink 182.

I think we aspired to be artists more so than like aspire to like write music. And so most of our time was spent in the garage. Right. Like playing in bands or like playing with one another. Right. Yeah. And there was no time that we spent. You know, equal amount of time. That was like, okay, I'm gonna write a great song.

You know, it's like, you had to write a song to play with the band, but it wasn't like you spent all your time, you know, like obsessing over writing songs where I think my, my parents and like my uncles, it was, they loved like Kenny logins and Jim Messina. Right. Or it was Neil young or Bob Dylan. Right.

And like this, there was a whole culture in the 60 and seventies. That was, it was all about songs. You know, like you could argue like whether or not they were like great singers, but it was, it was primarily focused on the songs. And I think now it's, it's different. Like we see superstars and like, man, I also wanna be like Bob Marley. Right? Like, but you don't appreciate Bob as like man, as a songwriter, he was fantastic. Right. He had a great group of people around.
 
Skrizz   30:39
Kind of like chiming in on that. Like, here's a just little bit of a side thing, but it's like, yeah, here's an extreme example of what you just said. And I just discovered this like a week ago and this blows my mind.

Mm-hmm Shania Twain. Okay. Yeah. One of the bestselling artists of all time, sex symbol, mega pop star, country star, like female country Jesus, like she's unbelievable. Right? She alone wrote every single song she ever released. The reason we don't talk about that. There's no marketing value to it at all. I had no idea until I, I didn't even Google it.

I just like looked at her metadata. I looked at her metadata. She wrote every single song she released by herself. She's like the Bob Dylan of what she does. And then I'm like, was this hidden? And then, so I Googled it more and it was like every interview, even on her like Instagram page, she talks about songwriting.

She's like, I love the cadence. And she's talking about the rhythm and she's like a songwriting nerd. And I'm like, I think we just overlooked it all these years because she was hot. Like I don't know what it is. Yeah. But that's a funny thing. Like you're saying, it's like when we're kids where we just wanna be led Zeppelin and we, the, the prerequisite to being for led Zeppelin are like the grunt work is like mm-hmm, actually writing the song. You know what I mean? Where that's actually the most important thing by a landslide.
 
Adam   31:54
You, you write all your music. Skrizz, do you write all of your music? Is that all you?
 
Skrizz   32:01
Every song I co write it once a while. I co-write every once in a while. I, I co-write first out. I, I, I write like 90% of it by myself, but I co-write. Chaz said two really interesting things. He was like, you kind of described the songwriting session scenario as competitive, but then you also just like five seconds later described it as you all on a life raft, trying to get to like land. And it's like a really interesting thing.

It's like, you're surrounding yourself with talent and you're, you're challenging each other to get better in a competitive sense, but you're also like helping each other and raising each other. And I think a lot of people don't realize that about like my second album was I think almost entirely co-written with a good friend of mine, Bryce.
 
And then most recent album, I barely worked with him at all. And it's not because I don't like Bryce it's because like when I was in this competitive helping each other's scenario, we just plowed through every wall together to the point where I think I was talking about on my last podcast, like now I wake up and I'm just like, it's almost like, like my co-writers are with me all the time, even when I'm alone, if that makes sense.

Chaz   33:10
Yeah. Yeah. Like you can still like hear their true north, right?
 
Skrizz   33:14
Yes. And I know, I know what they would've done and like I have more confidence to know what I will do. And like I've been there so many times that I'm not intimidated by what's gonna go wrong. I just know what's gonna go right. I think you'd probably understand that.

Chaz   33:26
Yeah. It's like it's the education we could have never, you know, paid for. It's exactly. It's priceless that those experiences, even though it could be rough, you know, the first, you know, 50 times or so, you know, but yeah, you're right. Like it's like, I have a sense of what's good or maybe not so good because of, you know, getting school because of writers or artists or producers that were more seasoned than me that were coaching me and explaining like, this is better because of blank. You know?

Skrizz   34:01
They have an explanation for why this wording is better. Why this cadence is better. Yeah. Why the melody should change here and like you, at a certain point in time, heard of their explanation, you understood it and you agreed with it. And now it's part of your mental vocabulary. Right? Right.

