When You Work Your Way Up from the Bottom, You’re Ready When the Door to the Big Time Opens

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm talking with A.J. jackson. He's a musician and bandleader of the band Saint Motel. Is that good way of saying it?

That's the best way of saying it.

Okay. He's a filmmaker, songwriter, record producer, and he's also two platinum records, one gold. And also started his own. Created his own different kind of eyewear, and it's called a view. And you can see them at aview. And so talk about. I'm curious about, you know, one thing I wanted us to hit on was as a performer, you're delivery, you know, you're singing your song, but you're really delivering an exciting experience to the crowd. Would you. Is that a good way of saying it? You know, and if, you know, you're bringing some light and excitement and something new and special into their life, so it's a big deal. Like for you, you're playing the same song again, but you can't treat it like just another thing. You got to realize what you're doing is a special event for your fans to see you live and all of that stuff. And that really, you gotta bring some excitement to the project. It. See, that's one thing I admired about Tom Petty. He never took a night off. You know, every performance was got. You know, he felt had to be right up to the max and. Because I think your people can tell, you know, but do you. What do you do to keep yourself up that. Have you been in it so long that it's. It's just routine. Does it get routine?

Does it get routine? There's certainly aspects that do, but I think if it's Tom Petty or any great live musician, they're not really putting on a performance so much as it's really fun to be playing music. And when it goes right, you get lost in it. And that's what I mean by routine is sometimes you know the song so well you're not even realizing you're playing it and your mind is able to float somewhere else, you know, like, you know everything, you know, when it's routine, I think is when actually it's the best. When you're that tight as a band where you can, you know, you notice the. You Know the improvisations in it. You notice certain things that someone. The band did. You notice, you know, some way the crowd reacted. You know, like, I see something on the corner of my eye, oh, I gotta go jump and climb that. You know, like, it's. The routine is good in an aspect of it, lets you be in the moment. You don't have to be like, oh, shit, what was the next chord again? Oh, shit, what was this? You know, so in that aspect, I think it's a good thing. I can see on the flip side where it's not so much routine, but if you're not enjoying it, you know, like, it comes through. And I think most of the time it's probably not someone not enjoying playing live. But, you know, if you, if you're sick or you're injured or like, you know, like something's going on that takes you out of it. People can tell, you know, they can tell if you're. Because you're tapping into some sort of larger than any of us connection at a good concert. It almost feels like a religious experience. And since it is kind of a collective mind experience, if someone who's kind of leading that isn't there. Yeah, you can tell you're on the same wavelength. Yeah, but, yeah, absolutely, I think.

Well, I'm sure on the way up, it's easy to keep the excitement because you're doing things for the first time. Talk about walking yourself through that. What it was like to be inside your mind and walk through those first stages where you're, you're, you're in the van, you're. I mean, even that was new when you got started. You know, you're going these distances and, and, you know, getting received at new places. You know, out of town, out of state, possibly. You talked about what are. Walk Us through those breakthroughs. You know, the first time you heard yourself on the radio, the first time, you know, you played Talk Us through those stages.

Yeah, it is a good point where the, the kind of new experience always kind of makes it feel a bit more special. Like the first time you play in a city, the first time you play on that size stage, the first time, you know, you play with your favorite band, first time you hear people singing along the lyrics. You know, all these kind of things absolutely are like turbo boost on a performance. But, you know, I don't think means that the second time won't. Won't be there. It's just those first times are ones that, you know, kind of really stay with you. So, you know, this year was Your.

First tour, you got signed. Did you do a tour in the us? What was your, what's your history there? What was the first tour they set you up on? And walk us through that.

We were a band for years before we were signed. We played every like dive bar in this country, you know.

So what does that mean, every dive bar in this country? I mean you would go set up shop in a certain state for a while, move to another region. To another region.

That means we would tour. We would, we would tour and take any opportunity to play in front of people and we would crash on couches and get paid like in beer. And it was about getting out there as much as we could in the only way we knew how. So yeah, we, we had quite a bit of touring experience before we were signed. We had a couple albums out before we were signed. But yeah, I mean we, by dive bar, I mean we've played in the back of semi trucks, we played on rooftops. We, you know, we play people's house parties. Sometimes we play at the house party after the show, you know, like it was just non stop. I mean, you know, that's, that's just kind of the way we were. We started out as much as we could. We were, we were playing music.