That's just totally what it's. Right. And like, back to you were saying about like sessions going wrong. It's like, sometimes you'll get in sessions and like certain people you will never click with, but you learn from that fact that you're never gonna click with those people too, you know?
 
Adam   34:31
When you guys hop in the studio? Yeah. When you guys hop in the studio. Do you always know the person you're collaborating with, or have you ever been thrown into a situation where you have never talked to them? Never met them. And how the hell you like we're experience my life? How do you time? yeah. Talk to me as someone who's never been in a studio before, and I'm sure a lot of the listeners, same thing, like guys, talk to me.What, what is that like?
 
Skrizz   34:52
I'm just asshole. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
 
Chaz   34:54
 I, I think we, when we started, we were assholes as you put it. Yeah, when you're younger, you're an asshole. Then you get older, you golden, you realize you don't know anything. We were, we were just like, so determined to just make the best thing, instead of just having the best vibe with that person.

And what I learned was exactly the, the best song we could produce and write with the person. If they don't feel connected to it, if they don't like us, they didn't like the experience. They will never cut it. They'll never represent it. They're. Especially if you're not the writer, right. Or the artist, sorry, if you're not the artist, right?

Like they gotta spend their money on the music video. They gotta spend their money, like marketing and going on television, talking about it, they gotta post it. You know, like maybe back in the day when you had a record label that was like, Hey, look, we're spending millions of dollars on you. You gotta go push this single, right.

Like, that's like not the world we live in, in Hawaii. You know, most people aren't with the record label, that's dropping, you know, the 250K to like launch their career. And so we had to learn to be sensitive and put them first. And so instead of investing in all this like equipment, or like the best, like pre-amp or microphone, we had to invest into like, man, what's gonna make these guys feel comfortable because they've, they're never been around us and we don't know them either. Right. So I was like, okay, well, instead of buying this, like, let's go buy a good coffee machine, you know, let's, let's buy some good accommodations.

Like let's buy some lights, you know, let's, let's get, make sure we have furniture, you know, like couch, good things. Yep. You know, we, we gotta be hobby as hell. Yep. Yeah, exactly. So I would say like, we'll probably, we try to write at least like do at least four sessions a week with artists and it's hard. We would love to do it twice a day if we could, but right now we're like, we're doing like four co-writing sessions with outside collaborators a week.

Pretty good. And I would say the majority of the time, maybe like two out of four will be new people. So like last night we just worked with a new artist. Like we never met her. Don't know much about her. Just talked to her manager, you know, had had to text feed, you know, looked her up on like YouTube and Spotify and yeah, we had to like start by like getting to know them, to ask them about, we like interview them. Right?

Like tell us, like, what's your story? You know, what do you care about right now? And and just give them that time to like go through, you know, their feelings and like just get comfortable themselves with us, you know? Yeah, very like, I think every single person's gonna be different, right.

We're not gonna believe or care about the same things. You know, we're not gonna like, like the same things, even like, like the same music and at the end of the day, like we're not there to like impart our brand on them. Like our, our job is to like best support what their vision is and hopefully like take whatever it is that they care about and put it into like a great focus song that other people would like to hear as well.

Skrizz   38:09
You kind of nailed something. I was about to say the term I always use when I'm co-writing with, with another artist for another artist is, will do like the verse or do the pre-course and I'm like, does this I'll ask, almost like almost aggressively, like, does this feel on brand for you? Because you know, a new artist would be too afraid to speak up and I'm like, I don't care about how you feel emotionally, like whatever you're going through.

Does this feel on brand? Does this reflect your brand? Mm-hmm and I think a lot of the things you really wanna like, you wanna, you wanna play devil's advocate immediately for them because they're not gonna speak up and say, be like, Hey, this isn't right. So you wanna be like, you wanna be almost rooting against yourself so they can chime in and be like you're right.

This isn't working for it. If they're gonna defend it and be like, this is working. And then you're like, okay, pat in the back, we're doing something right. Yeah. That's definitely something I've come across a lot. Or I think with that too, with younger artists, they I've had one one artist come to me. Like we don't really know what our brand is. And I'm like, well, that's an honest answer too. So yeah. Yeah.
 
Adam   39:04
Let me, let me throw a let me throw a, a, probably a ridiculous scenario at you guys. So you guys are two very different type of artists and producers in a lot of ways, at least the way, the way I see it.

Sure. So let's say we had like reality show, little competition right now. And we got thrown in a room where like, hey, we get a million dollars right now, if we get a top 40 hit in the next 30 days, Chaz, you and Srizz, you guys are getting in the studio, you gotta create a top 40 hit. Yeah, we could definitely do it.

What is the, what is the first thing that you guys are doing though? I love it. We could definitely do that. I love that confidence. We just, we'd probably what is the first thing you what's the first yeah. Chaz. What's the first thing you're doing? Skrizz, what's the first thing you are doing to make sure that in the next 30 days, we're all getting a million dollar check if we have a top 40 hit.
 
Chaz   39:48
I think the first 30 minutes are like sacred. We gotta make sure, like we connect that we're like we have a good, you know, like we're locked in. We understand you're saying we understand that's. Yeah. Cause I think the worst thing that could happen if we were gonna make that song is that everyone goes into their corners and like, does their best work alone?

No, but then they come back and then we, we have to sift through all of that and like work out the conflicts of what everyone else just did. And that's gonna take way longer to like to reconnect because everyone was just like in their own personal space, it's like, oh, okay. Like you do this and then maybe we'll work on this and then we'll come back together.

But I think there also has to be a conversation of like, okay, well, what kind of song are we gonna make? You know, what's the, the vibe or like what, what I would say Skrizz is what planet is this song gonna live on? You know, what sonic planet putting in record live, live in, you know?
 
Skrizz   40:53
Well, universes doesn't work in what universe can not work in and figure out those universes can just dial the fuck in on that.

Chaz   40:55
Yep. Exactly. Exactly. I've been saying that a lot lately, cuz a lot of people are into like you know, like astrology, right. And like music. And so you know, when I go like, oh, you know, what, what planet, what, you know, does your record sonically live on? You know like, and I don't want them say Neptune. I want them to be like, oh it lives on like, you know her and I don't know some artists, I don't know, Rihanna planet, you know, but it sounds like, you know, a Drake record. Sure. Yeah. You know something products of a yeah.
 
Adam   41:33
So Chaz for you it's what planet does it live on? So that's gonna be the focus is what, what planet is this song gonna live on? Skrizz? What about.
 
Chaz   41:39
I think Chaz kind of nailed it honestly. And I'm just kinda, rerating what he said is like. Find the workflow find how we're like, how we work together. You know, it's like, are you like, like I have, I have my select co-writers and I know that I'm a opening line guy. And then my other people are like lyrical mechanics. And like, I'm a melody starter. They're melody tweakers. I'm on guitar banging on all the chords or you guys doing the drum program and we figure out our workflow.

Yep. And then we probably figure it out within one day, again, like where, what what's the sonic universe? What's the emotional universe. What's like, who's the protagonist also like, like, like if we are not the, the artist here or maybe we are the artist, like, what is the narrative of the protagonist?Am I a 25 year old girl? Am I a 30 year old boy? What? Right.
 
 What am I? And then we just, we just dial that in and then we just try to do a numbers game to it. And that would, that would be it. Way to do it. Then we set your dad at the radio station, Adam and he'll blast your dad still at the radio station?
 
Adam   42:34
No, not anymore. He's retired now. He's retired, man. That's awesome. I still haven't met the guys. Legend. We've told enough stories on the podcast. We, one, one story we haven't told. So Chaz has we have a little ticker that we haven't put up quite yet, but the tickers, how many times we mentioned Kanye in a podcast and this is official, but he did.

Skrizz   42:53
He did mention Kanye West. He already did. Oh, true. True. He just, yes we did. He did it us even telling him to you're welcome back anytime, dude. Wait, what happened? So we, I mentioned Kanye, you met you Kanye.