And your mentality at that time there was no management, it was just you guys. Is that right?

That's right, yep.

And you. So you're going wherever the door will open.

It sounds like I should, I should say it, but somewhere in that period we did have a manager who was like an independent guy. But yeah, we're just going wherever the wind's blowing. And if you get an opportunity, like you will take it, you know.

What.

Does it mean that you got signed? And how exciting was that? How was that a changer? Because you hear bands all the time, hey, they got signed, they went out to la, recorded an album and you know, and that's the end of them.

Yeah, yeah, like Tom Petty is a good example. Right?

Like, yeah, right.

Band was signed and then fell apart.

Yeah, yeah.

So we were, we were signed out of the UK and I think that was probably the most exciting part was that we were in a new world and it was also interesting.

So who said Carlo? Okay.

Yeah. So I mean, you know, they signed the Beatles, so it was kind of like, this is the coolest thing to ever happen. It wasn't like you're sign and then record an album because we, we already had music recorded. They just wanted to have it, put it out. So for us it meant going to Europe, being there for basically like a year, a little longer, building it. And that allowed us to come back to the United States, kind of like a new thing because, you know, we were playing every dive bar here in the United States, like I was saying. But we, you know, all the labels knew us. We were just kind of that. That band that was there doing that thing. And it took kind of that, that, you know, we were. We were exotic, maybe in. In England as that Californian band, but not in California. And when we came back here, then people all of a sudden viewed us as like, hey, that Italian band or you know, that band that had success in the uk. And then it kind of made the story a little bit different, but it was an interesting journey. And then we came back to the U.S. almost like people, you know, so people know us in different eras. Like some people think we. We just started with the My Type ep. Some people, you know, know us back all the way to foreplay and voyeur. And some people think, you know, this album we just put out was the first thing we ever put out. And a good song Never Dies is. Is the first st. What's all song they've ever heard or something like that. So, you know, I mean, it's been an interesting journey.

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And how did you get into the UK and get signed to the UK when you were a dive band? Dive in the us Dive bar band in the us how do you wind up getting signed by a UK label? Were they over here looking for bands to sign or how did, how did that happen?

Well, when I say we played every dive bar and every semi truck, that's true. But, you know, over the course of years we managed to build up a following and we were, we were, we were playing, you know, bigger venues, clubs, maybe even an occasional theater after, you know, building it for so many years. So we weren't necessarily in dive bars at that point. We had some success. We had some songs and movies, you know, Some people like, you know, KCRW would be playing our music on the radio and some, you know, college stations and stuff like that. So we were like a very indie, indie band. And the way it kind of happened in Europe was the funniest kind of most literal thing. The, one of the, one of the tastemakers of the BBC tweeted the songs that hit one of our songs and then all of a sudden all these labels reached out to us. But these, you know, we reached out to so many labels ahead of that with the same songs that later on would be like old records.

If you had known that you could have paid that guy for that tweet. Five years.

Yeah, right. Like, hey. But I mean, it's, it's the journey is what it is. You know, it's, it's interesting how it happened. You know, it, if anything, it kind of was like validating in a certain way. Even though it was like a small label deal and you know, we were in UK and you know, we were still very much a baby band. It just kind of felt like, you know, someone believes in it, in the industry. Like it was always like we had fans that believed in it and we had people that would like, want us to play their parties or their festivals or whatever. But the industry was very hyper focused on the current trend. And for us that was never it. Like, you know, when it was like electro was really big or like kind of mellow harmony, bands were really big and it was like really in la at least, it was hyper focused on that. And I feel like we never fit that mold. And I don't think, I think we still don't fit that mold. I still think that will probably be our greatest asset, is that I don't even know how to write for a trend. I make music the same way I've made music since I was 5 years old. It's always solving that mystery and making things that gravitate towards him, Me.

Would you, Would you. Would you say it's the fact that you worked your way up step by step? You know, there's an experience from every gig, you know, and it, every experience changes you somewhat, toughens you somewhat, you know, teaches you something somewhat? And would you say that you could say it like this because you worked your way up from the bottom, you were ready to go into the bigger time type thing when the door opened when you got signed and you were ready to take that tour in Europe. Is that a good way of saying it? That's the advantage of working your way up. Even though it took forever.

Yeah, I think that's a good way of saying it. I think being kind of starting in the mailroom of the music industry ended up being a great thing because, you know, by the time we started having some success, we were a pretty tight band and we were able to kind of, you know, translate that to live settings as we would, we would, we would play hard, we would, we would play like intense. It was, it was rock and roll. You know, we weren't trying to scramble to figure out how to play these songs live after it became a radio hit. Like, like we were already a very close knit band. And also it made us so thankful for every step of the way that happened. Um, you know, we already got all our stupid petty squabbles over gas money or whatever out of the way. You know, like we're not fighting about girls or something stupid like that. That breaks up so many bands. Like at this point we're like, holy shit. Like we have an opportunity to be able to do this and get paid for it now, you know, like, so it did help.

I say that really, like really get paid, you know.

Yeah.

I mean a lot of bands can't, A lot of bands just cannot handle success because they haven't had that, your germination period where they grow up and the rough edges get knocked off and sanded down to where, you know, you. Because success has lots of moving parts. When you've got a successful band, you got a successful business, you're a successful performer, lots of moving parts, lots of people, a lot of interaction, a lot of moving around the country and moving around the globe and so lots of opportunities to snag, you know, have things happen, bump into people and all of a sudden blow ups occur and shutdowns occur, which kill your momentum, you know, whatever you want to keep that momentum going. You don't want to be, you know, the thing is you don't want. You learn how to not be your own worst enemy when they start working right when you've knocked those edges off.

And.

So talk about, you know, when as that went, you guys were ready and things that, because I'm sure you had things go wrong on these tours. You know, you got the big contract, you got the nice deal, you got the bigger venue, you're going to be paid and then still infuriating crap happens. You know, things are lost, things are, you know, people don't, you know, the venue's not set up right, they're not equipped right. Or, you know, and I'm sure you had A lot of those kind of blow ups that you guys had probably been through so many times, it just like rolls off your back with that. Does that sound familiar?

Yeah. But also, you know, as it scales up, there's more moving parts. You know, there's, there's, it's. Things don't necessarily get easier at all. You know, you all sudden have more people involved. You, you know, you have more things that can break down and you have.

Also just the lighting, just the rigging.

Yeah. I mean, in some ways, you know, just being a simple four piece rock band playing that dive bar is a much simpler existence. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it's always steps, I feel like just steps moving in the right direction. And there's, there's, there's never been for us at least, or for me at least, this period of like, oh, thank God we did it. You know, it's always like we have a lot more to do.

Anything you'd like to do? As a final word, I want to thank you for your time. You've been real generous with your time and real open about everything and want to wish you the best. I'm proud of you and impressed by not only what you've done, but who you obviously are as a person and look forward to seeing you have a lot of continued success. Anything AJ you'd like to pass along to people who are coming up their ladder and you might just say something that, you know, from AJ to those people.

I mean, I guess just going off the theme of your podcast and the winning, you know, doesn't mean anyone has to lose. And when you come up and win together, you know, like for my situation, having kind of a band to enjoy it with can make it really special. And I think, you know, another aspect of is you're. You have a mentality of you've never won is a good place to be because, you know, it's always a work in progress.

Fantastic. Thanks so much, aj. Wish you the best. And again, can't thank you enough for taking the time and your thoughtful answers and I'm looking forward to see a view explode. Where are you now today?

So we're online. Just direct the customer. You can, you can get the glasses and the different colored lenses at avu.

And where are you headquartered? I mean, where are you living right now?

Oh, in Texas. So AVU's based in Austin, Texas.

Oh, Austin. Austin. Guy got some blues coming into the scene here. Okay, so.

Yeehaw.

Yee haw. Well, wish you the best and thanks so much.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

And hopefully we'll check in down the road and few months down the road and talk about your new adventures and new things you've learned, and we'll talk about the success of A View. All right.

That'd be great. All right. Well, thank you very much.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellanwinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible, I'm Larry Wydell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, Go.