Chaz   43:18
Dude, I love Kanye. Like I, I have some, I have some Kanye stories I can't tell on air. I can't tell on air. I've never met the guy, but like being Hawaii, like I have, I know some interesting things about Kanye that I cannot speak on fantasy there. And eight oh, eights and heartbreaks.

Really? Yes. Wow. The locals must know a lot and watch the throne, like part of it was worked on during those same sessions here. Yeah. Locals have a lot to talk about I'm sure. Yeah. Like there's so many of his collaborators, right? They say like, oh, the first time we worked with him was when he flew us to Hawaii for his camp. Right?

A million times, you know, Kid Cutty. Right?And it's like, yeah, like I know I can point out the house. They all stayed at. Like I, Adam probably knows the studio too, that they worked on worked at why they chose it. Well, I can, I can disclose that. Right. So Avex then island sound studios. That was the studio they did the record at.

And the reason why they picked that location is because one, it's like a world class studio, but two if there's paparazzi, they can exit by bolt because it's, you know, there's a river, right. There's a bolt dock. So they just jump on the boat, get out of there. Of course coming CEO via boat. Yeah. That's amazing.

Adam   44:31
All, we're all, we're all Kanye supporters. I always like to say as a friend of mine, because he hugged me once and said you know's some little rose, we're not actually friends, but I like to say we're friends because of that Kanye. You already you're already dude. Legend. Oh, that's legend.

Love it. Love it. Chaz. One, one thing I wanna make sure we, we can get through here cause the name of the podcast for reason The Rise. Like we like to talk, we, you know, we like to talk about good stuff and wins and all that. But as you know, as all three of us know, there's a lot of shit that we go through, frankly, mm-hmm each and every day that we're constantly going through in order to get to where we all hope to go.

So yeah. Number one, you know, I'm really curious as to what is your vision like where do you want to go? But then number two, like tell us some shit that you've had to go through where maybe you almost quit. Maybe you almost said, you know, screw this. I'm going out to do something else. That's a hell of a lot easier. Like give us, give us a story of shit and give us a story of like where you want to go.
 
Chaz   45:25
Okay, well, let's start with the positive first and like we'll sandwich this, right? So the positive is where I want to go. In the next five years, I wanna train an army of producers that don't wanna make a business model out of.

Oh yeah. I'll like record, you know, you said local indie artists. Yeah. I wanna army of producers that's like interested in like cutting songs quickly and just sticking to like what they're good at, but also like embracing like some of the art of songwriting. Like I think they should have enough of a background understanding.

This is what makes a great song, right? Like this is how you do a pre, this is how you do a bridge. When I was working in LA, like I'll get to more of this in a second, but I was in a, I moved out there to be in a group that I yeah, that's a whole another story. But anyway, like I did a lot, right.

Like I. Did a lot of the business did a lot of like the connections and networking, you know, aside of performing and like writing. But I was only engineering group at the time. And so in a record cycle, I remember we had about like a hundred songs. We must have written a hundred songs in this record cycle with co-writers.

But ultimately the record that got cut only had five songs on the EP that's 95 sessions with, well, over 95 people that are like, what happened to the song, right? The writers didn't have a means to cut the song and we, the artist didn't have a means to cut the song. And I remember thinking back on that as like, man, I'm doing everything and I'm like dying, doing everything.

Like I was like physically sick because before I left the group decided, oh, we're gonna do Patreon. We're gonna try to like release a song a week. You know, with a music video, they were, we were trying to like write cut music video every single week. And I was like dying. Cause we were still gigging like five days a week. Right?

We're touring going to meetings, like all this stuff. And I remember thinking, man, I wish I had a way to just focus on the part of this process that I'm like actually good at. And I couldn't explain that to anyone. Every time I would try to explain like, look, I'm not a mixing engineer. I'm terrible at this. It takes me a long time to mix records. I am not good at that. I'm good at this, but I'm definitely not good at that. Right.
 
 And so I wanted to put together a army of like, okay, you're a great mixing engineer. You're a great master engineer. You're a great focal producer editor, you know, recording. And I was like, I wanna, I want a team of that.

Because if I'm gonna go do a session, I would rather have an army of people that could like finish the record and like be equitable and share with those people than versus like a, like, there's like five writers and only one guy has the power and the resources to like cut the record. Yeah. So for me, like I would like to see my friends, like cut better records here in Hawaii.

And I wanna see like my friends thrive and like have a business model where, you know, they don't have to constantly tour or like cut records. It's like, because of part of our business is in sync. You know, we wake up every day and all we do is work with the next project that we probably won't see any money from two years from now, you know, down the line.

But it's nice to not have that pressure of like having to pay your rent. Not that my rent is high, but having to pay rent because you have to cut the next record. Mm-hmm I love that our first five years for my partner and I was about waking up and just like working on the music, that's gonna pay our rent two years from now.

And as of this year, we're finally a place where our back end, it's like carrying our general expenses. And so like, that's my vision and my, my dream and belief for like all of my, my peers here in Hawaii is that they could maybe diversify their money. But still in music so that they can have the resources to further their career.

I think you can do both there's 365 days in the year. I have a wife, I have kids, you know, I have other responsibilities and like, I can work on 150 plus songs, you know, a year. Like that was last year and this year we're trying to do 300 songs. And so to me, it's like, yeah, like you can be an artist and release records regularly, like once a month and still do a bunch of other things. I agree. I am that person too so possible. I believe it right possible. Yeah.
 
Adam   49:59
Real quick on that Chaz before you move on to the next piece and, and I want to give, I wanna give both you guys you know, your do right here, Skrizz, like you do a phenomenal job of just constantly putting out new music after new music, but it's not like you just put out new music, like, and I talk about this all the time with, with my business partner, cause we, well, dude, we listen to you freaking like in our place in Cyprus right now, jamming out to Skrizz, like we're like, dude, he just constantly puts out just great music after great music and it's consistent. It's not like we have to wait two years.
 
Skrizz   50:28
Actually, piggyback on what Chaz said. The answer to your question Adam is what Chaz just said. And like, I, we, I won't Adam, write this one. Let's, let's definitely do a podcast about this. Maybe Chaz, join us on this one too.

The thing that you nailed on the head is something I've been preaching like crazy and people do not realize it. You have to focus on what you are good at mm-hmm . And if you are not 110% at mixing or vocal comping or mastering, or this part of the writing process, you need to work with somebody who is and come up with a business model.

That is, I am literally texting someone. All the podcasts, who is my vocal comp and we are delegating that. And yeah, I know I am good at like three things in the record making process. And I'm good at overseeing the whole thing. Mm-hmm you really have to work with people around you and incentivize and like, how do you incentivize them be really, really good at what you do.

Yeah. Michael Jordan being Michael Jordan incentivizes the shit outta Scottie Pippen. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm , that's just, he needed Scottie Pippen. He needed Steve Kerr. He needed, I really nailed that. And no, one's talking about it. Like yeah. It's not cool. Right?
 
Chaz   51:33
It's not cool. Like, if you are a big time producer or if you are a or an artist, right. To be like, oh yeah. Like my team around me is like, why this works. Right. They gave me the tools. Like you're just not trained to do that in PR you're you're not right. Not, you're not, you're not the, the truth is like, yeah. Like people are successful because they, it was a collaborative effort. That's how you get the Michael Jordan, the Chicago bulls, right?

Skrizz   51:59
Yes, exactly. Yeah. And that's how you consistently win championships. That it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Yeah.
 
Adam   52:06
The pieces have to complement each other. It doesn't matter if it's music business Sports. It doesn't matter in, in Chaz, I think it's cool about what you're doing, what you're working on specifically in the Hawaii community because it is a unique community.

Then them being on the mainland is I always think with anything in life, if you want to be successful, the greatest thing you can give a young child any, but really anybody is just showing them that it's what's possible if you do X, Y, and Z. And that's what I think you're doing a phenomenal job of. And you know, when you talk about your vision and where you want to go.
 
Like there's no greater gift you can give to the community versus saying, Hey, here's, what's possible. It ain't gonna be easy, but if you want it, here's the steps to do that. And we're here to help you along the way, which, you know, if you don't have that, how can you, you can't hit what you can’t see, right? The quote from Zig Ziglar, you can't hit what you can’t see and you're just showing them what's possible and also giving them the tools to get there. Yep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So now let's hear about the shit let's hear about like the times there was any like man shit.

Chaz   53:05
I'll tell you. Okay. So like the, one of the hardest ones for me was in 2019 in January, my son was born. And before he was born I knew it was my last opportunity in LA to like, just dig deep and like get another internship you know, like shadowing someone that I could learn something from.

And. I would always take those opportunities, you know, in any, if there was something I wanted to learn that I was passionate about I would find the guy and like, I need to learn about how to run and build playback tracks in a system, you know, like stuff like that. And so these guys were a songwriting production team and I was like, wow, that's amazing.

Here's the team that like, I've, I've seen, I've known for a couple years, they've worked on some high profile things. And like a really killer, kids movie soundtrack that everyone knows. And I don't want to, I don't wanna mention their names, you know? And, and they were very gracious. Like we were both interested in working together.

And so I said, Hey, look like, this is my last opportunity. I don't know what's gonna happen after my son is born. I don't know if I'm gonna have to like leave music. I don't know if I have to like move back home to Hawaii, but I wanna learn how to work more in likes songwriting production, you know, scenarios and like co-writing.

And especially like for like sync, they were doing a lot of stuff with like Foxy Stars. And there was one day where there was a session and we had worked with a another, another cat. His name is Andre Merrit. He's one of the most amazing writers and accessible people I've ever met.

He did a lot of the early, like Chris brown stuff. Like he's, he's just a, he's just awesome. He's helped so many people. And there was another top liner, this female there, and I don't remember her name, but essentially before the session, they were like, Hey, look, we don't know what's gonna happen, but we're gonna make a song like this so we can either pay you or we can give you a split right. 
 
And I said, Hey, look, you invited me to the session. I'm here to learn. I'm okay with either scenario, since you invited me here, you tell me if you wanna pay me like hourly, fine. I will take that. If you wanna give me spec, I'll do that. And then we said that once again, when the session ended and so cut the song.

After a long day, couple months later, there was interest for the song. They texted me like, oh, you know, so, and so's interested, interested in the song. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. That's great. And then several months later, my son's about to be born. And I see the song on the television. It was with Steve Harvey and he is promoting the miss. I think it was miss America pageant. It was like the promo commercial.
 
 And I was like, oh, that's sick. Look at that's the song. I'm, I'm like, I'm like a hundred percent certain, that's the song. Right. And then. They start posting about it and they're like, oh, awesome. You know, we got this thing. They, they even texted me like, Hey, look, we got this thing.

That's awesome. I'm like, okay, so what's happening. Right? Mm-hmm like, if the song is on television, that means like 30 to 90 days from now, someone's gonna get paid. And they just straight up just said like, oh yeah, like we're just gonna cut you out of it. And I was like, wait, what?
 
 They're like. Yeah. Because before the session we had told the other collaborators that, you know, like, we weren't gonna do anything. You, you know, we weren't gonna give you anything. I was like, you could have just told me that then, you know, why would you offer and ask me what I wanted. We just cut you a hundred at the beginning.

And then at the back, you know I, would've rather just known that day of like, yeah, it's okay. Like we're not, you're not gonna be a part of this. And I would've been fine with that. Right. I would've been cool with the communication. Like I understand that I'm building my way up, you know, and I need those opportunities.

But just that like flip on the script, and just like, kind of like, it was like you showed one face and then just like completely became a different person. After the fact, I was just like, okay, I'm not gonna like mess with this anymore. You know, like, I'm just gonna go do something else. I'm not gonna work with those folks.

And they're extremely good at what they do. I learned a lot watching and observing them, especially the production style. But it just like that left a bad taste in my mouth. And my son was born. I was like, I don't know how this is gonna work, you know, but I clearly, you know, that this relationship that I had invested in, I'm not gonna be able to like, continue to do that.

That is not the way to like, you know, grow my career or provide for my family. And so, yeah, that was difficult, you know, like, because I, I really, you know, love those people. I really looked up to them, but then that character change or flaw was something that was like, man, that's not cool. You know, like. I think like, just regular, like the communication could have like, solved that conflict so easily versus like saying and doing, you know, something completely different.

And like, I get it. That's that's that happens all the time in the music industry. Like doesn't need to happen. No, not really, you know, especially with people you've known for like several years, you know and just never worked with, and so, yeah, that, I would say that was like a conflict that was very difficult for me at the time.

And I just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna like make my own team. I'm gonna embed a culture of my own team that like, Hey, look, we will always have conflict, but we always try to communicate up front with whoever we're working with and each other, like, Hey, this is what you're gonna get. You know, like if we cut this song or if you artist cut this song, this is like, what we expect, this is what you get, you know, like here's a split sheet, you know, let us know if you ever have to change it.

You know, like, I think a lot of those pop scenarios in LA. we're so greedy about small percentage points. We're fighting over like one or 2% or 0.05. And I, I think that now that I'm doing that same type of work successfully, I don't wanna do that to me. It's like, if, even if I never work with you again, I think you always deserve what you put into that creation of that product, you know, that song.

And even if like we might not be, you might not like me or vice versa I will always pay you the money you deserve, you know, for the rest of your life, you know? And then some because we had that agreement, you know, I need to honor that agreement. So yeah, there's a worse scenario than that, you know, like, I, I, but that was like the last straw where like really impressed upon me that I can do better, you know, I can make that change within our own company.

And I have a business partner that I started TheBrewz with, and he's no longer a part of the company. But my joy and he's like a friend of mine to this day. And one of my great joys is that every quarter I get to cut him, his royalty check, you know, I get to like, I will that give back to him what he put in that we continue to benefit from.

And, you know, I get to like support him and his family, you know, as they grow and they, you know, go on their journey and their careers. So that, that to me is like very healing for myself that I get to do for my collaborators, what others couldn't do for me. I love that. Yeah, yeah's great. Yeah.

Adam   1:00:48
Sometimes those tough, those toughest lessons are the, the reason we finally break the it's the, you know, it's the last straw, right? Where we finally say, yeah, no more of this and we're gonna make our big change. And it sucked, you know, you obviously could have made some money from that, but the amount of money you gained from that lesson is a hell of a lot more than whatever you would've made from that.

Chaz   1:01:03
Yeah. And you know what? You can always make more music. You know, that was hard for me to hear at the time, but now it's like, I've made so much more music that, you know, benefits me and, you know, I'm where I am in my career. I have no idea where those people in their, their career is, but, you know, I know that I'm continuing to just build relationships off of just goodwill.

Adam   1:01:26
Yeah, absolutely. There's a, so we're yeah, go, go ahead. And then we'll, we'll close it off. Wrap up. Yeah. Yeah.
 
Skrizz   01:01:33
I kinda wanna piggyback off what has said. There's like a for real quote that that he speaks upon. It's like making music got you here. And when you get in a tough situation, making music will get you out of there.

That's right. Making the game of the games. If you wanna work in music, you just gotta make music all the time and it's gonna take you through everything. Yeah, you look for hell it's for, you know? Yeah. So I think it's a message to any of the musicians out there that are like in that tough record deal, or they got their million dollar deal and they're stuck and they don't know what to do.

Like just keep making music that will, that will get you the mixed engineer you want that will get you the agent you want. That'll get you whatever you want, make the music. That's what it comes down. Yeah. Yeah. That's a hell. That's our currency.
 
Adam   1:02:11
Skrizz. Yeah. Skrizz always. Exactly. It's the currency Skrizz, always with the, the wise words almost to wrap it up. But before we wrap it up, though, Chaz share you know, share what you're working on, what you're most excited about. And then of course, how people can find you. So yeah. Give a, give a little shout to all the good stuff that's going on with you.
 
Chaz   1:02:29
I'll say if you wanna find us, just go to our IG, it's TheBrewz, Brewz with a Z 808. And our Linktree populates with all of our links and information. You know, if you wanna see our latest sync or our discography, like we have like nine, eight or nine hours worth of like music we've collaborated on at this point, that's all of our releases go up on that playlist. And I'm trying to think what else?

Oh, we're gonna relaunch our website next week. We'll finally have merch. We got a bag of coffee that we did with our favorite coffee shop in Portland, Push and Pull, shout out to those guys. So brewz, you know, we gotta sell some like coffee beans, you know, to the good folks that love coffee beans. And we have a long sleeve sleeve pale pinks shirt that we're gonna put out really soon too.

That's gonna say sink local, the, that. And so that's gonna be like our walking billboards to like, just promote that kind of culture here in Hawaii, you know, support your local creators, you know, support your local music makers. I'm trying to think what else.
 
Adam   01:03:33
Instagram and well, by the way, we'll put all these links. You can sure. Get a link too, that you wanna drop in there. We'll we'll put it in there, but yeah. Any other links, Instagram?
 
Chaz   01:03:43
Yeah. Yeah, like our YouTube, we have like some travel vlogs when we're like doing records. But really like, we're not trying to like be big artists. So like we don't, we try not to spend too much time doing the socials.

I try to post once a day on Instagram and keep people up to date. But we're just trying to do our best to like support other local artists here. And we're trying to prove with our record release, like, Hey, this is how you release a record and not just like, let it go into the ether, you know, like, love it.

We're trying to like push the record for a solid three months, you know, every single day, like a new PR thing or a new marketing thing, or like here's a video, here's a new music video. Here's a live video. We're gonna be on the news tomorrow. You know? That sort of thing. We're just trying to break to the general public, whether or not they like our music or not like, Hey, we exist.

This is who we are. And so thanks for giving us an opportunity today to like, be on your show. We can talk all day. And rep us and yeah, we're, we're actually wrapping our next record right now. So we finished this record like a year ago. So same in the same way, we're trying to show our peers. This is how you do a record release.

You know, you queue it up at least three to six months prior. And so right now this coming month, we're gonna be finishing our record that we put out next summer. And I haven't said this publicly yet, but like the moment that we wrap this record cycle at the end of August, we're gonna drop a EP in September, top of September.

And it's gonna be completely different. It's like a, like, Tyler, the creator like indie, like some rock elements, like real funky, weird hip hop beats stuff that we've never dabbled in before, but there's this artist here that I'm putting my money on his name is Devon Chef. All of his friends are getting publishing guilds.

And this is the one guy that I met from that group is like unsigned. The dude is like, Jay-Z comes in the studio, writes quick, cuts it, you know? And like he can do like all he'll do all his ad-libs, all his doubles, like perfect timing. Say, Hey, change this emotion. He's just so he's like, he's like a doctor, like in the studio, like I've never seen anything like it in 15 years, like a MC like that, check this guy out, Devon Chef, we're gonna drop a EP with him.

And trying to think what else. Yeah. And then after we drop that EP, we're just doing singles every month. So we're gonna do the thing that we're preaching and telling artists like, Hey, drop a single every month. We're gonna do that after September.
 
Skrizz   01:06:13
Love it that's the, that's the way to do it. I like album EP singles. That's you shouldn't wait, six months after the album comes out to do something, it's just get right to the next thing because it promotes the album. It always points back. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The best marketing for old music is new music.
 
Chaz   01:06:29
Hey, there you go. There you go.
 
Adam   01:06:31
Guys. Just got so much wisdom inside of that head. Well, Chaz man, I appreciate you being on it. It was great to to chop it up with you for a bit and yeah, we appreciate you being here with us.

Chaz   01:06:48
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I look forward to meeting you one day, Skrizz.
 
Skrizz   01:06:50
Yeah, I gotta come. Adam, take me to Hawaii.
 
Chaz   01:06:52
Yeah. Do come down, man.
 
Adam   01:06:55
For sure. Well, yeah, we we'll record an in person in studio podcast would be sick. Yeah. Maybe a little writing cam, maybe a little vacation.

Oh yeah. Why not make music? Yeah, we'll be like Kanye. We'll be like, we'll be like Kanye. We'll be doing what? KA. Why not? Right. Why not? Cool. All right, Jen. We'll we'll talk soon. All right. It's been real peace out guys. See ya.